Road Travails

One reality of the music business is that you have to go where the gigs are. Bands eventually have to venture out from their hometown to play in other venues. Traveling has changed dramatically for musicians in the past five decades and nowadays artists are most likely to have complaints about delayed flights, expensive taxis, and problems with airlines and valuable instruments.

During my rock and roll period with Mr. Edd in the 1980’s, my bandmates and I shared more travel nightmares than I can remember. A Ford Econoline van with next to no heat and a finicky carburator played a major part in most of our road stories. It’s a young man’s game and not something I would choose to do again, but my experiences pale in comparison to the stories I heard while gathering interviews for the Fillius Jazz Archive.

During the era of the big bands, the following ordeals were commonplace.

In this short excerpt from trombonist Eddie Bert, we learn about a common practice among road musicians, “ghosting”:

Eddie Bert

EB:    When I went with Benny Goodman, he was going out, but he was going to stay out there [in California] for six months he told us. He stayed for six weeks and then started coming back. So that was kind of a drag.

MR:    What was it like to be on the road at that time? Was it a tough life?

EB:    Yeah. I mean you don’t eat right and all that. Because you’re traveling by bus mostly. And when you stop you stop. You’re liable to stop in some place that don’t have that good food and stuff like that. So it’s kind of a scuffle.

MR:    And a typical day, would the bus leave after you’re done playing?

EB:    It depends how far the trip is. If it’s 300 miles or 500 miles, you’ve got to leave after the gig. And you had to pay for your own hotel in those days. So a lot of guys ghosted. In other words, you had two in a room instead of one. Or three. Whatever you can get away with.

MR:    And what was the [weekly] salary like?

EB:    Yeah. From a bill and a half to two bills [$150 to $200]. But your expenses had to come out of that. So it wasn’t like today. Today they put you up. It’s different.

In our Mr. Edd travels, we did a lot of ghosting. But even with three or four to a room, sleeping in the van was often the better choice.

There were positive things that occurred on the road, but the unpleasant incidents stick with us. Drummer Sonny Igoe related one such memory from the Woody Herman band bus:

Sonny Igoe

SI:    I was always a Boy Scout. I could have more fun with the guys — they were smoking a joint or something like that they’d say “come on, Sonny, you never tried it.” I said “all right I’ll try it.” So I tried it. Nothing happened. I said “I can have more fun on a bottle of beer. I don’t need that.” And so anyway I never got involved with that. And a lot of the fellas got involved with that pretty heavily and then they went into some other things pretty heavily, like heroin, cocaine and stuff like that. And several guys actually, lives ruined completely with that stuff, because they could never kick it. And I won’t mention any names, but some very good friends of mine, guys I admired as players, got screwed up badly with that stuff, really bad — are you ready for another story?

MR:    Sure.

SI:    We were on one nighters with Woody Herman’s band when I joined. In 1950 he was fighting big debts, you know IRS and GMAC, his booking agency, I think he was in to them for about $90,000 or something like that. And he owed over $100,000 to the IRS, that’s from the manager who screwed him up. And he had this guy Abe Turchin as manager, who got him out of debt and then he screwed him up. He died broke because of him. But anyway we were on the bus and this dear friend of mine, marvelous trumpet player — I won’t mention his name — could play anything on the trumpet, played high screeching, beautiful soft ballads, fast bebop, any style, Dixieland, swing, bebop, anything. World class. And he was a junkie. And when they would run out of junk they’d drink whiskey like it was coming out of a water faucet, to try to help get over it. Well we were in an un-air conditioned bus, we were down in Kentucky or South Carolina, someplace, I don’t know, Georgia, in that kind of country. All rural, all hot. And we each had a double seat because there was a lot of seats on the bus and there was 15 guys or whatever. So right across from me is this guy who is a dear friend. And I’m finally falling asleep and I said “go to sleep, go to sleep.” I almost said his name but I don’t want to say his name. So anyway I’m falling asleep [sniffs]. I smell burning flesh, okay? And I look over and here’s this guy, he had a cigarette with his hand — he was unconscious practically. He has a cigarette and it had burned down between his two fingers and was burning his flesh and smoking. It was actually smoking. So I go like this across the aisle, knock it off, naturally wake him up. And he started in on me like — I can’t mention the words he used and how dumb I was and what’s the idea and blah-blah-blah. And I tried to explain to him. The next day he saw it, it didn’t bother him at all. He played like it never happened. But that’s how, unfortunately, some of those guys ruined their lives with that stuff. I was a square. It was good enough for me.

MR:    Yeah. Stick with being a Boy Scout.

Sonny bequeathed his musical genes to his son, Tommy, who now leads the high-powered Birdland Big Band from his drum stool.

Pianist Jay McShann spoke of the relationship between dance halls and traveling bands. His recollections offered a fascinating look into the day-to-day life of a musician in the forties.

Jay McShann

MR:    You had some pretty good records with Walter Brown.

JM:    Yes, yes, yes. We were lucky to have Walter Brown.

MR:    And you toured around the country?

JM:    Sure did.

MR:    What kind of places were you playing at the time. They were dance halls?

JM:    Well we were just playing dances. A lot of parts of states at that time were hungering for dance, hungry for music, hungry for hearing something different, and so quite naturally a lot of bands, road bands, were traveling. And you could get into Texas for two weeks, because you had all those towns and all those dance towns. See what I mean? Start at Dallas, Fort Worth Sunday night, Austin Wednesday, Houston Thursday, Galveston Friday. And just town after town like that. And that’s the way they could book ‘em.

MR:    Were you playing for segregated audiences at that time?

JM:    Yes. In some places we played I mean whites on this side and blacks on that side.

MR:    How did they keep them apart?

JM:    Well they might have a rope coming down.

MR:    No kidding. I bet you played some bad pianos over the years.

JM:    Oh, we’ve had some awful pianos. I know I used to — sometimes we’d get pianos and the pianos would be so bad I’d get drunk. Yeah I’d get in front of that mess you know, and say “well now we ain’t going to have no piano tonight.” I says “Brown, there ain’t going to be no piano tonight, you’ll have to sing with the horns.” And some of the pianos you know you’d have to tune, like we used to tune up with A. Sometimes you might be tuning up with C above A. Or maybe F below A you know. Now that’s how far they were out of tune some of them. And a lot of times if the band was playing in A flat I’d probably be playing in B flat or B natural. That made us have to go get drunk on that night. I had my excuse already made out. I’d get in front of that mess, cut out and go back to the hotel about 11:00.

In their youth, reedmen Lanny Morgan and Kenny Davern had their big band road experience when the call for those ensembles was diminishing from its swing era peak. They learned about long hauls, hotels, and road cuisine.

Lanny Morgan

MR:    What was the travel situation like, the road [with Maynard Ferguson]? Was it a tough grind in those days?

