Ed Lewis

[JSngry]

You ever hear a Basie band w/o a strong lead trumpeter?

Maybe the later charts flaunted the chair more than the earlier ones, but still, Ed Lewis. always there, and always there right.

Let's remember, lest we forget.

[Michael Weiss]

I used to play at Greene Street, a restaurant in Soho, solo or duo, in 1986. The restroom attendant seemed to be familiar with the tunes I was playing. To my surprise it was none other than Ed Lewis. Now that I actually had someone in the club to play for, I played all the Dizzy big band music I knew – Tadd, Gil Fuller, etc.

More information here.

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by Michael Weiss

[paul secor]

1 hour ago, Michael Weiss said:

I used to play at Greene Street, a restaurant in Soho, solo or duo, in 1986. The restroom attendant seemed to be familiar with the tunes I was playing. To my surprise it was none other than Ed Lewis. Now that I actually had someone in the club to play for, I played all the Dizzy big band music I knew – Tadd, Gil Fuller, etc.

More information here.

 

Good story - though not good news that he was working as a restroom attendant.

Ed Lewis is listed in The Encyclopedia of Jazz and on Wikipedia as having passed away in 1985, so perhaps your remembrance is from an earlier year. I know from experience that, as years go by, it's easy to mix up the dates when things occurred.

[Jaffa]

There was Ed Lewis who led the tp-section in Basie's band

and

Ed "Tiger" Lewis" who played & recorded on tp with Andy Kirk, Arnett Cobb et al.

I think neither of them worked as a restroom attendant in the mid-eighties.

[Spontooneous]

Don't forget that Basie-ite Ed also held down a lot of the solos with Bennie Moten before Hot Lips Page came along.