A lot of people would ask him about me Why do you

A lot of people would ask him about me, "Why do you have a white drummer?" He'd just say "Because I like his playing." Period.I remember once we were in Biloxi, Mississippi, and we couldn't find a hotel that would let us in. So here's Louis, who always had about $10,000 cash in his pocket, and the guy can't get a hotel room The whole band had to sleep in a gymnasium that night. Go figure it out.It is hard to think of anyone else who worked for so many eminent bandleaders. When Deems began to play he couldn't be bothered to learn to read music and never did "Who cares?" he said. "Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa couldn't read too well either, but they could play. Guess what? That's what counts."Deems was in Chicago as the Twenties roared and the city was transformed into the crucible of jazz by Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver and other of the music's innovators "Every block had four clubs," he said. "You only made $14 a week playing from nine at night until four in the morning.

But you could hear everyone - Krupa, Dave Tough, Baby Dodds, all the great drummers." Deems led his own bands in Chicago before coming to the notice of the jazz violinist Joe Venuti, a man with a similarly abrasive character. Deems joined Venuti's band in 1937 and stayed until 1944 when petrol shortage and the draft forced the violinist to disband.Deems worked for Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey and then Woody Herman before returning to his home town of Springfield Then, in 1948, he joined Red Norvo. His eccentric stage personality was well captured in the 1951 film Rhythm Inn, a story about a young songwriter and a budding girl vocalist in which Deems was given a feature number. His first visit to Europe followed shortly afterwards under the leadership of Charlie Barnet.

On his return he made a significant move by leaving the big-band field to work in the Dixieland group led by the cornettist Muggsy Spanier. This was the first of many such small bands he joined."Spanier paid lousy money, always had done, and when I left because of this he thought I didn't appreciate him. He was right."The years with Armstrong followed and then in 1960 Deems came off the road to lead his own band at Brass Rail club in Chicago. After a few months he joined the band led by the trombonist Jack Teagarden, an easygoing virtuoso who drank to sustain himself against the constant travelling, and died in his fifties as a result. "Never cared for the stuff," commented Deems, who abstained for most of his life.As the Armstrong sidemen had learned, the Teagarden men found that travelling as a sextet with Deems on board had its problems "He was no trouble," said the band's trumpeter, Bobby Lewis. "We put Barrett's drums in the car and Barrett in the boot."Deems settled finally in Chicago in 1964 and from then on worked with the Dukes of Dixieland and accompanied visiting musicians such as Buck Clayton, Joe Venuti, Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson and Red Norvo. Still in demand, he toured Eastern Europe with Benny Goodman's sextet in 1976 and in the early Eighties went to South America with Wild Bill Davison.The drummer returned to Britain to take part in a tour with British and American musicians billed as "The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong" in the early Eighties.