LM:    Yes. Looking back at it you forget all those things. It was a wonderful experience but I wouldn’t want to do it again. Yeah, because we didn’t have a bus, we had station wagons. And starting salary on that band was a $120 a week. I made $135 because I was not only the lead alto player but played a lot of jazz too and because he’d known me. And so $135 a week and he had two station wagons and then he drove himself. I wound up driving one of the station wagons. And well you can imagine, if you have a one-nighter in Chicago, I just found a pay receipt for this the other night, it was for $23.65, a one-nighter in Chicago. Now out of that tax was taken, so you get about $19.00. Out of that you have to pay for your own lodging and for food, so we used to stay at the Croyden Hotel in Chicago, that was like $2.50 a night, another fifty cents if you wanted a black & white T.V. And say another $6 for food maybe. So in other words you’re coming home with $11.00, $11.50. So I took the driving job because we got one cent a mile. Well now Chicago is 960 miles, so I would come home with an extra 18, or a little over 19 dollars, plus my 11, would be 30 bucks I would have see?

MR:    Yeah. Gee that was like an extra night of work.

LM:    That’s right. When I joined that band we rehearsed that day, the day I got back there, and the next day we opened at Birdland. It seems like we played there for three weeks. A good band. And then we had one day off and we went to the Brooklyn Paramount and we played there opposite the Jazztet, the newly formed Jazztet. That was for ten days. And then we had about four gigs on the road — Pennsylvania, around Philly, in that area. And then, and I thought, this is wonderful. What is that, like 135 times 5 almost. I’m rolling. I was paying $155 a week for a place at 85^th and Broadway in Manhattan and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then we didn’t work for a month and a half see, and nobody was on retainer.  Everything was pro-rated when we did work. So the reality set in there. Because then I really went from wealthy to poor in about five weeks. But the driving was terrible. I’d set out like at 8:00 at night from Junior’s or Charlie’s Tavern at 52^nd and Broadway, to go to Chicago or even Pittsburgh or some place, and it would be snowing so hard you couldn’t see somebody standing as close to me as you are, and have to drive all that way, and usually we’d leave late so we could catch the day sheet, which meant you’d check in about 6 in the morning and you’d grab a few hours’ sleep, and then you’d leave right after the gig and come back to New York to save money.

MR:    The day sheet?

LM:    Well the day sheet begins usually at 6 or 7:00 in the morning. In other words that’s that day.

MR:    Are you talking about a hotel?

LM:    A hotel.

MR:    Okay.

LM:    It’s like this hotel ends, and they don’t want you to leave until 11 or noon maybe. But their sheet for new people checking in begins at probably 7 or 8:00 in the morning, if they have any rooms available then. So we would try and catch that and get a good day’s sleep and then leave after the job and drive all the way back to New York which was difficult.

MR:    You mean you drove to Chicago [from New York] for a one-nighter?

LM:    Oh yeah. Several times.

MR:    Boy, I thought the rock and roll business was something.

LM:    No we did that quite a few times.

MR:    And probably the Thruway system, the roads were a long way from where they are now.

LM:    The thruways and the turnpikes were finished, but the interstates were not. And of course although we got reimbursed for tolls, it took time to stop and go through the toll booths all the time. And when you’re on a roll, you know I couldn’t drink during that period. I had to stay sober. Because driving through a blizzard with these guys — but you just get on a roll and you want to go. It’s kind of hypnotic, and I really shouldn’t have done that. But we would try these new interstates and they were a drag because you’d take an interstate for a hundred miles and you’d think oh this is wonderful, and they were brand new roads and so forth. And then it would say “END” End of interstate. Merge into one lane. So you’d come into one lane and then it would take you probably an hour and a half to get back to a decent road. So that part of it was a drag, and there were some places like Cincinnati that it was almost impossible to get to. There were a lot of two lane highways, back woods gas stations where you were almost afraid to stop. We had a couple of carloads of kids follow us into a gas station in West Virginia once and they had chains. You know they were going to get us good. Fortunately our car was newer and we got out of there fast. But there was a lot of that really. It was not completely safe to be traveling, even with six guys in the car.

On March 16, 2001, Kenny Davern, in his inimitable style, gave us a wonderful picture of his reality check on what was then a young musician’s dream. His brief tenure with the Ralph Flanagan Big Band helped him decide on one thing he wouldn’t do for the rest of his career:

Kenny Davern

KD:    We did 60 one-nighters in 90 days. We made the most amount of money any band had ever made on the road, I think it was — whatever it was, I don’t want to quote any figure I’m not sure of. And all the guys came up to me and said “oooh, wow, you’re the big time.” “Big time my ass” I said. Horrible. It was awful out there. You know, shaving on the bandstand before the gig. I mean it just wasn’t —

MR:    Why it was awful?

KD:    Well first, maybe you’re driving through Keokuk, Iowa, on the way to Ames. Or maybe it was Ames on the way to Keokuk. Anyway, the most you might see was a Stewart Drive Inn, a root beer and hot dogs. You know you’d have that and an ice cream. Back in the car, some more traveling. You get to this place, you’re in your jeans and sort of like a man dressed in hell. Well it was hot. The cars didn’t even have air conditioners in 1953. Some did but ours never did. And you’d get there at maybe 5, 6:00 and you’re right at the gig, at the ballroom. And there’s the ballroom. The ballroom is like on Highway 483 midway between, you know, Chicago and Detroit. And to shave you had to plug in, there was one outlet by the bandstand. You’d plug that in, each guy would take a turn with his electric shaver shaving. Next. And then there was like one sink in back of the bandstand with cold water only and a naked light bulb hanging down, and a cracked piece of a mirror. And that’s where you washed up. And you put on a shirt. Nylon shirts had just come out. Short sleeve nylon shirts. And it was the summertime. Because you needed something you could wash out right away and hang up and dry and cotton shirts just weren’t in then. I mean you could do that but it wasn’t really practical. And so you know these shirts were hot, I’m telling you, you closed up that collar and you put on a black bow tie, which you had to make yourself in those days. And then you put a wool jacket on over you, and your tuxedo pants. You were roasting. And you did four sets, four hour sets, and then you packed up the horn and folded up the book and put it on the pile and packed up your horns and they put them on the truck and you got in the car and you rode, let’s say maybe 350 more miles, and you’d go through the towns at that time, obeying the speed limit because they were all speed traps, and if you’d go one mile over they grabbed you and you had to pay off. So all the drivers were aware of this. And a lot of times you almost got killed speeding on — on a three lane, the middle lane was for passing in either direction going through.

MR:    So it wasn’t like thruways and all that.

KD:    No there were no thruways, um um. So I’ll finish with this road travail. And what the hell, you ever doze and try to fall asleep in the back seat of a 1953 Buick? What do they call it, where the hump is?

MR:    The driveshaft?

