The Game Changer

by A. G. Lafley

  When I woke up, his name was still on my mind. I asked a old colored neighbor if he knew who lived in our house before us. After thinking for a time, he said many people been in there but only called the original owner, and that was a white man by the name of John Evergreen!

  I didn’t tell anybody I saw Mr. Evergreen the day before. They liable to say I was lying. Don’t think I ever told Mama. All I could think of was how nice Mr. Evergreen looked and spoke, even though he been dead for over 25 years.

  But I tell you, it worked my mind.

  August 9, 1925, was the first day the great Fletcher Henderson band was to appear over at the Paxtang Park Pavilion. It was a big event because Louis Armstrong was in the band and I never heard him in person. He was playing cornet, actually, the third trumpet and solo parts. Henderson also had Joe Smith on second trumpet and solo, Elmer Chambers, first trumpet, and Big Charlie Green on trombone. Didn’t know the others.

  Louis turned up a storm that night. He was so exciting, playing things on his horn that seemed impossible. But he was doing it. The man was way ahead of his time, very advanced—at least for Harrisburg. Joe Smith wasn’t as exciting, but whatever he played was so beautiful—had those curves in there and trills and triplets over a simple melody, it all sounded so soulful, so mournful. While Louis was playing more then anybody I ever heard before, Joe Smith was doing what the people understood. Even the musicians. I loved Joe Smith’s work and knew this was the way I wanted to sound. Exactly.

  In the later part of August, Tillie had a big job coming up at the Chestnut Street Auditorium. It was a invitational full-dress ball with all the dicty set attending, including doctors, school teachers, even the police.

  I remember we finished a rehearsal and Tillie came over. “Tram, you did good today. All your parts were correct. You playing better then you think you are.” She was always giving me encouragement like that. “My regular trombone player can’t make the dance next week,” she continued. “Would you do me a favor and take his place?”

  Me sit in with one of the best bands in town? I had no answer.

  “My Papa be proud of you,” she insisted.

  I ran right out to the Hart Schaffner and Marx clothing store and bought myself a fifty-dollar tuxedo suit from the money I saved cleaning streets. It was a beautiful suit, tailored special for me in the latest style. A one-button, single-breasted jet-black jacket with a satin lapel, and the black pants had a satin stripe down the side. Then I ran across the street to the Walk-Over store and bought myself a smooth pair of spit-shine black patent leather shoes that came to a point in front. This was my first formal band outfit and I wanted to look as good as anybody else in the band. And I did.

  When I arrived at the auditorium in my new tuxedo with the shiny pointed shoes, all the other musicians had their eyes on me. Some people at the dance that seen me cleaning their streets in the morning wondered why I was there. Someone even, asked Tillie what I was doing up on the bandstand.

  After about a hour of playing stock orchestrations and popular tunes, Tillie announced the band would take some jazz numbers. She called Sweet Georgia Brown and we hit it hard. When my part came up, Tillie pointed to me and I stood and took a hot solo just as I heard trombonists Miff Mole and Abe Lincoln do on records. Put my horn right in the megaphone and blew my heart out.

  Suddenly, the whole audience got in front of the bandstand and started to hollering and applauding. Tillie yelled for me to take another chorus. I didn’t know what was happening.

  After the hot set, Tillie put her arm around me. “Oh, I wish my Papa was living,” she whispered, “and could of heard you play.”

  But I was thinking of my father. It seemed like he was standing right there listening to me. It was a funny feeling. I can’t explain it, but I felt him there with me—only I couldn’t see him. He was there. I knew it.

  Budd Marshall from Marshall’s Drug Store was at the dance. Kept shaking his head. “That Tram always so damn quiet, never knew he could play.”

  Tillie and her Toilers at the State Theater, Harrisburg, Pa., Jan. 1927. Left to right: Howard Brock (ts), Clyde Bernhardt (tb), Jack Potter (bj), Charles Lamb (as), John Vennie (tp), Tillie Vennie (p/ldr), Sammy Scott (d), Jim Jackson (tu), George Norris (t).

