Although initially performing at sessions in their hometowns, musicians from different parts of the country eventually participate in an extensive network of events in New York City, “mixing in with players from everywhere.” In the late forties and fifties, they made their way each day through a variety of apartments, lofts, and nightclubs, where they sampled performances by impromptu groups and joined them as guests during particular pieces, a practice known as sitting in. In addition to having pedagogical value, the sessions served as essential showcases.4 As Kenny Barron points out, “That’s how your name got around.” Count Basie’s club in particular “was like a meeting ground” during Monday evening sessions, as was the renowned club Birdland, although the latter was difficult “to break into without knowing somebody” (GB). There were also well-documented sessions at Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Up-town House in Harlem.5
Tommy Turrentine’s fondest memories of the mid-forties concern Small’s Paradise Club “in Harlem. . . . Everybody used to come there.” Spanning four musical generations, the artists included trumpeters Red Allen, Hot Lips Page, Idres Sulieman, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown; saxophonists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and Stan Getz; pianists Bud Powell, Walter Bishop Jr., Walter Davis, and Mal Waldron. The house band was led by Big Nick Nicholas, who knew “every tune that’s ever been written.” Nicholas was, in fact, an important teacher of the community for his role in challenging players to expand their repertories by constantly choosing unfamiliar compositions on the bandstand (LD). Within the context of such a rich and varied repertory, the improvised interplay, night after night, served as inspiring learning sessions for Turrentine and his friends. “That was Paradise University. You would hear so much good music each night that, when you went to lay down, your head would be swimming!”
Rivalry among the participants added spark to an already charged atmosphere. “During that time, there was somewhat of a mutual respect among the musicians, and they had cutting sessions. They would say, ‘I am going to blow so and so out.’ It wasn’t with malice. It was no put-down; it was just friendly competition.” Turrentine goes on to describe actual events. “Maybe two tenor players would get up; maybe there would be about seven horn players on the bandstand. Everybody had the sense to know that saxophones was going to hang up there tonight—they was going to be blowing at each other—so we all got off the bandstand and let them have it. Maybe the next night, two trumpet players would be getting up there at each other; then there would be drummers. I have seen it many times. It was healthy really, just keeping everybody on their toes.”
Interaction with an increasing number of musicians in these settings provided aspiring artists with stimulus for their own growth as improvisers. Don Sickler speculates that one renowned trumpeter “became so great” because he was aware of the competition around him: “Booker Little was born just a few months before him, and Lee Morgan was just a little younger. He really had to work hard to keep up with that level of competition,”
Sitting In at Concerts
The custom of sitting in also extends to professional engagements, or gigs, where guests display their skills before paying audiences. Louis Armstrong spoke fondly of coincidental meetings with other performers in towns throughout the country where their respective bands toured. They routinely visited each other’s clubs during performance intermissions and on their free nights, listening to one another, socializing, and performing together.6 Keith Copeland vividly recollects the thrill of performing drums with Thelonious Monk’s band on occasions in which his father, band member and trumpeter Ray Copeland, had arranged for him to sit in. Young Copeland, who on this occasion was barely in his teens, could “already play pretty good time,”
From the newcomers’ perspective, the respect that veterans offer them as artists, simply by consenting to perform with them in public, provides invaluable encouragement. “Don’t be apologizing for yourself,” a band leader once advised Leroy Williams when he began his request to sit in with a self-deprecating remark about his abilities. ‘Anytime you have heart enough to come on this bandstand, it’s okay for you to be here. You have to believe you can play in order to play.” On other occasions, saxophonist Gene Ammons complimented him with “little remarks like ‘Hey, stick with it,”‘ encouragements that were enough to inspire Williams during what was to him a particularly “questionable period” in his life. “When someone like Gene Ammons said those things, you knew you were okay.”