KD:    The driveshaft. Well the drive shaft was like two feet up, so you had your knees in your chin. And two guys on each side of you. And two guys up front. Well I mean you’re zooming along and all of a sudden you hear “hold on to your hats,  fellas,” and you look up and you see two 18-wheelers, one on each side of you, one going this way and the other one going that way, and you’re in the center of the two of these guys. Very frightening. And a lot of guys got killed in those kind of precarious road driving things at the end. And then you get into the town where you’re going to go, you know you left at about 11:30, 12 let’s say. Maybe about 6:30, 7:00  in the morning you’ve rolled into the other great town which boasted of a Milner Hotel at $3.75 or $2.75 a night, I forget which, and you couldn’t check in you see. So you’d have to put your luggage, the bell captain would take your luggage. And these were very cheap hotels. And then you’d walk around town. You’d have breakfast in one of those Dew Drop Inn places, maybe visit the local music store to see what kind of instruments they have, because good horns were still relatively easy to find, premium horns. Of course none of us had any money, but if we needed it we would borrow or whatever. And then when you checked in maybe at 11, 12 or 1, you may have gotten a haircut, whatever. Anything to kill some time. And you slept ‘till about 5:00, and that’s when you had your wake-up call, you got dressed, you shaved and showered and you went down to the local buffet, cafeteria style. And you had spaghetti or whatever, depending on what part of the world you’re in. And then you went to the gig and that night you were able to stay over but you left at 9:00 the next day because again, you had 350 miles to go. So you know you do that —

MR:    Day after day.

KD:    Yeah. It was really quite hard. But you know as a kid you don’t care about that. I think I made I think it was $125 a week, and I cleared $117.50. You could save money, believe it or not, in 1953.

MR:    Because the rooms and the meals weren’t that expensive.

KD:    Right. Every other night it was $2.75 or maybe $3.00.

MR:    Well that experience may have put some perspective on things for you.

KD:    I expected much more. From then on I just got very — like I said when I came home I said — oh boy they all said, you know, starry eyed, and thought I’d be stage struck. “How was it?” “It was the f---ing worst” I said. Plain and simple. Ohhhh, they all wanted to do that. And I had done it. So I didn’t see any romance to that whatsoever.

Kenny spent the rest of his career playing with small groups, where he was less likely to be stuck with the driveshaft. Even if the big band era was still healthy and vital, these music/life experiences would not be taught in jazz schools. They are part of learning on the job and paying your dues.

As Phil Woods remarked in our interview concerning the challenges of traveling, “The playing is easy. [The difficulty is] all the nonsense you go through to bring your horn up to the bandstand. That’s the altar. That’s the safe place.” Phil’s traveling story can be read in a previous blog entry here: Gig Reality Check.

Eddie Bert, 1922-2012

Eddie Bert

Eddie Bert was a trombone player whose large tone and swagger with his instrument belied his small stature. He passed away September 27, 2012 at his home in Danbury, CT, at the age of 90. I had the good fortune to interview Eddie in Danbury on November 20, 2001. During my Archive interviews I’ve been able to hear countless diverse stories about how musicians of his era got their start on their particular instruments, and Eddie shared his experience:

MR:      What made you gravitate — was trombone your first instrument?

EB:      Not really. You see I grew up in the Bronx. Then when I was ten I moved to Mount Vernon. And in the Bronx they didn’t have any band so I didn’t know where that radio stuff came from. I heard the radio and I heard music but I didn’t know anything about it. So then when I got to Mount Vernon they had a band in the school, in the elementary school. And the teacher said here, try this trumpet. So I played the trumpet. And she said yeah, you’d be a good trumpet player, tell your father to get you a horn. Nothing. So I had to take what was there. And they had an E flat alto horn. And you don’t do too much with that. When the tuba goes oomph, you go pah. Oomph-pah, oomph-pah, oomph. And that got kind of boring. So one day we were playing a concert in one of the schools and we were playing the “Skater’s Waltz,” and the drummer couldn’t play three-four. So I said let me play that, because I had some friends in the drum section you know. So anyway I started playing bass drum and we were right in back of the trombones. And they had these counter melodies in the marches and stuff like that. And I said yeah, I like that. So I had a broken umbrella. And, you know the part that goes up? So I did that, and I had a razzer. You know what a razzer is?

MR:      I think so.

EB:      One of those big rubber things brrumph, brrumpt, brrumph. So I’d walk down the street going like that. So finally my father says what are you doing? I says playing trombone. But it isn’t a trombone. I said yeah but I don’t have one. So he finally got me one of these stupid, it was like what we call a pea shooter. It was made by Wurlitzer. And it was a terrible horn but it was a horn. So I played it for a little bit.

MR:      It was a trombone but just a lousy one?

EB:      Yeah. But then after about a year he bought me a horn. So that’s how I started.

MR:      That’s a great story. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a picture of you going down the street with that umbrella? You know it’s funny too, a lot of guys, did you say it was a Sears trombone?

EB:      No, a Wurlitzer. It was like Sears & Roebuck.

MR:      Sure. A lot of those early instruments came from them, and the catalogue, and cost five or six dollars.

His career in music was inspired by listening to a 78 rpm in one of the booths of a record store. He loved the tenor sax player. Turns out it was Lester Young and the band was about to make their now-famous appearance at The Famous Door in New York City. Eddie managed to get a lesson with Basie trombonist Benny Morton, and he was on his way.

Eddie played with an amazing number of big bands — stylistically from one end of the spectrum to the other. These included Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, and even Charles Mingus. When you look at the resumes of some of these musicians, it looks as if they got fired after six weeks, because they’ve played with so many bandleaders. I asked Eddie about these seemingly short stints with so many bands:

MR:      Was there a particular reason that musicians seemed to go from one band to the other quite often?

EB:      Yeah. In other words I’m from New York, right? So you’re based in New York. When Kai Winding left Stan Kenton, this was in ’47, he called and said “I’m not going back with the band so why don’t you call Stan.” Because he had seen me with Red [Norvo] when we were at The Aquarium in New York. He came in with his band. That was when that band debuted. And I was with Red at that time, with the small band. And he heard me and he was friendly and all that. So I wrote to him and he said yeah, come on the band. So that’s California. So I had to go to California, right? I knew he was coming to New York because we worked at the Commodore Hotel for a month and then we went to the Paramount Theater and we did a lot of recording. This was in ’47. So then he started back out to California. And meanwhile I had a baby with my wife and I said I’ve got to jump off. So I had to jump off. So that’s what happened. I joined him three different times and I kept jumping off when he’d go back to California. Because, you know, the family situation. That’s the way you stay married.

MR:      Yeah.

EB:      So anyway, that’s why I was with a lot of bands. Because I’d always do that. When I went with Benny Goodman, he was going out, but he was going to stay out there for six months he told us. He stayed for six weeks and then started coming back. So that was kind of a drag.

MR:      What was it like to be on the road at that time? Was it a tough life?

