by A. G. Lafley
Honey brought in a yellow gal from New Orleans by the name of Billie Adams, a very good entertainer. Her grandmother was a Creole voodoo queen, and she must have inherited some psychic power from her. Billie was always telling me about myself—that I should have more confidence, things like that. I always been attracted to people with those powers, so we got along good.
Another act was Jerry Hall, a female impersonator that billed himself as Jarahal. Could sing baritone and turn right around and sing soprano.
The orchestra went under Honey Brown’s name, but it was really Willie Wilkins’ band. We backed all the acts and played for dancing, too. Herman “Red” Elkins was on trumpet; Melbourne Scott, alto; Edgar “Spider” Courance out of Cincinnati, tenor; Charles Harkless from Meridian, Mississippi, on bass tuba; William “Bill” Burford, drums; John Marrero, one of the New Orleans Marrero boys, on tenor banjo; and Willie Wilkins, piano. A nice, tight eight-piece group, and Wilkins gave me as many solos as I wanted. No hassle. He ran a good band.
The Chinese owners of the Bamboo liked Jarahal better then Honey and finally put him in charge of the show. The first thing he did was fire Honey, and the orchestra became officially Willie Wilkins’ band. Everyone liked it better that way.
The Bamboo Inn was a block-long restaurant located on Seventh Avenue between 139th and 140th. Was famous for dining, dancing, and having a good floor show. Some of the best Chinese food in Harlem was served there, and King Oliver used to come in two or three times a week. He loved Chinese food.
Once he came in looking for a second trombone for a Kansas City tour he had coming up. Shook me up by asking me to join his band. I didn’t really think I had that much experience or was good enough for him. I was flattered, but turned him down. I liked my job at the Bamboo. It was clean with good working conditions. And all the Chinese food I could eat.
I was good friends with trombonist J. C. Higginbotham. Sometimes he came over from the Saratoga Club and we both drift over to the Rhythm Club where Fats Waller usually hung out. Then the three of us went around the corner to the old Catagonia after-hours club on 133d to hear the great stride pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith. He was backing singer Mary Stafford at the time.
Honey Brown’s orchestra at the Bamboo Inn, New York City, 1929, just prior to my joining the band. Left to right: John Marrero (bj), William Burford(d), Willie Wilkins (ldr/p), Honey Brown (v), Charles Harkless (tu), Herman Elkins (t), Melbourne Scott (as), “Bones” (tb), Edgar Courance (ts). (Photo courtesy of David Griffiths.)
Out of the corner of his eye, Willie spotted us coming in and let out a low growl, “Arrrrrr. . . .”
“Yeah, this is me,” shouted Fats. And The Lion growled again. “You may be king of the jungle,” Fats said, “but I come to get your damn crown.”
Then they both rocked the place until sunrise, having one hell of a ball. Those two pianists was so equally great, it was just a matter of taste who was better. I know they both respected one another. Sometimes Higgy and I take out our horns and blow hot choruses behind them.
Yes Lord, that was good music!
After about four months with Wilkins at the Bamboo, one night everybody showed up for work to find a big padlock on the door. Couldn’t understand what the hell this was all about. Just stood in the cold and kept peeping in the door. Never did find out what happened, but we knew we had no job.
Laid off about ten days and then in January of 1930, Wilkins got us a gig at the Sphinx Inn, down on Second Avenue near 11th. Outside the club was a big doorman and nobody could get in unless he give the OK. On the second floor there was two more musclemen standing by. Must of been seven feet tall, had punchy faces, and wouldn’t let nobody in unless they got the nod from the doorman downstairs.
Inside was all decorated with pictures and statues of pyramids, sphinxes, pharaohs, and other Egyptian things. The place had room for about four hundred people and featured a floor show and a nice chorus lineup. Only whites allowed in.
On our first night we knew it was a speakeasy run by racketeers—it was written all over the place. This was Prohibition time, but they served all the booze you wanted if you willing to pay for it—and I mean the real stuff, only the very best.
