Musician Luigi Waites dies

Through several decades, thousands of performances and millions of notes, local legend Luigi Waites made loads of fans and friends.

Those throngs — including family members and bandmates — now are remembering his music, his good-natured personality and his smile and laughter.

Waites, a drummer and vibraphonist who was a mainstay at several Omaha venues, died early Tuesday at Immanuel Medical Center. He was 82.

“I never saw him in a bad mood,” said Omaha percussion teacher Dana Murray. “He always had that smile. He always had that glow.”

Murray, who teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and two area high schools, was a longtime friend of Waites’ and considered him a mentor.

“Luigi was like the mayor of Omaha in a lot of ways. I don’t know anyone who didn’t know Luigi. And I never knew anyone else in Omaha who touched more people,” Murray said.

Since 1975, Waites had appeared weekly at Mr. Toad’s in the Old Market, where he racked up nearly 1,700 performances. And for the past five years, his notes floated around lunchtime diners at the Dundee Dell, where he played solo four times a week. He also played with a number of musical superstars, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and James Brown.

“I knew the guy 30 years and he was one of those people — it is rare to see them — (that) upon seeing them you knew you were going to have a joke or have some fun or something positive,” said Rick Renn, manager of Mr. Toad’s. “It was always so cool to see him. Everyone would light up and go, ‘Luigi!’”

A longtime friend and bandmember of Waites’, trumpet player Doyle Tipler, remembers him especially as a musician.

“He had this incredible love for the music as well as the camaraderie with the musicians. He always stressed to the band and also to the audience, ‘This isn’t Luigi’s group — this is the band.’ It was always about the collective whole,” Tipler said Tuesday.

With six children, eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, the divorced Waites also was a family man.

“Dad was always a lot of fun. He kept us laughing. We had good times growing up,” said Chelle Waites of Omaha, a daughter.

She remembers her father taking delight in performances of the Contemporaries, the youth drill team and drum corps he organized. Chelle Waites said the drum corps — which traveled across the Midwest — helped keep many kids out of trouble. Many former members became teachers, lawyers and doctors.

Waites received a lifetime achievement award at the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award ceremony in 2006. And just a few months ago, he was named best jazz artist at the group’s 2009 awards.

Waites also organized the performing arts side of the Omaha Summer Arts Festival, booking everything from Omaha blues and jazz artists to national touring musicians and belly dancers, said festival organizer Vic Gutman.

“I started the arts festival in 1975, and when I talked to people in the Old Market about the vision for the festival, I asked who should be the person to handle all of the entertainment,” he said. “Everyone directed me to Luigi.”

An only child, the jazz musician was born in Omaha as Lewis Waites in 1927 and later adopted the nickname Luigi. He lived in Chicago and California for a time and toured through Europe, but his primary musical influence was back home, friends and colleagues told The World-Herald last summer as Waites prepared to record his first live CD.

“He’s the one who stayed in town,” said Renn.

Like many youths in the 1930s and ’40s — especially blacks — Waites didn’t have money for formal lessons.

He didn’t let that stop him. The best way to learn, he said last summer, was to observe other musicians — both good and bad.

“You decide as an individual what you’re going to do,” he said.

He passed that on to young people, as a private instructor, a teaching artist with the Nebraska Arts Council and a speaker and performer at school assemblies in 14 states.

“People who hadn’t seen him in 25 years would come to Mr. Toad’s to see if he’s still playing. They would turn to me and start telling me about how they started in music and how Luigi taught them,” Renn said. “The talent in this city that he influenced is amazing.”

Luigi’s work in Nebraska schools bridged racial divides and the gap between the state’s urban and rural areas, said Suzanne Wise, executive director of the arts council.

Waites was the council’s artist of the year in 1996, and he was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

In 2001, the vibraphonist had a heart attack and surgery to clear blockage in an artery. Since last summer, Waites had battled heart problems and two forms of cancer.

Through it all, he was able to record that live CD, but it has not yet been released. He made two other recordings: “Fear Not,” his first CD with his group Luigi Inc., in 2001. He released a second CD, “Distant Relatives,” in 2005.

Though his health was declining in recent months, his daughter said he kept people laughing. There sometimes was a line of visitors out the door of his room at his nursing home.

He didn’t see the music or his many friendships as his proudest accomplishments, however. Chelle Waites said her father considered his new membership in Morning Star Baptist Church one of his greatest achievements. He was baptized at the beginning of the year.

His daughter said funeral arrangements are pending at Thomas Funeral Home.

But no matter when people gather to remember Luigi’s life, friends say it’s a sure bet they’ll talk about his smile and his easy-going attitude.

“When I was the guy who was always worried about anything . . . Luigi would say, ‘Don’t worry. It will be what it will be,’ ” said Gutman of the Summer Arts Festival.

“He was the best in Omaha. It’s a tragic loss for us and for the city.”

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