EB:      Yeah. I mean you don’t eat right and all that. Because you’re traveling by bus mostly. And when you stop, you stop. You’re liable to stop in some place that don’t have that good food and stuff like that. So it’s kind of a scuffle.

MR:      And a typical day, would the bus leave after you’re done playing?

EB:      It depends how far the trip is. If it’s 300 miles or 500 miles, you’ve got to leave after the gig. And you had to pay for your own hotel in those days. So a lot of guys ghosted. In other words, you had two in a room instead of one. Or three. Whatever you can get away with.

MR:      Yeah. Okay. And what was the salary like? I mean I know it varied from band to band.

EB:      Yeah. From a bill and a half to two bills. But your expenses had to come out of that. So it wasn’t like today. Today they put you up. It’s different.

The romanticism of being a big band musician on the road has been debunked by many of our interviewees. With a family at home, Eddie decided he needed to stop jumping on and off of bands. The circle of musicians and contractors called these kind of people roadies, in other words, don’t hire him for a long term job, he’s a “roadie” — at any moment he might pick up and join whatever big band. At his wife’s urging, Eddie used the GI Bill and went back to school for a music teaching degree.

EB:      So I went to Manhattan School of Music and it took me seven years to get a master’s but meanwhile they heard I was in town so guys would call up and say can you do a date, like and I’d have to borrow a horn and run down and do a date. But finally I got in with the thing and I got established.

MR:      But you weren’t taking jazz courses, right?

EB:      Oh no, no. They couldn’t understand that.

MR:      So you got a degree in teaching?

EB:      Yeah.

MR:      Right. Did you ever really use it?

EB:      When I was doing my student teaching they had me go to Yonkers to do — a guy was doing jury duty. So they said you go up there for two weeks. So I went up there and about the second or third day I went to the principal and I said “I got a record date can I take off tomorrow?” He said “what’s a record date?” I said oh, Jesus, not for me. So I got out of that. I never used it.

MR:      Oh that’s funny, what’s a record date.

EB:      Yeah. If he didn’t know what a record date was, I don’t belong there. I had to get out. You can’t turn record dates down. I mean then you end up a roadie.

MR:      Okay. You’re right back where you started.

EB:      Yeah. So that was that. I forgot about the teaching.

MR:      But you did get the degree.

EB:      Yeah. I’ve still got it.

After his briefest of stints in the world of education, Eddie found multiple niches and was able to stay more or less in the New York area. He became part of the pit orchestras for many Broadway musicals, played on countless radio and television commercials, and was a member of the Dick Cavett television show house band. He always kept his jazz chops, as evidenced by his participation in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and his gigs with Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. The sometimes volatile Charles Mingus recruited Eddie to play in what became known as the “Town Hall Concert Fiasco” in 1962. The brilliant Mingus asked a lot of his sidemen:

MR:      Did [Mingus] require some things from his sidemen that other leaders wouldn’t?

EB:      Well yeah. I mean he wanted you to play his music. And the way you played his music with a small group, he didn’t write it out. You go up to his apartment and he’d play it for you on the piano, and you’d learn it in your head. And that’s how you learned it. Because he said “if I write it out you’re going to play it different,” which you do. If it’s written out you play it different. But if you get it in your head and you play it like you want to play it. And he says “play it your way.” He didn’t say any specific thing. Here it is. Like for instance “Jump Monk.” When I first learned that, it was by rote. I just learned it. And when we went on “The Bohemia,” there was no music.

MR:      No music.

EB:      And he’d change things during the night, you know change little things. You’d be playing and he’s singing in your ear “play this,” and he’s singing. So you play it as he’s singing it.

MR:      Cool.

EB:      Oh yeah.

MR:      You had to be on your toes.

EB:      Oh yeah.

MR:      Very interesting. Did they ever record, was it the Town Hall concert or something?

EB:      Yeah. ’62.

MR:      Right.

EB:      Yeah they recorded that. But what happened was they pushed the date up a month, which hung him up about writing the music. That’s when he punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. And I asked Jimmy how did that happen. He said he was copying music for him and he went up to bring him some music and Mingus says “write me something.” So he says “it’s your concert, it’s not my concert.” Bamm. You know.

MR:      I guess he was under a little pressure.

EB:      Well yeah. But Jimmy didn’t play the concert. He wasn’t in the band. But he was doing the copying I guess.

MR:      The concert was kind of a rough affair, wasn’t it?

EB:      Well we ended up, we were rehearsing while the audience was there. And then he went out and made this announcement, he said “ladies and gentlemen this is a recording it’s not a concert so if you want to get your money back go to the box office.” And the producer’s in the back saying what is he talking about? And half the audience left. But they had copyists copying the music while we were rehearsing it on the spot. And they were recording it. It ended up so like this — and then the stage hand said “it’s eleven o’clock and at eleven o’clock we’re pulling the curtain.” So like that ended that. So like I don’t know, either Clark Terry or Ernie Royal went [scats] and we started playing “Mellow Tone.” And that was the last tune on the concert. And as I went off I had a plunger and I went [scats] and it’s on the tape. I mean it was all like tension.

MR:      Was Mingus even still on stage at that point?

EB:      I don’t know. I wanted to get out of there before they threw the tomatoes or something.

MR:      Or something worse. Wow.

EB:      It was a fiasco.

Eddie continued to work with challenging groups including the New York Jazz Repertory Company in the 70’s and the American Jazz Orchestra in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. He was playing into his 89^th year, and demonstrated an uncanny ability to remember how far he had to travel for his gigs, during this clip from 2001:

MR:      What’s in the near future for you?

EB:      Yeah well it’s just day to day. I do what I can. A lot of rehearsal bands and stuff to keep chops. But that’s what you have to do, and then do a lot of traveling. You know last Friday I worked in Morristown, New Jersey and that’s like 100 miles each way. And what was it yesterday, no day before yesterday I worked in Lambertville, which is outside of New Hope. That was 150 miles each way. And then I make some rehearsal bands, I do a rehearsal in Emerson, New Jersey, that’s 65 miles each way. That’s no pay. That’s a rehearsal. Then I rehearse with another band in Berlin, Connecticut, and that’s 45 miles each way.

MR:      Looks like you’ve got your mileage down anyway.

EB:      Oh yeah.

Eddie surprised me by sending a collection of lead sheets to his original compositions, another of his talents. I enjoyed playing through them while reminiscing for this blog entry. They are very hip tunes, and as diverse as was the arc of his career.

Tales of the Big Bands: Sidemen Stories

The previous parts of our Tales of the Big Bands focused on Ellington and Basie. In my opinion, Duke Ellington and his band represented the pinnacle of big band composition while Count Basie and his men achieved the essence of swing. I am constantly amazed, when I listen and read about the swing era, at the number of bands that existed and managed to find work, and the players who literally engaged in musical chairs, moving from one band to the next. Our last installment on big bands features a sampling of sidemen anecdotes and perhaps will include your favorite big band.

