Melody Ruiz sat down with Jason Heath to discuss her research on double bassist Thelma Terry, a double bassist and bandleader in 1920s Chicago.
Listen to our conversation wherever you get your podcasts, and please consider supporting Melody’s research. The conversation has been edited for clarity.
Introduction to Thelma Terry Research Project
Jason: I can’t wait to learn more about this book project you’ve got coming, but how did Thelma and her career come on your radar?
Melody: So, long story short, I went to school to study bass. I went to LACC (Los Angeles City College), and I focused on jazz studies. I played the upright—at least I did a long time ago. I came across a mini magazine called Zelda Magazine. Where I used to get them, they were free, so I used to grab a couple of copies and read them.
There was one article in there about Thelma, written or co-written by two people. The main one was Marcus Howell. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him or know him.
Jason: That name rings a bell, but can you just—maybe people listening won’t know the name—tell us about him?
Melody: Yeah. Marcus Howell is a bass player. He’s based in Los Angeles, and he gigs around with Janet Klein, too. He kind of does that old-timey style, but he also plays his own music. One night he wrote that article in particular, and he collaborated with a professor, Professor David Apollonio or Apolloni—sorry if I mispronounced his last name. He had more information about Thelma.
I learned about her there. I thought she was pretty freaking cool, especially since I was studying bass and was one of the only female bass players in the department. I didn’t really think much of it for a few years.
A Discovery at the Hollywood Museum
And then, a couple of years ago, before the pandemic, there’s a museum called the Hollywood Museum around here. It’s by the Hollywood Bowl. I went there and saw a book signing/book release by a person who had written an autobiography or a biography of the Costello family, a very famous 1920s family of actors and actresses.
His story just inspired me. I thought, “Wow, he found the descendants of this family and wrote a story about those people and their lives.” And I wanted to do that, too. Last year, just last year, I was inspired and thought, “I need to tell Thelma’s story. I need to tell it right now.”
Research Process
I started looking up as much information as possible online. I found that article from David online. He had the most information about her, so I tried contacting him. Luckily I did, and I could talk to him for a while. He gave me some great resources and tried to connect me with Thelma’s daughter, who was still alive at the time he had written the article, but I couldn’t get in contact with her.
Through trying to do other research and looking up avenues that no one has ever explored, I found Thelma’s great-granddaughter. I got in contact with her, and she told me, unfortunately, that Thelma’s daughter, Patti, had passed away the year before, so I had just missed her.
But the great-granddaughter, Shannon, gave me so many resources and family stories, and she also scanned never-before-seen photos of Thelma. I have all that now, and that’s when it all started happening—that’s when it all went downhill for me. I started buying all kinds of books, any book that I could find that mentions Thelma, Chicago-style jazz, and potential other bass players who had been pioneers in slap bass that she could have been influenced by.
I also started reaching out to libraries, historical societies, museums, and other people who might know anything about any time frame when Thelma could have been in their community or who might know anything about her.
That’s what I’ve been trying to do for almost a year now.
Thelma’s Background
Jason: What a project! That’s so cool. I typed her name into Google, and it gave me a few things, but you’re going so much deeper. If I remember right, she was born in 1901 in Michigan and then made her way to Chicago. I lived in Chicago for 23 years, so I love Chicago history and Chicago jazz from that era in particular. I don’t remember what year that recording I was listening to was from, but it was that sort of hot jazz era, right?
Melody: Absolutely. She was born in Michigan, and in her last year of high school in 1919, she, her mother, and some of her siblings moved to Chicago. It was just the right time, the right place.
After she graduated high school, she joined a traveling performance group called the Chautauqua Circuit. She was classically trained to play bass, but traveling around with this circuit, not only in Chicago but all across the Midwest, I’m sure that’s where she learned that hot style of jazz.
Plus, she visited the Loop with her friends and siblings, and she probably would have heard some live jazz there and been exposed that way.