Art Farmer also tells touching stories about his encounters during a period in which he “didn’t know from A to B.” When renowned swing bands performed in Phoenix, Farmer and his peers sought out the musicians and invited them to Farmer’s house to “play some.” If the visitors could afford the time, they would sit in with Farmer’s teenaged band and perform their “little stock arrangements.” A few even created original musical arrangements for the band. Farmer did not hesitate to approach the artists because he “always had it in my mind that these people loved music, and the only thing we were trying to do was learn how to play from them. And that’s the way they were. No one ever said, ‘Ah, get away, kid!’“
One unforgettable night, Farmer was performing at “some little club” when Roy Eldridge, who was in town with the Artie Shaw Band, walked through the door.
First of all, he sat down and played the drums with us. And then, since he was on his night off, he went back to his hotel and got his trumpet and brought that back and played it with us. It was just wonderful because he was at one of his peaks of popularity. For him just to spend his night off with some dumb kids was really marvelous. The next night there was a dance at the club where we played. The Artie Shaw Band played the first part of the dance from nine to one. Then we played from one to five, and they just stood around and listened to us. So we thought that we were pretty hot [he laughs]. We were very flattered by their attention.
Opportunities to sit in with bands ultimately vary with the personalities and policies of the leaders. When musicians approached Charlie Parker for such privileges, Parker received them with gracious enthusiasm. He was interested in what he could learn from others and overlooked their weaknesses to praise positive aspects of their performances. In contrast, some of the other younger band members resented musicians who failed to uphold the band’s standards (WB); they viewed such musicians as parasites who sought to raise their own standing through the claim of having performed with Parker. Poor musicianship is not the only cause for resentment in these situations. Performers might not know a band’s unique arrangements and spoil a performance. Occasionally, an unknown guest, if extraordinarily gifted, can be a liability, potentially catching the ear of the band leader or club owner, thereby threatening the positions of other band members.
Because attitudes surrounding guest appearances are unpredictable, musicians have to learn the etiquette appropriate to each situation. George Johnson Jr.‘s initial experience was very encouraging. After a year of following Eddie Jefferson around, Jefferson surprised him once by calling him up on the stage to sing duets. His mentor had faith that, despite his nervousness, Johnson would know the material well. Somewhat later, however, he received a devastatingly negative reaction from a well-known pianist when he inadvertently interrupted his performance with a request to sit in. Johnson resolved never to ask another musician directly for this favor. Instead, he seated himself in the front row of clubs, night after night, listening attentively and conspicuously to the featured performers until they recognized his interest. Some evenings his strategy succeeded. As often as not, it failed. Over time, however, Johnson sang with Lou Donaldson, George Coleman, Frank Foster, Slide Hampton, “Philly” Joe Jones, and James Moody—”just about everybody in New York.” Such experience bolstered Johnson’s self-confidence and developed his skill, ultimately leading to his first recording contract with Pharaoh Sanders.
Professional Affiliations with Bands
Musicians also cultivate their skills th
rough extended tenures in successive bands, sometimes developing their first affiliations shortly after obtaining an instrument and learning a few scales. “From the beginning,” Josh Schneider “performed with other musicians who were all at the same level trying to learn to play.” Working also became “something regular” for Tommy Flanagan’s teenaged band, which performed for weekend dances at community centers. “The older” the band members became, the more invitations they received. Melba Liston and her peers gained initial training in an extracurricular junior high band. They joined the musicians’ union when they were about sixteen, gaining access first to membership in a vaudeville theater band and later to community swing bands. In these organizations, they interacted with veterans twice their age who had left the road bands of Chick Webb, Benny Carter, and other famous leaders to settle down in Los Angeles.