We’ll start out with arguably the most popular big band of all, the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Saxophonist Jerry Jerome was with Glenn’s band in 1937, a short-lived group that broke up and then reformed without Jerry. He never enjoyed the hits and the popularity of the second Miller band, but has no regrets:

JJ: George Simon had given me an A minus rating in the band [with the Cliquot Club Eskimos]. He said “George Seravo and Jerry Jerome would be the outstanding players in the band.”

MR: You mean in print he had done this?

JJ: Yeah. He was the editor of Metronome Magazine. So Glenn came over and said he liked my playing and would I like to join the band. I said “Glenn, what does it pay?” Because I was still interested in going back to medical school. He says “$45 a week.” I said “that’s that I’m getting with Harry Reiser.” And I couldn’t see any advancement that way. He says “yeah, we’re going to grow and I’m recording next week.” I says “really?” “Yeah” he says “recording at Decca.” “Oh, that sounds pretty good to me.” So I made my decision, I left Harry and went with Glenn. And this is a cute story, Monk. I went into the studio to record the first thing with Glenn. And I got to recognize some of the musicians: Manny Klein, Charlie Spivak, Will Bradley. This is the kind of players. I says “oh my God what am I doing here?” And Glenn says “now Jerry in ‘I Got Rhythm’ would you take 32 bars?” “Wow. I’m playing jazz? Hey, this is it. It’s worth the 45 bucks.” And I played my first record with Glenn with “I Got Rhythm,” with Hal MacIntyre. We were the only two people that had been with the new group that Glenn had gotten up, and I couldn’t figure what I was doing with this band, until I got up to Raymour Ballroom to rehearse for opening that job, there wasn’t any of these guys, just Hal and myself, and all new players. I said to Glenn “what happened to Charlie Spivak and Manny Klein?” “Oh” he says “they’re buddies of mine you know, and I wanted to make a real good record for my first big band record.” So he said they came in.

MR: He got the ringers.

JJ: I didn’t know. And then we went to work. And it was work.

MR: He was a task master?

JJ: Oh, unbelievable. I didn’t mind, you know it was all new for me you know. He was a task master but he wanted perfection. And he was also struggling for an identity. You know in those days, band leaders had identity, a hook.

MR: A sound.

JJ: A sound, something. You know even a guy like Kay Kayser would ... his sound was his personality. Just introducing the band, “Here comes sassy Sully Mason to sing a tune.” But that was how you could identify him. Or Shep Fields blowing water through a straw, you know a bubbling rhythm. Whatever pleases. And Glenn had trouble. He was not a trombone player like Tommy Dorsey. In fact he was rather pedestrian I thought. You know I didn’t think his jazz amounted to very much. And proof is, he never really fronted with his trombone, playing. He would lead the band up front and go back and play with the section. And so he had to use his arranging acumen.

MR: Because he wasn’t a really outgoing type personality, right? So he couldn’t push that part of it.

JJ: Oh, not at all. But Glenn was a great learning experience. I learned what playing notes properly is and how to really play by the mark. Glenn would say “crescendo — diminuendo” and he says “keep it under — keep it above.” But one thing that comes to mind that’s so cute, when I played my solo for “I Got Rhythm” with Glenn, I listened to it and it’s a chorus and you know you can do a thousand of those on a recording, you never do the same thing, you’re improvising, you know. So we went out on our first one nighter after we did our recording somewhere along the line, and I got out and played, and played a totally different chorus, which is a soloist’s preference I would think. Glenn came over to me and he said “Jerry, when you stand up and play your solo, I wish you’d play the one that’s on the record.” I said “why?” He says “well” he says “I consider that part of the arrangement. People expect it. They buy the record and they expect to hear that.” Oh, wow.

MR: I sometimes wonder, some of those classic trumpet solos in some of the Miller arrangements, were they improvised first and then someone actually wrote them out? You know like in “String of Pearls?” Even though it might have been improvised first, it became a part of the arrangements.

JJ: Without question. There have been a lot of Miller bands that have come along the line and I notice that most of them that stand up, play the solos that are on the record. And I think that’s for identity. It makes it sound more like the Miller band. So he had a point. But the Part B of that statement is when I joined Benny Goodman, and I got up and stood up and played “Undecided” on a one nighter, and I played what I’d played on the record, and Benny came over to me and he said “did you like what you played on the record?” “Oh,” I said “thank you, Benny.” Yeah. See that’s the difference. Benny didn’t — you know.

MR: Glenn Miller was not jazz band per se, it was more of a dance.

JJ: Yeah. And the best. Really he was great. His tempos were great, and he strove for an audience reaction too. What do you like? What can I play for you?

MR: Well you went from one tough leader to another with Benny Goodman.

JJ: Well that’s a relative word, Monk, “tough.” Because they weren’t tough as far as I’m concerned. I understood Glenn. I was a confidante of Glenn’s. Glenn and I were close. I might tell you this it’s an interesting bit of history from my point of view, and that is I stayed with Glenn until he broke the band up. I think it was New Year’s Eve that we had our last gig. And he said “I’ll call you when I reorganize.” He had to get some more money and get his second band started. He called me three months later in March, and I met him at the Rialto Bar in New York. I’ll never forget that, on 49th Street, which is sort of Musician’s Alley at that time. All the hotels where the musicians stayed and the bars and all of that you know, sort of a little place. And Glenn said “I’m reorganizing and I’d like to have you come back. But” he says “I want you to be a third partner with me and Chummy MacGregor” the piano player. He says “we’ll draw the same salary, put up a car, split gasoline ... the third bona fide partner.” And I had just joined Red Norvo. And I loved that band. Just a small band, I think it was nine men, but it had a lot of tenor saxophone playing, and playing with Glenn was very restrictive, it was reading a lot of music, and an occasional 32 bars, but he’d never let a guy blow. In other words if he’s cooking, forget about it, it was never a situation like that. I turned him down. And he was very crestfallen. He asked if I would come and rehearse the saxes for him at the studio that night, which I did. And in the sax section there was a kid who came out from I think Detroit at that time, was Tex Benecke. And he took my place in the section. And he was the right guy for that band, without question. He did better by getting Tex.

When I interviewed saxophonist and arranger Dave Pell in 1996 I could tell that he was a bit of a cut-up, a man who never lacked in confidence or the willingness to take a chance. Much of his early career was spent with a lower tier of big bands, but he and his sidemen always wanted them to sound as polished as possible. Their efforts to ensure this could even include upstaging the leader.

DP: Oh, it was fun. But a lot of players that you play with, I was in Bobby Sherwood’s band and I took Zoot Simms’ place. He moved to first alto and I played his tenor chair. Well I’m sitting next to Zoot all night. I mean what could be bad about that? We’re both kids you know. This was in the ‘40’s. And I quit the band I was with in the ‘40’s and stayed on the West Coast and got the job in the relief band. And Stan Getz, myself, you know, great players were sitting in the relief band, a Latin band. And we’re having a great time. But you’re learning from the guy, like Stan was the greatest dressing room player that ever lived. He’d get out front and he’d choke.

