An Evening With Louis Prima – 1965
Louis Prima
A half-hour with Prima and his band
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While Louis Prima had a long career beginning in the late 1920s that included leading a New Orleans jazz combo and a swing era big band, he found his greatest success in the mid-1950s when he began teaming up with his wife singer Keely Smith, tenor-saxophonist Sam Butera and the Witnesses in a wild high-energy show on Las Vegas.
Prima’s performances featured an irresistible mix of New Orleans jazz, swing, r&b (with Butera’s tenor), Smith’s ballad vocals, Italian songs, and the leader’s often-crazy humor.
By 1965 when this television special (in color) was filmed, Prima and Smith had divorced and his new wife Gia Maione was part of the show.
The rare program features Prima and his band performing “When You’re Smiling,” a rapid “Tiger Rag” (a feature for trombonist Lou Sino), Butera’s vocalizing on “You Never Know When A Woman’s Gonna Change Her Mind,” “Night Train,” Maione’s singing on “Love Is Where You Find It,” vocal duets by Prima and his wife on “The Best Is Yet To Come” and “That Old Black Magic,” an instrumental blues, and a medley of “C’e La Luna” and “Zooma Zooma.”
Prima, who mostly sings but also plays a little bit of trumpet on the show, Gia Maione, Sam Butera and Lou Sino are joined by trumpeter and valve trombonist Morgan Thomas, pianist Bob Rosario, bassist Rolly Dee Dilorio, and drummer Jimmy Vincent.
Louis Prima shows that, even this late in his career, he still had plenty of musical magic.
-Scott Yanow