Mean-looking guys with big shoulders always strolling in and out, wearing long black coats, hats pulled down low over their slit eyes, and bumps coming out from under their arms—when they sat down and their coats opened, you saw two gats under there.
It was just like that “Eliot Ness” television show, that’s exactly how they looked.
One time a white councilman and his wife was there drinking and having a good time. When the check came, the lady started talking loud about being overcharged, and two giants came over and took them in the back office. When the door shut, I heard a lot of scuffling going on and loud talking. Never did see anybody come back out, but the next day I was told a man and woman was found back in the alley all beat to hell.
This was a bad bunch.
We never knew when a fight would break out in the audience. Or maybe a shooting. Rival gangs was everywhere, some sitting in the shadows back there, checking things out. A lot of known hoods came in regular but I won’t call any family names, because even if they dead and gone, they still liable to rise up and hang hell on me if they knew I was telling their secrets. No, I won’t call any family names.
I will admit we was all scared as hell. So damn scared, we gave our notice soon after we started. Two giants came right over and asked the band to go in the back office to talk about it, the same room the councilman and his wife never came back from. We walked in all bunched together real tight.
The room was dark. The only light was from a low, gooseneck lamp on the desk, and it was shining right in our faces. Heavy, stale cigar smoke was drifting around the light. Somebody was behind the desk, and about five or six others was next to him all sitting quiet. Couldn’t see nobody clear. But I did feel giants standing there in the back, near the doors.
Nobody was talking. We shivered silently for a while.
“So, what’s the trouble, boys?” a deep voice said. I thought he sounded sort of friendly.
“Ah . . . nothing, boss. Nothin’ at all,” Wilkins lied. “Just got another offer.”
“Ya want more money, ya got it,” he snapped, banging the desk. He wasn’t friendly anymore.
“No. No. That’s not it.” We was still standing all tight together.
Felt like a hour before he answered. “We sure like this band, don’t we, Bruno?” That wasn’t the name he used.
“Yeah, Rocco,” another deep voice in the dark growled. “I sure don’t wanna see these boys leave.”
My palms was sweating now. I never knew they could sweat.
“Louie, I don’t think they should leave, do you?” The question was going around the room, from shadow to shadow.
Finally, way back in the dark behind us, a raspy, bad voice answered slowly: “Naw, I don’t.”
“No problem, man,” someone in the band managed to cough out. “No problem.”
With that, the door opened quickly and we stepped back in the club fast. Before I knew it, we all up on the bandstand stomping off a number.
We had decided to stay.
So everybody hung in there for about six weeks, and one night we showed up for work and there was a padlock on the door. Just like at the Bamboo, only now we got the hell out of there fast. Didn’t even peep in the door. I heard later the bulls found loads of hot furs stashed in the back and put two of them hoods in Sing Sing.
After that, the band worked some dates here and there around New York. I had some time off so I took a few music lessons from Earnest Clarke, a German that had a studio up on 86th Street. He used to teach Meredith Germer, my old Harrisburg teacher. Mr. Clarke was rated high and only taught advanced players. I always felt there was still much to learn, and I wanted to learn it.
Around the first week in July, Wilkins’ band went in the Quogue Inn out at Quogue, Long Island. Was i
n a resort area and owned by Elliot Jamerson, a black man. He built the place with rooms in the back for a band to stay in. The pay was thirty-five dollars for a seven-day week, room and board. Alfred Pratt, a New Orleans tenor from Barbados came in to replace Spider Courance, and Eddie Carr took over for Burford.
We backed the floor show and played for dancing. Mae Barnes worked there all the time, and Mabel Scott, a classy singer, had her first job there. Sterling Grant was in also. He was a Harrisburg singer. Garland Howard—I met him when he was producing the famous “7-11” show in Columbus in 1923—produced the Quogue floor show and his wife, Mae Brown, worked in it.