MR: No kidding?

DP: Oh he was terrible. He was so insecure and such an introvert that he couldn’t get up like me, no, I don’t give a damn, I’m going to get up and play you know.

MR: For our students that will watch this, can you explain relief band?

DP: A relief band is — the main attraction has got to go out and get a 20 minute break, and you had to have a live band on stage. And usually a different kind of band so that you could do the rumba, like we had a Latin band playing a Four Brothers type tenor book. And then we’d play Freddie Martin style and then we’d play Latin and then we’d do this and then the other bands, whoever the name band was at The Palladium, which was every four or five weeks, we’d just sit there and said hello the guys and you know it was great. But I stayed in L.A. and I didn’t have to go on the road so I really enjoyed it.

MR: And then you went with Tony Pastor later on?

DP: No I was with Tony Pastor getting there. And the story about Tony Pastor, I get to California and I say, “Gee Tony, this is great. Good-bye. I’m quitting.” He says ‘you can’t leave me in L.A., this is wilderness. There’s no guys.” I said “Good-bye.” And so he says “well stay with me until we leave California and then you can quit. So six weeks later I left the band. But I had fun with Tony because I’d run out the microphone to beat him to his own solos. Because he didn’t really like to play. But the only way I could get to play was to be a cocky kid and run up to the mike when he’s ready to play and I’m up there playing already. “Sorry, Tony.”

MR: Sounds like you didn’t lack for self confidence.

DP: Oh, no, I was a smart ass, it was just terrible. But that’s kind of a thing that you have to do. It’s almost like the sidemen on the band, they keep watching the leader. And watching all the mistakes he makes. And all the wrong things he does. Because in the back of his mind, I’m going to be a leader some day and I ain’t never gonna put myself — I mean Les Brown, I had a great time with Lester’s band and played on every tune, you know I had a great book to play, and we had [Don] Fagerquist and all the good players. And I remember as I went out every time to play a solo out front, we’d just didn’t stand up, we’d go out front — show biz. And I remember kicking over Lester’s horn at least once a night. “Oh, I tripped, ohhh, I’m so sorry, Oh, Les I’ll fix it later.” Well he didn’t play too well. And we didn’t like him playing in the band with us, because the saxes sounded so good. But when he played he played awful. And so if his horn didn’t work, he wouldn’t play. And Les after years and years he finally figured out I was doing it on purpose. You know, “I’m so clumsy, Les, I’m sorry.” But I was kicking over his horn so he wouldn’t play. Terrible, terrible. But I always wanted to be a leader and you know, even in the worst way, you want to be a leader somehow, and you want to be able to so “no, no, my tempo.” And then the drummer in the back says “no, Dave, that’s the wrong tempo, you’ve got to kick it up here.”

MR: Well when you became a leader I assume you kept your horn out of the way.

An elderly gentleman who often comes to my gigs goes into his own bit of heaven when I fill his request for “Intermission Riff.” He never fails to tell anybody around him that Stan Kenton was a genius. The Stan Kenton Orchestra probably was the most controversial of all big bands. Stan’s idea of what a big band should sound like didn’t necessarily include the basic parameters that were normally expected. Trombonist Eddie Bert spent time with Kenton and was shocked to learn what Stan wanted and didn’t want from his band:

MR: I wanted to play a little piece here — see if it jogs your memory.

[audio interlude]

EB: Well I know it’s Stan’s band.

MR: Yeah.

EB: It’s probably Maynard.

MR: “Cuban Carnival.”

EB: Oh yeah.

MR: And you’re on this, I think around ’46 or so.

EB: No, it must have been ’47.

MR: Okay.

EB: I joined him in ’47.

MR: All right. ’47. What did you think of his music?

EB: Well he featured trombones. That’s why I wanted to go with that band. And he was very popular. I mean guys were poll winners in the band, like Shelly Manne and Art Pepper. So I figured well let me go. Because Kai [Winding] had done great on the band and Kai and I were friends. So I went with the band. And it was like a family that band. He was a great guy to work for.

MR: Some people didn’t think he swung very good.

EB: No. That he didn’t. One night we played in Mankato, Minnesota. Mankato Ballroom. And generally Stan would like spread out. But this night the bandstand was small. So we were like this. And the band started swinging. And of course we all wanted to swing. So the band was swinging and he stopped it. He said “this is not Basie. This is Stan Kenton.” So we were looking at each other like — damn.

MR: That’s really curious.

EB: Yeah I don’t know, he just didn’t understand swinging.

MR: I never thought about it backwards though, I mean like at that point how would you stop swinging?

EB: I know. We all looked at each other like what is he talking about. I mean Shelly is a swinger. You know, Shelly Manne. Well we always used to go out after the gig and go blow somewhere, wherever we were. But when you get on the bandstand it was Stan Kenton.

MR: But people who came to Kenton expecting to dance, was that a problem?

EB: We used to play the “Concerto to End All Concertos” and that was like all different tempos. And I swear I’d see people dancing. I don’t know what they were doing but they were dancing. You know you’d have the crowd in the front they were all standing there, and then in the back would be people dancing. Well maybe they caught the changes, I don’t know.

MR: Interesting.

EB: But his band was very popular. He had like a machine. In other words, he had a guy that would go out a month in advance and set everything up, have pictures in all the music stores, have the records. It was his advance man. Then Stan would leave after the gig, wherever we were, he’d have his car, and he’d leave and do interviews and be on the radio in whatever city we were in, and it was like a machine. So it all kept rolling like that.

There certainly was rivalry between the big bands during the swing era. The competition for gigs and for the best sidemen were much like sports teams are today. Two of the most celebrated big bands were, interestingly enough, led by clarinet players. Their playing could be distinguished from one another, but they did share a certain lack of social grace. Trumpeter John Best is one of those musicians who made the rounds in almost all the best big bands. He was not a man who took kindly to insults, and may have landed in the wrong spot with Artie Shaw. He also speaks about the power of the Musicians Union during the big band era. George Simon’s influence in advancing a musician’s career is again shown here:

JB: I also enrolled in Duke that fall [1932] and I stayed there six weeks and left again. But Les [Brown] graduated from Duke four years later. In the meantime I went back to Chapel Hill, ten miles away, at the University, the campus. And I was playing with Les’ band and also a campus band, and that was the end of my schooling after that. I wound up going to Chicago in 1936 with some fellows that I had met with the Biagini band in Savannah, Georgia. Hank Biagini had a band down there. And I came down to join the band, but I had laid off for three weeks and I had no endurance. So I didn’t get the job. But I met all those guys — they were the nucleus of a band that was organized in Chicago that fall. That would be 1936. It was a pretty good band. It was reviewed. We played Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook. I got an honorable mention write-up by George Simon, and Glenn Miller was with George Simon and they came in there and that was the first time I’d met Glenn. I had heard him before and seen him before. But they heard me play and it was favorable mention.

