The Life of a Jazzman: A Rediscovery of Louis Prima

Jazzman, songwriter, entertainer, pop culture icon, symbol of Italian American pride. Louis Prima was one of the most popular artists of his generation, whose music influenced artists ranging from Elvis Presley and Stevie Wonder to David Lee Roth, Kanye West, Los Lobos, and Michael Bublè, yet he is also among the most forgotten stars of American popular music. Forty-five years after his death, Prima’s music is heard in films, commercials, and viral TikTok videos. Artists continue to cover his work and he even inspires fashion and dance styles. Yet, the name Louis Prima is unknown to most. How can we explain this disconnect, this simultaneous remembrance and amnesia?

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Louis Prima: Rediscovering a Musical Icon, a new exhibition at the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles (IAMLA), explores these questions and Prima’s vast yet often unrecognized contributions to the music world.

Prima was one of the highest paid entertainers of his time—a Grammy Award–winning hitmaker. He wrote popular music anthems, including “Sing, Sing, Sing,” the song that came to epitomize the Swing era, and “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail,” among others.

Prima, born in 1910, grew up during the early days of jazz in the city that gave birth to the genre: New Orleans, Louisiana. The confluence of the city’s African American culture and Prima’s own Sicilian heritage provided a range of diverse influences. Prima embodied this artistic melting pot and pioneered a style all his own. His music seamlessly spanned jazz and swing, early R&B, rock, boogie-woogie, novelty, and Italian folk. Prima added comedy and irreverence to create a skillfully crafted spectacle that audiences adored. Critics and scholars, meanwhile, often dismissed Prima for these same reasons. He was too popular and therefore could not be taken seriously as a musician. He was too hard to categorize.

Prima would also play an integral role in shaping two of the nation’s entertainment capitals. He helped make 52nd Street in New York City a mecca of jazz and, along with partner Keely Smith, Prima transformed Las Vegas from a town best known for its gamblers and dregs to a glamorous center of nightlife and entertainment. Their popularity, style, and visionary mix of jazz, swing, pop, and rock ’n’ roll was the genesis of the “hip” Vegas mystique that lives on to this day.

During the first half of the twentieth century—an age of conformity and assimilation when being Italian American was frowned upon and even despised—Prima remained unapologetically attached to his heritage. This was the same era that Dino Crocetti and Anna Marie Italiano became Dean Martin and Anne Bancroft, respectively, yet Prima kept his telltale vowels. He was Louis Prima, not Lou Prime. He wrote songs in Italian, peppered his speech with cultural references, and openly embraced his heritage. By doing so, he helped pave the paths for other performers, including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, and Dean Martin.

Louis Prima: Rediscovering a Musical Icon began as a conversation between friends in 2020. Marianna Gatto, the director of the IAMLA, reached out to Lena Prima, the youngest daughter of Louis Prima, to express interest in including an item of her father’s in the museum’s permanent exhibition. Lena directed Gatto to the Gia Maione Prima Foundation, who holds a substantial archive of her father’s work.

Gatto met with the Gia Maione Prima Foundation and learned that the New Orleans Jazz Museum had produced an exhibition in collaboration with the Foundation about Prima. The IAMLA decided to take the exhibition in another direction. According to Gatto: “As an Italian American institution, the IAMLA wanted to explore Prima in a different context, not only as a musician and performer, but as a highly visible and influential Italian American.” Gatto selected items from the Prima Foundation archive and from that of Tulane University.

The exhibition at the IAMLA also explores Prima’s time in Los Angeles and his work with Walt Disney Studios. Prima provided the voice for King Louis in the film The Jungle Book.

Nearly 300 guests, traveling as far as New York, Connecticut, and Louisiana, attended the private opening for the IAMLA exhibition, and since then, Louis Prima: Rediscovering a Musical Icon has received rave reviews.

Anthony Sylvester from the Gia Maione Prima Foundation commented, “The Foundation is thrilled that this comprehensive exhibit on the life and times of Louis Prima is being presented at the IAMLA. We know visitors will enjoy the exhibit and learn about Prima’s Italian-American heritage and his career that ranged over 50 years. Louis was a skilled jazzman, songwriter and performer and his music can still be heard today through a spectrum of entertainment from today’s musicians to film and television and even Tiktok. This exhibit will introduce a new generation to the music of Louis Prima.”

Prima, in both his art and in his private life, was complex and fascinating. He was a musical innovator. Prima married five times and had six children. He mingled with celebrities and was friends with U.S. presidents, but he was equally comfortable with and relatable to everyday people. Prima is truly a cultural icon worthy of rediscovery.

The exhibit was made possible with the support of Gia Maione Prima Foundation Inc, Italian Sons and Daughters of America, De Pietro Family, Order Sons of Italy and the New Orleans Jazz Museum, Tulane University, Walt Disney Archives; Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The exhibit is open daily and admission is free. It continues until October 2024. For more information, visit www.iamla.org.