by A. G. Lafley
It was the second Saturday night in September 1928. We played a big formal dance at Huntington’s Vanity Fair, the largest and finest ballroom in all of West Virginia. Didn’t take a back seat to the Savoy, the Roseland, or the Arcadia in New York.
We finished up about three in the morning, but McClane wasn’t there to pick up our pay. Freddy took the money over to the house and woke Minnie up so she could pay us. It was late and she started to hollering, talking real hateful. Said she was tired of cooking for all the free-loading musicians living in her house and the sooner we all moved out, the better she feel. That really surprised me because I worked with McClane almost a year and he said I always be welcome in his house. My feelings were hurt. I was on that first morning train out of town.
Went to Duquesne to visit my sister and her children and then on to Harrisburg—the first time I was back since I left to go with the Ramblers.
I was talking to Leslie Frye, a trumpet player with the Pearl Smothers’ orchestra. When I said I might go to New York to check out some band work there, he started to laugh. No Harrisburg boy like me, he said, could get with any big New York band. That gave me some hesitation and doubt. I had to agree with him.
After a few days, I left for New Jersey, where most of my relatives now lived. Mama had moved to 4 Boyd Street in Newark. I also had five uncles and aunts and some cousins living in New York City.
While I was staying at my mother’s apartment, a telegram came in from Henry McClane. Said he didn’t know why I left and he would send money if I returned. Now, I never did like to come between a man and his wife. You can’t win a deal like that.
I wired back I was going to try New York.
9. Herbert Cowens’ Orchestra, 1928
It was in September of 1928 that I rode the Hudson tubes train right to New York City. Walked up the stairs and took the elevated express uptown to see my Uncle Arthur Mauney, my mother’s youngest brother that ran a store in Harlem. When I got off at 125th Street and looked around, everybody seemed so neat and dressed up. People walking down Seventh Avenue and Lenox Avenue had on their best clothes and this wasn’t even Sunday.
I just wandered about. The good looking gals, especially those tall chorus girls from the Cotton Club, Smalls Paradise, and Connie’s Inn all strolling around in big furs with old snooty Chow dogs pulling on their long chains. Those kind of dogs was popular but I never trusted them: look so nice and sweet and all at once, snap, they got you. Some gals wore semiflapper dresses with the belt way down low in the back and small hats close on their heads.
The fellows standing on the corners all looking over the long-browns coming down Lenox. Guys wearing form-fitting suits—oxford gray with pinstripe pants, jackets very short, didn’t hardly cover their butts. Vests and spats too. Shiny shoes in black patent leather. Some had real flowers in their buttonholes with a long, fancy handkerchief hanging out the breast pocket. That was real class.
Others wore smooth, camel hair topcoats, maybe four inches off the ground. Derbys and homburgs everywhere.
But I heard for a fact that many of them fancy, jive-ass niggers didn’t have a nickel to buy a hot dog. Those corner dudes—they were all flash.
The famous Jelly Roll Morton was playing at the all-white Rose Dance-land Ballroom on 125th. Walked inside and stood back where the band was because coloreds were not allowed in. Jelly was really fronting Bill Benford’s band, his brother Tommy Benford was on drums and Billy Cato, trombone. Jelly would do a piano number and then go out to the corner bar across the street while the band played the rest of the set.
As I walked around Harlem, I sniffed all that great food cooking in those down-home places. Restaurants with big handmade signs pasted on the windows or slate boards out front with daily specials written all over them.
Some had meals for only twenty-five cents but the better places, with full courses and lots of extras, charged fifty cents a dinner. And the places all jam-packed with whites that seemed to be enjoying the good food they couldn’t get downtown.
Man, this was my kind of town. I felt comfortable. Felt at home. As a matter of fact, I had the strange feeling I been here before. But I hadn’t.
When I came to Uncle Arthur’s place on 134th and Madison, I saw it was a combination meat market and grocery store. He told me the restaurant around on 135th, across from the Lincoln Theater, was his also and he did all the cooking.