Chicago Jazz Scene
Jason: I look at these great old photos of Chicago clubs from that time. Jazz clubs were constantly rising and falling in these major American cities. I’m here in San Francisco, and I find these books of what it was like in the forties and fifties. What a cool era for jazz in Chicago. And didn’t Louis Armstrong spend a little bit of time in Chicago on his journey? I seem to recall he did.
Melody: So originally at the time that Thelma would have been exposed to this music, she probably would have seen Louis Armstrong’s predecessor. His name is escaping me right now, but [00:06:00] she probably would have seen him perform, not so much Louis Armstrong because he came a little bit after the fact when she was maybe already gigging.
But she was definitely exposed to places like the Lighthouse. She played in Colosimo’s, which Al Capone owned at some point, and especially the big one, the Golden Pumpkin. She definitely had a circuit in Chicago.
Thelma’s Musical Training
Jason: What an interesting sound she had. She sounds great. The first thing that caught me was just this big Basie sound. And it sounds like she was playing in the Austin Symphony Orchestra. There’s this high school she went to on the West side of Chicago—Austin?
Melody: She went to Austin High and got private lessons after school. Luckily, we have a copy of her diary from when she was in high school. It even says, “On this day I started playing bass.” She would take bass lessons after school and play a bit in the orchestra there before getting that gig with the Chautauqua Circuit.
She was classically trained at first because they didn’t necessarily teach things like jazz back then—it was unheard of.
Book Project Progress
Jason: It’s super cool that you’re going down this rabbit hole and that you’ve been working on this for the past year. To research somebody who, I think, passed away in the sixties, if I remember right, with the height of her career before that—that’s a cold trail. And it sounds like you’ve got some great leads and great research.
How on earth does all this research eventually turn into a book? What stage of this project are you in right now? Are you in the data gathering/sleuthing phase? Are you starting to think about how it all comes together? I’ve written a couple of indie books on my own, and I know how bafflingly complicated it is to try to take everything and actually turn it into something that’s going to be set out on the page.
How’s that process going?
Melody: It’s tough trying to find information about someone that no one knows about. [00:08:00] I did a lot of research and tried to dig up things last year. ,I’m taking everything that I’ve already found and putting it all together to make a cohesive story.
I started with a Google Doc timeline, and for every little thing that I found about her—which included a bunch of news clippings—I would note, “Okay, on this day, she was in this place performing here,” and I would make a timeline of basically all the places she’d been. It really helps to have her diary from when she was younger. She used to have a diary when she was older, but that’s unfortunately lost to time.
News clippings, the little information I found online, and the books I’ve been reading about her really helped me piece her story together. I also hired a freelance researcher to help me find documents that would have been registered with the state, like marriage and divorce licenses and records.
Things like that that I wouldn’t normally have been able to find help piece the puzzle together. [00:09:00] They also helped her family—her descendants—clear up some questions. They always thought certain things, and then these documents showed, “Okay, no, this is for sure what had happened.” So that was really fun.
Surprising Discoveries
Jason: That’s so cool. So you’re learning more about Thelma, and what’s been surprising to you as you’ve done this research? You probably know more about her than certainly most people at this point.
Melody: Well, going back to what you were saying about how, when you were listening to her, she sounded so incredibly clear—that’s because in her recordings, she had her bandmates behind her, and she was the one standing in front of the microphone. That’s why you can hear her so clearly.
Her work ethic and how she ran things was super unusual for the time. She knew what she wanted. She did everything that she wanted, whether or not people wanted her to. She put her foot down in instances where people thought they could try to use her: “Oh, she’s a woman—she can’t do that.” [00:10:00]
Yes, she could. And she did. She traveled all across the country when no one else was doing that.
I didn’t know that when she was traveling, she sometimes led bands that she was visiting. For example, when she was in Arkansas, instead of playing with her own band there, she would be like a temporary or guest host with whatever house band was playing at that time.
