JJC’s Jerry Lewis left ‘indelible mark’ on Joliet music legacy

The mentoring by a former Joliet Junior College fine arts professor carries on even after his death.

Three local musicians said Jerry Lewis, who retired as chairman of fine arts at Joliet Junior College in 2003, was the reason they even pursued a career in music. One of those musicians now teaches at JJC.

Lewis had a massive stroke while enjoying a band concert and died three days later on March 1. He was 79.

Director credits Lewis’ guidance

Charles Morgan, music professor and director of bands at JJC, said he was planning to study engineering when in 1998 he walked into JJC. But Morgan played in Lewis’ concert band, and Lewis helped Morgan “decide music was the direction I should go.”

“He saw something in me I didn’t see in myself,” Morgan said. “I don’t know what it was, just that I had something special. He always encouraged it. And like many of his students, I would not be where I am today without his guidance.”

In 2013, Morgan was a quarterfinalist for the Grammy’s first Music Educator Award, which he repeated in 2015, and 2018. A member with The Buckinghams, Morgan also has shared the stage with such notable music artists as Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, The Grass Roots, Tommy James and the Shondells, Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits and Jay and the Americans.

Over the years, Lewis transitioned from Morgan’s teacher to mentor and to finally friend, Morgan said.

“And I’m grateful for that,” Morgan said. “He’s going to be missed.”

Lewis ‘changed my life’

Mike Fiske, band director of the Joliet American Legion Band and former director of bands at Joliet Central High School, also credited Lewis with his music career. Fiske briefly worked at Caterpillar after he graduated from Joliet Township High School District 204 and entered JJC in the fall of 1973 to study music.

“That’s when I met Jerry,” Fiske said. “He literally changed my life. He opened up a new perspective about music and about how much fun it could be.”

Fiske said Lewis “helped him through the door” as an assistant band director at Indiana University while working on his master’s degree. Lewis also knew a board member at Morris High School and recommended Fiske as band director.

Lewis even played at Fiske’s wedding and “became one of my dearest friends in life,” Fiske said.

“I can’t begin to tell you how much he did for me and how much he meant to me,” he said. “It was just a real loss when Jerry passed for so many people. Just a wonderful man. Genuinely funny. No ego whatsoever. And he was always there for his students.”

Chicago jazz musician Shawn Maxwell, who was actually placed on the official first nominating ballot for the 2007 Grammy Awards, said Lewis was the reason Maxwell even pursed jazz.

Maxwell said in a 2011 Herald-News story that Lewis lent Maxwell his saxophone and said, “Why don’t you join our jazz band? I think you’d like it.”

“I was just a classical clarinetist,” Maxwell said. “I knew nothing about jazz.”

A piece called “Jerry” is actually featured on Maxwell’s 2023 “J Town Suite” album and Maxwell said he invited Lewis to a VIP performance where Maxwell performed it.

Maxwell was actually friends with Chris Lewis, Jerry’s son, when Maxwell was part of the Joliet Central band under the direction of Ted Lega. Maxwell later knew Lewis as “great human being” and “great musician,” who always went above and beyond” when teaching, mentoring and encouraging musicians, he said.

“He was one of the nicest caring human beings in the world,” Maxwell said.

Lifetime of music

Lewis grew up in Huntington, Indiana, and met his wife, Janie, in 1949, when they were in kindergarten. He married her on June 13, 1965. Janie Lewis said her husband had talent and passion for music at a young age, with his parents driving him 50 miles or more for lessons and performances by the time Lewis was 14.

Chris Lewis said his father also had a passion for teaching, and Janie Lewis agreed.

“I think it was because of the instructors, the professors that he had along the way,” Janie Lewis said. “They just instilled that in him.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in music from Indiana University, Lewis served as band director at Bloomington Central Junior High School while working on his master’s degree in trumpet at IU, according to his obituary.

Janie Lewis said her husband then learned about an opening at Joliet Junior College, interviewed for it and came back saying he was “very pleased with the people there and they were pleased with him.”

So the couple “packed their two cats into the car and headed for Joliet, a decision that they never regretted,” according to Jerry Lewis’ obituary. That was in 1971, according to JJC.

Lewis founded the Joliet Junior College Community Band in 1979, which was originally a student concert band, according to JJC. But enrollment started dropping around 1976, so Lewis opened expanded the band to include JJC employees as well as community members.

The Joliet Junior College Community Band left an “indelible mark” on Joliet’s musical legacy, according to Jerry Lewis’ obituary. The community band held a commemorative concert honoring Lewis on Sunday.

Lewis also founded the JJC Jazz Band, according to his obituary, and helped begin the former Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Jazz Band in Joliet, according to his son.

Chris Lewis said that, although his father mentored so many musicians, he never pushed him in that direction.

“He liked the fact that I played trumpet and stayed active with it,” he said. “He didn’t like the fact that I could play as good as I did without practicing.”