MR: The first time that your name showed up in print as far as the music magazine?

JB: Yeah. And that band broke up at the end of ‘36. So I decided I’d try to get a New York card. You have to sit out six months time, residence. You are eligible to work after three months, certain type of work. So you’ve got to sweat it out. Well I was sweating it out for three months. And I got a knock on the door and a trumpet player that I had played with, Biagini. He had Artie Shaw with him. Well I had heard of Artie Shaw, in fact I had a record that I had bought of Artie Shaw, with strings on it, and Peg LaCentra sang the vocal on it. And a song called “I’ll Remember” I think it was. And Artie said he was organizing a new band. And he had had string bands and lost a lot of money on it, because the people just wouldn’t go for it. He was going to organize a band with the same instrumentation as Benny. And he had an opening for another trumpet. So I said well — maybe I shouldn’t say all this, Artie might listen.

MR: Please, do.

JB: Anyway well I’ll go ahead with it. I said “Artie, I’ve been here three months, you know, starving. And I don’t want to lose the three months time.” He said “I’m a personal friend of Jacob” — I don’t remember his name — the President of the New York Local [Musicians Union]. He said “I’ll see that your time goes on.

MR: Because if you left New York, then you’d lose your three months? Is that the idea?

JB: Right. If they pull that card out, the union card out, your transfer card. So I said well that’s fine you know. Well at the end of the six months, I asked the manager for my card. He pulled it out and it said withdrawn, March 31^st. So that kind of upset me a little bit. It was a while there that I was pretty angry at Mr. Shaw. And in September of that year I left Artie and I went back to North Carolina.

MR: So you never at that point got into the New York Local. Because they just pulled your card and you had to start over?

JB: Well in a way I’m glad I didn’t because the way it turned out it was good. And you get mad — I got mad at Artie. He had a recording date and this was in the 1937 band, September. And I’d been in that band too. But after the union card thing, I was not too friendly. So he had one of those transcription dates in New York. Like we’d play in Wildwood, New Jersey, and there was a new tune out, I can’t remember the name of it, and my part had the release on the tune. So I played it, and the saxophone player, a good friend, Freddie Petrie, he turned around and gave me the “yeah!” you know, encouraging. I got through, sat down, and at the end of the thing Shaw said “John, is that the best you can play that?” I said “Artie” — at that time it was my best attempt. He said “I’ll play that tomorrow on the recording.” And I said “well, as of right now, Artie, you can play every other solo I have in the book.” And that kind of shook him up. He said “well what does that mean?” I said “two weeks or tonight, any way you want, either way I’ll leave tonight.” And I did leave in two weeks. I went back to North Carolina. Eight months, I worked in a furniture store and did local, you know, playing around Charlotte, Spartanburg, and a couple of colleges there. Eight months, and Artie had told me and some of those guys that I didn’t hear enough of the early Louis Armstrongs, which I didn’t. And meantime I had bought a lot of those records and listened to them and I finally realized what they were talking about. Like “Wild Man Blues” and all those old things. So I wrote Artie a letter somewhere in that time. He called me up and said “do you want to come back?” So I did, I went back to join him in Boston, to Roseland Square Ballroom I think. Billie Holiday was in the band. And I stayed in that band until I joined the Glenn Miller band. Three or more years.

Drummer Sonny Igoe could be listed as the definition of a journeyman musician. He held down the drum chair in many of the best bands of the era, reminding us that very few big band musicians ever got close to being rich. Sonny relates his experience with the other great clarinet player, Benny Goodman:

SI: I can remember when I started with Benny Goodman’s band, now we’re talking 19 — what would that be, — 19 —

MR: ‘48?

SI: ’48 and ’49. That’s right. I was going to say ’47. And there’s a long story concerned with this, and it’s the thing I told you before. You can’t do anything alone. Somebody’s got to help you. So I had come off the road playing with three what we would call back in those days B bands. They weren’t like the Benny Goodman or that sort of thing. They were like a guy named Tommy Reed who had a band that was made up of all ex-servicemen. I went out to San Francisco to play with him. And then I was with Les Elgart’s band at the Meadowbrook, and then I was with a lady bandleader named Ina Ray Hutton, I don’t know if you ever heard of her. She used to have a girl band but now she had a guy band. And then all those jobs fizzled out and then from one to another you get a call, “would you like to audition for Ina Ray Hutton?” Sure, because I don’t have a gig. And I wasn’t married yet or anything like that. So those bands, Tommy Reed, Ina Ray Hutton and Les Elgart were 90 dollar bands. That’s a week on the road with hotels and meals you had to pay your own.

MR: You had to pay your own.

SI: Yeah. And you know you wonder, 90 bucks, how did I ever do that? So okay now a long thing goes on, and I know that Benny Goodman is rehearsing a new band. And I had also heard that he was getting a drummer every day. He didn’t like anybody. So guys were telling me — there used to be a hangout in New York called Charlie’s Tavern, where everybody used to go because beers were a nickel and we could hang around there, drink beer, lie, you know tell a lot of lies. So anyway, this guy goes “hey Sonny, you ought to go up to Benny’s rehearsal” he said “he’s having trouble finding somebody he likes.” I said “he’ll probably hire Shelly Manne or somebody like that.” But I thought about it and it came to me that I had the acquaintance of a man who was an insurance executive who was a friend of Benny Goodman’s. He loved musicians. He loved to talk to us and all that kind of stuff. So I asked him. His name was Eddie Furst. And I said “Ed, do you think you could introduce me to Benny Goodman so I could audition?” He said “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, I’ll call him.” So he called me the next day and said “we’re going up Thursday at 11:00” or whatever the heck it was. Right? So he takes me and we go up there and he’s rehearsing at MCA in New York. They had an auditorium. And they were rehearsing in there. And I had a very good ear. I memorize very quickly, luckily. It’s another lucky thing, you can’t teach it. So anyway we go up there and the band in playing and they were rehearsing this one tune three or four times through, five or six times through, whatever. And I’m listening to it. And I’m getting that down pretty good already, and I’ll see if I can play that tune. But you never know, you might have to go up there and sight read. So anyway I could read passably. But anyway they take a break. And so Benny said “Eddie, how are you?” And he comes over and shakes his hand. And he says “this is the young man I was telling you about, Benny.” And he said “oh, nice to meet you Sonny,” he said “why don’t you play the next set,” he says. He says “we’ll take a ten minute break” or something like that and he says “you play the next set.” The drummer was from Philadelphia and he was very inexperienced. Scared to death. Not that I wasn’t nervous, Benny Goodman, my God, this was a whole new strata for me. And this kid, I don’t think he played with anybody. But anyway he was so accommodating. I said “do you mind if I use your drums to play the next set” or something. He said “oh please” he said “please.” And we introduced ourselves and all that kind of stuff. A very nice guy. But he wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t sure I was, you know because I was going like this [taps], but I knew several guys in the band from Charlie’s Tavern and around town. So anyway okay I sit in. And they play that tune that I had sat through five or six times. And I had the part up, like I pretend I’m reading it. And so anyway I didn’t have to really read much of it, it wasn’t that complex, but there was a couple of starts and stops and a few things in it. And I went through it [claps] just like that. So Benny looked up like this. And he said “stay up there, Pops.”

