Obituaries – Les Swanson: An Appreciation
Beiderbecke bandmate and friend Swanson leaves behind a multi-talented life
April 8 – Dispatch and Rock Island Argus
The Quad City Newspaper – By Sean Leary, Entertainment editor
The last living area jazz man to have played with legendary cornetist Bix Beiderbecke has been reunited with his former bandmates.
Les Swanson, 97, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at Rosewood Care Center, Moline. Mr. Swanson, a resident of Westwood Terrace, Moline, was a close friend of Mr. Beiderbecke’s and spent considerable time with him in the mid-late 1920s before Bix’s death in 1931.
He played in the Trave O’Hearn and Jimmie Hicks groups during the Bix era of the ’20s and stayed musically active through the ’90s, performing with Louie Bellson at the former Louie Bellson Jazz Festival, now the Quad-Cities Jazz Festival. He, Leo Bahr, and Cy Churchill were honored at the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival in 1995 as the then-final three men to have played with Mr. Beiderbecke.
At Bix’s 100th birthday bash on March 10 at the Blackhawk Hotel, Mr. Swanson played piano and spoke of his memorable association with the jazz legend.
This is like having a page of your favorite book torn out that you can’t replace,” said Rich Johnson, Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society board member. He played with Bix whenever (Bix) came home. He hung out with him. He was a close friend of Bix’s. We used to be able to go to him and ask him questions about that time, and about the ’20s jazz scene here in the area.
The guy was unbelievable — he had a great memory and was so sharp. It’s an important missing link that’s gone now. He was probably the last one who knew Bix really well and hung out with him before he was famous.
He was such an uplifting person – very, very talented, and he had a great love of the piano. Even up to the day he died, they had a keyboard in his room, and he was playing. He was full of surprises. He had so many different interests,” said Vicki Wassenhove, Mr. Swanson’s daughter.
I think a lot of the emphasis has been on his association with Bix … but there was a lot more to my dad than that. He was a very talented man.
Aside from his life in music, Mr. Swanson was a photographer, journalist, golfer, and author, writing eight books about various subjects of Americana, Ms. Wassenhove said. A visitation for Mr. Swanson will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Trimble Funeral Home, Moline. The funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday at Trimble.
A 15-minute musical performance featuring various Quad-Cities musicians, including Mr. Johnson and Manny Lopez, will be presented prior to the funeral.
Q-C’s last living musical link to Bix dies
By Linda Cook
Somewhere, a piano mingles with a cornet in a heavenly concert that’s bringing the angels, and the Saints are marching in. Les Swanson, 97, the last living Quad-City musician to play with legendary cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, died from pneumonia Sunday at Rosewood Care Center of Moline.
I will remember him as a fine musician who remembered Bix as no other living person did
Said Quad-City Times columnist Bill Wundram, who, late Sunday, mourned the passing of his friend. Wundram will be among the pallbearers at funeral services that tentatively have been set for Thursday. Swanson performed for fun Saturday, according to his friend Jim Arpy, a longtime Quad-City journalist and the editor of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society’s “Bix Notes” newsletter.
Arpy said:
Les had just played the piano the day before he died.
Apparently, there was no piano available at Rosewood, so his daughter, Vicki Wassenhove, went out and bought him a keyboard. He just got it Saturday, and he was playing several songs on it. He said that playing seemed to make him feel better, but as he played he got more and more tired.
Arpy knew Swanson through his long association with the memorial society. He said:
I knew him for more than 30 years. He had even played piano at my house for KIIN.
The television station had asked that musician Rich Johnson and Arpy get together with Swanson to discuss Bix for a segment filmed at Arpy’s home. Swanson was scheduled to play the piano.
He requested that I have the piano tuned the day before – Arpy remembered.
On the very day (of the shoot), he called and said: You have to tune the piano again. He was that particular.
He remembers Swanson as:
Just a wonderful person, a real raconteur. He had all kinds of stories about Bix, and he knew Ronald Reagan, too; he’d talk about him broadcasting from the Blackhawk Hotel. We learned more about Bix from him than any other source. I don’t think there’s anyone who has written a book (involving Bix) who hasn’t talked to Les.
In fact, Swanson recently had been interviewed by writer Jean-Pierre Lion, who is writing a book about Bix in French. Longtime musician Rich Johnson, the music director of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, met Swanson through music circles.
Johnson said:
I think I met him through playing music before I associated him with the Bix.
I knew him very well, especially the last few years. A lot of times, I’d go up to where he lived and talk to him.
He had a fantastic memory. What he gave us was a lot of missing parts of Bix’s early life that he was fortunate to experience with Bix. He hung out with him; they went to movies together … when he worked for the paper, he took him to the boxing matches out at Wharton Field House. And he spent time at Bix’s house.
Johnson regrets that certain chords that Bix taught Swanson died with him; they never were taped.
We’ll certainly miss him – he said.
We always knew there was a guy we could go to if we had a question about Bix.
Just recently, Swanson’s daughter told Johnson that her father considered him to be his best friend
That was really an honor – Johnson said.