  Other people came up and wanted to know where I came from. And some of those society people that knew me as a manure pusher, now knew me as a musician. It was a damn good feeling.

  I could not forget that old Mr. Vennie told me by 1925 I would be with his daughter’s band. He said it would happen. And it came true.

  When my mother heard how people accepted and praised me, she seemed happy. “You are making a start now, Clyde. Playing for all those big colored people, doctors, and lawyers. Doing something that everybody can’t do.”

  She was really talking friendly to me, not mean and hateful like she did when I was younger. Mama was a real mother now.

  “You’re coming into another part of your life,” she continued, “so this should make you work harder. Study, learn, and listen. Be spic and span like you always are, and you will get more jobs.”

  I followed her good advice all through my career. I still do.

  After that first night, Tillie let me play other dates she had—some three a week and others just two. I made five dollars, sometimes seven when the gig was really big.

  But I knew I wasn’t as good as people said I was and I could not stop here. I had to try to get better as a musician. There was a whole lot for me to learn. And things out there I wanted to do in the future.

  6. Odie Cromwell’s Wolverine Syncopators, 1926

  Odie Cromwell was a alto sax player in Harrisburg and been looking for a couple fellows to take to a Michigan job. He asked me to come along.

  People didn’t understand Odie Cromwell because he was so outspoken. A lot of times he say things he did not mean in his heart, snap people up, get them angry, and then laugh about it. You just had to know his ways—that’s the kind of person he was.

  I quit my street-cleaning job and took the train that Monday night along with Odie and Sammy J. Scott on snare drums and George “Dusty” Norris on trumpet. The date was March 22, 1926.

  Some of the passengers on the train noticed we were musicians, and before I knew it we were stomping off Sugar Foot Stomp and Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue. Everybody was dancing in the aisles, even the train conductor. One white passenger passed around his hat and collected twenty-five dollars for us.

  Odie Cromwell gave me my first steady job playing music, Mar. 22, 1926, in Battle Creek, Mich. (Photo courtesy of Frank Driggs collection.)

  We changed trains at Buffalo, New York, and arrived in Battle Creek, Michigan, the next day. The first thing we did was join up at musicians local 594. Gave us a reading test we passed easily. Paid our dues. Like all the other unions, it was lily-white, and we were quickly told nobody should try to attend any meetings, not even come to vote in elections. Just stick to our jobs they said and keep our noses out of their business.

  Well, that was OK with us. In fact we all laughed up our sleeves because even if they wanted, we wouldn’t of come. The union promised us no work, so we damn sure had no business with them. Our jobs all lined up by Odie Cromwell for more money then we ever expected.

  Odie added three more pieces when we got to Battle Creek: Williard Walkup from Chicago on piano; George Torrence, a second sax and clarinet; and Ted Colin on trumpet. They were all good players.

  He called the group The Wolverine Syncopators, as Michigan is the Wolverine state. Our jackets were light blue with black pants and shoes and a blue bow tie on a white shirt. Everybody liked us—we looked good, had a catchy name, and were some hot stuff.

  We played at a local roadhouse from nine to midnight, Tuesday through Saturday. A private club for upper-middle-class white people where they served good food and sold real Canadian whiskey from under the table, as it was Prohibition time. Lawyers and judges came in there, doctors and school principals too. Very priv
ate and very restricted.

  It was my first steady job playing music.

  Cromwell always checked Billboard magazine for the latest popular songs, and that is what he used. Ordered his music direct from Feist & Feist, the big publisher in New York, that all the leading orchestras were playing all over the country.

  One of our specialties was Up and at ’Em, a terrific number he must have taken off the California Ramblers’ big-selling record. He kept us rehearsing that doggone piece until we got it down just like he wanted. Milenberg Joys was the New Orleans Rhythm Kings’ hot number—we had a stock arrangement on that but always improvised, adding a lot more to it. When we did Yes Sir, That’s My Baby, the whole band would sing in unison while clapping on the off-beat. We always sounded like a band higher then our class.

  Colin and Torrence left after a couple pay days—got some money in their pocket and went back to Chicago. Cromwell had a hard time replacing them as most local guys couldn’t play doodley-squat even though he paid pretty good. Sometimes we got nine dollars a night or played on percentage and made as much as fifteen dollars.

