A B-3 Burner You Can Bank On
By Bill Milkowski
Off the bandstand, he hardly looks the part. The dress shirt and
square-knotted tie, the neatly pressed slacks, wide-rimmed glasses
and patriarchal demeanor suggest an upright, solid citizen-possibly
a Midwestern high school principal or bank president.
And yet, when Gene Ludwig sits behind the hulking Hammond B-3 organ,
he is instantly transformed. To witness this straitlaced 65-year-old
white man wailing with such bluesy authority on Joe Henderson’s
“Step Lightly” or laying down such a greasy groove on
“One Mint Julep” is a momentarily disorienting experience.
The juxtaposition of image and sound presents a befuddling dichotomy:
High school principals and bank presidents aren’t supposed
to be this baaaad.
Perhaps Ludwig’s genial demeanor and conservative attire has
gotten in the way of him becoming as widely recognized and regularly
recorded as some of his organ-playing colleagues. From a purely
musical standpoint, he is certainly on par with the best of the
bona fide B-3 burners and has been for over four decades. And yet,
the Pittsburgh native had been overlooked for session work and largely
ignored by the labels over the past 30 years.
Soul-jazz expert and B-3 maven Bob Porter had worked with Ludwig back in 1969 on a Sonny Stitt recording
he produced for Prestige. As he recalls, “Stitt worked trios
in those years, most of the time with (organist) Don Patterson and
(drummer) Billy James. But I went to see him at a joint in Montclair
(New Jersey) called the Spearington House, and he had Gene with
him on organ and Randy Gillespie on drums. And I just thought it
sounded really good-more inspired than Stitt had been with Patterson,
not to say that he and Patterson hadn’t inspired each other
for long periods of time. But based on the last time I had heard
them together, it was getting a little tired. And seeing him with
Gene-it sounded terrific.”
Porter promptly booked the trio (plus guest guitarist Pat Martino)
for the Prestige studio session that resulted in Night Letter.
following a year of road-work with Stitt, Ludwig would return to
Pittsburgh and during the ‘70s hook up with singer Arthur
Prysock for two separate stints-one from 1973 to ‘74 and the
other from 1978 to ‘79. The organist recorded his first session
as a leader in 1980 for Muse (Now’s The Time with
local Pittsburghers George Green on tenor sax, Kwasi Jayourba on
percussion, Tom Soisson on drums and Larry McGee on guitar) but
by and large remained “out of sight, out of mind” in
Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, his reputation flourished through the
‘80s and ‘90s.
“I’ve always relied on a loose-knit network of guys
who get around and see different organ players, and word usually
gets back to me.“ says Porter. “And everything that
ever came back about Gene Ludwig was always positive. And I wasn’t
really surprised because I figured he was good enough to probably
work around Pittsburgh and not have to travel.
And sometimes that makes a difference. To a certain extent if you
are a local musician, you’re either so good that you’re
always working or you’re not good enough to travel. There’s
no real middle ground. And Gene is just one of these guys who is
so good, and his reputation is so strong around Pittsburgh, that
he really didn’t have to come out that much. I’m sure
he didn’t (leave Pittsburgh) all that frequently.”
In recent years, Ludwig has been mounting something of a comeback,
at least in terms of visibility beyond his own hometown turf of
Pittsburgh. In 1997, Joe Morabia of Blues Leaf signed the underrecognized
B-3 veteran to a deal that saw the release of Back on the Track
that year. It sold well enough to merit a follow-up, 2000’s
Soul Serenade, which led to appearances in the New York
and New Jersey area. Ludwig’s most recent release, 2002’s
The Groove ORGANization, has been garnering substantial
radio play in that same East Coast market. Jack Kreisberg, who books
talent for the Blue Note nightclub in New York, brought Ludwig to
Morabia’s attention and ultimately served as producer of those
sessions for Blues Leaf: “I wanted to get him a little more
visibility and exposure, as a friend and as someone who appreciates
his talent.” he says. “The combination of his technique
and his timing and his soulfulness is what got me about Gene. He’s
not about showing off his chops as opposed to just dealing with
the music. a lot of people are into that attitude of ’Look,
I can play all these notes.’ But Gene is not that much concerned
about that. He’s more concerned with the groove and the feel
of the music and whatever it takes to enhance that. And he knows
how to lay back, which a lot of people don’t do. Of the organ
players who were around, I didn’t see anybody, outside of
Joey DeFrancesco, who was of that kind of caliber and who really
understood the instrument as much as he does.”
