Pianist Roland Lavallee Turns 80
By Len Dobbin
(Copyright © 2002 Len Dobbin)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of my first radio show. That was back in 1962 and the show, which aired on Radio McGill, had music chosen by yours truly and was co-hosted by Neil Shee. We used “Runnin’” by Frank Strozier as our theme. On February 23rd I celebrated my “Expo” birthday which was followed closely, February 24, by the 80th birthday of pianist Roland Lavallee.

Roland, a distant relative of the man who wrote, “O Canada”, Calixa Lavallee, was born not in Quebec but in Sudbury, Ontario. His [Ontario born] mother was French and his dad, a trapper, who also played accordion, was from Montreal. Roland moved to Montreal with the family in 1927 and started piano lessons at that time. Blessed with perfect pitch, he began studying the trumpet and sight reading with Joe Christie Sr. Private classical piano lessons followed when he entered his teen years, this after playing trumpet in Christie’s marching band for a couple of years. His interest in jazz came after hearing the influential [and unsung] Bob Langlois playing with the Johnny Laurendeau band at a club called the Palermo. Roland soon found himself involved in jam sessions in the city’s east end and subbing for Langlois in the aforementioned band. By the 40s he was the pianist at Chez Maurice Danceland, located on St. Catherine Street West, between Drummond and Mountain. There he was heard with a long line of bands led by people like Roland David, Russ Meredith and Bix Belair. This was a spot that also spotlighted U.S. big bands and I remember Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Kenton working there when I was a youth.

One of Roland’s first gigs as a leader came in September 1942, when he led a quartet of Guy Lucien Pare, trumpet, Rene Laurin, tenor and Alexandre Minard, drums at the New Tourist Hotel in Iberville, Quebec [not far from Montreal]. That same year he took a trio into the Algiers, where he held after hour jam sessions. The following year brought touring with singer Murielle Millard. This brought him all over Quebec and into New England for about six months and included some radio work on NBC in the U.S. By the later part of the 40s he was found in Mississquoi Bay with the Johnny Gilbert Octet and leading his own groups, a trio at the Alberta Lounge and a tentet that included Percy Ferguson and Hal Gaylor at the Stadium Ballroom. He also rehearsed with a sextet led by Percy’s brother, Maynard Ferguson and played [at Rockhead’s and the Café St. Michel] with Irving Pall, Lloyd Duncan and the saxophone playing Sealey brothers, Hugh and George. By 1948 he was working with Stan Simon, Laurendeau and Buck Lacombe at spots like the Bal Tabarin in Montreal and in nearby St. Adele.

By 1950, when I first heard him at a New Jazz Society meeting, he led a trio with Gaylor and Tony Romandini at the Venus De Milo Room [across the street from where the Paramount Cine complex is today], and one with Curly Reid and Al King at the Copacabana. He was also heard on radio [CHLP] with a quartet of Romandini, Marcel Lambert and singer Russ Vanelli. The 50s also found Lavallee working with the bands of Laurendeau, Paul Notar and Frank Costi plus more work as a leader at the Top Hat and in St. Gabriel de Brandon. Around this time he was seen on TV [a medium then new to Canada] for the first time, on CBC-TV, the city’s only station. Then there was work as both a sideman [with Bobby Roberts at the Maroon Club] and as a leader behind the strippers at the All American on Dorchester Blvd. where he was joined by Benny Winestone, a marvellous tenor saxophonist [and where I was regular]. In 1959, he co-led a quintet with Willy Girard, one of the great violinists in the history of jazz and THE bebop violinist.

By the early 60s, similar work [backing the strippers] followed at the Chez Paree, where he also played at Saturday afternoon concerts put together by the musician’s group, “The Jazz Workshop”. He was also heard on radio on the CBC “Jazz en Liberte” series, at the Downbeat [a club on Peel Street that spotlighted up and coming comics, including Jerry Lewis] and [in 1961] in the Black Orchid Room of Dunn’s on St. Catherine Street. By 1963 he was accompanying an excellent singer of standards, Joan Eden at the Times Square on Bleury, just north of the Imperial Theatre where sitting in was the order of day with people like Wimp Henstridge regularly found guesting – another favourite spot for many of us. Then he traveled with another singer, Flo Dryer, work that brought him to Ottawa, the U.S., Greenland and Europe. U.S. immigration policy of the time kept him from a permanent job with Dryer and [later] one as musical director for the Four Lads vocal group. A finger injury kept Roland off the scene from early 1967 until 1968 when began working with a hotel band before forming a quartet with singer Guido Pucci [who was later murdered by a jealous woman while performing at the Seaway on Guy Street], one that lasted through 1971 when Roland hooked up with another singer, Lise Darcy. By 1979 that gig had brought him work at the Montreal Playboy club, Bill Wong’s restaurant and the New Jersey resort town of Wildwood, a spot popular with French Canadians. He then worked with Charlie Biddle at the Stork Club on Guy Street followed by some solo piano gigs.

Later that year he made an important move when he rejoined Biddle at the Tiffany’s on Crescent, north of DeMaisonneuve. Roland was to become the main attraction at that spot for some time working with people like Richard Parris, Boogie Gaudet [a distant cousin of mine], John Cyr and Cisco Normand. It was at that spot in the early morning of November 25, 1980 that Hank Jones dropped by at Roland’s invitation, [the late Andy Anderson and I brought him over from Place des Arts where he had appeared with Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and Philly Joe Jones] and at Tiffany’s that night Hank heard Oliver Jones for the first time, a meeting that later led to a duo concert in Montreal featuring Hank and Oliver. Roland went from Tiffany’s to a trio gig, with Parris and Cyr, at the Meridian Hotel. I recall a night that he called to invite me down on an occasion when Oscar Peterson dropped by to pick up his car which [trombonist] Butch Watanabe had driven down from Toronto. That was a reunion to remember and topped by O.P. sitting in with his former neighbour, Parris and Cyr. That gig ended in 1984, a time when Roland’s health began to slow him down. Later that year he brought a quartet into the Quebec Club in Wildwood. It was also a year that he began working with singer Nanette Workman when she did a jazz gig – these included appearances at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and the Montreal International Jazz Festival. For the remainder of the 80s he worked as a solo pianist, did a gig at the Casablanca on Park Avenue, accompanied Workman on TV and film soundtracks. More work came on the Club Med circuit and Roland was heard in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Florida. His activity has been curtailed by ill health in recent years and the last time I heard him play was at the Canadian Legion in Verdun when a number of us were awarded plaques in recognition of 50 years on the jazz scene.

Roland I hope your health continues to improve and that you have many more birthdays – thanks for all the music and your continued friendship to someone 13 years your junior, I always [even as a teenager] felt I was being treated as an equal. God bless!

lendobbin@sympatico.ca

Len Dobbin is a well known Montreal jazz writer and radio host. He hosts "Dobbin's Den" on CKUT 90.3 FM each Sunday from 11 AM through 1 PM.