Paul Lingle (December 3, 1902, Denver, Colorado - October 30, 1963 Honolulu, Hawaii) was an American jazz pianist and a local legend in San Francisco during the 40’s. Terry Waldo, in "This is Ragtime", described Lingle as "an extremely important figure in the history of ragtime" for his "interpretations of the music were possibly the finest that have ever been done."
He was born Paul Curtis Lingle in Denver, Colorado, December 3, 1902, studied piano from the age of 5, and at 12 accompanied his father, Curt Lingle, cornetist, on the Chautauqua circuit for two years. It was at the World's Fair of 1915 in San Francisco that Paul first became interested in ragtime piano. He heard Mike Bernard and Jay Roberts among others. Toward the end of the Fair he heard Jelly Roll Morton, who was working on the Barbary Coast. From then on he studied ragtime diligently, particularly the works of composers Scott Joplin, James Scott and Morton. For Paul, Morton is the greatest of them all, although he tempers this opinion by adding there are several he hasn't heard.
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| Paul with band at the Club Hangover |
During 1919, following the nation-wide impact of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Paul became a 'jazz' musician, playing with small Dixieland groups in the mining and oil towns of central California. In 1920 he worked at the Del Mar club in San Francisco, at the same time King Oliver's band was playing the Pergola Ballroom on Market Street. All Paul's spare moments were spent listening and absorbing the first real New Orleans band he'd had a chance to hear. Oliver's was his favorite band then, and still is.
Paul worked steadily as a band pianist during the Roaring Twenties. A few highlights of those years: in 1925 he had his own band at Lyman's Tent in Los Angeles, with Larry Shields on clarinet. In '26, he worked in Jimmy Grier's band in Balboa with the late Glenn Miller. He had his own band at Fior D’Italia in San Francisco in '28. He was pianist for Al Jolson's Sonny Boy and Mammy at Warner Brothers in 1929. During these years he also fitted in several voyages as a ship's musician.
At last, in the Thirties, he settled down in San Francisco as staff pianist at KPO. In the mid-Thirties he played with Al Zohn's jazz band in San Francisco. Zohn, a trumpet player, was one of the first group of San Francisco musicians (Lingle, Lu Watters, Bob Helm, Turk Murphy, etc.) who were to be largely responsible for the world-wide Great Jazz Revival of the Forties, and who fathered what has since become known as "the San Francisco style.”
Although Paul enjoyed playing with a band, he worked mainly as a soloist in various nightclubs of the Bay Area since the late '30s. During these years his legend began to take shape among San Francisco jazz musicians. For all of them without exception, Turk Murphy, Wally Rose, Bob Scobey, Lu Watters, he is "the fabulous Lingle.” When Leadbelly heard him at Dugan's Cafe, he asked Paul to become his accompanist. When Bunk Johnson came to San Francisco in ’43, he became extremely friendly with Paul, and taught him many of the old New Orleans tunes.
Paul's dynamic range was also extraordinary, as he could play at a whisper one moment then break strings or hammers the next (it's a good thing he was a piano technician!). His repertoire, while full of ragtime and Jelly Roll Morton selections, was also very deep, and he could usually fulfill requests while attaching his own unique brand to each performance.
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| Paul with Turk Murphy and band |
Although Lingle had often been hard to find by his fans, given the scattered pattern of his appearances, he found steady gigs for fairly long periods at the Jug Club in Oakland and, in 1949, the Paper Doll club on Union Street in San Francisco, a place that he said catered to "all three sexes." The combination of his drinking habits and time away from home to play an hour or two away late into the night likely put some strain on his marriage. So it is not a surprise that at some point in the early 1950s Paul and his wife of some twenty years, Betty were divorced.
Although Paul's original intent was to resume life as a piano tuner, he moved to Honolulu, got married, opened a small piano instruction studio, and eventually worked with bands entertaining tourists in Honolulu throughout the rest of the 1950s. Years of alcohol consumption, reportedly heavy at times, finally caught up with the dynamic pianist. Paul Lingle died just short of his 60th birthday in 1962.
Unfortunately, he was reluctant to record throughout his career and his only studio session resulted in just eight songs cut for Good Time Jazz in 1952. However, three and a half albums of private tapes from 1951-1952 were released posthumously on the Euphonic label that allow listeners to get a fuller picture of Paul Lingle's talent.
(Edited from Stanford Libraries & AllMusic)