It was really interesting because a couple of months ago, someone showed me that they found a recording of her that no one knew existed because she was performing with someone else’s band. Hearing that song, I thought, “Oh my God, that’s a song that she later recorded.” So you can hear the similarities in how she played in that earlier recording compared to her official final recording. That’s really cool.
Performance Challenges
Jason: Wow! That’s great. And think about it—we’ve got these recordings, but what must the live gigs have been like? We’re talking about pre-bass amplification, right? She must have been using gut strings. I get tired of my nice, fancy pickup and amplifier. Just think about what it must have been like to project, to be the band leader as you’re on bass, and then to have all the forces aligned against you—so often the case for a bass player, particularly pre-amplification, right?
Melody: Yeah. I can’t imagine how she projected herself at some of these gigs. We know that she stood at the front of the band. She was always in front of the band, which maybe helped.
But there are some places—she used to perform on a steam cruiser and steamship. I forgot the place’s name off the top of my head, but she would play on steamships. She would play on beaches outside. I don’t understand how she managed to project in some of these venues.
It’s just amazing. I don’t know how the technology was back then with amplification. I do know for a fact that I have one of Thelma’s records. It’s a shellac record; across the paper circle, it says “new electrical processing system” or something. So this was at a time where, luckily, we could hear her even more clearly because this was not the old-fashioned analog way of recording through a horn but with a microphone. There may have been some advances at the time with projecting or amplification.
Connecting with Melody
Jason: Yeah, cool. Well, you’ll only learn more as you keep exploring her life. I love what you’ve got up on Instagram. I’ll be sure to link to that so people can follow along with your discoveries.
You’ve got a crowdfunding link so people can directly support you. Anywhere else you want me to send people who are listening to this?
Melody: My Instagram is my central platform, and I share things about her. Yeah, I do have links like my GoFundMe on there, and I also have an Etsy page.
I was kind of itching to put something out there for people so they could have something tangible to get excited about her. So I started creating little zines based on her. Inside, they have pictures of her and news clippings that I cut out and arranged so you can learn a little bit about her. There are other news clippings about the places she performed at, and I make it all really artsy.
I have those for sale on Etsy too. I think they’re about one or two dollars—I don’t remember off the top of my head—but it’s just something that people can easily print out at home and distribute if they please. They can hold something physical and artsy in their hands and think, “Wow, a little bit of Thelma. That’s really cool.” I’m excited about the zines.
Jason: Oh yeah, that’s so cool. I’ve got the link for your Etsy page, and I’ve got the Instagram and the GoFundMe link too.
So I will share those. Folks, as you’re listening to this, you can just click through to check out those links from Melody on whatever device you’re using. I can’t wait to see this unfold. I’ll put this episode out now so people can follow along and support what you’re doing. Then maybe we can chat again when the book is ready to go and send people to that. I can’t wait to pick up that copy myself.
Melody: Oh yeah, for sure. I’ll send you a copy if you’d like.
Balancing the Project with a Day Job
Jason: Yes, congratulations! How are you fitting this into your life? You’re also working like we all need to do. Is this like a night and weekend project for you? Or do you wake up early and get going on it? How is this integrating into your life?
Melody: It’s whenever I have the time because I work, but I’m also doing a certificate program. So it’s just whenever I have time. I might have a little bit of time off work, so I can sit down and write a bunch, edit, or even go through some of the millions of news clippings I have because I still haven’t gone through all of them.
Yeah, it’s just whenever I find the time, anytime. I’m always doing something.
Jason: I love it. Well, I’m following along and will continue to follow along. Folks, check out the links that we mentioned. Melody, thanks for chatting. This is the first of many chats, I hope.
Melody: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity! I really appreciate it!
Melody Ruiz is a producer and advocate for diversity in the TV industry. She is also writing a book about Thelma Terry, a double bassist and bandleader from 1920s Chicago.
