Interview with Art Landry

Art Landry Narrator Carl Warmington Interviewer May 8, 1987 Nokomis, Florida home of Mr. Landry Art Landry - AL Carl Warmington - CW CW: I'm sitting on the porch with Art Landry, now ninety-eight years old, as he recalls some of the highlights of his famous Victor Recording Orchestra engagements. Art begins with the early musical days of the Landry Family Orchestra in Minneapolis. AL: I was a concert violinist, and I used to appear in concerts with my father and mother. My mother had played the organ at the Curtis Hotel for many years, and my father was a teacher and a concert singer. We went to Minneapolis becauseSociety they were going to have a symphony. Emil Oberhoffer had the first orchestra--I think that was in 1903. We went there to give a concert, and my father said, "This is where we are going to stay. We are going to make our home here." He had read in the paper about going West, and we went west, west, west. We went to Minneapolis by way of Duluth. In Buffalo, we took the boat and went all through the Great Lakes. It took two weeks to get from HistoricalBuffalo to Duluth, and then we went down to Minneapolis. It was a great experience for us, for the whole family. Finally, my father got interested in the Minneapolis School of Music, and we made that our home. We werethe booked Twin as a family Cities out of theOral University History extension Projectdivision. Before that, we had played the Lyceum and then the Chautauqua circuit. We were booked all over Minnesota. We playedMinnesota the Iron Range and all the other towns--Rochester and Biwabik and Hibbing and all those old terrible places to work in the wintertime. My God, it was below zero weather, you know. I can tell you some of the funniest stores you ever heardJazz about barnstorming in on the concert tour in the early 1900s. Fantastic. CW: When did you get involved with your own orchestra? AL: Well, when I came back from the service, I had been away close to three years, lacking two months. My mother and father lived at the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis. When I came back, I knew it was going to take at least a year, if not much more, to get into the shape I was when I left the concert tour to go into the Marine Corps. 1 I was going down the hotel hallway to get to the elevator when I was seen by Mr. and Mrs. Mellany. They owned the hotel. They said, "Hello, Arthur, how are you?" "Fine and dandy," I said. They said, "Oh, are we glad that you kids are home! Your father and mother have been worrying about you for years. Would you like to have dinner with us tonight?" I said, "I would be delighted," because I had come off a ration kit--I ate everything, you know. So I went to dinner with them that night. After dinner, Mr. Mellany said to me, "Arthur, I wonder if you could do me a favor?" I said, "I will if I can--I would be tickled to death. I don't know what the favor could be, but whatever it is, I will try." "Well," he said, "I don't know anything about music, except what I like. I know what I like and what I don't like. I don't know where to get an orchestra, but I would like to put in some supper music." Society "I think that's a good idea," I said. "Well, will you help me?" "Yes," I said, "I’ll go down to the union tomorrow and put a notice down there. I'll have an outfit for you within a few days." Historical So I went down to the union and put a notice up on the board with my telephone number. The hotel had a big ballroom of course, and the dining room had that little stage. So we would have our auditions there. My God, I was amazedthe. They Twin were terribleCities. I didn't Oral have Historythe nerve to recommend Project anyone. I must have listened to a dozen combos. You see, all the good ones were gone. We were just getting back, and theMinnesota services had drained all the available musicians. That's why it was so hard to get them. So I thought I would keep trying. I was walking down in front of the office,Jazz and inMr. Mellany saw me and asked me how it was going. I said, "I've got some trouble. I've got some bad news for you, Mr. Mellany. I've listened to a dozen combos in the last few days, but I wouldn't recommend them. You would throw them out before the week was out. But I'll keep on." Then the thought came to me--gee, I'm home, why not? I said, "Mr. Mellany, would you mind if I put a combo together, a sextet?" 2 He said, "Would you do that?" "Of course," I said. He said, "What are you going to do about your concerts?" Well, he didn't know that it was going to take me a year, so I explained it to him. "Oh," he said, "Is that the way it is?" I said, "Yes, it will be at least a year before I go back. I don't mind playing supper music." So I did. I put a sextet together--Art Landry's Symphonic Sextet. CW: What was the make-up of this sextet? AL: I had a piano, violin, French horn, and saxophone. All of these boys played two or three instruments each. I have a recording of that group. Now, you won't believe this, but I used to play "Scheherazade" and "The Swan" on my concert tours. So what I would do is put them to rhythm. Society [Music] The boys were marvelous--they knew all the melodies. But it wasn't jazz. Of course, you couldn't use the word "jazz" in those days, because the connotation was bad. So our group started playing. Mr. Mellany cameHistorical in with his wife . He had a table near the entrance, in the corner, and he and his friends used to have dinner there. When we had opened, he took out a whole page ad "Art Landry and His Classical Sextet are now playing at the Curtis Dining Room for Dinner. We have the finest dinner music in the land." You know anthe ad like Twin that cost Cities a lot of money. Oral We History hadn't talked Projectabout the money for this--we didn't know anything about money. We were actually auditioning. So we started, and peopleMinnesota thought it was great. Within a week, the place started filling up. Then within a month and a half, you had to have reservations. Ropes came up--you know, the plushJazz ropes in went up at the entrance. If you didn't have a reservation, you might have to stand there for a long time. Three or four weeks went by, and Mr. Mellany never said a thing about money. We were playing our brains out. Finally, one day the head waiter came up to me. He had a silver tray with Mr. Mellany's card on it, and he said, "Mr. Mellany would like to see you after the session." I thought, "Well, it's either yes or no. He either likes it or he doesn't." 3 So I told the waiter that I would come down to see Mr. Mellany. Mr. Mellany's wife had left, and I sat with him at his table. He said, "Arthur, I like the music. I think it's great. Now I'd like to know what this is going to cost me." Well, I was thinking, "God, he spent all this money." He had fixed up the platform beautifully, with red plush carpet. We were wearing tuxedos--it was high class. So I thought I would leave it up to him. I said, "Mr. Mellany, I don't know much. This is new to me. I work from the concert stage. You spent a lot of money promoting this thing. I don't know how far you want to go, but I want to be fair. I will leave it up to you." He said, "I've been giving it some thought, you know." "Well," I said, "That's fine. I'm glad to know that." He said, "I'll tell you, now this is negotiable. If you are not satisfied,Society we'll get together. But I want to tell you in advance, I have no secrets. I love the music, and we'll get together one way or another." I said, "Fine, that's fine with me." He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give your men fifty dollars a week, and I'll give you a hundred dollars a week. You will have a suiteHistorical in the hotel and your meals. If that is satisfactory with you, fine. If it's not, we'll get together." So I said I would take it up with the boys. The next morning, I called them and said, "I want you to get in a little bit early tonight, about a half an hour early, if you will." the Twin Cities Oral History Project They all agreed, and when they came in later, they said, "What's up, Art?" Minnesota I said, "Well, we had a proposition made to us, and I want to know whether it is all right with Jazzyou." in So I told them what it was, and they all said, "Well, we hope you took it." "No," I said, "I wouldn't take it without talking with you guys--after all, some of you guys play with the symphony." They were getting thirty-five or forty dollars a week for playing Bach.

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