The Story of the Danish Drummer on the G. I. Blues Session
by Jan-Erik Kjeseth, translated from the Norwegian by Mathias la Cour
Note: This article was written about 2013, for a Norwegian music magazine. Today, in 2023, I have not been able to reach Jan-Erik again, or his family. I hope he would be happy to see this translated and shared with a wider audience interested in the finer details of a mystery of the Elvis Sessions. Special thanks to Mathias la Cour for the fine translation. - VBG
Jan-Erik Kjeseth reports to Elvis fans:
When I interviewed guitarist Tiny Timbrell in July 1984, Tiny brought up, quite unexpectedly, the name Frank Uffe Bode towards the end. I assume it was because of the association that I was Norwegian and Frank Bode was Danish. The question if I knew him was very surprising to me:
“Did you know Frank …..Uffe Bode? The drummer from Denmark, Uffe Bode?” I answered: ”No, but I know that he was on the “G.I. Blues” session, Frank Bode.”
Tiny: “He was? I was on that as well. I remember I worked with Frank. You see, the chronology was like this … ah, it’s terribly difficult to remember who was playing on what that long ago, because we did so much in those days. But I thought you might know Uffe Bode. He was a very skilled drummer (jazz drummer). He came to the States with Stan Hasselgård, who was a really great clarinetist. And Benny Goodman took him under his wing. Hasselgård was killed in a traffic accident. And Frank Bode died about three years ago of pneumonia, or something like that. [It was cancer. - VBG] I was just wondering if you knew him.”
That was all. It appeared so suddenly at that time, so that apart from Tiny and I stating that they had worked together on the G.I. Blues-session – that was it.
At the time there was so much information lacking on Elvis´recordings. The session journals were at their tentative beginnings, so the important questions were lining up. And information about Frank Bode, who only had one [or two, according to wife Shirley] sessions with Elvis, and only as assistant drummer, was not first priority. And unfortunately I wasn´t aware enough to follow up on the topic and give it more substance. And thus the opportunity was missed.
When I was to write about G.I. Blues Session in EMM 11-12 years ago, it occurred to me, how little we knew about this Frank Bode. I wrote a letter to the Danish Jazz Association, but didn´t get an answer. Maybe the name Frank Bode didn´t exist in their files. Because, as it turns out, this was his American stage name. His real name was Uffe Baadh.
What happened recently, is that when I was to write about Wooden Heart for FS, I checked the internet for info on Frank Bode. I found a live recording on You Tube, and among the comments there was a contribution from his daughter, Valerie Baadh Garrett. Further search on the internet gave me her email address, and it turned out, that her mother, Frank Bode’s widow, is still alive and mentally alert. Big thanks to these two for photos and info.
Uffe Baadh was born in Aarhus in 1923. As a young man, he migrated towards Copenhagen, towards Tivoli and the jazz milieu there. He got to know several musicians (names like Winstrup Olsen and Freddy Albeck are mentioned) and gradually gained footing in the Tivoli jazz band. He played there before as well as after WW2. During the occupation he fled to Sweden, and there he became a member of the Danish All-Stars jazz band. In a Swedish jazz magazine he was announced the best drummer in Scandinavia. I assume that this was when he got acquainted with Stan Hasselgard.
Uffe Baadh returned to Denmark in May 1945. In the next two years he energetically toured as a jazz musician: in Sweden, Norway, the Nederlands and Portugal, as well as in his homeland, of course.
In 1947 the musician Lars ´Lasse´ Laine returned to Sweden from the USA, and Uffe got acquainted with Lasse in Stockholm in connection with a performance there. According to the family, it is Lars Laine who brings Uffe with him to the USA; and Stan Hasselgard’s name is not mentioned.
But Hasselgard migrated around the same time, and no matter what, the milieu of migrating Scandinavian jazz musicians wasn´t so big, so these guys soon found each other ´over there´.
First based in New York and New Jersey, Uffe aka Frank Bode toured with various big bands from NY and LA in the years 1947-52. Among others Benny Goodman. The family sent me a picture of Frank Bode as a drummer in a Benny Goodman trio. I have also received a picture that shows Bode with the jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, who we Elvis friends know from Return to Sender and Bossa Nova Baby. In 1949 Frank gets acquainted with his future wife Shirley. She was the little sister of the jazz guitarist Dave Goldberg. The latter sometimes played in Harry James´band, and so did Tiny Timbrell. In this way Tiny got to know Uffe from Denmark – through Dave Goldberg and his sister Shirley. Uffe ´Frank Bode´ and Shirley got married in 1951, and from that moment LA was the home and base of the family.
In an email to me from September 2013 Valerie tells:
“Tiny knew my dad real well, but he was really close friends with my mother´s brother, the British guitarist Dave Goldberg. They all met via Harry James´ band, including my other uncle Al Pellegrini (clarinet, arranger, band leader in LA). Also the Barney Kessel connections.
“My mom remembers us going as a family driving from LA to Tiny´s cabin up in the mountains in Big Bear, and staying overnight. It would have been before 1960.”
In the period of 1952-1960 Frank Bode had his hands full. He toured, recorded, participated on sound tracks and worked in clubs in the LA area. At that time, he was the permanent drummer for the comedian Lenny Bruce (oh yes, the famous Albert Goldman has written a ´dirt book´ about Lenny Bruce too.)
