Not many know that Sly Whitmann harbored aspirations well above and beyond the world in which he became famous, the smoky jazz and blues clubs of Bourbon and Beale. Patrons at the venues where he performed often remember being dazzled as Sly switched instruments mid-set, moving from his signature coronet to the alto sax, the trombone, even the honky-tonk piano. For year rumors swirled about Sly’s personal life as girlfriend after girlfriend left complaining that he didn’t seem to have any time for them. When one of Sly’s relatively few studio albums dropped, people noticed that it included a full symphony orchestra backing up the usual quartet, but hardly anyone read in the microscopic print that Sly had orchestrated the various parts himself.

In fact, Sly Whitmann harbored a desire, long and keen, to write for an orchestra. Those nights away from clubs and girls were spent in classes, or poring over correspondence courses. Sly never earned a degree but over his lifetime he put in enough coursework and practice to qualify for a degree from Juliard. It was his dream to infuse the raw passion and popular sound of the clubs into the whole range of instruments, something akin to Gershwin in scope but far more modern and experimental. But try as he might (behind the scenes, of course) no one was willing to commit the resources to allow him to write, record, or perform anything but club music.

That all changed when Dr. Rutherford Scheer directed the pioneering film “Carnivale et Amour” in 1968. He hired Sly on the spot to record music for his picture, and the posters proclaimed that the film was to feature music by one Sylvester J. Whitmann. But it was not to be. A fickle audience at a preview was all it took for the producers to remove Scheer from creative control, recut the film, and distribute it with no original music at all, only a selection of pop tunes licensed from the Decca back catalog (which completely clashed with the Mississippi River setting). Scheer was able to preserve the acetates of Sly’s music, but never got the chance to present them to his friend; Sly died of a heart attack onstage less than a week after he received the news.

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