last word
JAZZ MAN
Bruce Klauber
Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
T here is hardly a role in the jazz
industry that Bruce Klauber has
not played.

He’s been a singer, a drummer, a
publicist and a concert producer. He’s
been a journalist for Jazz Times and
Down Beat magazines, the biogra-
pher of jazz legends Gene Krupa and
Buddy Rich and the technical adviser
for the 2014 Academy Award-winning
film “Whiplash,” starring Miles Teller as
a young drummer and J.K. Simmons as
his hard-driving teacher.

Klauber, 71, is a jazz man and has
been for more than 60 years. On
June 10 at the Mandell Theater, he will
be honored for it. Drexel University’s
Mediterranean Ensemble, led by
Klauber’s friend of 50 years, Bruce
Kaminsky, will put on a Mediterranean
Pop concert “featuring and honoring”
Klauber, according to an event poster.

But the jazz man, true to form, is
going to perform the music of two jazz
greats, Frank Sinatra and Louis Prima.

“He’s been involved in pretty
much every aspect of music. I think
he deserved the recognition,” said
Kaminsky. Klauber is Jewish and had a bar
mitzvah at Adath Israel in Lower Merion.

But ever since he was 8, his true
religion has been jazz. It was at that
age that he watched a Saturday after-
noon TV show called “Summertime
on the Pier,” based in Atlantic City and
hosted by local television personality
Ed Hurst.

One Saturday, the famous jazz
drummer Gene Krupa appeared on
the show. Krupa was known, and left
a legacy as, “the man who made the
drums a solo instrument,” Klauber said.

As the future jazz man watched him
that day, he said, “I got to get some of
this for myself.”
30 JUNE 8, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
He started taking drum lessons and
listening to jazz records from Count
Basie, Duke Ellington and others.

Klauber’s favorite was Basie, the
Red Bank, New Jersey, native whose
complex style, which grew to include
multiple saxophones and big bands,
inspired countless musicians.

“Listening to what drummers did
with him, that’s going to college by
itself,” Klauber said.

In 1961, on a Saturday morning,
Klauber got a call from a local band
leader named Stu Harris, known for
playing at Jewish weddings and bar
mitzvahs. Harris’ drummer for the
evening had dropped out, so he
started calling around to people. He
dialed Klauber’s neighbor, who told
him about Klauber, a 9-year-old.

Harris called him.

“’Can you play different rhythms?
Can you play a hora? Can you play
cha-cha?’” Klauber said, recounting
the conversation.

“Sure, whatever you want,” the kid
answered. “OK, I’m picking you up. Have your
parents put you in a dark suit,” the
band leader said.

At the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in
Center City, Klauber played for four
hours, earning $45. He wasn’t nervous,
even though he was surrounded by
bandmates in their 40s.

“It was like I was born to do it,”
he said.

After that, Klauber only got nervous
one time, when he got the chance, at
age 16, to play with one of his idols,
Charlie Ventura, the saxophonist with
Krupa on and off for 30 years. But
at a Philadelphia club called Saxony
at 12th and Walnut streets, Klauber
played well enough to earn a spot with
Ventura’s band for three months.

Each night, he improved, he said.

Later, Ventura told him that he had
been slowing down a little that first
evening, which is what drummers do
when they’re nervous, according to
Klauber. But the gracious saxophonist
did not mind.

“He was very patient. I love that man.

I still listen to him every day,” Klauber
said. “It wiped away any insecurities
that I might have had. It was a goal of
mine to work with this man, and having
achieved that at a pretty young age, I
was utterly confident no matter what.”
The drummer became part of a jazz
trio that performed at Philadelphia-
area clubs and parties for 50 years.

He would sometimes play six nights a
week, and then work during the days
as an editor and writer.

And he’s still playing. On May 26,
Klauber started the second season of
his Atlantic City residency performing
Sinatra’s music. In July, he will play at
Chris’ Jazz Café on Sansom Street,
something he does four or five times
a year.

“I hear in my head the way I want it to
come out,” he said. “If the day comes
and I hear something in my head that
doesn’t come out, then I’m through.” ■
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Bruce Klauber
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