Swanson, despite his illness that kept him connected to an oxygen tank and in a wheelchair, still performed “Tenderly” and “I Wish You Love” on March 10 in the Blackhawk Hotel to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bix’s birth. In Bix’s era, Swanson played in the Trave O’Hearn and Jimmie Llicks groups. He spent considerable time with Bix, a friend, while he vacationed from the Paul Whiteman band one winter shortly before Bix’s death in 1931.
Swanson, a former assistant editor at what then was the Daily Times in Davenport, became the last Quad-City musician to play with Bix when, in 1999, clarinet and saxophone player Leo Bahr died at the age of 91. Swanson was also a photographer and author. He wrote the book “Covered Bridges in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin”, which gives travelers tips for enjoying the scenery of covered bridges with the background of fall foliage. He also had written a book about the calliope. Swanson’s career in music dates back more than seven decades and includes rubbing elbows with other such musical noteworthies as Duke Ellington and Pee Wee Hunt. He was a wedding photographer and played the calliope on riverboats. An avid golfer, Swanson played golf until about a year ago.
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2245 or [email protected].
Leslie Swanson
1905 – 2003
Leslie C. Swanson, 97, of Moline, died Sunday, April 6, 2003, at Rosewood Care Center, Moline, following a short illness. Services will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 10, 2003, at Trimble Funeral Home, Moline. Entombment will be in the mausoleum at Moline Memorial Park. Visitation is 4-7 p.m. on Wednesday at the funeral home. Memorials may be made to the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society Youth Education Endowment or a charity of your choice.
Leslie C. Swanson was born Aug. 21, 1905, to Victor A. Swanson and Agnes (Wyman) Swanson. He was a friend of the legendary Bix Beiderbecke and last of the “Final Five” local musicians who played with Bix. Less than a month ago, Mr. Swanson had performed at the 100th Birthday Celebration for Bix at the Blackhawk Hotel. He also was the last known surviving musician who played with both Bix and Louie Bellson, another Quad-City jazz great. With his four-way career of music, newspapering, photography, and writing, Mr. Swanson led a vivid and complex life throughout his 97 years. Mr. Swanson’s career in the music business continued for about 70 years, with his first job as organist for silent movies at the Strand Theater in East Moline while still in high school. He also appeared on riverboats, playing piano, calliope, or both, on 10 different steamers, covering the entire length of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
He met several prestigious figures while playing at the Blackhawk Hotel in the 1930s with the Trave O’Hearns orchestra. Mr. Swanson’s accounts of his associations with the famous cornetist have been included in several of the biographies written about Bix. Another was a young radio announcer by the name of Ronald Reagan, just out of college, who was serving as announcer for O’Hearn’s band at a radio remote program direct from the hotel ballroom. Mr. Swanson kept in touch with Reagan for years and had several letters in Reagan’s handwriting. They met again in 1992, when they got together again at Reagan’s homecoming in his Tampico, Ill., birthplace.
In business, Mr. Swanson spent a number of years as a member of the editorial department of the former Daily Times. He later owned and operated a commercial photography studio in Rock Island, specializing in wedding candids and children’s portraits. Some of his photographs of babies attracted national attention, appearing in two press syndications and papers across the entire country. Retiring from the photo studio in 1965, Mr. Swanson turned his attention to writing books about Americana topics, such as covered bridges, old mills, old canals, steam calliopes, and country schools. He penned eight books and hundreds of magazine articles during his lifetime on widely diverse topics. He contributed stories and photos to the Sunday sections of the Des Moines Register, the Travel section of the Chicago Tribune, the Quad-City Times, and countless other publications.
Written while in his 80s, “Riverboat Gambling” was Swanson’s most recent book. This book coincided with the introduction of gambling boats in the Quad-Cities. Because of the book, he was featured on national television (ABC network, “Good Morning America”) and also played the calliope during the 1991 inaugural voyage of the Diamond Lady gambling boat in Bettendorf. Among his hobbies were TV sports, reading several newspapers daily, and golf, which he continued to play at Credit Island Golf Course in his 97th year. With his sharp memory of details and history of the Quad-City area, he was regarded as a prominent local historian in multiple fields.
He was a 50-year gold card member of the American Federation of Musicians. Other memberships included First Lutheran Church, Moline, honorary membership in the historic Clover Chapel near Woodhull, Ill., a
charter member of the Catfish Jazz Society, and former memberships in the National Society for Preservation of Covered Bridges, National Old Mill Society, and the American Canal Society. Swanson was instrumental in the formation of the Winterset (Iowa) Covered Bridge Festival. He took part in the annual event until he retired from it in 1983 and donated his extensive displays to the festivals. He is listed in Who’s Who in the Midwest and Who’s Who in Entertainment. He was one of the last few survivors of the 1923 graduating class of Moline High School and the 1928 graduates of Augustana College. He married Gladys Huddleston on Aug. 10, 1940, in Davenport. On Oct. 7, 1972, he married Mildred Hyler in Bellevue, Iowa. They shared many enjoyable trips on the Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen riverboats before she preceded him in death in 1988. Surviving are two daughters and their spouses, Vicki and Lee Wassenhove, Milan, and Wendy and Charles Jeffries, Hemet, Calif.; a sister, Marian Blondell; and a nephew, Walter Blondell and wife, Pat, Moline.
