Ralph Grugel (1932-2005) “Cleveland Jazz Father” a jazz history by
Joe Mosbrook; additional
contributions by
Wayne
Pauli and
Ragtime
Rick Grafing Ralph Grugel, known to
many Clevelanders as the “Patriarch of Traditional Jazz,” died Monday, July 18, 2005 at Heather Hill Hospital in
Chardon. He was 73. Grugel, a Cleveland native, graduated
from Shaw High School before serving in the army during the Korean War. Following the war, he worked as a brakeman
for New York Central Railroad. It was
while working on trains that he got his first taste of Dixieland jazz. He would travel to New York City where he
would watch the local jazz bands play.
It was then that he fell in love with what would become his greatest
hobby - Dixieland. “He really wanted to play the trumpet
because Louis Armstrong played trumpet, but he thought the fingering was too
hard,” his wife Tannis said. “He never
got the fingering. He tried his whole
life.” Grugel worked briefly as a bartender in
the mid-1960s before working as a scrap metal salesman with M Weingold, a job
he had until he retired in 1994. All
the while he learned to play trombone and continued his hobby. Tannis would say, “Musicians have a saying
according to Ralph: ‘You play terrific but don’t quit your day job, because
you’ll never make a living at it’.” Grugel, who lived in Richmond Heights,
became well-known to Cleveland when he played trombone at Fagan’s, one of the
first nightclubs in the Flats with live jazz. The Cleveland Flats, an almost endless
string of nightclubs on both sides of the Cuyahoga River, became one of the
leading entertainment areas of the Midwest.
This part of the Flats made the transition from industry to
entertainment partly because of jazz - Dixieland jazz. It was 1962. Trombonist Ralph Grugel, a huge man with a
huge sense of humor and a love for what he called authentic American music,
had a traditional jazz band at the lone nightclub in the Flats with live
entertainment. Grugel said, “We were
at Fagan’s for nine years. I left the
band and they stayed another two years after that. It was the only place that was open down
there. Harry Fagan, the owner, named
us ‘The Bourbon Street Bums’ and advertised ‘The Bums of Fagan’ and ‘Find us
and have fun at Fagan’s.’ Another ad
said, ‘New Year’s Eve every Saturday night.’
Then we started playing Friday nights and Thursday nights and boy, the
crowds really picked up!” The band
became a mainstay at Fagan’s. Cleveland clarinetist Ted Witt remembers
Grugel’s band in the early 1960s.
“That was the band,” says Witt.
“They started everything down in the Flats.” In the wake of Grugel’s success along
the river, other nightclubs opened and began attracting good crowds for
traditional jazz - at least for a while. Grugel remembered, “Diamond Jim’s
had a band. There was a band across the street at the Warehouse. Pickle Bill’s had Sam Finger and his
band. There were a couple of
others. There were maybe five or six
joints that just had Dixieland. Then,
little by little, rock came into it.” But Grugel continued playing Dixieland
jazz through the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
Almost single-handedly he carried the banner of traditional jazz with
his Eagle Jazz Band. Many of the
musicians in his band had been playing with him since those days at
Fagan’s. Grugel played with this group
for more than 25 years. In the 1970s, Grugel’s band played at
the Market Street Exchange on the near West Side. In the ‘80s he played at Sea World and
returned to the Flats, playing at a club called The Cleaveland (spelled with
an “a”) Crate and Trucking Company, at the site of the new RTA rapid Transit
station. Looking back, Grugel could
rightfully claim much of the credit for the creation of one of the most
popular entertainment areas in the Midwest.
The Eagle Jazz Band also occasionally substituted for the Cakewalkin’
Jass Band at Tony Packo’s Café, a Toledo restaurant made famous by actor
Jamie Farr in the TV series “M*A*S*H.”
In 1986, Grugel - along with Jean and
Paul Huling (better known as Sister Jean and Laundry Fat) - assembled a group
of traditional jazz fans to form a club called EARLYJAS: The Earlville Association of Ragtime Lovers
Yearning for Jazz Advancement and Socialization. They held monthly “meetings” (concerts and
parties) at the Rusty Nail, just north of Kent, Ohio. In May, 1990, EARLYJAS staged a 2-day Jazz
Festival at the Tangier Restaurant in Akron, Ohio. This soon grew into the 3-day EARLYJAS Fall
Dixieland Jazz Festival in Strongsville, Ohio, where the Eagle Jazz Band was
always a crowd favorite. Of course,
Grugel’s performances with Sister Jean and Laundry Fat, in the Cleveland area
and at the Grand International Ragtime-Jasstime Festivals, are also
legendary. The last time Ralph played was in May,
2005, before illness forced him to cancel the rest of his summer
schedule. In one of his last phone
conversations, he commented that his two favorite places to play were
Brennan’s in Grand River (east of Cleveland), and at the Grand International
Ragtime-Jasstime Festival in Alexandria Bay,
New York. “I love all those
people,” he said. “They’re the
greatest people to play for!” Those people loved Ralph, too. They will never forget him at the Spring
Festival in Alex Bay. And they’ve
missed him and his terrible jokes - the “groaners” - for the last several years at the EARLYJAS
Festival in Strongsville, Ohio. But
his legacy will live on in Toledo. The
music he loved so much will resonate through the Ballroom, the Lounge, and
the halls at the GRUGELFEST until the last notes fade away on Sunday
evening. Ralph himself might add, “Of
course, it won’t sound as good as it would if I were there.” Maybe not Ralph, but we’ll do our
best. And we promise not to talk about
the horse named Bob. __ __
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__ __ A New Orleans-style funeral was held on
July 22, 2005, with the Eagle Jazz Band playing the music. Ralph was survived by his wife of 33 years,
Tannis, and by his sister, Norma Roberts. __ __
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__ __ The Eagle Jazz Band, under the direction
of Sister Jean, plans to schedule a reunion performance at GRUGELFEST
2012. (Details will be announced
later.) __ __
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__ __ Joe Mosbrook, a
retired NBC-TV Newscaster, author of Cleveland Jazz History,
and host of a weekly jazz radio program on WCPN, did the eulogy at Ralph
Grugel’s funeral. Wayne Pauli is
Director of the Grand International Ragtime-Jasstime Society, which hosts its
annual Spring Festival over Memorial Day Weekend in Alexandria Bay, New
York. Ragtime Rick Grafing is
the piano player for the Cakewalkin’ Jass Band and the Chefs of Dixieland,
hosts a Saturday morning radio program on AM-1230 WCWA, and is Co-Chairman of
Grugelfest 2012. |
The Ralph Grugel Memorial Jazz Festival “Traditional Jazz is good; taste some every day!” |