[78-L] Herb Jeffries approaches 92

[soundthink at aol.com]

Approaching 92, Herb Jeffries sings the joys of being vintage
By:GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, September 20, 2003 11:43 PM PDT ∞

Suits in the walk-in closet of Herb Jeffries' Idyllwild home hang like troops standing in formation, sharply in order and arranged by color. Pairs of polished cowboy boots stand at attention on the top shelf like silent sentries.

This is the closet of someone from a generation that believes clothes make the man, an axiom that Jeffries learned from the best.

"Everything I know about clothes," he says, "I learned from Duke Ellington."

Jeffries is, among many other things, the sole surviving original member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the singer on the band's hit songs "Flamingo" and "Satin Doll."

In a basement studio in his home, Ellington's portrait hangs next to photos of Jeffries with U.S. presidents and a picture of Albert Einstein, whom he calls his mentor.

"A man who I believe was one of the great artists in music," Jeffries says about Ellington. "He will go down as the Mozart and Beethoven of our time. They're still studying his system, his formula for putting music together."

Ellington's influence over Jeffries didn't end with his stylish dress and musical genius. The band leader's gentle nature lives today within Jeffries.

"He was a wonderful human being and a man who had hardly any ego whatsoever," Jeffries said. "He probably had less ego than anybody I've known, besides my guru. He would hug a tree if he thought it was beautif
ul."

His guru was Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, whom Jeffries befriended in the late 1940s. His varied and long career also has brought him knighthood in Spain, audiences with presidents and friendships with stars of the stage and screen.

Movie star and more

Jeffries may be best remembered as the "Bronze Buckaroo," the hero of a string of all-black musical Westerns from the 1930s. He also is a psychologist and writer with close ties to North County, where he has found time for two performances within a month.

Jeffries owns a home in Encinitas and lived there briefly. He still stays there with his son, Robert, when he comes to town to visit the Self-Realization Fellowship branch there.

"I sneak down there quite frequently and sit by the pool and feel his vibrations," Jeffries said, remembering Paramahansa Yogananda.

A portrait of his guru hangs in the Idyllwild home he shares with his wife, Savannah, opposite another wall decorated with a cowhide and saddle. The juxtaposition of East and West is but one reminder that Jeffries is not easily categorized.

Deeply patriotic, he spent several years abroad as a nightclub owner and singer in Paris. A ground-breaker for black actors with his portrayal of the Bronze Buckaroo, Jeffries himself is so light-skinned that he was told to wear makeup to darken his complexion.

But his final triumph over stereotypes may be his defiance of age itself.

"I still have a 4 1/2-octave range at 92 years old, and sometimes people sa
y to my wife, 'His voice is better than it was 45 years ago,' " he said.

It's one thing to say it, and another to prove it. On Sept. 13, Jeffries appeared for an afternoon show at the Crest Theater in Oceanside to discuss his career and belt out a few songs with a keyboardist as his only accompanist.

"Old is a dumb word," Jeffries told the audience. "It should be taken out of the dictionary. How can you say, 'My little boy is 6 months old?' So don't use the word. I use 'vintage.' My vintage is 92, and I'm going to vintage a lot more. I have a lot more work to do." Jeffries was soon leading the audience in a sing-along of Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got that Swing," and leaving them amazed with a silky rendition of "Flamingo."

Jazz baby 

Jeffries was born Sept. 24, 1911, in Detroit. His mother was Irish, his father Sicilian, and his great-grandmother was Ethiopian.

"I don't know what to call myself, except American," he said.

Jeffries began singing with a trio as a teen in Detroit, where he caught the attention of Louis Armstrong in a speakeasy. Armstrong wrote him a note of recommendation to give to band leader Erskine Tate, and gave him the address of the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago. After only two nights with Tate, Jeffries was hired away by famed jazz musician Earl "Fatha" Hines.

When the band toured the south, Hines warned that Jeffries that he might be confronted by racists who believed he was a white man singing with black musicians.
 Skin color had become an issue for the multiracial Jeffries, and Hines told him to say that he was part-black.

Jeffries in a sense chose to be black in his musical career, and that decision soon would influence his choice to expand into film.

Seeing thousands of tin-roofed, segregated movie theaters in the 1930s, Jeffries wondered why black audiences had their own movie houses, but not their own movie heroes.

After raising money to produce a black cowboy film, Jeffries said about 20 screen tests were held to find an actor who could also sing and ride horses. Finally, Jeffries accepted the role himself.