The old racketeers came in often. They had most of the spending money in those days and practically supported clubs like this. People like Jack Legs Diamond was a regular customer, sitting right next to the state police that also came in regular. Jack Legs was a flashy tipper, always tossing big bills around for the entertainers. Once he gave Mabel Scott a hundred dollars to split with the band, but she “forgot.” He found out and Jamerson had her ass on the next train and she never came back. In 1932 Mabel became a sensation in Paris and all over Europe.
Al Smith, the politician, often had his parties there. I saw Daddy Browning and his many friends several times. Our trade was mostly rich people.
After Labor Day, the season ended and the inn cut back on entertainment because the people all closed their homes for the winter and went south. The band got cut to a small combo for weekends only. That was like a part-time job for me, so I left and went back to New York.
Jobs wasn’t much better there. Took a week with Cecil Scott at the Savoy Ballroom. Trumpet man Bill Coleman, who was going by the name of William Coleman Johnson, was with Scott along with Hoagy McFerran, alto, and Gus McClung, trumpet.
That’s the way the music business was—good for a while and then maybe slow. If things got real bad, there was always the Tree of Hope to fall back on.
14. Ray Parker’s Orchestra, 1930–1931
Word got around that Ray Parker was rehearsing a band to audition for the Shadowland Ballroom. Don Christian was on trumpet; Alfred Pratt from Wilkins’ band, on tenor; Carl Frye, alto; Buster Eady (no relation to Bill Eady), on drums; James Drayton, a West Indian, bass; and Arnold Adams, guitar, tenor banjo, and singing.
Ray Parker played piano. He was born and raised in New York—don’t think he ever worked nowhere else.
I went to see him and hit it just right. Got the job and the band got the Shadowland gig, open-ended. Paid fifty dollars a week for seven nights, damn good pay even though they always ducted three dollars to pay Parker’s agent.
This was during the time some black doctors was pulling in twenty-five a week and thought they doing good.
Ray Parker had a reading band and that’s what I liked. Like a lot of other New York musicians, if a guy wanted me for a gig but his fellows was not good readers, hell, I rather not take it. Not good for your rep to play those bands and I knew it.
The Shadowland was a white taxi dancehall located on the northwest corner of 44th and Eighth Avenue, on the second floor. It was big and had a large revolving glass ball hanging down over the center of the dance floor, all sparkling with lights bouncing off that made moving spots all over the walls.
There be always fifty or sixty pretty dance hostesses dressed in gowns sitting around. Buy a ticket and take a choice. Some patrons came in regular and had steady hostesses to dance with.
Bandleader Ray Parker had a good reading band and that’s what I liked. (Photo courtesy of Frank Driggs collection.)
It was a heavy gig, plenty music and lots of room for me to get off with solos. Don Christian start a riff and I was right with him playing head arrangements. Everyone treated each other nice and that relaxed me.
The guys like to call me Peach Brandy. We go up to this after-hours spot at 142d near the Cotton Club so I could get a pint of that special peach brandy I liked now and then. Everyone knew I carried some on me, so they gave me that name. We had lots of laughs over that.
My whole life people always giving me different names. Guys used to call me any damn thing they wanted, except Barnhardt. It was not a difficult name, but they call me Bernstein—others say Heartburn. And dozens of odd names in between. Some even called me Bernhardt.
I liked the name Bernhardt because Professor Smith, a psychic I knew, advised me to change it to that. Said Sarah Bernhardt had great fame and it do the same for me. So, from 1930 on, I became Clyde Bernhardt. After a while, people started calling my mother, Mrs. Bernhardt.
Wherever there was good musicians, there was after-hours jam joints. It was almost part of the business. We quit the job about two in the morning and head for a place to cool down and play for ourselves. Liquor was always available. We sometimes pay as much as $5 a pint for real New York still whiskey—good corn whiskey was popular too. The racketeers was usually on the level when they sold their stuff. Genuine imported rye whiskey like Golden Wedding and Silver Dollar all came from Canada. And Mountain Cream Scotch was in big demand also. A musician usually get that stuff for $2 or $2.50 a pint.
