Friday, Dec. 4, 1998 | 11:29 a.m.
During a jazz recording session at RCA-Victor studios in New York in 1960, Mo Mahoney, drummer for the Dukes of Dixieland, was having trouble getting the tempo just right on the classic tune "South."
Legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who was cutting his first of two albums with the group, told Mahoney: "I'll walk around and play the melody and you just watch my buns."
As Sachmo's bottom bounced with the rhythm of his magical horn, Mahoney matched the beat. Armstrong, flashing his trademark wide grin, turned to Mahoney and said: "That's it!"
Friends were hard-pressed to remember whether Mahoney ever again missed a beat.
Owen Jerome "Mo" Mahoney, who in 1962 opened Mahoney's Drum Shop at 608 S. Maryland Parkway and was well known for his generosity toward struggling musicians and local charities, died of heart failure Wednesday at Mountain View Hospital. He was 70.
Services for Mahoney, who lived in Las Vegas 44 years, will be 2 p.m. Tuesday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday at Palm-Eastern.
"Mo could play everything but he loved Dixieland," said longtime Sun entertainment columnist Joe Delaney, who was producer for the Armstrong/Dukes collaboration albums for the now-defunct Audio-Fidelity label.
"Armstrong was at the peak of his career and you couldn't give him anything but the top musicians to work with. Mo was one of the best drummers around at that time."
Cork Proctor, comedian and jazz drummer who today books acts into the Orleans hotel-casino, said he is "heartbroken" over the death of his longtime friend.
"I met Mo in the early 1960s when we were performing at the Mapes Hotel in Reno," Proctor said. "He was a great player with a lot of sensitivity.
"Although he started his business with a limited amount of cash, Mo was always willing to extend -- make that overextend -- credit to musicians. He trusted a lot of guys who were scraping by and sleeping in their cars. Mo scored very high marks as a human being."
Delaney agreed, noting: "Mo was always there to loan instruments and other equipment to help me with events like the Night of Stars for St. Jude's Ranch for Children and the Variety Club. Mo was very active in local charities."
As his health declined in recent years because of heart problems, Mahoney turned his business over to his three sons, but he never formally retired. Today the store is known as Mahoney's Pro Music and Drum Shop.
"The store has long been a gathering place for musicians who have shared ideas," said Las Vegas musician and restaurateur Tommy Rocker, a longtime Mahoney's customer. "Over the years, a number of professional musicians have worked there by day and performed in shows at nights."
Rob Van Horn, longtime manager of Mahoney's and the drummer in Rocker's band Conched Out, said his late boss was a gentleman to work for and an inspiration to many musicians.
"He was excellent at keeping time," Van Horn said. "They called him 'Papa Time' for those skills."
Mahoney's customers over the years have included Elvis Presley, Liberace, Tony Bennett, B.B. King and Stevie Wonder. Former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman once bought a harmonica from his store.
Born March 30, 1928, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mahoney was the son of Owen Mahoney and the former Margurite Barton. He graduated from St. John's High School in White Plains, N.Y., in 1946 and attended the New York Conservatory of Modern Music in Brooklyn.
Mahoney served in the Air Force after World War II, where he played drums in an Air Force band.
Mahoney joined the Dukes of Dixieland in the 1950s. The group is famous not just for its contributions to jazz music but is also credited as the first group of any kind to make a stereo recording.
Mahoney performed with many of the original musicians from the group, which was formed in 1949. Among them were founders Frankie and Freddie Assunto and their father "Papa Jac" Assunto, as well as original pianist Stanley Mendelsohn.
Frank, who played trumpet, Freddie, who played trombone, and Jac, who played banjo, are dead, as is Richie Matteson, who played tuba. Jerry Fuller rounded out the seven-member group on clarinet at the time of the Armstrong sessions.
The Dukes of Dixieland today is a six-member band that works out of New Orleans.
The group's recordings include "Bourbon Street Parade," "Slide, Frog, Slide," "South Rampart Street Parade," "Whispering," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "When the Saints Go Marching In," "New Orleans" and "Tiger Rag."
The group has performed with, among others, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Al Hirt, Sarah Vaughan, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony.
Mahoney, who moved to Las Vegas in 1954, left the Dukes in 1962 to open his Las Vegas store.
Mahoney is survived by his sons, Martin Mahoney, Michael Mahoney and Christopher Mahoney; and a companion Beverly Bollinger, all of Las Vegas; a sister, Mary Fennessey of White Plains; and five grandchildren.
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