Columnist Jerry Fink: Drummer Bennet beats a path to Las Vegas

Friday, Feb. 4, 2005 | 8:37 a.m.

Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at jerry@lasvegassun.com at (702) 259-4058.

Benny Bennet's fascinating life story actually began decades before he was born in Trinidad.

"My grandfather was a multimillionaire Scotsman, and he was a bigamist," said the 83-year-old drummer at Steven David's restaurant and lounge, where he has a regular gig from about 10 p.m. until about 3 a.m. Fridays through Sundays.

"My grandmother told me this story -- my grandfather had a family in Scotland. He left them and went to Miami and started another family and had three or four kids -- he always left his families a lot of money."

One day Bennet's grandfather disappeared from Florida and reappeared in Caracas, Venezuela, where he started yet another family. He bought a ranch and owned 20 fishing boats, canning the fish they caught and exporting them around the world.

Then, Bennet's grandfather disappeared again. It was the last the family ever heard of him.

"I never knew him," Bennet -- tall, thin and charming -- said. "He left before I was born."

Bennet's heritage is Scotch, Spanish, Inca, East Indian and French. He is multilingual, speaking English, French, German, Arabic and several other languages.

For more than 20 years after World War II he was one of the most popular musicians and bandleaders in Europe, and was known for his Latin sound.

When Bennet was 6 months old his father went to New York and lost his fortune in the stock market just as the Great Depression hit. He ended up taking his family to Harlem and becoming a bootlegger during Prohibition. He died of cancer five years later.

To support the family, Bennet's mother held Latin parties in her apartment, charging an admission of 25 to 50 cents. There always was a band at the parties, and Bennet would slip out of bed at night to hear them. He was 5 years old when he learned to play the bongos.

"When I was about 11 the federal government sponsored a program for underprivileged kids, who were given free music lessons," Bennet said.

For three years he studied with a percussionist who performed with the Manhattan Symphony.

When Bennet was growing up, one of his closest friends was Tito Puente, who later became known as King of the Mambo (he died in 2000).

Bennet became one of the best Latin drummers in Harlem and one of the best dancers of the mambo.

"I was a pretty good jitterbug dancer, too," Bennet said.

Bennet's first professional gig as a drummer was at the Roxie Theatre in Harlem. He played for various acrobats and other entertainers who performed between motion pictures.

After six weeks Bennet joined the Elmer Snowden Band.

Some of the nation's best-know bandleaders got their start with Snowden, a banjo player and guitarist -- including Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

"I was 15 when he hired me," Bennet said.

He came in third in an amateur jazz contest held during the 1939 World's Fair on Long Island. His prize was three months of private drum lessons from Gene Krupa.

"The first week he showed me some stuff and I immediately played what he showed me," Bennet recalled.

Within a couple of weeks he was showing his own moves to Krupa.

"I became his teacher," Bennet said.

Bennet doesn't know what he would have done if not for the music.

"I was a messed-up kid in Harlem," he said. "My choices were to play music or become a gangster, a drug dealer or a pimp, which I tried to be, but I wasn't very good at it."

Bennet believes he was saved after he was "busted for driving somebody else's car." The judge told him he would expunge his record if he joined the Army and kept his record clean.

So in 1943, at age 19, Bennet enlisted in the Army Air Corps, intending to become a pilot. But he flunked out of flight school because of a depth perception problem, and instead became a gunner on B-24s, flying missions in North Africa and Europe.

While awaiting his discharge in Europe after the war ended, Bennet formed the Skyliner's Band and performed for U.S. troops for three months.

Bennet said he was so popular with his commanding officer that the colonel hid his discharge papers. When he finally found the papers, he was discharged in Belgium but remained in Paris with his new wife.

"I didn't want to come back to New York because I remembered the atmosphere," Bennet said. "I would become either a drug addict or a criminal, or end up dead or in jail. I was living a clean life in Europe, no drugs, nothing."

He played in several nightclubs in Paris, including the Moulin Rouge, where he worked for five years.

While making a name for himself in the music world, he attended the Paris Conservatory of Music and received a degree in composing and directing.

Bennet toured every country in Europe with some of America's most popular bands, including Dizzie Gillespie's, Clifford Brown's and James Moody's.

"I was the No. 1 drummer in Europe," he said.

For 22 years Bennet mingled with the rich and the famous, dating such celebrities as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. "I introduced (Jane) to her husband, Roger Vadim," he said.

He owned nightclubs, made more than 40 albums and lived the life of royalty -- until the Beatles changed the world of music.

"They killed big bands," Bennet said.

Smaller bands suddenly were in vogue and work for Bennet dried up. In 1968 he returned to New York and for six months, while waiting to get a union card from the musician's union, he worked in restaurants at the Waldorf Astoria.

After he joined the union he quit the restaurant business and returned to music at half the pay.

He toured with Barry White and then got a gig in Las Vegas, playing in a band at the Stardust for the show "Lido de Paris." When that gig ended he remained in Vegas, where musicians didn't have much trouble getting work in the '70s.

"I made a good living 'til the early '80s," Bennet said.

Then the music business began to change. Bands became smaller. Taped music became the norm. And Bennet had to find a day job.

"My first job here was a fire-alarm installer in mobile-home parks," he said.

He also sold life insurance, did security work and dealt cards.

Bennet could have left town and found work as a musician in Florida or elsewhere, but he liked Vegas and stayed.

Bennet became friends with Steven David 11 years ago, when David sang at Palace Station.

"I liked his voice and we struck up a friendship," Bennet said.

David was living in Denver, but Bennet eventually convinced him to move to Vegas, and they began performing together at places such as the now-defunct Manhattan on East Flamingo Avenue.

A couple of months ago David bought a restaurant and lounge at 545 E. Sahara Ave. so that he would have a place to sing and his musician friends would have somewhere to perform.

When he isn't doing that, he's working on putting together a 19-piece big band and doing some recording.

Now that the Beatles are gone, Bennet might be able to make a comeback.

Lounging around

Jazz vocalist Louise Lambert, once billed as "Toronto's Queen of Torch Jazz and Blues," will perform for a Valentine's Dinner Dance at 6 p.m. Feb. 14 at the Oasis Las Vegas RV Resort Clubhouse, 2711 W. Windmill Lane. Admission is $49.95.

If the closing of the Sand Dollar, which was Vegas' premier blues venue, has you hankering for a blues fix, check out the Double Down Saloon, 4640 Paradise Road. Beginning at 10 p.m. Wednesdays, Bill Cherry & Friends host a Chicago-style blues jam. The Double Down also features live music every weekend from various local and regional artists. All events start at 10 p.m.

You've got to arrive early if you want a seat to hear Cat Daddy at Bally's Indigo Lounge. But then, who can sit when the Cat gang is performing? The dancing begins at 9 p.m. Mondays and 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. For information call 739-4111.

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