The Game Changer

by A. G. Lafley

  I worked many more months with Jay, all one-nighters through the Midwest. A very heavy schedule. Somewhere in Kansas, Hal Singer came in to replace Freddie Culliver. He’s a great tenor and fit in good.

  Clyde Bernhardt on the bandstand at the Happy Hour Nightclub, Minneapolis Minn., July 15, 1943. Seated, Joe Evans (as).

  By June we were in the Happy Hour Nightclub in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After nine months with Jay McShann, I was beginning to feel the strain of it all. No layoffs. Always tired, my feet swelling up. Plenty of headaches—totally exhausted. Never had no problems like that before, so I gave Jay my two-weeks’ notice.

  On July 20, after Ira Petiford finally replaced me, I returned to New York and went straight to my doctor.

  22. Cecil X. Scott’s Orchestra, 1943–1944

  Old Doc Desmond told me to take it easy for at least six months. Said the heavy schedule of one-nighters was hurting my health and I should stay in town and take a good rest. Otherwise, he said, being on the road so much might bring on other illnesses, maybe even heart trouble. I didn’t want that. No sir.

  Just about this time, Joe Glaser, who was managing Louis Armstrong, Andy Kirk, and June Richmond, was looking for me over at my Uncle Jim’s apartment up on 129th Street. Glaser was a millionaire and had lots of connections. Drove up to Harlem in his big black limo with the JOE license plates and left a message for me.

  When I went to see him, he tried talking me into joining Louis’ group. Hot and heavy for me to meet the band in Omaha, Nebraska. Said Louis had a bigger schedule then Jay had, that he pay good money, and even throw in four band uniforms I wouldn’t have to pay for.

  It sounded good, but I turned him down. I knew Louis was flying his guys around in Army bombers, and as I had a hell of a thing against flying, the whole conversation made me nervous.

  I told Glaser I was not going back on the road until I got my health problems together.

  Relaxing wasn’t easy for me, but I enjoyed it. Every night I slept in my same bed, ate three good meals a day, and all right on time. And if I wanted home-cooked meals, just went outside and took my pick of eating places. Harlem had some of the best barbecue you ever wanted to stick a tooth in.

  After a few weeks I got a telegram from Jay McShann wanting me back, but I wouldn’t take any regular job with anybody. I was enjoying my rest.

  Something came to my mind this was a good time to learn to play the piano. Always wanted to learn ever since Mama got one for my brothers back in the twenties, so I signed up for some lessons at the New York School of Music on 125th Street. I liked all that fingering and learned to pick out some tunes after a while. It was almost like a hobby—kept at it steady for a year or so whenever I was around New York—but never got good enough to play professional.

  Later I took a few dance gigs with Cecil Scott’s orchestra out in Coney Island and in some Italian halls in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. Just to keep my lip up.

  By the first of October in 1943, Cecil got steady work at New York’s Ubangi Club down on Broadway and West 52d and changed the band’s name to the Ubangi Club orchestra. Wasn’t but nine pieces: three brass, three reeds, and three rhythm. Cecil played tenor and clarinet; Frank Powell, first lead-off alto and clarinet; Al Campbell, third alto and clarinet—he was a good section man; Kenneth Roane, first trumpet; Henry Goodwin, who I worked with in the Hayes band, second trumpet and feature hot-man.

  Cecil Scott’s orchestra at the Ubangi Club, New York City, Dec. 24, 1943. Left to right: Al Campbell (as), Thomas Barney (sb), Frank Ethridge (p), Frank Powell (as), Clyde Bernhardt (tb), Cecil Scott (ldr/ts), Harold Austin (d), Henry Goodwin (t), Kenneth Roane (t). Unidentified soldier paid to have photo taken.

  Also in there was Harold “Hal” Austin, a better drummer then he ever got credit for, read or fake; Thomas Barney from Savannah, Georgia, on bass; and Frank Ethridge, pianist. I took the job on a regular basis—as long as it was only local work. No road tours.

