Friday, July 20, 2001 | 8:41 a.m.
Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at 259-4058 or jerry@ lasvegassun.com.
Two veteran Las Vegas lounge showmen celebrated birthdays last week -- Claude Trenier turned 82 and Irv Kluger 80.
Neither man is ready for the nursing-home circuit.
Trenier (who makes a case for being the real father of rock 'n' roll) tours regularly with the group he and his late twin brother Cliff formed almost 60 years ago. A party was held for him Saturday night during a performance at the Windjammer Lounge at Castaways.
Kluger, a monster drummer who has performed with some of the greatest musicians of all time, plays every Friday night at Pogo's and every Sunday afternoon at Silverton.
"I don't have to work, but I like to work," Kluger, who is rarely motionless or speechless, said. "I made a ton of money in this business. I only invested five percent, but that was enough. Besides, I have a pension that would choke a horse."
He recites from a long list of great musicians with whom he has performed during a professional career that began in New York City at age 12: Artie Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and dozens of others.
"I am fortunate," Kluger said. "I am skilled, and I'm getting better. I'm learning all the time. I like challenges."
Kluger's only exercise is swimming laps in his pool and playing the drums, which he says is enough to keep him physically fit. He keeps his mind agile by reading.
"I've read almost everything in the library, including a book about raising turkeys. They are the dumbest animals on Earth," he said. "They panic and trample themselves to death."
Kluger celebrated his birthday July 9 at a party his daughter hosted for him.
"It was the second birthday party I've had since I became a professional musician," he said. "I have always either been out of the country, on the road or playing a gig here in town. I was always too busy. I just don't celebrate birthdays."
The Treniers were among the musicians out of Kluger's past.
"Sure, I remember them," he said. "I think I did a record date with them once. They're the black group, right? They are wonderful."
Claude Trenier began his career in 1941 when he and brother Cliff dropped out of Alabama State University in Mobile to fill in for a band whose leader had been killed in a traffic accident.
"Hartley Toots had a band and he was killed in a bus wreck," he said. "(The promoters) wanted a band to fill up his dates."
The Treniers were part of a 16-member school band who got the job. Alto saxophonist Don Hill, 80, was among the 16 and has been with Claude ever since.
"Our first gig was in Columbus, Ga. We didn't get paid," Trenier said. "Our drummer didn't have any drumsticks so he got some limbs off a tree and used them. The trumpet player couldn't play the trumpet in the regular way, he had to hold it upside down to play it.
"The promoter said, 'I'm not paying for this crap,' only he didn't say crap."
Eventually they did get paid and went on to become legends. After touring with the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra, one of the top swing bands in the nation in the 1940s, Claude and Cliff (who died in 1983) formed their own group -- the Trenier Twins. In 1948 their brother, Buddy (who died in 1999), joined them and the group became the Treniers.
"We were doing blues, swing, rhythm and blues," Trenier said.
The genres were the foundation of rock 'n' roll.
"We were around before Little Richard, before Bill Haley and the Comets," Trenier said. "We knew Bill Haley when he had a country-and-western band. We were playing the Riptide in Wildwood, N.J., in the early '50s. He was playing across the street. He said, 'Man, I like what you guys are doing. I got a song I'd like to give to you.' "
The song was "Rock-a-Beatin' Boogie."
"We recorded it and sold about 100 copies," Trenier said. "Then he came back and recorded it (in 1955) and it became one of his biggest hits."
New York City disc jockey Alan Freed is credited with coining the term "rock 'n' roll."
"We made the theme song for Alan Freed when he was working in Cleveland and his name was Moon Dog," Trenier said.
Skip Trenier, Claude's 65-year-old nephew, has been a singer with his uncle's group since 1959.
"We were one of the first mobile groups," Skip Trenier said. "It was like a three-ring circus onstage. People didn't know who to watch. No one had ever seen that before. Everyone onstage was doing something."
"We were a wild group," Claude Trenier said. "We would do a song, run out the door and around the building, outside the building, and back onstage."
Claude Trenier doesn't do as much running as he once did. He's had eye surgery for cataracts and glaucoma and he has arthritis in his knees.
"But when I get on that stage I move," he said.
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