A younger brother, Robert
Published in the Quad-City Times on 4/8/2003.
Legend of Les: How did he crowd it all in?
By Bill Wundram
No one was ready to step forward and put Les Swanson out to pasture, even at the mere age of 97. He kept on as if he expected to live forever and seemed delighted to outlive most of his musical counterparts. That includes 93-year-old Artie Shaw. He and Shaw were the two lone survivors of musicians who had played with Bix Beiderbecke. Shaw, at 93, was noted — beyond “Frenesi” and “Begin the Beguine” — for his six wives, including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. So much has been written and said about Les, the Q-C legend, and there is lots more to be said. Some to be shared at his funeral at 10 a.m. Thursday, Trimble’s in Moline, with a jazz concert 15 minutes before the services. The Rev. Henry Muller, who played volleyball with Les up until a few years ago, will come to town from Sioux City to officiate.
Les was at the keyboard in the nursing home only a day or so before his death. It was outfitted with earphones so he could play it as loudly as he wanted. That was, he said:
So I won’t bother the old folks here.
Duke Ellington, with whom he had shared the keys long years ago, would have had a laugh out of that.
Yesterday, I spoke by phone with Louie Bellson, our native Moline son who is the greatest drummer of all time.
He was a role model for all of us. As a teen, I played with him in the Jimmy Chase band at the Central bowling alley in downtown Rock Island.
I had the great pleasure, too, of playing with him just a few years ago, and he was still a fine musician … an inspiration for kids of all ages, that music keeps you young
Said Bellson, from San Jose, Calif.
Les, like most serious musicians, began young. When he was 5 years old, his mom numbered the keys on the piano so he could plink out “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine”. He liked to say that was his premiere song, leading to a motley career with big dance bands in ballrooms and jazzy bands on excursion boats where he pulled double duty on the calliope.
A calliope was not an easy instrument to play – he once said.
There was an 80-pound pressure on the keys, and you had to fight the thing.
Says Jim Arpy, longtime newspaperman and friend:
It’s difficult to say what Les hadn’t done in his long life.
Typewriter keys were as familiar as piano keys. He wrote books and pieces for national magazines, his specialty being grisly tales like “Murder Farm” and “The Headless Hunter” while working at this sheet as a reporter and an enterprising photographer. His most noted photo was of a baby (his daughter, Vicki) who drank from her baby bottle while holding it with her feet. Look magazine used it; so did Ripley’s “Believe it or Not,” and the Chicago Trib sent a photographer to Moline to photograph the “foot-bottle-baby” for a two-page spread in its Sunday magazine section. Still, it was always music that was close to his heart. He was a walking-talking scenario of the jazz age, playing in hot spots around the Midwest. Every Saturday night for six years, I played in a nightclub in the Blackhawk Hotel. That was prohibition, and everybody brought in a half-pint of alky to spike Kingsbury beer. What always amazed me about Les was his total recall. He could recite details of the year (1914) when he saw Buffalo Bill ride a white horse and watched Annie Oakley shoot clay pigeons — one after another — at a Moline showgrounds.
In 1918, I went to Chicago with my dad to see Babe Ruth go hitless against the White Sox.
He kept contact with Ronald Reagan, a hark back to the days when Reagan was an announcer for jazz bands in Davenport. Nine years ago, they met in Tampico, IL, Reagan’s birthplace. He said at the time:
What a life it has been in the decades since we first met. You wonder how we ever crowded it all in.
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or [email protected].
With a week to live, a musician had to play
Ross Werland – Compiled by Devin Rose – April 27, 2003
A week before Quad Cities jazz legend Les Swanson died earlier this month at age 97, he found himself cut off from the one steady voice he’d had since playing for silent movies and on riverboats early in the last century. He was stuck in a nursing home where the piano sat tantalizingly out of reach in a community room. The room schedule was too busy with bingo and such to permit Swanson even a few notes, plus his caretakers didn’t want him overdoing it. Vicki Wassenhove of Milan, Ill, knew her father better than that. He needed a piano; it was his breath. He’d contracted pneumonia in February and been in the hospital for a few days, then in and out and back into a nursing home–not easy to take for a guy who’d been taking care of himself in his own apartment in Moline.
But what bothered him more was not being able to play, she said. This man had jammed with a hall-of-fame’s worth of jazz greats in his life, including tragic genius Bix Beiderbecke, and his century-old fingers needed to work.
Wassenhove told him:
I’m going out, and I’m getting you a piano.’ Two hours later I was back and I had one, a keyboard. It was the first time I’d seen him smile in a week or more. He liked the way he could make it sound like a calliope, like he played on the steamboats.
He played it up until the day before he died, but when he couldn’t play, she put the earphones on his head and turned on the keyboard’s playback function. Even then, she could see his toes tapping. Because music never dies.