Ombow-Do you know this guy?:
Delray Beach jazz trumpeter Lou Colombo, 84, dies
By Phillip Valys, Staff Writer
7:55 p.m. EST, March 5, 2012
Lou Colombo, a swinging South Florida jazzman known for his one-handed trumpeting prowess and stints performing alongside the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett and Mel Torme, died Saturday night in a car crash outside his daughter's restaurant in Fort Myers.
The 84-year-old part-time Delray Beach resident divided his time between Cape Cod in the summer and Florida in the winter. Colombo had just finished playing a gig at The Roadhouse Café on when the accident occured, said his daughter, Lynda Colombo.
"He had this new trumpet mouthpiece he had liked the sound of, and he called Mom in a voicemail just before the crash to say he had an incredible set," Lynda Colombo said, her voice choking. "My dad is a perfectionist, so he never thinks he plays great. But we all do. Everybody does."
During his 70-odd years as a musician, the jazzman was never far from a brass instrument, not even during stints with minor-league baseball clubs of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s. After an ankle injury sidelined his baseball career, he took up trumpeting full-time.
"His horn was an extension of his body, and that's where he was most comfortable, that's how he could express himself," Colombo said.
When in South Florida Colombo would call Boca resident Richard Oakley to play shows. The trombonist and flugel horn player went gigging everywhere with Colombo, from juke joints to The Marriott Hotel to the St. Andrews and Boca Greens country clubs.
"He was just a marvelous man who always pushed the gas pedal for Dixieland jazz," said Oakley, 79, who last performed with Colombo six months ago. "We'd play twos and fours against each other — it was a lot of good old time goodness. It was a just a big frat party."
Colombo's unusual playing style even once courted attention from jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie, who heaped praise on Colombo in a 1988 radio interview: "Lou's a beautiful player. He plays the valves with his right hand but doesn't hold the horn with his left hand. I've been preaching his name ever since that night I first heard him down on Cape Cod."
Mari Mennel Bell, a Fort Lauderdale pianist and an admitted "groupie," said she last saw Colombo play during his regular Monday night gig last week at Pa'DeGennaro's in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and would often criss-cross the state to catch his regular Thursday night show at The Roadhouse Café in Fort Myers.
"Lou was 100-percent gentleman, and he was such an entertainer. The one-handed way he played created this very casual atmosphere," she said. "He touched everyone's hearts. You felt like he was performing just for you."
Colombo is survived by his wife, Noelle, six children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His family plans to hold a private memorial later this week in Cape Cod.
AI
