Bulee "Slim" Gaillard (January 4, 1916 – February 26, 1991) was an American jazz singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist, noted for his vocalese singing and word play in a language he called "Vout". (In addition to speaking 8 other languages, Gaillard wrote a dictionary for his own constructed language.)
Along with Gaillard's date of birth, his family lineage and place of birth are disputed. One account is that he was born in Santa Clara, Cuba of a Greek father and an Afro-Cuban mother; another is that he was born in Pensacola, Florida to a German father and an African-American mother. Adding to the confusion, the 1920 U.S. Census lists a 19-month-old boy named "Beuler Gillard" in Pensacola, but born in Alabama. He grew up in Detroit and moved to New York City in the 1930s.
According to the obituaries in leading newspapers, Gaillard's childhood in Cuba was spent cutting sugar-cane and picking bananas, as well as occasionally going to sea with his father. However, at the age of 12, he accompanied his father on a world voyage and was accidentally left behind on the island of Crete. After working on the island for a while, he made his home in Detroit. In America, Gaillard worked in an abattoir, trained as a mortician and also had been employed at Ford's Motor Works
Gaillard first rose to prominence in the late 1930s as part of Slim & Slam, a jazz novelty act he formed with bassist Slam Stewart. Their hits included "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)", "Cement Mixer (Putti Putti)" and the hipster anthem, "The Groove Juice Special (Opera in Vout)". The duo performs in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin'.
Gaillard's appeal was similar to Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan in that he presented a hip style with broad appeal (for example in his children's song "Down by the Station"). Unlike them, he was a master improviser whose stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables like MacVoutie O-reeney. One such performance is celebrated in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
Gaillard, with Dodo Marmarosa on piano, guested a number of times on "Command Performance", recorded at KNX radio studios in Hollywood in the 1940s and distributed on transcription discs to American troops in WW2.
Gaillard later teamed with bassist Bam Brown; Slim and Bam can be seen in a 1948 motion picture featurette—with the Gaillardese title O'Voutie O'Rooney -- filmed live at one of their nightclub performances.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Gaillard frequently opened at Birdland for such greats as Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Coleman Hawkins. His 1945 session with Parker and Dizzy Gillespie is notable, both musically and for its relaxed convivial air. Gaillard could play several instruments, and always managed to turn the performance from hip jazz to comedy: he would play the guitar with his left hand fretting from the top of the neck, or would play credible piano solos with his palms facing up.Gaillard also wrote the theme song introducing the Peter Potter radio show.
Gaillard appeared in several shows in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie's Angels, Mission Impossible, Medical Center, Flip (The Flip Wilson Show), and Along Came Bronson. He also appeared in the 1970s TV series Roots: The Next Generations and reprised some of his old hits on the NBC primetime variety program, The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show. By the early 1980s he was touring the European jazz festival circuit, playing with such musicians as Arnett Cobb. He also played with George Melly and John Chilton's Feetwarmers, appearing on their BBC television series. He also made a guest appearance on Show 106 of the 1980s music program Night Music, an NBC late night music series hosted by David Sanborn.
He later appeared in the musical film Absolute Beginners (1986) singing "Selling Out".
In 1992, the Belgian group De Nieuwe Snaar released an amusing ode (in Dutch) to Gaillard, on their CD William.
Gaillard used Yiddish in at least two of his songs, "Dunkin Bagels", and "Matzo Balls", where he refers to numerous Jewish ethnic dishes eaten by Ashkenazi Jews. The songs were issued by the Slim Gaillard Quartet in 1945 on the Melodisc label, featuring Gaillard on guitar, Zutty Singleton on drums, "Tiny" Brown on bass and Dodo Marmarosa on piano. It was later included in the 2010 compilation CD BLACK SABBATH: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, issued by the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation.[8] "Matzo Balls" is played on the radio by John Goodman's character ("Al Yackey") in the Steven Spielberg 1989 film "Always".
Arabic is sprinkled about Gaillard's songs. The song "Yep-Roc-Heresy" 3:07 - 1945 is a good example. This song is made up almost entirely of Arabic food names. The title of the song is taken from the first two words of the song, which are "yabraq" or in Arabic "يبرق" (pronounced "يبرأ" "yabra'" in the Levant, and mostly in northern parts of today's Syria), which is another name for the Turkish Dolma or stuffed grape leaves. The second word is "[harisseh]," (not to be confused with Tunisian harissa) which is a sweet dessert made from semolina flour - recipe.
Other Arabic words used in the song are: Burghal (burghal), Mahshi (stuffed), kibbeh siniyyeh (kibbe in a tray), anna biddi (I want), Masari bahh (No money), banadoura (tomato), ruzz (rice), eidi maksura (I am broke), Arak (Arabic: عرق [ʕaraq]) (a liquorice liquor), lahame mishwie (grilled meat), basal (onion).
This may be the first jazz song in Arabic. Some say he was reading from a menu of an Arabic restaurant, but this does not explain for his use of phrases such as, "no money" or "I am broke."
In the 1940s, the song was "banned in the radio for being suggestive", for its suspicious lyric references to drugs and crime.
The actual origin of these phrases comes from his time living in Detroit. He was out of money by the time he made it to Detroit and was turned down a job at Ford. An Armenian woman named Rose Malhalab took Slim in, where he lived in the basement of her and her husband's beauty shop on Woodward Avenue. She cooked much Arabic food for him, explaining Slim's entire song
Gaillard's daughter Janis Hunter is the ex-wife of R&B/soul legend Marvin Gaye, and the mother of actress and singer Nona Gaye and Frankie Christian Gaye.
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