Valerie recalls her father playing for Bruce on a strip club, where many of the comedian’s shows took place.
Later they went to the Bode residence for partying, and Valerie remembers many early mornings with a Lenny Bruce, swinging her up and around in the air like a tiny flying creature.
That jazz musicians had a certain ´life style´, like many country and rock musicians, probably doesn´t come as a surprise. The famous jazz drummer Gene Krupa is just on name among others. That the father was a part of this ´life style milieu´ is not something that the family is hiding, but also not something we have to dwell on. As we all know, our own Elvis was also known as a victim of a ´life style´, so this is just the way it was.
Then comes the year 1960; the year when the paths of Frank Bode and Elvis crossed. At that time Bode worked as a drummer for the film star Rhonda Fleming, who was pursuing a career as a singer. But then he was offered a permanent job with Tony Rose Orchestra at the prestigious Tennis Club in Palm Springs. The family decided to move there, and the moving date was the 14th of February 1960.
Two months later this became a transportation problem in connection with Frank Bode being summoned to play on the G.I. Blues soundtrack.
First of all: How did Frank Bode get chosen? According to the family it must have been Tiny Timbrell, who recommended Paramount to summon him. If your name as a musician was just a little known, you had to have a ´sponsor´ as a door opener, if you should have a chance to play with a big star. In the Hollywood system there were two musicians with this kind of position in connection with Elvis sound tracks – namely the piano player Dudley Brooks (who by the way in 1941 was the arranger and piano player for the above-mentioned Benny Goodman) and Tiny Timbrell. Both had long-time connections with Paramount and had their trust. Both had also played for Elvis ever since Loving You, so they both had the trust of the Elvis camp too. So it is probably true, as the family assumes, that it was Tiny, who got Frank the job of assisting D.J. Fontana on G.I. Blues. But soon there were complications. Here is Valerie:
Two months after we moved to Palm Springs the Elvis sessions started, in April 1960. It was more than one session, my mother said. With rehearsals and everything, one day after the other passed. After only two hours of sleep, my father had to get up at 8 am and drive to RCA Studios in LA for recordings until 8pm (these session journals are now available on the internet) and then drive back out to Palm Springs. And he was always late for the job with Tony Rose, which started at 10 pm. It was 100 miles each way, and the car often broke down. So Elvis said to The Colonel: Get him a decent car! And this was the black and white Chevy Station Wagon, that I remember so well from my childhood. We have pictures of it.
So Elvis got his musician a decent car. Since it was Colonel Parker, who was asked to find the car, it was a used car. A 1958 Chevrolet Station Wagon, either the Brookwood or the Nomad model. Valerie doesn´t remember this exactly – and both names ring a bell for her. According to my old Elvis friend from the NHH-time and later editor of the Amcar Magazine, Terje G. Aasen, Brookwood and Nomad were ´tailored to the same pattern´. Nomad was the most expensive one. See the photo, that Valerie sent us, and which the team in Amcar Norway has tried to process in Photoshop for us – thanks for that! Well, regardless whether it was a Brookwood or a Nomad, I assume that Parker billed Elvis the full used-car price and then got 10% kickback from the dealer. But this is merely an assumption, and some might say that I am biased when it comes to The Colonel. But anyway – with a new used car one problem was solved. Frank Bode had reliable transportation to his Elvis recordings. Getting back to Palm Springs in time was worse.
“This became a problem day after day, and in the end my father had to choose which job to focus on: his permanent job with Tony Rose at the Tennis Club in Palm Springs, or the job as a session musician supporting Elvis´ permanent drummer? So he chose to let the job with Elvis go, and focus on his permanent job instead. And luckily, it turned out, as he would work permanently with Tony Rose for many years. But on the other hand: He was – according to my mother – blacklisted by The Colonel for any new jobs with Elvis, on the grounds: “No one quits on Elvis”.
To be fair, one might say, that Elvis & Co had gone to great lengths, and adjusted the conditions by buying a good car for Frank Bode. Unusually great lengths, one might say. Credit to Elvis for that.
But Valerie has a little sunshine story waiting at the end:
“My mother wants to tell you, that many years later, long after my father had died, she got a big surprise in the mail. She received quite a big amount of money in a check, in connection with ´Pocketful of Rainbows´ having been used on the sound track of the movie Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise. We granted ourselves a small toast as an celebration that those Elvis recordings actually earned a good amount of cash in the end. And who knows how everything would have turned out, if my father had chosen to participate in the recordings in May as well.”
No, who knows? Maybe Frank Bode would have become permanent Hollywood drummer for Elvis? Maybe he would have been asked to play on the 1968 TV Special and in Las Vegas in 1969?
Probably not, because the health of Frank Bode developed in the wrong direction in the sixties, because of the life style, among other reasons. He gradually lost some of his eyesight, his daughter tells. His last big job was a cruise in The Caribbean with Tommy Dorsey´s Orchestra in 1977. He died on the 22nd of November 1980.
We will let the daughter Valerie end with a fine description of family life with Uffe, Shirley and Valerie Baadh:
“Of course he was home a lot during the day, and I remember a constant stream of his friends of all colors and races coming through, jamming rhythms together, loud music day and night. He was fascinated by latin music, black music and the Native American drumming. He practiced all the time, loudly, and taught private lessons, also loudly. We were not popular with our neighbours and moved often.”
And that is the story of Frank Bode was on, and then off, the Elvis Sessions.