The bathtub gin they sold up in Harlem dives was poison—might be turpentine, shave lotion, or antifreeze all shook up with colored water—many drinkers went blind and died from that. Some guys messed with beef-iron and wine they bought in the drugstore. Got sick off that too.
You rarely saw anybody fooling around big with drugs then. The only ones that did was money people. While some of those wild Grear guys in 1927 had drinking problems, hell, even they didn’t know what drugs was.
This was Depression time with a lot of day workers losing jobs. Things was hard, but not that hard for New York musicians. The Savoy was open. The Saratoga Club, Smalls Paradise, the Lafayette Theater. And people with money, or people that knew people with money, supported these clubs and dancehalls.
New York always been a lucky town for me. So is Washington, D.C. And Los Angeles, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. All good towns for someone born under Cancer. Yes sir.
Freddie Moore, the drummer with King Oliver’s band, came in the Shadowland one night and told me Oliver was looking for a good get-off trombone. I had a little more confidence since the year before, so I thought I might go over and see what the man had in mind.
He was living at 208 124th Street near Seventh Avenue. The famous brass man welcomed me in and introduced me to his wife. He was a plain, down-to-earth person, had no superiority air about him or anything. We got along good and talked about a hour.
“Son,” he said, “I liked your playing ever since I caught you at the Bamboo. You got a nice tone and play a damn good swing solo. Lot of guys today don’t like to play no straight solo.”
Told me he turned down about five trombone players in the past month, and I was surprised because some of them was much better then me.
I was not sure of working with Oliver but got a leave of absence from Parker, told him I was sick, and tried a few out-of-town dates with him in January. Worked the Pithian Hall in Washington and a big white dance in Delaware.
When we returned to New York I met up with Jonas Walker, one of the guys Oliver rejected before me. He thought I stole the job from him and acted like he wanted to fight me. Sure was hollering mad.
Oliver had a big southwestern tour coming up, something the Frederick Brothers Booking Agency set up. He offered to pay me the same flat fifty dollars a week I was making with Parker, but there was no agent fee.
When I told Parker I was considering the offer, he said working regular with the great trumpet man was something big. If Oliver ever offered him a job, he said, damn if he wouldn’t give up the band and grab it. Fast.
I liked Ray Parker and all the boys. Knew what I had, what I was expected to do, and that the boss liked me.
Some of the guys in the Rhythm Club said I must be crazy to hesitate, said Oliver would go down in jazz history like Duke and Fletcher and here I was still thinking it over.
I really wasn’t sure I was goo
d enough to go with Oliver but kept reminding myself of the bad mistake I made turning down Bessie Smith.
Just like Tillie Vennie, Cancer people are hard to move. It’s a hold-back. It held me back many times in my life.
My family finally pushed me, told me how important it was for my career, and gave me confidence when they said Oliver would not hire me if I was not right for the job.
It was the first of March 1931 that I joined Oliver for his big tour. I never regretted it.
15. King Oliver’s New Orleans Creole Jazz Band, 1931
King Joe Oliver was a heavy man, about 250 pounds and kind of chubby, but not flabby looking, slouchy, or anything like that. He was neat and clean as a pin. Stood about just under six feet. He was fifty-four years old in 1931, and I remember I gave him a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes on his birthday and he told me how old he was. Was born in New Orleans, he said that too.
His hair was crew-cut style, kept real close. His feet was not as large as the average man his size—looked like he wore a ten at the most. Had no scars that I saw, only this one bad left eye that stuck out like a frog’s and was bigger then the other. It was not noticeable unless he had his glasses off, and he made sure to keep them on almost all the time. Never heard him say he was blind in that eye, so I think he could see something out of it. Probably the reason he was not a good sight reader.
“I’m the slowest goddamned reader in my band,” he would mumble in his low voice. “You guys might read faster but damn it, you better wait for me.”
Oliver was a very dark man and always seemed conscious of that. “There three kinds of blacks,” he once told me. “A black, a lamb black, and a damn black.” He laughed at his joke and then added, “I’m black and I only seen two other damn people in the world blacker’n me,” and then he laughed some more.