MR: Pops. He called you Pops already.

SI: Everybody. Yeah he called everybody Pops. So anyway he says “stay up there, Pops.” So anyway I stayed up there and I played a few more tunes I got lucky enough to get through. And then he said “okay, everybody’s through, we’ll play with the quartet.” So he said “stay up there, Pops.” So Buddy Greco was the piano player and Benny, and bass player was a fellow named Clyde Lombardi. And so we played with just a small group for about an hour. And so then he packed up and walked out. He didn’t say a word to me, that was it. So oh he did say “come back tomorrow, bring your own drums in.” Something like that. So I go back tomorrow, and then I played the whole rehearsal. And then again at the end he goes through the small band, because he loved playing with the small group too. And we played that. And so it’s going on three weeks now. And I get a call from another clarinet player, a guy named Jerry Wald. You ever hear that name? Anyway he was going into the Paramount Theater. And he asked me if I’d be interested in doing the Paramount with him. And I said “I’m rehearsing with Benny.” He said “well did he hire you yet?” I said “I’ve been doing it for three weeks he hasn’t said a word.” He says “well listen, I can give you another couple of days and then I’ll have to get somebody else. He says, “but the job is yours if you want it.” And I said “okay, thank you, very nice of you.” So anyway the next day I’m at rehearsal with Benny, right? Now Benny used to walk around as I call tooteling all the time. He’d go [scats]. And he comes up to me and gives me a nudge, and he’s tooteling. Like this. He says “get your suit yet, Pops?” And I said “what do you mean get my suit yet?” He says, “you know, your uniform.” Because the band was going to Sacks Fifth Avenue for tuxedo coats. So I said no. He said “why don’t you get your uniform?” I said “nobody told me I was hired.” He said “nobody told you you were hired? You were hired the first day.” He said “nobody said anything?” I said “no, you never said anything.” He said “he’s supposed to — where’s what’s his name —” the manager. “Come up here. Talk to him.” So okay. Now the big decision of my life comes up, right? So the guy says “oh Sonny it was my fault,” he says, “I apologize.” He said “you got the job” and he said “you’ve got to get your uniform.” And he said “now how much money do you want?” Nobody ever asked me that before. Right? I can remember Gene Krupa saying “if you ever play with Benny Goodman he respects you if you ask for a lot of money.” But I didn’t feel as though I was that secure you know. But that ran through my mind. So I had come from these, like I said, these 90 dollar bands. Never made more than 90 bucks a week. So I kind of haltingly said “how about 125?” He says “well I think we can make that.” And I could almost hear him going chuckle-chuckle-chuckle. So anyway that’s the way that went. I was the lowest paid guy in the band. I would have swept out the bus, I don’t care. But I spent a year with Benny until he broke up the band. I spent a year with him. And I really felt as though I learned a lot, I came a long way experience-wise and how to really play in a band and gee to have somebody as good as him. A lot of guys said he used to be very bad on a lot of people. But he never once said anything to me about my playing. He never said you’re playing too loud, you’re rushing, you’re dragging, you’re doing this, you’re doing that. Never said anything. So that put me over the top from the standpoint of having to audition with other bands if I went with — so I went from Benny Goodman to Woody Herman, you know and that was my next step. But it was funny in those days the way everybody said you’ve got to watch “boy you’re working for Benny — did you get ‘the ray’ yet?” I have a story about “the ray” if you’re interested.

MR: I am.

SI: The thing is that he would, he even said to us one night at the Palladium in Hollywood he says “you’ve heard a lot about the ray” he says “I’m not really mad at anybody.” He said “sometimes I daydream and my mind wanders and I just happen to be looking in somebody’s direction. I’m not trying to stare them down or anything like that.” So now we’re in Canada doing a whole string of one-nighters in the hockey rinks. They used to put the boards down on the ice so people could dance, and then they would build this tremendous movie set for the band. They’d have the saxes down here and each section up. The drums were like up there. Way up at the top. You couldn’t hear anything. You couldn’t hear the band you were so far away. And so and Benny’s down there. So we play the first set and Benny, he’s looking around and puzzled. And he looks up at me, and I had another small set down in front for the small group. So he looked up at me and he goes — you know what that means. You come on down here and play down here. So not a word was said. So I pick up my sticks and brushes and go down to the other set. And I played a set down there and I’m in seventh heaven because the whole band is right here in my ear. Oh what a feeling that is. That’s why when people play music today all they do is turn up the bass. You hear bluh-bluh-bluh. It doesn’t sound like music. But when you have the brilliance of the brass and the saxophones right, oh man, it’s hi-fi, the original hi-fi. So anyway okay we take a break. Now we’re coming back up and I’m down front now and I got a little closer and got myself comfortable and I have my music stand here in case I need some charts. And Benny’s right over my music stand like this, eye level. I’m kind of kitty corner to him. If I look there, there he is. Now he had the habit of having his clarinet under his arm like this, holding it this way. So he was in that pose looking right at me. And I could hear some murmurs in the background, guys in the sax section saying “uh-oh, look’s like it’s Sonny’s turn in the barrel tonight” or something like that and all these kinds of things. So he’s just looking at me over the top of my stand. Just staring at me. And geez I’d had enough. So I stood up, and this is true, I stood up and I went like this in front of his eyes. He never budged. And the band, everybody’s having hysterics. They thought I’d get canned right then. He said “sit down kid, what are you doing?” He never knew I did it. So he says “okay let’s go.” And we went on to the next number. That story got around town in New York even. “Geez I heard what you did to Benny.” It was funny. He never even acknowledged it. But I did see him ride some guys sometimes and I felt sorry for them. I think it was one of those things that every once in a while if he got in that mood if he knew he could ride you he’d ride you.

In 1964, as a 14-year-old aspiring saxophonist, my parents took me to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra under the direction of Ray McKinley in a Rochester, NY auditorium. The band sounded much like the records I had come to know. I stood at the front of the stage staring up at the saxmen in their matching blue sport coats, picturing myself as a member. At the time it didn’t occur to me that I was born too late and had missed the era where such gigs were prevalent. Conducting these interviews for the jazz archive has enabled me to vicariously experience the thrill of the sound, the challenge of the travel, and first-hand stories of the colorful characters of the time.