Porter, who had been hip to Ludwig’s singular talent for some
30 years, ended up calling on the organist once again for a Plas
Johnson/Red Holloway session he produced in 2001 for Milestone entitled
Keep That Groove Going! As he recalls, “A few years
ago at one of the Newark Organ jams, Gene came down and just smoked
the place out. Nobody even came close, and Jimmy McGriff was on
the bill that day! And you know, I was very, very impressed. It
kind of reaffirmed everything I had been hearing from other people
about how great Gene was sounding. The Pittsburgh guys always raved
about him and I filed it away as a mental note. And when I got a
chance to hear him at the organ jam, (I realized) they were right.
So I brought Gene in on that session with Plas and Red, which also
had Kenny Washington on drums and Melvin Sparks on guitar. Gene
came in and worked with four guys he had never played with before
but he was ready and he was prepared. They couldn’t throw
anything at him that he couldn’t handle, which was really
wonderful. That’s what you want in a sideman. I think his
own solos were terrific and his accompaniment was fine. I was very
happy with how he played on that session.”
Porter regards Ludwig as a consummate pro. As he put it, “Gene
is, in my estimation, a real jazz organ player from the old school.
He puts it right down the middle. And for my money, he’s playing
better now than ever.”
To hear the Ludwig today conjuring up soulful, rig-and-greens-eating
anthems on the bandstand is to experience one of the masters of
’the Beast’ at the top of his game. A natural blues
and bop player, his nimble right-hand flights are expertly anchored
by some of the most solidly insistent grooves in the business. Adept
at the long-lost art of bass pedals, Ludwig often doubles the low
end with left-hand bass lines to fatten the groove while remaining
purely liberated with his right-hand flourishes.
Accompanied on The Groove ORGANization by guitarist Bob
DeVos, a sideman for such legendary B-3 burners as Charles “The
Mighty Burner” Earland and Richard “Groove” Holmes,
and the great drummer Billy James, whose loose, flexible shuffle
beat made him the drummer of choice during the ’60s for the
likes of organist Don Patterson and saxophonist Booker Ervin, Gene
Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Houston
Person, Ludwig wails with impunity on such soulful vehicles as Stanley
Turrentine’s “Sugar”, Miles Davis’ “All
Blues” and Tyrone Smith’s “Chitlins Con Carne”.
He burns through Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce”
and swings briskly through a jaunty reading of the Jule Styne/Sammy
Cahn standard “It’s You or No One”. And on lush
ballads like Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” or
the standard “You’ve Changed”, he ladles on rich
timbres and thick chordal voicings to set a dramatic and appropriately
melancholy mood.
Ludwig began piano lessons in 1943 and, at the urging of his mother,
began pursuing a classical path. All that changed in 1957 when he
witnessed a Jimmy Smith performance at the Hurricane in his hometown.
“I was so struck by his greatness that that’s when I
decided that’s what I wanted to do”, he recalls.
The nascent organist bought his first Hammond B-3 in 1958 and began
the life of a traveling musician in 1960. Early on he worked in
Earland’s band before “The Mighty Burner” switched
to organ from tenor saxophone. He also worked regularly around the
Pittsburgh area, leading his own trio on jazz and R&B gigs at
places like the Hurricane and the Crawford Grill. In 1963, he made
his recording debut for Atlantic. His 45-rpm single, an instrumental
version of Titus Turner’s “Sticks and Stones”,
which had been a gigantic hit the year before for Ray Charles, was
released during a memorable week in November that year. “I’ll
never forget”, says Ludwig. “I was playing at the Shanty
in Boston the week my record was released. And that same week, President
John Kennedy was assassinated.”
All through the ’60s, Ludwig worked a circuit of black clubs
and was universally accepted by the clientele. As he recalls, “It
was beautiful. I didn’t encounter any problems at all. I was
up there playing and we always got return invites to all these places-the
Hubbub in Indianapolis, the Key Club in Newark, Count Basie’s
in Harlem, Lennie’s on the Turnpike and the Shanty in Boston.
The people liked us.”
Following the release of Keep That Groove Going! and The
Groove ORGANization, Ludwig has seen a flurry of recorded activity,
including a project for guitarist Bob DeVos on New Note, a recording
with guitarist Jimmy Ponder for HighNote and one with trumpeter
Mac Gollehan for New Note, all of which are due out in early 2003.
Meanwhile, the man who looks like a high school principal but “kicks
the 3” like the baddest of the burners continues to make semi-regular
appearances at the Blue Note in New York and Las Vegas and at Trumpets
in New Jersey.
In assessing his own talent, Ludwig says, “I think swinging
is my strongest thing-being able to sit down and swing and groove.
I’ve just had a natural affinity for those rhythms ever since
I first sat down at the piano. I guess it’s like riding a
bicycle. Once you get the feel of it, you never forget how.”
- ARTICLE REPRINTED IN ITS ENTIRETY FROM THE JAN/FEB
2003 ISSUE OF JAZZ TIMES
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