  I been knowing Cecil a long time by now and remembered back in the twenties when he was doing that crazy Cab Calloway stuff in front of his band. Like he be leading and playing his sax and suddenly fall in a big split, then rise slowly as he kept blowing a hot solo. The people all loved it. He wasn’t doing that kind of business now because of his bad accident in 1931. Cecil often spoke of the woman that took him over to her apartment, and while he was getting undressed, a wild man started punching loud on the door. Banging, smashing, and cussing.

  “If there’s a goddamn nigger in there with my wife I’m gonna cut that sucker’s face,” the guy was shouting.

  Cecil said he was never so scared in all his life—his heart was in his mouth. The guy was breaking down his only exit, so he panicked and jumped out the window, forgetting it was four stories up and near about killed himself. Smashed up his foot and leg bad—got all pushed together in a bloody mess. Every bone was broken. Then gangrene set in, and they took the whole damn thing off. Wore a cork leg after that.

  “Man,” he told me, “the Bible tells the truth. I treated my wife and family wrong. God didn’t take my life, he just taught me a hard lesson.”

  Everybody knew how he lost his leg—never hid the story. When you fool around with a married woman, you open up the gates to hell.

  Cecil had a six-month contract with the Ubangi but kept working there long after that. It was just a average-looking club, some imitation pictures of Africa on the wall, but not a whole lot of them. The bandstand was suppose to be a old native hut or something. The Ubangi was popular for many years, and about 1949 changed over to be Birdland.

  They had a good floor show there, almost two hours long. Chappie Willet wrote the music and Donald Heywood produced. Alan Drew was master of ceremonies and male comedian. Used to have this big cigar stuffed in his mouth all the time—that was his trademark. His jokes was kind of smutty but he had the people laughing.

  Moms Mabley was the female comedian at the Ubangi. Mabel Lee, dancer Derby Wilson, and singer Myra Johnson was also on the bill. When Myra left, Margaret Watkins came in—I worked with her in the Whitman’s show in ’29. Had a heavy contralto voice and could sure holler them blues.

  Those female impersonators, the Ubangi Club Boys, got so popular they went out touring long before I worked there. The club had real chorus girls then.

  It was about January of 1944 that Joe Springer, the owner of the Ubangi, sent us down to the Center Street police station to get a cabaret card. This was a wartime rule in New York to make sure you didn’t have no record of using dope and messing up. Checked me out, but I never even got a citation in my whole life.

  The card had my picture on it next to my name and birthdate. Entertainers like Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, and a gang of others didn’t get a card, and it was damn tough for them after that. The city stopped those cards some years later, and I still have mine around the house some place.

  After working the Ubangi for about five months, a rumor started going around that the club was cutting expenses. Something about a new war tax and they were going to drop a musician or two, maybe a couple chorus girls in order to break even. I thought they doing terrific business but heard that’s what they were going to do.

  Since I didn’t know if I was the one to be cut off, I called Luis Russell—I heard he had a whole lot of work booked—and went up to the Savoy for a rehearsal. The next night I gave Cecil my two-weeks’ notice.

  23. Luis Russell’s Orchestra, 1944

  “Don’t know why in hell those other bands didn’t feature you as a singer,” Luis Russell told me. “You are damn good.”

  I explained to Fess (we called all our band leaders Fess), that I always been hired to play trombone and only did what I was suppose to do. Besides, after I got through playing some of them hard arrangements, with high D’s and E’s and often having to help out other trombonists, I didn’t have a mind to push myself in as a vocalist.

  “You gonna make a singing name for yourself someday, Clyde,” he said.

/>   After I joined Russell at the Savoy on the first of March, he had me doing about nine vocal numbers a night. I never been a feature singer before and couldn’t understand the attention I was getting. When I walked to the mike to shout my blues after a trombone solo, the audience raise hell, clap, and cheer. Seemed to think a singing bandsman was unusual, and that probably put me over.

  Russell formed this band right after he left Louis Armstrong. Born and raised in Panama, but we called him West Indian. The man was a good piano player, but I wouldn’t compare him to Hayes. Hayes was one of the greatest. But Russell was a wonderful musician and great as a musical director—could lead the band through a hard show. Very experienced.

