QC drummer lives, honors Louie Bellson legacy
The lives of Davenport drummer and jazz expert Josh Duffee and world-renowned drummer Louie Bellson have been inextricably linked for years.
One of Duffee’s career highlights (in a resume packed with them) will be his performance at the third-annual Bellson Music Fest on Saturday, June 8, 2024 at the RB&W District in Rock Falls, Ill., an hour east of the QC.
This year is the centennial celebration of the legacy of Louie Bellson (1924-2009), the Rock Falls native who became the renowned drummer, composer, band leader and six-time Grammy nominee. The event is hosted by Rock Falls Tourism, which works closely with Bellson’s widow Francine Bellson and Duffee, a fellow Moline High alum who also is acclaimed for playing worldwide.
For this year’s fest (free admission), he’ll play on Louie’s drum set (with Duffee’s 13-piece orchestra), in arrangements that Bellson played with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and Duke Ellington.
“It will be another surreal moment being in his birthplace and being able to play his music on his drums on the 100th anniversary,” Duffee said recently of the centennial of Bellson’s birth. “Yeah, this is gonna be a really special festival.”
“But to hear the caliber musicians that are gonna be there and the big bands, I mean, you’d be paying a hefty ticket price to do that,” he said. “To make the short drive and experience this for free, we’re just telling people don’t miss this opportunity, especially with it being the centennial year.”
The June 8 fest will feature musical guest Steve Smith — who served as drummer for the iconic band Journey. Smith was named best all-round drummer many times by Modern Drummer magazine as well as Modern Drummer’s top 25 drummers of all time and Rolling Stone’s 100 top drummers.
In 2017, Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with Journey. Smith will kick off the Bellson Music Fest by conducting a drum clinic at the McCormick Event Center at 11 a.m. Five bands consisting of big band, jazz and music honoring Bellson will perform from 12 noon to 9:30 p.m. at the RB&W District amphitheater.
“Our music allows for individual expression and re-invention. We thrive on swing, groove and creativity,” Smith said in an event release. “We want to surprise each other every night on the bandstand with new ideas and in the process keep our audience ‘in the moment’ with us.”
The fest lineup will be:
11 a.m. — Drum Clinic conducted By Steve Smith, McCormick Event Center (205 E. 3rd St.., Rock Falls)
Bands Performing at the RB&W District Amphitheater (201 E. 2nd St., Rock Falls):
12 noon — Jerry Criss Band
2 p.m. — Yorkville Big Band
4 p.m. — Rock River Jazz Band
6 p.m. — Josh Duffee & His Orchestra
8 p.m. — Steve Smith and Vital Information (Steve Smith – Drums; Manuel Valera – Keys; Janek Gwizdala – Bass)
From Illinois to the world
Bellson was born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni in Rock Falls on July 6, 1924. The address of his home birthplace is 706 8th Avenue. This is a private residence. A plaque in his honor is between the sidewalk and the curb. Visitors are asked to stay on the sidewalk and respect the privacy of the homeowners.
In Rock Falls, Bellson’s father owned a music store and Louie started playing drums at three years of age. Louie and his family moved to the Peoria area in 1928, and after a few years moved to Rock Island (where his father had a music store downtown), and then in 1935 to Moline, where his dad opened the music store on 1711 5th Ave., across from the old Dispatch newspaper building.
Bellson maintained a deep affection for Rock Falls, since it was his birthplace. “Louie considers Moline to be his hometown, but Rock Falls is where he was born,” Duffee said. “That’s something that Louie had told me personally. And he goes, I love both places. I love both Rock Falls because that’s where I was born.
“I was there for the first years of my life. But with my family moving around like they did, I considered Moline to be my home since that’s where we stayed the longest as a family. And that’s also where I graduated from high school.”
“It’s important because Louie comes from a very strong Italian family and that’s where he was born and it’d be like me, if I were to have moved away, Moline would always have a special place because that’s where I was born,” he said. “I think that’s what it was for Louie is that, that’s where he was born. That’s where his life began was in Rock Falls. And it has had a very special place in his heart and I know his family talked very highly of Rock Falls. They loved it there.”
