Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2009 - (Page 49) “My cousin brought me to the Dunbar Hotel and I played for them. And they liked my piano playing and they said ‘What about singing?’ And I said, ‘I don’t sing. I just play the piano.’ They said, ‘I’m sure they’d [folks] like you to sing.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not a singer.’ I really had not concentrated on singing. I had not given it a thought. But when I got the job, sure enough they started requesting singing. I said, ‘Well, I’m not a singer. I don’t sing. I just play the piano.’ I could play almost anything that was popular at the time What did it [made me sing] was when somebody would go get a glass and put some change in it like maybe a quarter or two quarters or something like that, and said, ‘Now, sing us a song.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, I still don’t sing.’ They’d say, ‘Well, sing something.’ I don’t remember, but I think at that time, if I’m not mistaken the tune was ‘The Object of My Affection.’ That was one of the songs I liked very, very much and that I knew. So anyway, I did that. Whatever I did they liked it and they started requesting. They seemed to like it so well that I started concentrating on singing. And then I started styling songs and that is how I arrived as a singer.” But adding singing to her repertoire was not the only — or most significant — change in her life. Following her to California, Leonel Lewis, also from Lake Charles, pressed his suit and persuaded her to marry him. Having been married very briefly before leaving Louisiana, Nellie did so with trepidation. Their marriage was short-lived, lasting only four years, but her son Talmadge, born in 1936, brought a new kind of joy to her life. Nellie recounts Talmadge’s birth in her interview with Berman: “Talmadge was a premature baby. He weighed 2 1⁄4 pounds at birth. And I was playing music because I was expecting to go the normal nine months, but for some reason here he comes. He came out two and a half months premature. Thank God he lived because he turned out to be a good baby and a good child. It encouraged me to keep on with my career That marriage [to his father] later petered out and wasn’t a success. I just stuck with it and concentrated on Talmadge and raising him.” Before the disintegration of their marriage, Nellie and Leonel shared their home with itinerant musicians — Lloyd Wilson, Art Tatum, Lottie Moser, Lorenzo Flennoy, and others. The Cole brothers, Nat “King” Cole and his brother Eddie, rehearsed at the Lewis house. Waves of different styles of music swept through the neighborhood — jazz, blues, and boogie. As musicians trooped in and out of her house and as her marriage eventually ended, Nellie continued to develop her own style. Millar says that “during the ten or so years in the semi-obscurity of Los Angeles clubdom, Nellie explored the infinite flexibility of the blues, the bittersweet melodies of the torch song, showy Broadway tunes and jazzy novelties in keeping with the swing era.” The venue for Nellie’s art was kaleidoscopic. Working with Dootsie Williams and the Chocolate Drops, she played the Trocadero; she worked the the Swanee Club with Ivie Anderson and the Little Club with Lena Horne. Playing the Club Alabam for a while, Nellie eventually landed a threeyear stint at the Club Royale, giving her a kind of job security that enabled her to further hone her skills. Nellie said of her stint at the Royale, “It’s very difficult to develop a style when you’re always traveling. It was at the Royale that I had the chance to really work on what I did.” Charles Brown, blues pioneer, characterized Nellie as one of the greats in the development of jazz: “Nellie set the pace for a lot of people. She was ahead of Nat Cole Lutcher is really in a class of her own. There is no one like her. She plays uniquely and has a graceful way of playing piano that no one can compete with.” Brown’s opinion of Nellie is high praise. Credited with creating the music that “would become rhythm and blues,” As noted on the website “All About Jazz,” Brown is considered “one of the principals in bringing about a shift in the mainstream of African-American music, one that would bring vocalists to the forefront and largely eclipse the instrumental art of jazz.” Spring 2009/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 49
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