I don’t remember when I first met Don Ewell, but shortly after I moved to New York City and rented a modest one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1967, I found I had Don sleeping on my couch every time he was in town to perform at the Village Gate with Willie The Lion Smith. The two made regular appearances in those days, perhaps as many as four or five times, but these were his only local performances.

I usually went to the Village Gate with Don about twice a week, got there early, picked out a table for two next to Don or Willie, and watched their hands for a couple of sets, drinking Coca Cola and avoiding a music charge. I had heard all the stories about Bix Beiderbecke keeping magazines on his music stand when he was with Whiteman and Goldkette. That may or may not be true, but Don always had a magazine on his piano bench, open and ready for reading, on the side away from the audience. It was usually a political journal like The New Republic, which he grabbed off my magazine pile. He didn’t just read it between sets; I’d catch him reading it during Willie’s solos, while he was playing fills on automatic. 

Don was always deeply concerned with social and intellectual issues. It showed up in his reading material, conversation and even the titles of his original compositions. He was always thinking, and when he finished at the Village Gate, he’d rarely just quit for the night, he’d usually wander off to a chess club around the corner on Thompson Street and play until dawn. He didn’t read magazines between moves; chess was harder for him than working with Willie the Lion.

Don was playing marvelously at the time. Bursting with ideas, his technique totally under control and everything worked, whether up-tempo, ballads, or blues. There were few false notes. I can prove it, because at some point that year I brought Don to Sherman Fairchild’s and there are some spirited solos and duets with Marian McPartland, some of which were recorded.

On a Saturday night in late November, Willie and Don closed at the Gate. The plan was for them to open at Toronto’s Colonial Tavern the next week. Don stuck around for a couple of extra days; saving two days hotel charges. When I came home from the office on Monday, he’d headed north, but before he left, he opened a bottle of red acrylic paint, and painted a little picture of himself on a small card. In pencil, he wrote the word “help” under the picture. I didn’t know what it meant, but Willie and Don never opened. That night, or maybe the next day he collapsed. A couple of weeks later, Don sent an unhappy letter. It read:

I don’t supposed you got much sense out of that card, but at that time I just wasn’t sure what was happening.

The medics here aren’t sure either, but they strongly suspect brain damage as a result of high blood pressure. When they get the HBP under control, they’ll be better able to give medication.

So it may have been a “mild stroke” in which case I’ll have to definitely get the old weight down. In any case, I won’t be working for 6 weeks.

They’re putting on a benefit for me tonight at the Colonial Tavern, and I hope it will be well attended. They’ll have Claude Hopkins, The Lion, (Eddie) Barefield, Olive Brown (Oh hell, I forgot: I’ll enclose the line-up). Take care; more later.

The next time I saw Don, I didn’t notice any change in his playing, even though he told me he wasn’t supposed to play too fast, or for too long, without a break. I couldn’t tell if he really had any brain damage, but the doctors had suggested that cigarettes, alcohol, and sweets should be off-limits, to insure another incident would be less likely. 

In those days, I thought it would make sense to record Don in a solo setting. He’d made some wonderful solo recordings in the 1950s for Windin’ Ball and Good Time Jazz, but, except for a spectacular duet album with Willie The Lion, his recorded efforts for the past dozen years had been trios, quartets and larger ensembles. I didn’t have a record company yet, so I had to convince someone else to take on the project. This turned out to be Johnson “Fat Cat” McRee, a full-time accountant, and part time kazoo playing, recording enthusiast. His mostly semi-professional and occasionally professional recordings were issued on a label called Fat Cat’s Jazz. A silly name, perhaps, but no sillier than Windin’ Ball.

On January 18, 1969, I headed to Washington D.C., escorting Eddie Condon, who was determined to lead a band of ruffians at one of Richard Nixon’s Inaugural Balls. It was a Saturday; the next day I was to record Don in the Manassas (Virginia) high school auditorium. But today was Saturday, Sunday was a long time away, and Eddie was intent on attending a pre-Inaugural Ball, one being thrown by that champion of law and order, Spiro Agnew, to which we’d been invited. I refused to attend on moral grounds, but Eddie was determined; he’d been advised the place would be smoking that night, not because of the hot music, but because of a large supply of hot weed that would be available to selected celebrants with Agnew and his cronies none the wiser. I went so far as to escort Eddie to the door of the armory, and make sure he got through security. I returned to the safety of Squirrel Ashcraft’s apartment, went to bed, and the next thing I knew it was Sunday morning and the telephone was ringing.