  But I quietly got myself a little part-time day job in a Greek shoe-repair shop in downtown Battle Creek. I remembered my Uncle John’s advice and wanted to have a ace in the hole. Just in case.

  Once, on our night off, a couple of the boys decided to drive over to Chicago and have a good time. After doing the town, we ended up at the Plantation Club to hear King Joe Oliver and his famous orchestra. I been hearing King Oliver’s records for years and greatly admired his cornet playing.

  I remember that night the band had Darnell Howard, Barney Bigard, and Albert Nicholas in it, three top-rated reedmen.

  I went up to the great musician at intermission. “Hello, Mr. King Oliver, sir.” I took a big breath. “My name is Clyde Barnhardt and I play trombone with Odie Cromwell’s Wolverine Syncopators.” The big man turned around and faced me. Didn’t look like he ever heard of our band.

  “Hello, son,” he said in his low voice.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” was all I could stutter. “I think you have a great band. I just hope I get good enough to play in your orchestra some day.” I was twenty-one and very young.

  “Well, that’s possible,” he said thoughtfully. “All you gotta do is keep practicing. Never can tell.”

  That made me feel good, but I knew it was unlikely.

  So I played with the Syncopators all through the summer of 1926 at this roadhouse in Battle Creek. The band was well liked by the customers, but Cromwell knocked himself out of other jobs because he had this way of making people angry. I think he was that way because he been a only child and thought he never had to do nothing he didn’t want to do. He was raised that way.

  Although I was getting a lot of experience with Cromwell, I kept practicing hard and trying to make improvements. Whenever I could, I listened to those King Oliver records, especially the ones with New Orleans trombonist Honore Dutrey on them.

  Winter was blowing across Michigan and I was feeling homesick. By the middle of November I gave Odie my notice and returned to Harrisburg.

  I started taking offers to work with Tillie Vennie again. She was now calling her band Tillie and Her Toilers—might have gotten that name from the popular comic strip, I don’t know.

  There was also jobs coming in from Pearl Smothers’ orchestra and Priscilla Richard’s orchestra, two other big Harrisburg bands. Pearl was one hell of a piano player and just as popular in black clubs as Tillie, but didn’t compare with her because she couldn’t read music. Pearl depended on her good ear—after hearing something twice, she play it. Her trumpet player, Chalmers Harley, really led the band and went with Jelly Roll Morton in 1929. He play a beautiful melody but couldn’t take a hot chorus or any solo get-offs.

  All those women just leaders or fronts and the bands always men. Guys didn’t mind working for women as long as they didn’t walk all over them. If they get nasty or hateful for no reason, the guys would say something like, “Goodnight, Tillie” and walk out. That sure brought the old gals down to earth.

  While I was doing this pickup work, I took a job with the Perseverence Brass Band of Harrisburg, run by James Jones. This was a well-known marching band with almost fifty members. We wore Army-type uniforms with a yellow stripe down the side of the pants, Army caps, and a shoulder strap with a filled water canteen attached. We played Poet and Peasant Overture and some popular Sousa marches at Elks conventions and parades over in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Atlantic City.

  I worked those kind of jobs for some months, but I was not satisfied. Wanted to travel and see places I never seen before. Maybe even New York City. The big time.

  At almost twenty-two, I was ready.

  7. Charles C. Grear’s Original Midnite Ramblers, 1927

  While I was working with Odie Cromwell in Battle Creek, I made friends with Charlie Grear, whose Midnite Ramblers was working on the lake. So when I got a telegram from him asking me to join the Ramblers, I accepted the offer.

  He sent me a railroad ticket to meet the Ramblers in Huntington, West Virginia, where he lived. I caught a train out of Harrisburg and got in Huntington on a Sunday afternoon, April the 3d, 1927.

  There were many bands then using the name Midnite Ramblers. Tim Moore, the famous black comedian, started all that Midnite Rambler business. I met Moore in 1920 when he and his stock company came in the Brooks Dreamland on the TOBA circuit. Badin was booming and the big Alcoa plant was working three shifts—the second shift got out at 11 P.M. and everybody had good money to spend but no place to spend it.