“He goes, I love being back here knowing that this is where I was born and this is where everything started for me,” Duffee said. Bellson won the national Gene Krupa drum contest at age 17 in 1941 (out of 40,000 contestants), and Ted Fiorito’s orchestra was playing at the old Plantation in Moline. Young Louie got to sit in with them on drums.
“And Ted heard him play and offered him a job right there on the spot,” Duffee said. “He said we’d love to have you come and play. And he said, my parents will not let me come and play with you. I have to finish high school. “And then Ted said, well, when you finish, give me a call and I’ll have a job for you,” he said, noting he left for California soon after graduating Moline.
Bellson often came back to visit Rock Falls and perform. “Of course, they’d roll out the red carpet for him. The mayor loved having him up there,” Duffee said.
He performed on more than 200 albums with such greats as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Wayne Newton and Bellson’s late wife Pearl Bailey.
As a composer and author, Bellson wrote more than 1,000 compositions and more than a dozen books on drums and percussion. He was a six-time Grammy nominee and received the prestigious American Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994.
Bellson graduated from Moline High in 1942, and Duffee graduated Moline in 1998. The two drummers first met in 1996, when the teenager saw Bellson at Wallenberg Hall, Augustana College, at a drum clinic during the former Louie Bellson Jazz Festival.
On June 30, 2001, the Josh Duffee Orchestra performed a Krupa tribute at the then-Moline Community Center on 5th Avenue, less than two blocks away from where Bellson’s family operated a music store.
Bellson died at age 84 from complications of a broken hip suffered in December 2008 and Parkinson’s disease, and is buried next to his father at Riverside Cemetery, 3400 5th Ave., Moline.
After Bellson’s death on Valentine’s Day 2009, they had a funeral in Rock Island, and Duffee was asked to take part in the private burial.
“And I said, I would be honored to do that. So I was there, playing ‘Taps’ on a snare drum, with the Bugler there,” Duffee recalled. “It was very emotional knowing that I was picked by my (high school) band director to do that. But I’m there at Louie Bellson’s private family burial.”
Plans for the new fest
Melinda Jones, director of Rock Falls Tourism and the Bellson festival organizer, contacted Duffee a few years ago about starting the annual fest in Bellson’s honor.
“They said we’d love to do something like that because we have a great stage right down by the river there that we could utilize outside, and make it a public event,” he said, noting he started as a consultant, and Duffee has brought his big band each year to play, based on Francine Bellson’s recommendation.
“When I took over tourism, I decided that we needed to not let Louie Bellson’s name go and let people know who he is,” Jones said recently.
“Plus, just having a jazz festival, I think that’s something that everybody would enjoy.” The fest attendance was about 800 to 1,000 people throughout the day for the first two years, with more in 2023. “Last year was probably the most. And I’m sure this year will be really good with Steve Smith being here,” Jones said.
For this centennial year, the event is focusing more on big bands, since that was Bellson’s specialty, she said. “So having those up there, that’ll be awesome. As far as other things, we’ll have his drum kit out,” Jones noted. “Louie Bellson has a drum kit that, that was gifted to Rock Falls. So that’ll be on display…And people love to see that.”
Bellson loved coming back to visit Rock Falls (his father passed away in 1960, after running his Moline music store until the mid-‘50s). “It was amazing that he still came back to Rock Falls to see it and to visit with everybody,” Jones said. “His dad ran a music store in Rock Falls. So I’m thinking that just the two combinations and he appreciated the area here that loves drumming.”
“The very first year was a lot of fun,” Duffee said recently, noting 2023 was especially good when they featured drummer Walfredo Reyes, Jr., of the popular band Chicago.
Reyes and his father are featured on a Bellson record made in 1978, Duffee said. When Chicago played the Moline arena a number of years ago, Duffee was playing at the Hotel Blackhawk, where Chicago was staying. “I’m playing with my brushes and we finished the song, and this guy starts applauding behind me really loud and I turn around and it’s Walfredo from Chicago,” he recalled.
“I remember seeing him when I was a teenager like on videos and was so impressed with his drumming and then he’s like, wow, he goes, your brush playing is like Louie Bellson. “I said, I took some lessons with Louie when he came to town and I was good friends with him,” Duffee said. “And right from there, we had a friendship…So he was able to come last year and he gave a wonderful one- hour drum clinic and then his trio performed that evening.”