  Taft Chandler and Jesse Powell played tenor; Buddy Payne—I worked with him on the Whitman Sisters’ show—and Clarence Grimes was the altos. Howard Robertson was baritone sax; Howard Callender, also from Panama, on first trumpet; and Chester Boone took third trumpet and sang a few numbers. Snooky Butler, from Harrisburg, came in a few months later on second trumpet, Gene Ramey on bass, and then Thomas Barney from Cecil’s orchestra replaced him.

  Russell had another bass player after that, a crazy guy I used to call Smitty. Love to trap pigeons up in the Bronx and make pigeon stew. Had a pressure cooker he said killed all the bugs and the birds tasted as good as chickens.

  Eric Henry was on drums and a fellow by the name of Alex “Razz” Mitchell came in after him. Luther Brown, the other trombonist, didn’t have my experience, and I liked to help out. A lot of New York players wouldn’t do that, but I remembered how I got helped when I was young, so it didn’t bother me none.

  Luis Russell was the first to present me as a feature singer, Mar. 1, 1944. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Albert Vollmer.)

  Can’t call all the others, but there was about fifteen men in the band.

  Nora Blunt—she just graduated from high school in New York—came in as girl singer.

  After two months in the Savoy, Russell took a package show on the road. Blues singer Lil Green headlined, and the Deep River Boys sang spiritual-type songs.

  We traveled by train until somewhere down in Tennessee where Russell hired out a sleeper bus—we lay on beds all the time because there were no seats. The beds all arranged in three decks, and people kept climbing over those on the bottom row to get to the top. It was uncomfortable but Russell couldn’t get no better because of the war.

  We rode that way working one-nighters through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas—damn hard touring right to the middle of July.

  Lil Green had two big record hits, Romance in the Dark and Why Don’t You Do Right?

  “In the Dark was what put me over,” she once told me. “Made that test in Chicago with a couple local boys, took it home, and played hell out of it. Liked the way it sounded. All my friends played it, too. When I brought it over to the Bluebird Record Company in 1940, the man went crazy.”

  She damn well knew she could do something better, but the man put that test out with all the gritty noise and everything, and before she knew it, had a smash hit. That was her start up.

  Lil kept telling me to do the same thing. I told her how I done that once with Decca and got turned down by Mayo Williams because I had no name.

  “Honey,” she laughed, “colored people ain’t gonna do nothin’ for you. Let some of them whites hear you and you’ll get someplace.”

  I appreciated her advice. It was to prove very true for me almost two years later.

  When we were down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, we met Lil’s aunt, who brought the band two great big cane baskets filled with half dozen hot, roasted chickens, about twenty-five sweet-potato pies, fresh baked rolls, homemade jelly, and lots more. Like a feast in Harlem. Lil’s family came from a little old country place down in Mississippi, near the Louisiana line, and that woman sure could cook up a breeze.

  Lil Green always wore long gowns on stage with nice jewelry and a pretty band around her hair. Everywhere we went, people knew her, had her records, and liked the way she sang the blues.

  But when we got to Florida, she started giving Russell a bad time. “They got too damn much singing on this show,” she cried. “Hell, I’m the star here.”

  I knew she was talking about me. I been getting good hands and plenty encores and it had to come out. But I was surprised she made a crack like that.

  “We all part of the same show,” Russell finally told her. “The better everybody is, the better the whole package is.” He was looking annoyed. “If you talkin’ about Clyde or Nora, I hired them to sing with my band and that’s got nothin’ to do with you.” Then he pointed his long finger at her. “This thing of one star on the show not allowin’ nobody to do nothin’, I won’t tolerate. I’ll pull the damn band if this continues.”

  I admired Luis Russell because he stood up for his band. Most guys wouldn’t of backed their men that way—especially when the star was making nine hundred a week and I was getting twenty dollars a night. Hell, she could of made big trouble, and Fess knew that, too. But he had his band in mind all the time.

  We came back from the tour almost three months later and finished up at the Apollo for the week of July 21. Besides the Royal in Baltimore, the Apollo was the toughest house in black show business. Saw many good acts, big names, too, get booted off the stage there. And I couldn’t forget what happened to Walter Brown in Baltimore.

