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 RUSTY TUCKER: A Life In The Swing Lane © 1995 Bart Swartz The anticipation is building at the Phoenix Piano Bar & Grill. In little less than an hour, the music will start. The room fills and the excitement grows as the musicians arrive and begin to set up their instruments. One of the most popular of the artists on this night as well as many others is drummer, vocalist and trumpet player Orestie Tucker, known by his fans simply as "Rusty." The crowd yells Rusty's name as he introduces a song, his deep, scratchy voice filling the air. It all seems like a long way from the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, that Rusty used to roam as a child.
"One night when I was 15, my dad took me to a football game and we saw the band at halftime. After the game, my dad asked if I wanted to play football or be in the band. I said 'both!'" His mother wanted him to play the piano, but Rusty had other aspirations. "At that time, the only piano players I knew were girls. I wanted to play the drums." And so he did. Later, young Rusty joined the Boy Scouts. And at a first meeting, he discovered that his troop was looking for a bugle player. Rusty immediately volunteered. Although he continued to play the drums, from that point on it was the trumpet that would guide Rusty from his early days in Birmingham to a life on stage. And ultimately to Kansas City. Rusty Tucker spent his high school years developing his skills as a trumpet player. W.C. Handy, Jr., a musician in the Birmingham area (and son of "St. Louis Blues" composer, W.C. Sr.), gave him lessons for 25 cents a week. Rusty also spent many hours teaching himself how to play different styles. He used to repeatedly listen to trumpeter Roy Eldridge, and he credits Clifford Brown as a major influence in those formative years. As Rusty's musical talent grew, so did his dreams. In the summer of 1944, a traveling show called Club Alabam came through Birmingham. As luck would have it, the company was looking for a trumpet player who could also read music. Rusty's ability to do both impressed the other musicians and helped launch a career as a professional musician. "I remember they told me (after they heard me play) that it was the first time 'since New York' they had heard their songs played right," says Rusty of his audition. He went on to spend the next three years traveling with the show, playing carnivals in the summer and town theaters in the winter. It didn't always look like Rusty would leave Birmingham. He had a habit of finding trouble as a youth, and it was his involvement with music that changed his life. "When I was young," he reflects, "I used to do things I shouldn't do. I used to get in trouble, especially with my dad; I was the youngest kid and I was supposed to be the example in the family. It was music that helped me get straightened out." One of Rusty's favorite pastimes in those days was to skip school and head on down to the local theater. It was the same theater that, years later, would provide one of his most satisfying moments as a musician. One winter, when Rusty was on the road with Club Alabam, a stop was made at the same theater in Birmingham Rusty had attended as a hooky-playing child. "I remember that day well," he recalls." I really felt proud. I thought it was really something big getting to perform in the same theater I always visited as a kid." According to Rusty, the audience was "thrilled" by his trumpet playing that night. A fitting homecoming it must have been. Eventually, Rusty's days with Club Alabam came to an end, and, after a brief stay in California, he headed to Kansas City. The year was 1948. There, he formed his own band, the "Kansas City All-Stars," and landed a regular gig at the Orchid Room at 12th and Vine. Rusty's band headlined and also backed up the many world-class musicians who came to town, musicians like Della Reese, Little Richard and Ray Charles. Rusty's All-Stars quickly became a very successful commodity in Kansas City. But the Orchid Room finally closed and the All-Stars went their separate ways.
"After the surgery," he says, "I just couldn't play the same way and hit the same notes I could before." Though the jazz community had lost a trumpet player, it gained someone who was not only an excellent drummer, but a fine vocalist as well. And it was on the drums that Rusty moved on to yet another successful collaboration, this time with fellow Kansas City jazz legend Claude "Fiddler" Williams. It was an association that, in turn, led to an even more fortuitous opportunity. In 1986, when Rusty was working with Williams, bandleader Jay McShann came to town to organize a group for that year's Montreal Jazz Festival. Both Williams and Tucker were asked to go. "I had to take a week's vacation from work," recalls Rusty, who, for 34 years was a crane operator for Fairbanks Morse. "There was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to play with Jay McShann." What was only scheduled to last a week, however, turned into two weeks. "People in Montreal had never heard Kansas City swing before, and they were just blown away watching 'Fiddler' play that swing violin." The organizers of the event asked the band to stay for another week, a once in a lifetime opportunity for Rusty. But there was a problem. "I called my boss back in Kansas City -- collect -- from Montreal. I told him my car had broken down in Canada and it was going to take another week before it could be fixed. Fortunately he bought the story and I got to stay." "I owe a great deal to music. It definitely changed my life. And I want to let other people know what an influence music can have." -- Rusty Tucker It all made for another highlight in Rusty Tucker's long career. And it set the stage for yet another career change. In the 1980s, Rusty Tucker joined forces with two highly popular Kansas City jazz bands: Tim Whitmer and the KC Express, and The Scamps. It is with these two groups that Rusty still plays today. The '80s was also a decade that coincided with the reemergence of the jazz scene in Kansas City. As new clubs began to open, it was the up tempo music of the Scamps and the KC Express that drew in the crowds. Although he is not the leader of either band, it is Rusty Tucker's ability to capture the listener's imagination that makes him a crowd favorite. There is also the opportunity for musical variety with both bands. Rusty's work with Tim Whitmer allows him to play "a mix of jazz standards and more modern, original compositions." With the Scamps, Rusty is in close company with many of the elder statesmen of Kansas City jazz, including bassist Lucky Wesley, saxophonist Art Jackson and pianists Jimmy "Coots" Dye and Rudy Massingale; it's a group that "puts the emphasis on those jazz standards that get the audience up and dancing every time." Though he recently celebrated his 70th birthday, Rusty has no plans to slow down. The Scamps recently recorded their second album which should be available soon. And, in the course of a lengthy career, Rusty has written a number of original compositions that he would like to record. ("Someday," he says.) Rusty also has an autobiography in the planning stages. "I owe a great deal to music," he says. "It definitely changed my life. And I want to let other people know what an influence music can have." Not many children discover something at a young age that sends them on a life-long journey. Fortunately, Rusty Tucker was one of them. The streets of Birmingham, Alabama, may seem farther away now than ever, but the memory of that time has kept Rusty Tucker going strong these many years. And his music keeps his fans coming back for more. RETURN TO DECEMBER/JANUARY 1996 MAIN INDEX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved. |
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