Castle's Chessboard

Andre's Teacher

Author's Note: This was written March Musical Monkey Madness see: "Note: March Musical Monkey Madness Blogging Prompt..."

Prompt: With what great musician did Andre study?

***

Andre actual had several great music teachers with which he was able to learn how to play the trumpet from. As hinted at in an earlier entry though his most famous teacher and Mentor was Louis Prima. Louis took Andre on as student when Andre was just a young monkey and Andre learned all his best Jazz techniques as an apprentice in Prima's band. Andre has a lot of fond memories of that time period. Not only was he able to get he get a lot of experience playing to the night club audiences but whenever he performed he was able to get free drinks for the night. It helped him acquire the skills and tastes he would later use as owner of the Banana bar. Prima infused Andre's trumpeting with his signature rhythm, syncopation timing and style improving Andre's musical skills by leaps and bounds.

In fact, though it is not widely known... Prima considered Andre to be his Monkey Protegee. This made Andre one of 4 famous Monkey protegees who apprenticed to a famous musician out there. The other 3 are Scatter (a Chimpanzee apprenticed to Elvis Presley), Bubbles (a Chimpanzee apprenticed to Michael Jackson) and OG Mally (a Capuchin Monkey apprenticed to Justin Bieber).

If you are wondering... yes the 4 Protegees did perform together. They did a fundraiser called Monkey Palooza where the three alternated between all their genres. Scatters lead the group in a Rock and Roll rendition of "Jail House Rock", Bubbles had the group perform the "Thriller Dance", OG Mally gave an excellent rendition of "Never Give Up" and Andre teamed up rest to perform "Fly Me to the Moon". It was the ultimate Monkey Musician Team up.


Word Count: 303