The Treniers and Joe Williams

Presenting Joe Williams and Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, The Jazz Orchestra; Joe Williams, vocals

In August of 2003, I played with Sam Butera for a two week run at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was a show designed to feature acts reminiscent of the “old” Atlantic City and “old” Vegas lounge acts. Included in the billing were 1950’s entertainer Freddie Bell and a group called The Treniers.

Twins Claude and Cliff (Heathcliff) Trenier started their own musical group in the late 1940’s that played a cross between swing and early rock ‘n roll. Influenced mostly by swing, they incorporated a thumping backbeat that gave their sound a lot of energy. Their song titles often used the words “rock” and “roll”, like “Rocking on Sunday Night”, “It Rocks! It Rolls! It Swings!” and “Rockin’ is our Bizness”. Mix all of that up with vigorous choreography, lively on-stage acrobatics, humorous antics and facial features on fire with flashing grins and infectious smiles and they had themselves one of the hottest acts in the early 1950’s club circuit.

They held stylistic sway with their contemporaries Bill Haley and his Comets and the British group The Shadows. In May of 1954, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis brought The Treniers to the Colgate Comedy Hour, marking one of the first times that rock and roll appeared on television. Over the years, other brothers and family members joined the group. Cliff passed away in 1983 and when the group reformed to play the show with Sam in 2003, only the twins’ nephew, Milt, was left to share the stage with Claude. During our two-week run, I never missed an opportunity to watch The Treniers from the wings. It was a sight to see every time.

Claude passed away three months later. He was eighty-four years old. Sam went to the funeral and told us a fascinating story the next time we saw him. It seems that Bill Cosby, a life-long fan of anything with a jazz, blues or swing groove, absolutely LOVED The Treniers while he was growing up and eventually met and became friends with Claude and Cliff and the group. Out of respect for his friends and the passing of Cliff, when it came time to select a name for his character on “The Cosby Show”, he chose “Heathcliff” or “Cliff”.

Bill Cosby again exhibited his passion for jazz when he invited the legendary jazz singer Joe Williams to play his father-in-law on the show, Al Hanks.

Isn’t it funny that the most of the great jazz singers are women? Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae and, of course, Ella Fitzgerald receive the lion’s – excuse me, lioness’ – share of the accolades and come to mind easily when anyone utters the words “jazz singer”. I can only think of three male singers that didn’t venture away from jazz: Kurt Ellington, Mel Torme and Joe Wiliams.

When my friend Jay showed me around Las Vegas on my first night in town, he drove past the Sunrise Hospital, just a few blocks away from the house where we stayed. “Joe Williams passed away only a short distance from this hospital. He had admitted himself for a respiratory ailment two days before, and, after feeling better a couple of days later, he went for a walk and never made it back.”

Death, death, death. That seems to be all I can talk about today. I’ll try be more upbeat tomorrow.

Credits: To Bill Cosby, one of the most genuinely funny men in the entertainment industry. I saw you make Jack Benny laugh once. For that, I doff my chapeau to you.