A Real Audience, In This Clever Place, and The Band Was Playing
Jim Cullum, The Landing, and Jazz The Way It Was Meant To Be
It was, in many respects, the worst possible place to try and enjoy some live music from a multi-piece band, and that was the charm of it. On weekends and special occasions you couldn’t even walk through it for the shoulder-to-shoulder tightness of the floor tables. On a slow weeknight, the band might outnumber the patrons. The glass wall that ran all behind and continued off stage left provided the ancillary entertainment to whatever was going down with the performers. Folks walking through the River Walk level of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Antonio could hear the music at various levels of volume — depending on whether the door on that side was open or not — and feel the telltale vibrations of sound being produced by musicians live and unamplified.
But inevitably those walking by would have looks of bemusement and surprise to round the corner and look over at the jazz band rolling along at full tilt only arms length behind the glass. Sometimes they would stop, others would break stride and almost trip from the surprise of it, and the most unfortunate of souls would move on ignoring the fact that one of the greatest practitioners of a truly American art form was present. Imagine that, passing by a living piece of musical Americana there for the taking because…why? In a hurry? Somewhere to be? Something important to do? Matters so pressing you could not stop for a few heartbeats to hear something you could find almost nowhere else, sounds from a century before but played with the brightness and verve of those loving every minute of creating it again in the here and now. A band of supremely professional musicians, many world-class in their own rights, crowded on a corner stage so small the trombone player had to play lower stage right perhaps out of safety concerns more than any acoustical arrangement or theatrical blocking and placement.
Such was the set up at The Landing, one of America’s great jazz clubs that had sandwiched itself between the River Walk, the hotel, and a city known for just about everything else but traditional jazz to the uninitiated. It was the center point and inspiration for the long-running “Riverwalk Jazz” series (originally titled “Riverwalk: Live From the Landing”) on National Public Radio, and it was a must-see stop for musically-minded tourist along the world-famous River Walk.
Most importantly, it was where more often than not you could find Jim Cullum.
“I want to be able to just play the music and have somebody else deal with the whiskey,” he had remarked in an interview after selling his ownership in the club, but upon his return as its attraction after a brief spat with the new guard. By that point, in 2010, The Landing had been at that location since 1982, and Jim Cullum, Jr. had been on the River Walk uninterrupted — other than said spat — since 1963. Starting with his father the year before that in what was then called the Happy Jazz Band, Jim quickly became renowned as a player in his own right, fronting the group while playing cornet, a mellower-sounding brass instrument that looks like the love child of a trumpet and bugle. When James Albert Cullum Sr. died in 1973, Junior renamed it The Jim Cullum Jazz Band and carried on.
Spanning a lifetime in which the term “jazz” expanded to have meanings from the complicated brilliance of Coltrane to the electrified rompings of Herbie Hancock to barely noticeable elevator motifs, Jim Cullum preferred the old ways. Pre-WW2 jazz, dixieland, swing, blues, and other traditional jazz. While jazz was fusing with rock, rap, and electronic music in the streaming age, Cullum and his revolving cast of bandmates kept playing stuff that wasn’t too different than when it had been written generations before.
But it was no oldies act. “We’re not preservationists. It’s just good, timeless music. I love it and hope we can breathe new life into it,” he had told interviewers once. Whether touring worldwide, playing such hallowed musical ground as Carnegie Hall or the Kennedy Center, or the off-center polygon-shaped stage at The Landing, the music was very much alive. Consummate professionals, they put the same joy and effort in before thousands at a jazz festival, or recording one of the 300+ episodes of Riverwalk Jazz, or at The Landing on the off night the band and club staff had the audience outnumbered.
It was a night of the latter that I first found out just how alive that music could be. I knew next to nothing of jazz going in except perhaps the most famous of the old standards, and I was aware of Louis Armstrong so a guy fronting a jazz band with a horn seemed about right. I wasn’t sure what to think, but what I wasn’t expecting was the burst of sound. The old adage goes “If you have to have jazz explained to you, you’ll never get it” holds a lot of truth. It’s just a different beast musically, with the improvisation and roaming from the metre being a feature, not a bug. To the first time listener, it can be overwhelming, a ball of sonic confusion and blaring noise that makes no sense to minds trained for verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus of popular music. But that is the beauty of being on the inside of the glass wall of The Landing on a random day ending in “y”. Jim Cullum shuffles to the front, the other band members just look at him, and he just starts the count…1, and a 2, and a…
Even if you don’t get jazz, try to imagine it this way. Think of walking into an insanely busy industrial environment: a factory, a loading warehouse, production facility. At first glance it’s a blast of noise, chaos, and a million things happening all at once in a thousand places doing hundreds of things for dozens of reasons. But if you survive that initial sensory overload, and continue to observe, it starts slowing down. You can begin to decipher the movements of people, where those motions are repetitive and the ones that are outliers. The conveyors settle into a steady hum of productivity. The equipment such forklifts go from dull rumbling to screaming effort depending on the task at hand. There are subtle bits of communication, lots of motion, and all kinds of emotions condensed into an enclosed space. Many parts make the whole make sense, and then you learn to settle into the cacophony and din as not an apocalypse but an incubator where things are happening.
