Duke Ellington and his Orchestra played the Blue Moon in Bunkie in the 1940s. Tickets to his concert were $2 plus 20 cents tax. Other bandleaders that played there included Earl "Fatha" Hines, Cab Calloway and Count Basie.
When Phyllis Hall, of Catahoula, asked Curious Louisiana if it's true that Duke Ellington and his orchestra once played in a swanky nightclub in Bunkie called the Blue Moon, I immediately remembered my long-ago interview with Sonny Harris.
Surely, he would have loved recounting the tale about how a sold out crowd packed the place to hear the jazz legend.
Yes, Bunkie, that small central Louisiana city with the funny name — that's where Harris' parents, Vines and Marye Harris, opened the Blue Moon in 1937 which played host not only to big-name orchestras but also local dance bands.
Harris probably told the story lots of times before his death at 100 in 2021. He was in high school during the Blue Moon's heyday, and he remembered it all. He also had scrapbooks filled with photos, show tickets and other memorabilia collected from the nightclub's concerts through the years.
File photo of Herman Leonard's gelatin silver print, "Duke Ellington, Paris, France, 1958," featured in the Louisiana Art & Science Museum's exhibit, 'Improvisation: The Art and Healing Power of Jazz.' Photo was provided to the exhibit by Jenny Bagert. Learn more at hermanleonard.com.
The Blue Moon burned down in 1961, and Harris is no longer around to tell his story. So, this is one of those times when a question has to be answered by this Curious Louisiana writer, who interviewed Harris 23 years ago.
Harris and his wife, Sybil, lived in his late parents' ranch-style home on the opposite side of the U.S. 71 overpass where the Blue Moon once stood at the edge of Bunkie.
An antiques dealer was renting the building by the time of its demise, but the stories of the big names who played there lingered.
Ellington did, indeed, play there.
Cab Calloway also brought his orchestra to Bunkie, as did Earl "Fatha" Hines.
Then there was Count Basie, whose tour bus broke down between New Orleans and Bunkie. Harris remembered his dad receiving a phone call from the piano-playing band leader.
The bus was being fixed as they spoke, but the orchestra wouldn't make it to the Blue Moon for showtime.
Harris said the house was packed. He remembered his dad telling Basie it was OK, that everyone would wait. And everyone did.
Count Basie's tour bus broke down between New Orleans and Bunkie. He called the Blue Moon, saying he wouldn't make it by showtime, but owner Vines Harris told him the crowd would wait. Basie arrived after midnight, started his show at 1 a.m. and played until 4 a.m. The club was packed.
Basie pulled into the Blue Moon parking lot after midnight and started playing at 1 a.m. The show ended at 4 a.m., and the club remained packed until the end.
"Everyone waited," Harris said in 2001. "We usually had an opening band when we had a big band like that. The big band wouldn't start playing until 8 o'clock, and we'd have tables set out for those special occasions with white table clothes. Daddy told Count Basie that we would keep the warm-up band playing until he got there."
All of these concerts took place in the 1940s when swing was king on the music charts, but the Blue Moon's history began in 1936 not as a nightclub but a skating rink, which was transformed the next year into a dance floor with a stage.
The Harrises added a dining room that sold the "biggest and best steaks in town" for $1.75. Those ribeye steaks attracted oil magnate and aviator Howard Hughes to the club. He ate there every night on visits to his Hughes Oil Field outside of Bunkie.
But Hughes wasn't the Blue Moon's only out-of-town visitor. Beginning in 1940, nearly 66,000 soldiers tromped through central Louisiana as part of the U.S. Army Fourth Corps Area's maneuvers training for World War II.
The nightclub found itself filled with just as many soldiers as locals during this time. Those who made it home after the war brought stories of the Blue Moon with them.
Harris recounted how later, when traveling the country, people immediately would say, "Oh, the Blue Moon," at any mention of Bunkie, Louisiana.
So, how much was a big-name ticket for a seat on the Blue Moon's polished floor? Well, the price on the Duke Ellington ticket is $2 plus 20 cents tax. Meanwhile, reservations were $2.50.
It's true that Bunkie was miles away from the Blue Room in New Orleans' Roosevelt Hotel, where swing was king in 1940s Louisiana. Even today, Bunkie still seems to stand in the middle of nowhere.
But that didn't stop Vines Harris, who kept up with who was playing New Orleans, then booked them to play at the Blue Moon on the same tour.
Harris told this writer that people would flock to Bunkie from all parts of the state to see these big name acts.
They heard Ellington play "Take the A Train" and Calloway sing "Minnie the Moocher" while the crowd chanted back "hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ha" during the chorus.
And they stayed until the wee hours of the morning to hear Count Basie plunk his signature three notes at the end of his song on the stage's grand piano.
That piano wasn't a baby grand — it was a full grand. It was moved to the Harrises' living room after the club finally closed. That happened soon after they turned over the operation to their son in 1956.
Times had changed. Elvis had replaced swing as king, and swanky nightclubs simply weren't popular anymore.
Finally, on a side note, while visiting Robert and Sybil Harris for this story, this writer began noodling out Scott Joplin’s “Solace" on the piano's keyboard but stopped cold when Harris said, "Go ahead, play it. That's the one they all played."
All, as in Ellington, Basie and Hines.
Instead, I closed the fallboard immediately and backed away while harkening back to a silly "Wayne's World" quote: "I'm not worthy."