We got to talking and when I told him I wanted to get with a New York band full time, he smiled wide.
“You think you big-time now, Clyde?”
“I been playing in some bands, Uncle Arthur.”
He started to laugh. “They only hire the top professionals in this town, boy. You nothin’ but a little old chickenshit, country horn blower with a big head.” When I tried to object, tell him I was practicing four and five hours a day, he wouldn’t hear. “Bill Eady better’n you,” he went on, “studied longer, had to go back. You think you catch up with him? Take my advice, Clyde, work in my store. I’ll give you twenty a week, steady. Only ten hours a day for six days—you can’t do no better.”
Now, he was saying all that and never heard me play a note. When I told him about the offer I had from Bessie Smith, he only laughed louder and said I was lying.
I came home that night very discouraged.
The next day found me at Major’s Band Box, the famous musicians’ club that name jazzmen all hung out at. It was on 131st, near Seventh Avenue, and was run by Addington Major, who been cornet with Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds.
The Band Box been open for about five years and was doing good business. Had a gambling part there in the back and at night musicians like Louis Armstrong, Jabbo Smith, Jimmy Harrison, Coleman Hawkins, Miff Mole, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, and other top men that was in town would jam there.
It was terrific being around big names, talking music. I was there night after night.
One evening around eight, Herbert Cowens comes in. At that time he was rated to be one of the best show drummers in New York. His wife, Baby Cox, was one of the headliners up at the Cotton Club. I remember seeing her and her father, Jimmy Cox, working minstrel shows around 1912 when she was only four.
Sitting on the bench next to me was Dicky Wells. He was working with Lloyd Scott’s Band right then at the Savoy. I liked to make friends with other trombone players. Knew they had connections and couldn’t play but one job at a time.
So Cowens came over and asked him if he knew any trombone in town that could read and take a good jazz solo.
Wells turned and pointed to me. “Here’s your man, Herb. Heard him work in the best band in Huntington—ain’t no Wells, but he plays.”
“How long you been in town?” Cowens asked me.
“About a week.”
“You read?”
“Yes.”
“Belong to 802?” That’s the American Federation of Musicians’ local.
“Yes.”
“Have a black tuxedo suit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Black shoes? Black bow tie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be at the Audubon Ballroom tomorrow at nine. Wear a Arrow collar white shirt.
Luckily I had everything needed to be a real New York musician.
The next night I went to the Audubon on 166th and Broadway, walked upstairs and in the hall. It was one of the top-name ballrooms and New York’s biggest. There was a private party starting and all the guests wearing formal dress.
Herb Cowens was at the drums; Ray Corn on first trumpet; Bill Lewis, second horn and get-off man; Castor McCord, tenor, and his brother Joe on alto were both from the Horace Henderson band; Eric Brown, a yellow guy that reminded me of Paul Whiteman, on alto; plus a pianist, bassist, and banjo player. A ten-piece band in all.
I met the McCord boys in Harrisburg when I first started out. They came over, shook my hand, told me not to be scared because they knew it was my first New York job. I also heard Ray Corn and Bill Lewis snickering, saying I
looked too young to be playing anything. Kept complaining about having a schoolboy on a big-time job. Somebody asked somebody else who I was, and nobody knew. Other then the McCord boys, nobody spoke to me. This was the big time.
I kept thinking of my brother laughing at me. And Budd Marshall telling me I never would play my trambone. Leslie Frye saying no Harrisburg boy could make it in New York. And Uncle Arthur trying to discourage me.
I was getting nervous, hoped I wouldn’t be making a damn fool of myself.
Before the first set, Herb Cowens told me to lay out if I come to a hard part, not try any passage I couldn’t play. There was no rehearsal.
We played two sets. The music seemed like average arrangements—I saw no hard parts. As we started the third set, Cowens called some of his best jazz arrangements and I heard Corn and Lewis whispering loud that everybody going to see some good fun now.