  So Moore got the idea of putting on a extra show at twelve that he called the “Midnite Ramble.” When it became a success he took that late show through the southern circuit and the name caught on. After a while, bands picked up the name, but Tim Moore started it all.

  While Grear was getting his Original Midnite Ramblers together, I stayed with some of the other bandsmen at the home of Jimmy Cole that was also crowded with his mother and four children. I remember I had to sleep on the sofa in the front room. So I went out the next day and bought some beef, beans, pork sausage, and some eggs and gave it all to Mrs. Cole to cook. I did that because she didn’t charge me anything for staying there.

  As soon as the band was ready, we left by touring cars to play a dance in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There was ten men and a valet: Grear took first alto and Jimmy Cole was second and baritone; Hilary Price, piano; John F. Splawn and Joe Branch, trumpets; Montgomery Morrison, a good solo tuba player; Slim Johnny Jackson on tenor and baritone; Paul Easley, banjo; Shorty Johnson, drums; and me on trombone. I don’t remember any of the valets’ names, they changed so often.

  Touring with Grear and his Midnite Ramblers was a experience I will never forget.

  We were one hell of a ragtag outfit, riding in two beat-up, seven-passenger cars—a big black 1923 Buick and a ratty old Studebaker. Must of had hundreds of thousands of miles on them. They were open touring cars with isinglass flaps for windows that always let the heavy rain and choking dust blow in on me. Our patched suitcases, packages, drums, tuba, and all that stuff was piled high on top of the cars, some even packed on the front hood and down on the running boards. Everything was all tied around and under with long knotted ropes.

  We all pack in the narrow front seats, tight back seats, and the two little folding chairs in between. Then we stuff the extra boxes and luggage all around us. I always held my horn case between my legs—nobody going to hide my new instrument where I couldn’t see it.

  Oh Lord! I was so cramped and uncomfortable—felt like a circus clown in one of them tiny midget cars. Then we take off down some back roads, with deep dirt ruts and mud holes that try to shake out my teeth. When the road was open, Grear have us coast down the hills fast so we could pick up speed to get up the other side. Sometimes the cars couldn’t make those steep grades so we turn around and go up backwards. They went stronger that way for reasons I never found out.

  Those
damn cars always causing trouble. The tires were almost bare and blew out any time they felt like it. Then everybody get out to try and fix them or push the car to the next repair station—if there was a repair station up ahead. When it be raining and we all be pushing, my shoes got muddy and sticky. Then I slip and hurt myself. After it was fixed we ride a distance, hit a big puddle, and the wires shorted. Then the car stalled out.

  Everybody fell out again and pushed some more, never knowing to where. If it was too dark, we stayed by the side of the country road and slept all night. Many times I woke up in the morning to see those dumb old chewing cows looking at me.

  There was always gas, oil, and water to be put in, but everything leaked out just as fast. Whatever there was to be fixed, filled, or replaced, maybe like new second-hand tires, we each had to pay our share. Grear took the deduction out of our pay at the next dance.

  So we ride as best we could from job to job—pass woods, open fields, big farms. Sometimes we travel twenty miles and never see a single person or even a house. The guys always be stopping and run off in the bushes, but I knew there was damn snakes in those woods so I stayed by the cars.

  Sometimes the drivers be acting a fool trying to race each other. The back car have a blowout or something and the one in front keep on going, maybe five miles before they knew the other broke down. Then they come all the way back. Didn’t always make every dance we suppose to play.

  If we get hungry, we roll into the next town and look for colored people—they always had something for us to eat. If the town was all white, we knew not to stop. When we be starving, and that was frequently, we take a chance and pull up behind some white food store. Grear was a smooth talker and went in with his hat in hand to explain our situation. Ask if they feed us in the back or maybe allow us to take food out. Most of the time they wouldn’t, so we move on.

  Once, I remember, the man felt sorry so he squeezed a couple of tables in his old dirty storeroom and hid us in behind a big curtain. “Don’t want any white people to see you,” he whispered.