Part 7 - Coda
The Last Years
Interlude, 2023.
“Valerie,” my sister tells me on the phone. “It was way worse than that.”
Lise has just read the ending of Part 6.
“During those years in the early 70s, Daddy wasn’t just homeless. He was arrested for vagrancy several times. For breaking into empty houses and for petty theft. It wasn’t Bob Laine who gave him the last chance ultimatum, it was a county judge. Bob was Daddy’s AA sponsor and I’m sure he spoke up for him, but it was a Judge who presented him with a last chance; AA at Whitewater, or commitment to a state mental institution or prison.”
Recovery
Uffe chose AA. From 1976 to 1980 he was a resident at Whitewater Ranch outside Palm Springs. He detoxed. He attended AA meetings and fought his demons by beating his drums alone, in the desert canyons. He tended to the ranch’s goats. Daddy later said to me that it was the goats and the canyons that saved him.
Uffe began working in community services throughout the desert. He could be seen riding his black moped up and down Highway 111 and into town to help to set up chairs at celebrity tennis tournaments. He trained and eventually became a medic, sitting with the new residents as they detoxed. “About half make it,” he told me. “The others die.”
Then Frank had a chance to play again. Bob Laine had organized a weekly Sober Jam Session for recovering jazz musicians and friends that took place in the afternoons following AA meetings. Uffe was once again keeping the beat. We think that there were some cassette recordings made of these jams, but 40 years later, neither Bob’s daughter Lisa nor I can find them.
In 1977, Frank did one last tour, working a Caribbean cruise with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. The two next Decembers he was booked for the annual New Years Eve party at the nightclub at the top of the Palm Springs Tramway, 1978 and 1979.
Reunion
In 1978, Daddy reunited with us. He was clean and sober. I’d called Whitewater Ranch on the phone to tell him there was to be a wedding, and that he was going to be a grandfather. There was more good news. Social Services caught up with him, once again with the facilitation of Bob Laine, and money that should have helped him during his years of being down and out came his way. He got a haircut. He bought new clothes. He came to visit us, more than once, flying on his own dime. He wrote us a check for the new baby. He was proud of his recovery, his bank account, and his role as medic at Whitewater. He met his grandson. He came to our weddings.
Home
In June, 1980, Daddy was discharged from Whitewater Ranch. He flew up to San Francisco to visit us, and never left. We could tell he was very sick, and he was soon diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I flew down to the desert, packed up his stuff and had it shipped north. All except for his cymbals. Those I took in my carry on. He bought a cute little trailer and parked it at the Cozy Cove, close by where we lived in Brisbane. Back at “home,” after a hospital stay, he listened to jazz on the radio in his trailer, told stories, teased the hospice nurse, and slept. His friend Cal Bailey wrote to him and reminded him of a funny adventure they’d had, and about plans around an idea they called “Keep the Beat.” Cal flew north to visit Frank in his last weeks.
Uffe died peacefully in his cozy trailer on November 22, with Shirley and me sitting nearby at the dining table, drinking tea and chatting. He was 57 years old
His ashes were interred in the Danish Cemetery in the Danish-themed town of Solvang, California. There were four of us in attendance; Shirley, Norma, Cal and myself. We observed our own simple ceremony, witnessed by a curious horse hanging his head over the fence, followed by a feast at the Copenhagen Inn, with laughs and tears and toasts of akavit over a smørrebrød buffet.
Here’s a tune my dad loved, with Stan Hasselgard, clarinet, Lars Laine, piano, and Gosta Torner on drums, recorded in Sweden, 1947: Always.
Resonance
This might seem like a tragic story, and it is, in part. For more than 25 years after his death, all we girls knew of my dad’s story was the second half. He came to the US with big dreams and a big musical talent only to fall prey to the excesses of the jazz lifestyle and his own addiction, despite valiant efforts from his friends and his family on both sides of the Atlantic. Until that fateful email from Lars Westin in 2007, that’s all we knew. Then we heard the early music. We read the articles, and we began to understand his happier days and the excitement of the early crescendo, the first part of Uffe’s story.
From a distance, we can also discern the arc of his career. From a teenage star during the war years to a poor immigrant with big dreams that came true; to changing times for a big talent that wasn’t able to change with the times, Uffe wasn’t able to keep the beat. He stalled out, burnt out. But then, deep in Whitewater’s windy desert canyons, over months and then years, the spark that was Uffe came back to life. He was able to rejoin the world and claim a tenuous place in his growing family.
Really, How Does One Sustain a Successful Jazz Career and a Healthy Life?
A few years after Uffe’s death, in the late 1980s, I had a moment with Red Callender. A big Jazz Summit concert brought him, as a featured soloist, to Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. I bought a ticket and sent a note backstage to Red, saying that I’ll be coming to the stage door at intermission to see him. He met me with a big bear hug, and we sat down together in the green room lounge and chatted a bit. We hadn’t seen each other for 20 years, since he and Mary Lou had adopted our dog.