“This gonna be reeeeeeel good,” they were saying. “The boy’s goin’ back where he come from, fast.”
So Cowens stomped off a set that included Black Maria and Beau Koo Jack, difficult pieces that asked for your butt. But I knew right away they were the exact stock arrangements Henry McClane used, the latest songs ordered from Feist & Feist direct from New York City.
When my solo part came, I stood up and easily played it note-for-note as written. And very loud so that everybody could hear. Before I sat down I put in a little extra stuff especially for Corn and Lewis.
After the set, Cowens came over. Said he knew I never seen those numbers because only New York bands played such hard arrangements, and here I read them all at first sight.
Bill Lewis jumped up when he heard where I learned to play. “Man, all them Harrisburg niggers read as fast as you?”
Ray Corn was slapping me on the back, said those numbers cut even the best sharks in town. I acted like I thought it was easy music—never told anyone I been playing those same arrangements for months and almost knew them by heart. Kept my mouth shut and nobody never found out.
I even remained polite when Corn wanted me on his own weekend gig. Said he hired somebody else but was going to cancel him out for me.
Cowens paid fifteen dollars for that night. The Corn job got me twenty dollars on Friday and twenty-five on Saturday—sixty dollars for three nights’ work just because I could read the latest arrangements. Never made that much before for three jobs.
Corn’s weekend job was under the Luckey Roberts name, downtown for some rich whites. It was a Roberts pickup group, one of about five bands he had going at the same time. Luckey was working up at Yale, and Ray Corn was in charge that night.
I told my mother all that happened and the money I was making. She felt proud. Said many musicians come to New York, can’t find work, and go back to take a day job. And her boy, only 23, making it in the toughest town in America.
After word got around the Band Box about my fast reading, jobs started coming in. I could not understand that, because I saw other trombone players in town I knew was better then me. And they all starving.
That is why I believe, why I know, God has always helped open the doors of success for me.
And my Papa told me before he died he would look out for me. And I knew he was. He definitely was.
10. Richard Cheatham’s Orchestra, 1928
Early in November, I went with the Richard Cheatham orchestra into the Club Alabam in Newark, on the corner of Arlington Street and Branford Place.
This was a high-class white cabaret with a black floor show—singers, dancers, chorus girls, comedians, a M.C., and all that. The few blacks that did come in there were the gambling type: big sports, big shots, big-time spenders, and fancy men.
The Alabam was the Cotton Club of Newark. Had a fast floor show with about ten chorus girls, all light skin with very, very short costumes spotted with pretty beads and shiny things. Had on little hats covered with colored feathers. The girls were beautiful and terrific dancers and singers. Put down hot leather, just as good as anything you could see in New York—precision steps that the Rockettes do today. These girls were so good, many of them went on to the Cotton Club or Connie’s Inn.
The master of ceremonies, in tails of course, would introduce the comedians with a great flourish, and Little Bits Turner and her small humpbacked partner came out—he was a little on the gay side. They dressed in patches and tatters, supposed to be right off the farm. Little Bits’ hair was black, nappy, and stood straight up like a porcupine.
They told those old down-home stories with so much mugging and slapping they make a monkey laugh.
I also remember a piece of funny business at the Alabam where a straight man came out arguing with this blackface fool.
“Never again will I take you to a swell party,” he said.
“Whataya all mean, Wilbert?” drawled the blackface, sort of dumb-like.
“You acted terrible, that’s why.”
“Hold up there, cousin,” said the comedian, bulging out his eyes.
“That’s right,” continued the straight. “You remember when the lady brought out them olives on a silver platter?”
“Yassah. The lady done brought them out.”
“And you asked her how long she had to soak the green peas in vinegar ’fore they swelled up that big?”
“So . . . ?”
“Aw, man!”
