StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Remembering David "Red" Lehr

This week, StLJN salutes the memory of tuba and sousaphone player David "Red" Lehr, who passed away on Tuesday at age 83.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Lehr enjoyed a long and prolific career playing traditional jazz, both here in St. Louis and for fans around the USA and the world. Although there's not much video online from the first several decades of his career, fortunately there's plenty of video documentation of Lehr performing with various bands from the past 15 years or so, amply demonstrating both his musical skills and his showmanship.

So let's take a look at a small but representative selection of those videos, starting with the first clip above, which features Lehr's Powerhouse Five performing "Tiger Rag" in November 2009 at the Suncoast Dixieland Jazz Classic in Clearwater, FL. Along with Lehr, who uses the number for one of his signature walkabouts through the audience, the band includes Noel Kaletsky (clarinet), Steve Lilley (cornet), Ray Templin (piano, vocals) and Jack Tartar (drums).

After the jump, you can see the St. Louis Rivermen playing "Running Wild" and "Royal Garden Blues," both recorded in November 2010 at the Arizona Classic Jazz Festival in Chandler, Arizona. The band's lineup includes Lehr, Kaletsky, and Lilly, along with Bobby Grimm (banjo), Jim Maihack (trombone), Don Schroeder (drums), and John Sheridan (piano).

The fourth video features the same lineup of the Rivermen performing "Clarinet Marmalade" and "Black Bottom Stomp" as part of two different shows at the 2011 Glacier Jazz Stampede in Kalispell, MT.

In the penultimate clip, recorded in 2011 at the Central Illinois Jazz Festival in Decatur, IL, Lehr and the band are joined by his longtime collaborator (and original leader of the Rivermen), Jean Kittrell, who steps up to the mic for a bit of banter and then sings "I Aint Got Nobody."

The final video, also recorded at the 2011 Central Illinois Jazz Festival, documents a brief ceremony dedicating the festival and paying tribute to Red Lehr.

For more about the life and career of David "Red" Lehr, read the feature story about him published in 2019 in the Monroe County, IL Republic Times.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...