  So I was a little nervous making my Apollo singing debut.

  For my spot, I sang Russell’s great B-flat blues, I Need Your Kind of Loving. It was a heck of a jump number and the band was pushing hard. When I finished, a tremendous roar came rolling up toward me. People whooping and hollering. You couldn’t hear your ears.

  I was so surprised, I just stood there. Russell was all smiles and quickly struck up a encore, Straighten Up and Fly Right, the new Nat Cole hit. When that broke it up again, Frank Schiffman, the owner of the Apollo, came running out of his office to see what was happening.

  Then I did Russell’s slow Back o’ Town Blues, and they still wouldn’t let me off. I knew Lil Green was waiting to go on, so I closed with Russell’s jumping arrangement of St. Louis Blues, with all those stop-time breaks in there, and walked off to long applause.

  Lil was standing in the wings giving me her mean-mistreater look. “Clyde, you done tore this damn show apart. I’m suppose to be the star here and you makin’ it rough for me tonight.”

  Newspaper publicity for the Club Plantation, St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 1944.

  Old man Schiffman came over and patted me on the shoulder. Knew me from the Hayes band. “Where’n hell you been hidin’, Clyde?”

  “I’ll tell you, Mr. Schiffman,” I said, “I don’t consider myself like a regular singer. I’m really a musician that doubles.”

  “The proof is in the pudding,” he answered. “You’re big enough to come in here as a solo act.”

  That night Schiffman set my photograph out front in the lobby, right next to Lil Green and Luis Russell. And the Gale office put me on regular salary—two hundred a week, work or play. Damn good money when the regular guys in the band didn’t get but sixteen dollars a night and nothing when they took time off.

  That week at the Apollo was something special for me. Two or three encores every show. I knew my dead father and mother was out in the audience leading the applause—I could feel it.

  God did more then I ever expected him to do—I was not only a accepted jazz musician but now earned a name as a singer. It still brings a certain thrill to my mind.

  The tour ended after the Apollo close, and Russell took the band on location to the Club Plantation in St. Louis, Missouri. Milton Buggs, a Billy Eckstine type, and Nora Blunt sang band numbers, and I did my blues. Ralph Brown was master of ceremonies—he had class, good stage personality, and could back it up with a terrific flash dance act. Ella Fitzgerald headed the floor show; Peg Leg Bates danced hot tap numbers on his
wooden stump; Moke and Poke did comical Lindy dances, and Gatemouth Moore from Kansas shouted the blues.

  I never did have any trouble with Gatemouth. He liked my singing and was always there to compliment me. “Man,” he laugh, “I’m gonna have to take up the ’bone before you out me.” I got to be a big fan of his.

  After working the Plantation through August, we returned to the Apollo backing the Ink Spots, probably the top black vocal group then. That was about the time Charlie Holmes came in the band, replacing Buddy Payne. We opened the Friday before Labor Day, and that Sunday played eight shows, and on Monday we played nine. The standard was four a day. Don’t mind telling you it was a heavy schedule. We could only grab a sandwich and coffee or run to the john when a solo act was out front. Were never off more then ten minutes at a time.

  Russell took us back on the road after that for more one-nighters, more crowded trains, more missed meals. By October I was sick again, just like with McShann. Nervous, tired, and now I also had a bad case of bronchitis. I struggled through my two-weeks’ notice, then took the next train back to New York.

  My doctor was expecting me.

  24. Claude Hopkins’ Orchestra, 1944

  Old Doc Desmond warned me not to go back on the road for a long while and to watch my meals, watch my blowing. Said I had to rest.

  After taking it easy for about two weeks, I got a call one morning from Claude Hopkins. Said he was working the best job he ever had in his career: the Club Zanzibar. One of the biggest night clubs in Times Square, right on the corner of 49th and Broadway, up on the second floor. Used to be a all-white place called the Hurricane, and when Joe Howard bought it he made it the Zanzibar.

  Hopkins recently opened the club and was needing a trombone. I decided that two weeks was long enough to rest and a steady New York job be no trouble at all. So in November of 1944 I joined Hopkins for a easy run.