maybe it’s time to think of something new.’
Louis knew Hein Frank was right. But how could he tell his mother that he was giving up the violin?
Later that night, Louis lay awake in his bed waiting for his older brother Isaac to return from work. Isaac Bannet worked for their Uncle Abraham at his blanket factory. When he came home, he walked into the room, sat on the bed beside Louis’ and removed his shoes.
‘Isaac, I’m going to give up the violin,’ Louis announced.
‘What do you mean, give it up?’ Isaac replied.
‘There are too many violin players in this city and not enough jobs,’ Louis answered.
‘But what about all the years you spent at the Conservatory? What will Professor Bloorman say? What will our mother say?’
‘That’s why I’m doing it, for our mother, Isaac. I have to find a way to make more money so we can have more food on the table, so we can pay the rent, so the lights are not turned off every week.’
‘What will you play?’ Isaac asked.
‘Maybe a saxophone, I’m not sure. All I know is that I need 30 guilders for a new instrument.’
‘I’m sure Uncle Abraham would help you,’ Isaac said. ‘You should go and see him tomorrow.’
The next day Louis went to see his Uncle Abraham. When he walked on to the factory floor, the noise was deafening. As he walked passed the huge cutting tables, he saw his brother Isaac, who motioned him to climb the stairs to his uncle’s office on the second floor. Louis entered the office. His uncle was stooped over his desk, eating a bowl of soup and reading from a Hebrew prayer book.
‘My uncle was a very religious man,’ Louis recalled. ‘I tried to explain my problem to him, and I told him about the saxophone, but it seemed like he didn’t hear me. Finally, he put his spoon down and closed his book. ‘A saxophone,’ he said. ‘That’s not a very Jewish instrument.’ I told him that it had a shape like a Shofar. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a box. He opened it and counted out the thirty guilders. Before I left, he made me promise not to forget my violin, which I never did.’
Later that week, Louis went to Bommel’s Music Store. Even after more than seventy years, Louis remembered this visit quite vividly.
‘The walls of the music store were covered with a symphony’s worth of instruments. Mr Bommel, he had a terrible stutter, and when I came into his store with all this money he was very surprised. I asked him what kind of saxophone could I buy with thirty guilders. He said I couldn’t buy any saxophone with just thirty guilders. "Then what can I buy?" I asked. Mr Bommel walked to the end of the counter and reached for a trumpet. He said "For thirty guilders this is all I can offer you. Do you know how to play?" I took the trumpet and brought it to my lips and blew, but I couldn’t make a sound. He said "Your lips are cold - rub them with the back of your hand like this," and he showed me how.
So I rubbed my lips and again brought the trumpet to my mouth and I blew, and I made a loud sound that frightened some of the other people in the store. Mr Bommel said I had a healthy set of lungs, and he said one day people would pay to hear me play.’
As with the violin, Louis Bannet took to the trumpet quickly, and, thanks again to the generosity of his Uncle Abraham, he was able to study with a well-known teacher, Aaron DeVries, the patriarch of a very well-respected Dutch musical family. He also had another teacher - Louis Armstrong. Every chance he got, he would head down to Charlie Stock’s or one of the many music shops in Rotterdam and listen to Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. One of the recordings he listened to over and over was the 1925 recording of St. Louis Blues, with the legendary Bessie Smith on vocals. He memorized it note for note, and practiced it so much that his neighbors must have thought they were living on Bourbon Street and not Katendrecht.
In 1929, as the world’s economy was about to tumble, Louis Bannet landed his first trumpet gig with a novelty jazz band called Anton Swan and the Swantockers. Anton Swan, a tall, lanky Dutchman more interested in getting laughs then getting people on the dance floor, dressed the band in silly sailor suits and fake mustaches. But he was smart enough to realize that in Louis Bannet he had a first-rate soloist who could play any song the audience requested. And as the band started playing the dance halls and clubs in Amsterdam and The Hague, the signs outside now read Anton Swan and the Swantockers, featuring Louis Bannet on trumpet.
Chapter 3: All That Jazz
When the great tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins left Fletcher Henderson’s band in New York and headed for Europe towards the tail end of 1934 he was like Louis Bannet, searching for a new musical environment. Arriving at the port of Rotterdam aboard the Ile de France, he had no idea what to expect from the Dutch jazz scene -in fact, he wasn’t sure if one even existed. But in truth, jazz was all the rage in Holland. Groups like the Ramblers, the Bouncers, the Swing Papas, and the Red, White, and Blue Aces were in full swing by the time Hawkins reached port. Though never quite approaching the level of play of their American heroes, many Dutch jazz musicians fared quite well, and what they lacked in ‘chops’ they made up with heart and humor.
The arrival of Coleman Hawkins in Holland was big news for jazz musicians and jazz fans. One of those young fans was an aspiring trumpet player and close friend of Louis Bannet’s, Pieter Dolk. Pieter knew that Louis was growing restless playing with the frivolous Anton Swan, so one night he took him to see ‘The Hawk’, Coleman Hawkins, at the Lido in Amsterdam. As Louis remembered, ‘Just about every jazz musician in Holland was there that night, many hoping to sit in.’ Hawkins ripped through a long set that included rousing renditions of Honeysuckle Rose, Avalon, and Stardust . For his encore, Hawkins announced to the crowd that he was going to play Tiger Rag, and invited any musician who wanted to play up to the stage. The first one to hit the stage was a Dutch drummer named Maurits von Kleef. Following right behind him was an extremely nervous Louis Bannet. Louis took a short, but spirited, solo. Drummer von Klaaf tore into his skins and brought the Dutch crowd to its feet. After the se t, Louis and Maurits went back to Hawkins’ dressing room. They jammed a little, but mostly talked and listened, as Hawkins regaled them with stories about some of the great players he had known. As a show of Dutch hospitality, Maurits introduced Hawkins to a Dutch drink made with egg yolks and brandy. Louis distinctly remembered that Hawkins’ second set was not as sharp as his first.
But that night was important for one other reason. It was the beginning of an enduring friendship. Louis had found a kindred spirit in Maurits von Kleef, as well as someone who could supply the backbeat to a band of his own. Over the next several months Louis auditioned musicians from all over Holland for his new five-piece band, and by the spring he had his line-up. There was Maurits von Kleef on drums, Dick von Heuvel on the vibraphone, Lex von Weuren on piano and Jac de Vries on bass and saxophone. After several months of rehearsals, Louis Bannet’s Rhythm Five made their debut at the Pschoor nightclub in The Hague. ‘I even remember the set list from that first night,’ Louis recalled years later in Toronto as he rattled off song after song.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You, Heebie ]eebies, After You’ve Gone, I’m In The Mood For Love, Dinah, Stardust, Blue Moon, Lazy River, Some Of These Days, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, I Got Rhythm, I’ve Got The World On A String, Bugle Call Rag, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Lullaby Of Broadway, One O’C lock Jump. The audience was great. For an encore, we came out and played St. Louis Blues.’ From that night on, it would become Louis Bannet’s signature encore song.
Over the next several years, Louis Bannet and his Rhythm Five played all across Holland and central Europe, traveling to Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. Louis also