Of course, in the end the blackface fool always caps the straight and then it be even funnier.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the Creole girls from New Orleans, especially Jenny Lee Betts. She sang a number like Ain’t She Sweet that everybody just loved—a knockout.
Lorraine McClane, who used to have a act with young Moms Mabley and looked like her sister, was on the bill too. Sang Mississippi Mud and then went into some fast dance steps with her feet moving like crazy. Something like Nina Mae McKinney would do. Nettie Perry also sang some ballads.
It wasn’t possible for me to see the whole show because I had to watch my cues, be ready to hit it.
For the finale, the entire cast appeared, everybody doing a fast close with lots of loud singing, wild dancing, and the band up on stage roaring a hot number, maybe like Diga Diga Doo. It was great being part of a good show.
Pound for pound, Cheatham had a better band then McClane or Grear. Could play behind acts, chorus girls, and full shows. Play in different tempos, different styles, and segue from one to another.
Other bands were only dance bands—didn’t have the experience to do shows like that. At least not as a whole.
I worked the club for a month, playing acts for a hour and then about a half hour of dancing—working right on with almost no rest. The job paid fifty dollars a week for seven nights, two shows a night.
I got along good with Little Jeff, the trumpet player. Never knew his full name. He set a riff, I took the thirds, and he took the tonic. We played those head arrangements and made them sound like something special. Never worked with a trumpet player as good as he was.
There was also two saxophones, a tuba, drummer, and a banjo player in the band. Cheatham played piano.
The famous Whitman sisters were working Newark’s Orpheum Theater, and one cold, December night they came in the club. The owner acted as if royalty came in: special reserved table, free booze, lots of attention. And they were royalty. Between sets, a note came up they wanted to see me at their theater.
The Whitmans still had one of the most highly respected acts in all of black show business, maybe the highest of them all. They traveled back and forth across the country with their own troupe, working only the finest vaude theaters and were better known then even the popular Blackbirds show.
The next morning, bright and early, I was talking to sister Mae, who handled all the business. Told me her trombone, Alvis Travis, left and she needed a replacement. I was grateful that the Whitmans wanted me, but when Mae offered forty dollars a week, I hesitated. That was ten less then I was getting with Cheatham.
“Well,” I said like a big-tim
e New York musician, “I can’t go out for that.”
“Forty-five is as high as I’m goin’,” she said.
“I’ll take it.”
I took it because the five-dollar cut was worth it. My ambition been to work in a show like the Whitmans’ ever since Professor Aaron Harris, my old music teacher, told me in 1924 that someday I would be good enough to go with them. And now it was coming true.
A big show. All big names. Lots more experience. I gave Mae Whitman no argument. I gave Cheatham my notice.
11. The Whitman Sisters’ Show, 1928–1929
Monday, December 10, 1928, I played my first show with the Whitman sisters. It was at the Lafayette Theater up on Seventh Avenue, between 131st and 132d in New York, where they presented the best black stage shows and revues in the country. And believe me, the shows had to be the very best. When you play for black people, your best is not too damn good for them. You either put out or get out.
The Lafayette held about two thousand people, and outside on the marquee the Whitman Sisters’ name was up in bright lights. Toward Connie’s Inn on the corner was the famous Tree of Hope where performers out of work go to wish for a job. Sometimes it get crowded under there with all kinds of wishing going on.
That night my family came to see the show. No one ever seen me work before. Uncle Arthur, who told me a few months back I was not good enough to work in New York, sat right down front—almost able to reach out and touch me. Kept staring and staring, trying to see if maybe it was someone else that looked just like me.
My mother was there. So was my brothers and some cousins. It was a good show, but Mama watched me all the time, and I kept looking over at her to see if she was looking over at me.
Later backstage, everyone seemed so proud of me. My family all crowded around, everybody talking at the same time. Uncle Arthur said he been following the Whitmans since 1910 and never dreamed he see his kin in their pit band. Mama cried and I embraced her. I think I cried a little, too. It was the most exciting time in my whole, young life.