Reflecting the multilevel learning method in the jazz community, formal engagements also serve as important opportunities for youngsters to observe other players. After Barry Harris acquired a few chords and boogie-woogie patterns from neighborhood children, he gained additional material at dances by looking over the shoulders of players he admired, such as Tommy Flanagan and Will Davis. Additionally, just as study groups sometimes develop within the context of bands, bands sometimes evolve from study groups organized by charismatic teachers. Initially in Chicago, and later in New York City, Lennie Tristano drew Lee Konitz and a cadre of other talented students around him, serving as their mentor and band leader.7 In Detroit, Barry Harris’s own bands included such advanced students as Paul Chambers, Curtis Fuller, Lonnie Hillyer, and Charles McPherson. It was in the context of interacting with fellow band members in a group that Harris had formed with trombonist Kiane Zawadi, Yusef Lateef, and others that Harris actually “came up with the rules” on which he based his important improvisation system and teaching method.
After increasing their competence, first within neighborhood bands, then within the most established groups in their regions, aspiring performers seek to further their experience by joining renowned bands. Lee Konitz gained increased national exposure within Miles Davis’s nonet. Curtis Fuller eventually accepted positions within such prominent bands as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Benny Golson–Art Farmer Jazztet. Lonnie Hillyer and Charles McPherson became featured members of Charles Mingus’s bands. “Barry and his contemporaries prepared us for guys like Mingus.” Hillyer explains.
Opportunities for promotion arise when new groups form and when musicians who hold chairs in major bands quit or require a temporary substitute. Usually, leaders would ask for recommendations from the remaining group members, who, in turn, would pass news of the vacancy among their friends. For a generation of learners during the late thirties and early forties, World War II created unexpected opportunities in this regard. Stan Getz maintains that “the reason I got the job [with the Jack Teagarden band] after playing horn for two years was because it was wartime and all the good musicians were drafted.”8
Because of the jazz community’s surplus of talent, performers must compete for the attention of band leaders to be considered for desirable appointments as supporting players or sidemen. Those whose relatives are musicians commonly have the edge. When Buster Williams developed facility as a bass player, his father recommended him as his replacement for engagements that he himself was unable to accept. Regional contacts are equally important. Leroy Williams initially worked in Chicago with bassist Wilbur Ware, who preceded him to New York and developed “lots of connections” that were ultimately “instrumental” in Williams’s career. Ware would call up Williams and say, “Sonny Rollins needs a drummer. Can you handle that?” Ware had also worked with Thelonious Monk’s band earlier and recommended Williams as Ben Riley’s replacement.
Newcomers without contacts often struggle to establish a reputation. Having worked steadily before coming to New York, John McNeil was surprised at the difficulty he encountered. Nine months of unemployment depressed him. According to Gary Bartz, “Longevity plays a large role in letting people know you’re around. You have to go around to sessions and sit in with different people, letting them hear you.” Art Farmer’s experience also bears this out. When Lionel Hampton came to town, Farmer met Quincy Jones and some other members of the band at a jam session. They were the ones who told him that Hampton was looking for a trumpet player. “I went around to the next gig, and we had a little session. That’s the way you got the gig. You didn’t just sit down and play the parts, you know.” Hampton would suggest difficult compositions like “All God’s Children” and require the hopeful young artists to improvise on them. “If you did well, he’d say, ‘All right. You got the gig.’ “
Other leaders conduct auditions of a more formal nature. Around the time that James Moody was about to be discharged from the service in 1946, Dizzy Gillespie’s big band performed for his camp. Afterwards Gillespie invited musicians in the audience to try out for a new group he intended to form in New York. Moody appeared for the audition but was “so nervous with Dizzy and all these great players around” that he could hardly project his sound. Moody remembers one of the adjudicators “yelling, ‘Can’t you play any louder than that?’”
Of course, performers themselves can also seize the initiative for employment. When he was a graduate student at Northwestern University, Rufus Reid called Eddie Harris at home and introduced himself over the phone. Harris, who had already heard Reid perform in Chicago with the house band at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase, offered to consider him for a position after he completed his studies and could work full time. George Duvivier was equally direct on one occasion:
In the winter of 1939, I wrote Coleman Hawkins a letter after hearing his record, Body and Soul. I had heard of him before that, but I was knocked out by his record; that’s what everybody was talking about. He lived eight blocks from me, and I felt I had nothing to lose. The letter was the usual “I heard about you and I liked your record” kind of thing. And I also told him the truth, that I had been classically trained and only played jazz a few years, but I would appreciate it if I was given the opportunity to work with him. And I included my phone number and address. That was a lot of nerve, let’s face it.