He’s very excited to host Steve Smith for the 11 a.m. drum clinic this year – he was Journey’s drummer from 1978-85, 1995-98 and 2015-20.
“He’s still ranked as one of the top drummers in the world today. And that’s not from me, that’s from Modern Drummer magazine. That’s from all these different publications,” Duffee said. “He knew Louie personally as well for so many years. And actually the last time Journey was in a town with Steve on drums, I actually dropped off like a little Bellson care package at the iWireless Center, I think it was at the time.”
Duffee got a call from Smith the next day, who said, “Oh my gosh, this was so great getting this care package for Louie. He goes, I love Louie so much and his music and I was such good friends with him. He goes, that meant so much to get it, and he goes, I got your package before the concert. So my drum solo, I’m dedicating to Louie Bellson and you’ll see me playing in the Louie style.”
Double bass drums
Louie was unique partly because he used two bass drums at once. “No other drummer at the time had a drum set like that,” Duffee said. “It allowed both of his feet to be making the bass drum sound twice as fast. But the way Louie approached the drums was a very musical approach with the toms.
“And so having his feet being able to play on both bass drums allowed another voice to happen on the drums that he could get more creative, musical with his drums,” he said, noting Bellson used it first with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1947.
“I love teaching students about Louie Bellson talking about the double bass drums,” Duffee said, noting that set-up is often used in heavy metal and rock bands today. “I tell them, well it all started with Louie Bellson in the basement of his father’s music store in Moline, Illinois in the thirties,” he added.
After Bellson’s death, Duffee was given one of Louie’s drum sets by his wife, Francine.
“I had contacted Francine because I’ve been very dear friends with her ever since I first met her in 1996. I contacted her and I said, do you know anybody that’s selling a Louie Bellson-style drum set? I’m gonna be featured with the Sterling Municipal Band and I’d love to play on a Louie-style kit. And she said, well, I’ll do you one better. “She said before Louie passed away, he and I were talking about what I would do with his drum sets,” Duffee recalled.
“She said, both he and I wanted you to have one, back in the Quad-City area since you’ve done so much for keeping his legacy alive, and being such a big supporter of his.”
Duffee was speechless.
“I currently own the drum set that he used for recording sessions and performances when he was in California,” he said this week. “The cases have all his names on it. What makes it surreal, is that when I was 16 and I saw him doing the clinic at Wallenberg Hall, I was just sitting there watching him. I mean, little did I know that all these years later I’ve been playing on the same type of drum set I saw him sitting behind.”
“It’s great being able to keep his legacy going here in the Quad Cities and then with Rock Falls and the jazz fest there,” Duffee added. In 2017, when Francine heard him play with the Sterling band, that was the first time she had ever heard Duffee play in person.
“I’m behind Louie’s kit, warming up and she’s in the front row and she just jumps out of the front seat of the auditorium there and she’s like ‘no, no, no, no,’ and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’ve done something wrong and I’ve upset her and then she’s like, no, no, no, and she walks to the front of the stage and she looks at me and just points and says ‘You’re Louie.’
“She goes, ‘You sound exactly like Louie.’ I mean, that gave me chills when I heard that,” Duffee recalled.
More summer gigs
On the actual 100th anniversary – July 6, 2024, Duffee plans to be at Bellson’s gravesite, from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with Louie’s snare, a sound system with his music, and some Bellson photos.
“So if people just wanted to come and pay their respects to Louie and wish him a happy birthday, the music will be playing there and I’ll be there,” he said. Duffee also plans to perform some Bellson and his big band concert on Tuesday, July 23 at Rock Island’s Lincoln Park as part of their Starlight Revue summer concert series. The free concert will be 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
He’s playing up in Hackensack, Minn. (eight hours north of the QC), on July 12-13, for the Northwoods Arts Council “Drummer’s Delight,” in a tribute to Bellson, Krupa and Buddy Rich. This will be the eighth time that Duffee has brought his 14-piece big and to the small community that he loves, and all previous performances have led to a focus on famous drummers and Josh’s talents.
Food vendors will be on site for the June 8 fest. For more information on Bellson, click HERE.
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