Ironically, his complexion wasn't dark enough for the role, and Max Factor makeup was used to darken his skin.

"They put 'Egyptian 24' on me," Jeffries recalled.

"Harlem on the Prairie," released in 1937, was directed by Jed Buell, who released "The Terror or Tiny Town," a Western starring a cast of little people, the next year.

A 'Buckaroo' is born

"In those days, my driving force was being a hero to children who didn't have any heroes to identify with," Jeffries wrote on his Web site, www.HerbJeffries.com. "I felt that dark-skinned children could identify with me and, in 'The Bronze Buckaroo,' they could have a hero. Many people don't realize (to this very day) that in the Old West, one out of every three cowboys was a Black, and there were many Mexican cowboys, too."

The string of Westerns included "Two Guns Made from Harlem" from 1938 and "The Bronze Buckaroo" and "Harlem Ri
des the Range," both from 1939.

Jeffries also appeared in "Disc Jockey" in 1951 with Sarah Vaughan and Tommy Dorsey, "Calypso Joe" in 1951 with Angie Dickinson, and in 1967 he directed his wife, burlesque star Tempest Storm, in the cult classic "Mundo Depravados." He acted as recently as 1996 in "The Cherokee Kid."

Ellington caught "The Bronze Buckaroo" at the Apollo Theater, and in 1939 he invited Jeffries on stage to sing when he ran into him at a concert in Detroit. He would stay with the orchestra until 1943.

After Jeffries was cast in 1941 stage show, "Jump For Joy," he said financial backer John Garfield complained that he was too light-skinned. He was told to put on makeup, which Ellington ordered him to remove as soon as he noticed it.

His career was on a roll, but his life was about to take a dramatic turn. In 1948, Jeffries was seriously injured in a crash while flying from Las Vegas to the San Fernando Valley in a plane borrowed from Mickey Rooney.

Doctors recommended surgery to fuse damaged vertebrae in his back, but Jeffries said no one would take the responsibility for the risky surgery.

"In our medical system, our doctors all protect one another with some word called 'practice,' Jeffries said. "If I went on stage and said, 'Good evening ladies and gentlemen, tonight I'm going to practice,' the audience would walk out."

His aunt thought he might find help elsewhere and gave him a book she had read: "Autobiography of a Yogi."

West meets east 

Jeffries flew 
from Detroit to Los Angeles to meet Yogananda, naively thinking that the man who had written the book would have time to see him.

Turned away in the lobby by a receptionist who explained that there was a long waiting list to see the yogi, Jeffries threw a fit.

"Then I heard this voice form upstairs," Jeffries said, imitating a gentle Indian accent. "'Sister! Sister! It's all right. Send him up.' " He began studying yoga under the master, and in eight months the excruciating pain was gone.

"When I went out to see him, he said, 'I can't heal you, but I can teach you how to heal yourself.'"

Doctors later X-rayed his back and found that the damaged vertebrae had been fused, although they could find no scars, he said.

Jeffries still practices yoga each morning and evening, and he credits the exercises with keeping him youthful and fit. He also has kept his mind active, earning a doctorate in psychology in 1973 and a doctorate in divinity from the Church of Gospel Ministry in Chula Vista in 1979.

"Look at this skin," Jeffries said as he rolled up his pants leg to reveal a smooth, strong calf. "Does this look like the skin of a 92-year-old?"

Jeffries does have difficulty walking, but not because of age. Three years ago he was in a serious car accident in Palm Springs, and he said doctors were amazed that a man his age was able to heal so quickly.

"They didn't believe a man of my vintage could heal so fast," he said.

Still busy

Jeffries is too busy to be side
lined by an injury. He was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame this year, and last June he and other performers were invited to the White House for a special ceremony honoring black musicians.

In his Sept. 13 appearance in Oceanside, he sang, joked, reflected on his career and talked passionately about the need for children to learn music. The event was a benefit to provide instruments to Oceanside elementary schools.

At the end of the evening, the audience learned he had agreed to return Oct. 4 for another show with his friend, singer Frankie Laine.

In the meantime, Jeffries is at home in Idyllwild, working on his autobiography, "Skin Deep." He also is writing another book and working on an audio book on yet another subject. He occasionally records new music in a Hemet studio, then mixes the songs at home and sells CDs at public appearances.

"I keep my mind busy," he said. "I keep my spiritual energy active. I've got a lot of work to do."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth at nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410. 

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Cary Ginell