Watching traditional jazz live gives you that. You don’t just hear it, you get to see it. The enclosed space of The Landing becomes an asset for the newcomer unfamiliar with the art form. It’s no longer blasted noise; it’s watching masters at work with their craft. You see the leader count time, you see the members take their turns on solos, you see the little non-verbal cues they all work off of. You can hear the runs and trills making sense as they dance around the more linear sounds of the combined unit, touch base, then take off again. Close enough to touch, sound you can feel hitting your chest directly from an instrument, and filling your eyes in a way a recording just can’t.
And once in a while the motion out the window catches you as someone walks by with that look on their face, the one you had yourself before sitting, and listening, and learning from what the music of another era has to teach you if you are willing to sit under its learning tree for just a bit. All taught by the guy up front with the cornet making sure the whole thing goes off just so, and a band that went full tilt for the better part of two hours as if the place was packed.
Jim Cullum knew that was part of what he did. “We’re just doing what we’ve always done. I’d be doing it no matter what.” Probably because he knew that even as the keeper of old jazz, there are things older still. He told the story of how he picked up two Courtois cornets in person in Paris, France.
“I beaded for Paris and the factory of the Courtois Company, makers of fine cornets. Courtois is the oldest instrument maker in the world, and they will proudly tell you that they made brass instruments as far back as the late 1700s (they even made instruments for Napoleon).
The Courtois factory on Rue de Nancy, Paris is quite amazing. There, about five workmen still hand-hammer bells. It is obvious that everything in the shop is quite old. As I remarked on this, the owner exclaimed, ‘Oh, this our new place. We moved here in 1860!’ Soon I was on my way with two shiny new Courtois cornets”
The “new” landing where I got to see Jim Cullum wasn’t nearly as old, the version I remember being only 2 years older than myself. But that old music was very much alive, and the verve of it very much came from the man in front of that swinging jazz band. I was probably there 20 or more times over the years, as my travels brought me to San Antonio every so often. The last time was right after that temporary spat-induced pause as ownership changed over, and a few years before “Riverwalk Jazz” stopped. Most of the time it was crowded, sometimes less so, and each time was great. Each time at some point in the night the movement of a pedestrian wandering by would grab my eye, their mouth agape and staring at the commotion on the inside of the glass, as if we were sitting in jazz terrarium some cosmic caretaker insisted on keeping visible so the world knew it still existed. The real world was their side of the glass: the drudgery, the routine, the day-to-day. This side of the glass was alive. If only folks would come on this side of the glass, maybe they would understand the unexplainable of what that music can do if you let it in.
Hopefully they still will. It will not be in person, of course, but over the technology of modern times. Stanford University maintains a site with the 350 shows, 4K songs, and plenty of other things from the Riverwalk Jazz shows. Streaming services make music that was once scarce instantly available. It won’t be The Landing but it will be readily available for posterity.
“Oh my gosh, it was one of the most fabulous things you can imagine,” Jim recalled saying when he saw the original landing for the first time with his father. “Here we are — a real audience, in this clever place, and the band was playing!” The Jim Cullum Jazz Band may have played everywhere from New York City to Moscow, but the memory of them belongs on that strangely shaped stage wedged in the corner in front of the glass, and the internet will make it forever. Or as close as mortals get to forever.
Jim Cullum, giant that he was, couldn’t be forever, and shuffled off his mortal coil on August 11th of 2019 at his home in San Antonio. The Washington Post lede read “Jim Cullum, flamekeeper of traditional jazz, dies at 77”. Which was accurate enough, and a high compliment fitting a great man. The music he helped keep alive lives on, as will his stamp on it.
Not dead, though; music can’t really die, it just sometimes comes and goes in favor. It is always there, like jazz always has been, just waiting for someone to count it in. Someone like Jim Cullum, shuffling up in front of the band jammed in the corner, just on the other side of the glass.
Waiting to be discovered.
Originally published at Yonder and Home.