I asked him a tough question that I already knew the answer to:
“Red, you are here, still a big success and in fine health after so many years. How did you do it, when Daddy couldn’t?” Red looked at me intently for a moment, and then spoke softly. “You know, I stayed sober. It wasn’t easy, being sober in this life, but that’s what it takes.”
Three men, dear friends of our family, my honorary uncles, stand out to me in this story as examples of successful professional musicians. Each was able to earn a steady living, build on a unique musical talent, become flexible and adaptable and employable, able to cross musical genres, able to learn new things, and able to stay healthy and connected to life. Their love and their support for Frank will never be forgotten.
With gratitude to Al, Red, and Lars:
Al Pellegrini
My uncle Al played clarinet with Frank in the Harry James Orchestra in the late 1940s and with local LA combos after that. Beyond the clarinet and sax, he became a music director, music arranger for bands, a composer, and a band leader for stage and television variety shows, including Mel Torme, Giselle McKenzie, and Johnny Carson. A quiet, humble man, he was also a great Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, playing the jingle bells perfectly.
Red Callender
Red was always an A level musician in LA. Tall, handsome and talented, he picked up work quickly as a young bass and jazz tuba player in clubs, recordings, and film. He worked a lot. Red made many recordings as a player in other bands, and on his own albums. Over the years, he became a record producer with a state of the art recording studio. With other musicians, he helped form the Wings Academy, teaching music and jazz to a new generation of musicians in Los Angeles.
Lars “Bob” Laine
A pal of Uffe’s since they met and jammed together in Stockholm in 1947, Lars was a working musician in LA before settling in Palm Springs in the 1950s. He opened a fine art gallery on the main street, Palm Canyon Drive, and filled it with a grand piano in the center of the main gallery, surrounded by wonderful paintings and sculptures. A recovered alcoholic himself, he was a generous AA sponsor for many musicians and artists in the desert area, guiding them towards help and recovery. He continued playing piano throughout his life. My sister and I remember many happy hours playing in the gallery after school, sometimes even underneath the piano, with Lars playing for us so beautifully, with his big smile on his face.
And then there was Calvin Bailey
The first of Cal’s drawings of our family was in the late 50s, of me holding my doll. I’m not sure where Cal met Frank but their paths might have crossed early in the 1950s on the lot at Universal Studios where Shirley worked. Cal was on the Universal lot at the same time, working as a sketch artist for the tourists wandering through.
Or maybe it was in the clubs where they had many friends in common. Taking a break from Universal, Cal worked as a guest artist for a United Airlines ad campaign promoting their brand new 747 wide body airplane. He flew back and forth across the country sketching the passengers in First Class. Cal was also a painter. Some of his work is held in private collections across the country, including my own. Cal was a constant, steady pillar of friendship for my dad and for me, until his own death from Parkinson’s Disease years later.
Cal writes a last letter to Frank in 1980:
“Keep the Beat” was one of our pet projects and we are going to finish it and put it on the market. I don’t know what we were waiting for. Keep the Beat is the same as saying “stick to the melody,” “hang in there,” or “follow your nose,” or “forward march!” Besides keeping time it has a great meaning. It’s a philosophy, and you are the author of this great happening.”
The Beat Goes On
Uffe’s legacy continues to unfold. The beat goes on in his nephews; in Denmark, in Greenland, and in Germany as they beat on their own drums. His daughters are both accomplished dancers, with a flair for swing and latin rhythms, and his four grandchildren each have a knack for music, dance and the arts. His five - so far - great-grandchildren have yet to reveal their talents.
Special Thanks
Big thanks to my cousins for their memories of our parents: Sus and Lars, children of Hans who knew some of the Danish stories; and Susie, daughter of Norma and Al, who remembered the stories of our moms, and that “your dad was so funny and so much fun.” Lisa, daughter of Lars and Iris Laine, who met me in Palm Springs to chat about our dads, visit the gallery’s storefront, and hunt for old photos and recordings. “Tusind tak!” to young cousin Mathias in Denmark, who translated Jan-Erik Kjested’s Elvis article from Norwegian, and who plays on Uffe’s cymbal still.
Hugs of gratitude to Pat Felix, who at 93 is still sharp as a tack and the last of Frank and Shirley’s pals who could remind me three times the name of the Sunday jam sessions club every time I forgot it. And most of all, my sister, Lise, who lived this story with me.
Many thanks to music historians Lars Westin and Jan-Erik Kjeseth, our family and others for their research, translations, memories, and reflections of the times, to the jazz archives at University of Copenhagen, Swedish jazz magazine Orkesterjournalen/Jazz (OJ), Benny Goodman Archives at Rutgers Jazz Institute, jazz archives at University of Southern Denmark, and RCA Victor.
WOW! Thanks so much Valarie. And the music will always be there.
Nice Job Valarie and Lise. I really enjoyed reading this, you should be very proud of your Dad. Nice tribute.