Eddie was on the line. He asked but one question, “Where am I?” To which I replied he should look at the telephone, give me the number on the dial, and I’d call him back. I just presumed he’d wound up at hotel somewhere, and it was true, a Holiday Inn just over Key Bridge in Virginia, answered when I dialed the number. I told Eddie to stay put, that I’d come get him on the way to the recording session. He said he needed a drink. I replied he was in Virginia, it was Sunday, and the state was dry. He said I should bring some “wash” to tide him over. Before I left, I raided Squirrel’s liquor cabinet and filled a Seven-Up bottle with vodka.

I found Eddie at the Holiday Inn. He wasn’t in Bobby Hackett’s room, where I found Bobby, passed out on the bed, fully clothed. No, Eddie was across the hall, his arms laden with half a dozen bottles he’d liberated from the non-drinking Tony Bennett, who was eager for Eddie to leave, but not before he told me one joke, that I don’t remember.

In any event, I managed to get Eddie out of the Holiday Inn. I put him in the back seat with his stash, so Don and I could sit in the front seat and discuss the date. Don turned out to be a little nervous. He saw that Eddie had more to drink than he needed, so he requested a bottle of scotch, which Eddie passed forward. Don took a very healthy gulp, choked a little, and said he could sure use a chaser. He then spotted the bottle of what he thought was Seven-Up sitting next to me on the seat. I wasn’t paying much attention, he grabbed it, and before I could say anything, about half of it vanished before he realized it was vodka. 

When we arrived at the school, Don was very relaxed, but he said his stomach was a little queasy. We went in the back door, he walked onto the stage, looked at the beautiful Steinway D, then made his way to the edge of the stage, surveyed the rows and rows of empty seats, and, with almost no effort, dispatched the mixture of scotch and vodka to the floor below. He sat down at the piano, I set up the recording gear, and in about two hours, he produced about 35 minutes of flawless music. A few months later we added two tunes at Sherman Fairchild’s to complete the album. Even though it was on a label called Fat Cat’s Jazz, Downbeat still gave Jazz On A Sunday Afternoon five stars. 

In August 1970, Don was back in town and we recorded another solo album, this time for Chiaroscuro, at Sherman’s studio. It was called A Jazz Portrait Of The Artist. I used the little pre-stroke drawing as part of the cover. It also received five stars. In August 1973 we did a third solo recording, this time on the Steinway at my studio. The result, Take It In Stride, also got five stars. And this is what he capable of doing after he’d had his episode in Toronto. In 2003, I combined all three LPs on two CDs and to show how things have changed, it not only received no stars, it wasn’t reviewed at all.

Don played out the decade at traditional jazz festivals, and even made more recordings for Fat Cat’s Jazz, mostly live, under lackluster circumstances at the Manassas Jazz Festival. You’d think that after three solo recordings in a row that received the highest rating by the then premier jazz magazine, someone might have paid attention, but they didn’t. Except as a sideman with Jack Teagarden, he never made a recording for a major label. Unless you count Good Time Jazz a major label, which nobody did at the time when he made the recordings. Like its name implied, this was the home of good time music, and featured the likes of the Firehouse Five Plus Two.

Don Ewell was a brilliant, but troubled man. He was too talented and too sensitive to cope with the fact that few people really cared about how well he could play the piano. Or that no one was concerned with the many injustices he saw all around him. On the records I made with him, the original compositions were entitled CCNY Rioter Blues, Migrant Worker Blues and Meat Rack Blues, all having to do with social issues that were troubling him at the time. His music was beautiful and passionate and gave immense pleasure to all who heard him, but I don’t think he had many happy hours away from a piano, and not that many when he was playing it.

Don Ewell, WARP Studio, New York City, August 21, 1973