by A. G. Lafley
Oliver often said things like that. When he see somebody real dark he strike a match and whisper: “Who dat out dare? What dat movin’?” All that kind of stuff.
Everybody laugh and he laugh the loudest. Some New Orleanians have peculiar ways. You just have to understand them—they critical of others and very critical of themselves.
He just loved to play the dirty dozens—a kind of insulting game. The more insults tossed back and forth, the better he like it. Herman Elkins and Walter Dennis always try to dozens him back but they didn’t stand a chance. He tell them something bad about their mother or sister, about sleeping with them and what they did and how they did it and what they said about it and things like that. Everybody would die laughing, but the guys always let him go. He was no contest. His dozens won every time.
And man, could he eat. The only person that gave him competition eating was Fats Waller. Yesssss Lord. Oliver eat a dozen fried eggs for breakfast and then say how he could eat more. He take about a pound of bacon, fried real crisp, and chew it piece by piece, then drink down maybe ten cups of coffee.
And he loved his grits and rice. Yes he did. And sweets—jam, preserves, and jelly piled high on bread and butter. Then sop everything up.
Once I saw him drink a half gallon of lemonade and twelve bottles of Coca-Cola.
“I know I’m not the smallest eater in town,” he growl, “but damn it, I enjoy what little I do eat.”
And the guys all laugh. “Well,” they say, “we hate to see you when you hungry.” Then everybody went into the dozens again.
Oliver never allowed any of us to drink on the job. He didn’t either, although he smoked heavy. Sometimes we slip outside where there was a pint or quart jar of corn whiskey hidden. He was watching and sneak around back of the bus and peep in the window. “Alright,” he shout, “if I catch any of you mothers drinkin’ on your rest period, I’m gonna fine each of you two bucks.”
He always watched us but never did catch us.
A couple boys once bought some reefers in Dallas, a whole paper bag for a quarter. That was the first time I ever seen that stuff. Never saw it out east. The guys all talking about getting a Target Cigarette wrapping machine to roll their own, but didn’t know where to buy it.
“That’s one thing I like about this band,” Oliver said, “ain’t got no goddamn big reefer smokers in it.”
Told me he tried it once. “Some ol’ Mexican boy sold me some for a dime. I inhaled, did every damn thing, and that shit didn’t bother me no kind of way. How in hell they get their damn kicks from that?”
He always used a gold-plated horn, a Conn I think—they cost more then a brass- or silver-plated one. Back then, really big name bands wouldn’t hire unless the musician had a gold-plated instrument. Man, it sure looked class.
Oliver used three mutes: a wah-wah—he was very good on a wah-wah—a cup mute, and a straight mute. I never heard any trumpet player take a wah-wah plunger and play Sugar Blues like he did. Sounded like he was crying and moaning—it was magnetic. The horn really talked.
I asked him once what it was saying. “Goddamn it, I was cussin’ you mothers out.”
He had all his teeth extracted in 1927 because of pyorrhea. Sometimes his denture plates hurt his gums after playing about a hour, and he have to stop, get off the stand, and stay alongside for a while. They had no paste in those days to hold the plates tight like they do now, but as long as they didn’t bother him, his playing was not affected. He could hit a high D—never did play those high F’s and G’s like Louis Armstrong—the highest he go was around C and D. But he scream on a D.
I say King Oliver still played more and was more exciting then a lot of younger men in their twenties and thirties. Of course he didn’t sound the same every night. He did have his off days, but so did all of us.
Sometimes he was feeling terrific. “Goddamn it, I feel good tonight!” And he came up on the bandstand. “I’m gonna play you all a 1923 solo.” And knocked everybody out. Every time.
I always liked the way New Orleans musicians played a solo. Listen to certain riffs played by Oliver, Louis, and Kid Ory and copy after them. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and soon it set me up with a style of my own.
King Oliver and his New Orleans Creole Jazz Band, New York, N.Y., Mar. 1931. Left to right: Clyde Bernhardt (tb/v), King Oliver (t/ldr), Ernest Myers (g/bjo), Red Elkins (t), Freddie Moore (d), Hank Duncan (p), Lionel Nepton (tubal/b), Paul Barnes (as/ss/cl), Alfred Pratt (ts), Walter Dennis (as).
