The room in the funeral home was silent and empty yesterday morning, and Tommy Jolly’s silver trumpet sat on a stand near the casket. Around the room, there were easels with pictures of Tommy with Brenda Lee, probably the most famous singer he ever backed, and many of the various Louisville groups with which he played.

You probably don’t think you knew Tommy Jolly, but you probably did. If you remember the Rascals of Ragtyme from the old Louisville Redbirds baseball games, you knew Tommy Jolly. If you ever danced to the music of Soul, Inc., the Sultans, or Cosmo & The Counts, you knew Tommy Jolly.

He was the tall guy with the Van Dyke beard, blowing the horn. He was a musician’s musician, really, because he could play just about any instrument you put in his hands. When the Monarchs went to Nashville to record “Look Homeward, Angel” in 1964, they took Tommy along on the plane.

He got sick as he could be going down and back, because he didn’t like planes, but at the recording session he played the French Horn beautifully. He had never played the French Horn before. Didn’t matter. Tommy Jolly never met an instrument he didn’t like.

He died Friday morning, far too young at 63, and a friend, Emmy Downes Lynch, sent in this tribute from Hilton Head. S.C. It pretty well sums up the kind of guy Tommy Jolly was. Even when he was sick, he still hit the right note.

“My mother, (whom he loved) passed away two years ago today,” wrote Ms. Downes, “and it was Tommy who played the beautiful trumpet solos at her funeral. He wasn’t feeling well that day and when I said “Tommy, you don’t have to this”, he said “Sometimes you do what you can’t”. He played from his car at Cave Hill because he wasn’t physically able to stand or sit nearby the grave. I’m told that’s the last time he played his trumpet.”

Yeah, that was Tommy Jolly for you. The only thing he loved more than music was family and friends. He never cared about money or material things. His whole life, he never had what musicians call a “real job.” You know, one where you have to go to an office every day or drive or truck or sell cars. All Tommy ever did was play music. He barely scraped by, but that was good enough.

The music bug bit Tommy hard at Durrett High School, when he and his buddy Leon Middleton formed a group called The Squires that played on Sunday afternoons at the VFW Post on Longfield Avenue, near Churchill Downs. Their pay was whatever was in the hat after it was passed around the joint.

After the Squires, Jolly moved from one group to another, one gig to the next, always, like the great basketball players, making the players around him better. He was easy to laugh and slow to anger, the sort of guy who played not for fame or for money but for the pleasure of it.

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At some point early on, he hooked up with Brenda Lee, who was known for such national hits as “I’m Sorry” and “Sweet Nothin’s” and “Rockin’ Around the Chirstmas Tree.”  However, like a lot of Louisville musicians, Jolly didn’t much like the road. Too many temptations, too much idle time. So he came home and pretty much decided to eke out a living on the local nightclub circuit.

Name your favorite joint and chances are Tommy Jolly played there. There was Jim Porter’s and the Colonial Gardens and the Patio Lounge. And the Club 68 and the Golden Horseshoe in Lebanon. And heaven only knows how many VFW halls and American Legion posts and bars where the neon lights didn’t go out until 4 a.m.

In 1982, he joined the Sultans, who had been one of Louisville’s hottest groups in the early 1960s due to a two-sided hit record. The songs, “You Got Me Going” and “It’ll Be Easy,” featured lead vocalist Tommy “Cosmo” Cosdon, who sounded more like a black rhythm-n-blues singer than a white teenager from South Louisville.

After the Sultans, Cosmo went on to a solo career that has lasted, off and on, more off than on, to this day.Along the way he and Jolly became friends and associates, mainly because each recognized the other’s talent. So whenever Cosmo needed a few bucks, or somebody wanted him to play, Jolly was the guy who arranged everything.

One of his pals, Bill Fowler, left this message on the guest-book page at the Evergreen Funeral Home:
“Tom will be remembered as a diligent, dedicated man and musician. He was a hardworking and caring person, steadfast and true. Tom was a great listener and one that also knew how to prove his point! It would be impossible to forget his never-wavering, joyful spirit.”

If everybody who ever got a moment’s joy from hearing Tommy Jolly play his trumpet had showed up for the funeral, Freedom Hall wouldn’t have been big enough. He and his horn touched so many people, brought so much happiness. And, at the end, isn’t that what matters the most? More than the money or the material stuff?

Standing there in the empty room at the funeral home yesterday morning, looking at the casket, a guy remembered calling Tommy before each of his daughter’s weddings. He wanted Cosmo & The Counts, but he couldn’t afford top dollar. It didn’t matter. He was a friend, so Tommy Jolly worked out a deal for him.

It’s safe to say that Louisville, Ky., has never had a better horn player than Tommy Jolly. Ask Cosmo or Lennie Whatley or Johnny Hourigan or Mike Gibson or any of the other singers who worked with him. Ask anybody who used to be a regular on the nightclub circuit. The man could play that horn and he loved it and heaven only knows how many people he touched along the way.

Speaking of heaven, you can almost imagine what happened when Tommy Jolly reached the pearly gates. He was greeted by the angel Gabriel and his assistant, the horn player whose job is to play a fanfare to announce new arrivals.

But just as the horn player was about to put the golden instrument to his lips, Gabriel looked up and saw who was standing before him. He gently took the horn away from his assistant and handed it to Tommy Jolly. “Here, Tommy,” he said, “We’ve been waiting for you to show us how to hit that high note.”