Two days later, the phone rang and there was this deep voice, “This is Coleman Hawkins.” I almost dropped the phone. “Are you free this afternoon? I’d like to hear your playing; bring your bass by.” When I got to his place, I found out he was also a pianist. He played the piano while I played the bass; he never touched his saxophone. We went through a couple of tunes, all in different keys that you wouldn’t expect them to be in. I played and he seemed to be satisfied. He said, “Do you have a tuxedo?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Fine. We open Monday night, nine o’clock at Kelly’s Stable.”
Within these general social patterns of interaction among musicians are ongoing, on-scene opportunities for evaluating potential professionalism that avoid the awkwardness of auditions. Band leaders may invite prospective band members to informal social evenings at their homes. Dizzy Gillespie once called Art Davis “over to his house,” where the two “just listened to music together and played through a couple of his tunes.” A few days later, Gillespie invited Davis to go on the road with his band. Leaders also scout for new talent by slipping in and out of nightclub audiences to evaluate players and performances.
In some instances, leaders take extreme measures to recruit musicians for whom they have strong preferences. One morning Milt Jackson “crashed” into the classroom where Keith Copeland was teaching at the Berklee College of Music, outraged that Copeland had not received Ray Brown’s message from California to join them at the Jazz Workshop the previous night. “Anytime something like this happens, it’s time for you to leave Boston!” Jackson shouted, oblivious of the class. “I’m telling you right now that this is April eighth, and I’m giving you a gig at the Village Vanguard on May twenty-third. I’ve got Harold Mabern and Sam Jones. Now, write it down and make sure you have your bags wi
th you when you come. I don’t care whether your wife divorces you and your family breaks up, you bring your bags. I’m not giving you this gig to come to New York for the week and then run on back to Boston. I’m expecting you to stay. It’s time for you to come back home now.” Copeland resigned his teaching post shortly after the confrontation.
The status of young musicians within their community rises dramatically upon their first performance with a renowned band. Months after his audition for Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, James Moody returned home at the end of the day and found his mother waiting at the door, smiling and holding a telegram from Gillespie that read simply, “You’ll be with us at the Spotlite tonight!” Moody scrambled to put his things together, and when he arrived at the famous New York club on Fifty-second Street, “everybody was there: Ray Brown, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Howard Johnson, and out in the audience was Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. I said ‘Oh, my goodness.’ It was something, man.”
Visibility in such positions often leads to tenure with other major groups as well, initiating an ever-expanding chain of professional affiliations. When Walter Bishop Jr. left the military, Art Blakey was the first to hire him. Then, during the band’s ten-week stint at Minton’s Playhouse, Max Roach and Miles David heard him on a night when they were off from work, and Davis asked Bishop to join their group. Subsequently, Charlie Parker heard Bishop perform with Davis’s quartet at “Three Dueces and hired [him] from there.”
Finally, when players in leadership positions leave established bands to form their own, they sometimes hire constellations of musicians who have already established rapport in another band. “Gerald Wilson was a trumpet player and a fine arranger,” Melba Liston says. “When Gerald left Lunceford’s band and started a big band, he came over to the theater where I was working and took many of us from that band into his own. During that time, he introduced me to Dizzy and Basie and Parker and everybody who came to Los Angeles and got me music copying dates. Later, I joined Dizzy’s big band in New York City. Then when that band broke up, I went with Billie Holiday. Gerald was the director, and he pulled many people from Dizzy’s old band over to Holiday.”
Thinking in Jazz Page 8