Oliver had one good-sounding band on this tour. It just so happened that everybody been playing with top-quality orchestras and they all knew the latest music, and that’s what the public wanted. Oliver could not afford to have musicians that did not read well.
Except him of course. “You all better not laugh at my slow readin’,” he kept repeating. “If you do, I’ll fire your goddamn asses.”
It was every man on his own in the band, nobody to hold him up—he had to hold himself up.
Red Elkins from the old Wilkins band was on first trumpet; Joe Oliver on second; Paul “Polo” Barnes, a Creole from New Orleans, alto and clarinet; Alfred Pratt from the Parker band, tenor and clarinet; and Walter Dennis, alto and clarinet. Dennis had a weakness for the ladies, always had two or three at a time. Some even followed him as the band moved on. We called them Miss 802’s because they preferred New York musicians—and we all members of local musician’s union 802.
Henry “Hank” Duncan, our piano man, was a little more selective with his women. Liked only schoolteachers and professional women like that.
Ernest Wilson Myers, the guitar and arranger, was nice and quiet but had real thin lips that Oliver always teased him about. “Goddamn,” he say, “your mouth so sharp it pick beans out of a bottle!”
Lionel Nepton was on tuba and string bass—he played both and carried them along with him—Freddie Moore on good New Orleans back-beat drums, and myself on trombone. His nephew Dave Nelson was not in the band but gave Oliver a lot of arrangements.
Early in the tour, Walter Dennis got sick for two months, and Herschel Evans joined in Fort Worth as third alto. Later, Nepton was replaced by the terrific bassist, Simon Marrero—another of the Marrero brothers out of New Orleans—and gave the band a booming drive. In Kansas City, a boy named D. Stewart—his lady called him Prince D. Stewart—was added on trumpet.
The Frederick Brothers Agency also sent over Tiny Taylor, a big fat boy out of Kansas City. He fronted the band and sang. Oliver never did like Taylor’s attitude, and he was gone in a short while. Then he sent for Clara Eaton, a nightclub singer from New York. She was tall and thin and sounded like Ethel Waters. In fact, a lot of people, especially whites, thought she was.
The band left New York about the latter part of March on the Nevins Bus Line and went direct to Wichita. That was a trip of at least fifteen hundred miles and took us only three days through small towns, so we were damn near dead when we arrived.
We got there on a Thursday evening, I remember, and opened the following night at the Shadowland Ballroom, the same named hall I worked in New York with Parker. I knew that was a good sign.
This place was bigger then the one in New York and could take care of a big seventeen-piece band. I worked better-known halls but this was really beautiful: crystal chandeliers, expensive draperies, a long, wooden dance floor that shined like glass, polished oak trimmings, large mirrors everywhere, colored lights flashing, everything fancy. All the way, a class A ballroom.
I thought we looked terrific sitting up there on the stand in our salt-and-pepper gray uniforms, black shoes, plain white dress shirts, and black string ties. For formal dances we had black tuxedo suits.
The band was jumping that first night. This was the famous King Oliver and his New Orleans Creole Jazz Band playing a top job, and I was part of it. I took some long solos, got off some extra triple tongue passages, all that fast stuff. I was showing the King all my tricks and that I was worthy of him.
That surprised hell out of me.
He continued: “I like the way you was blowin’ before, otherwise I wouldn’t of took you.”
I started feeling good and bad at the same time. I appreciated his advice, but here I was doing something a lot of other trombone players couldn’t, and he didn’t like it.
Then I remembered what my uncle told me before I left. Said Oliver was the guy paying me and to listen to the man. And if he told me to play Shoo Georgia Rabbit, I should damn well play it and smile. So I followed that advice.
The tour lasted over eight months for me. Wherever we played, the audiences went crazy. We had to be good, because we were playing the finest, biggest white ballrooms in the Midwest and South: The Lakeworth Casino, ten miles out of Fort Worth; The Frog Hop in St. Joseph, Missouri; a whole gang of private rooms in Kansas City and New Orleans; Spring Lake Park, Oklahoma City; and The Coliseum in Tulsa.
I remember one job we played at the Lakeworth Casino. The hall capacity was about fifteen hundred, but on the second night they had sixteen hundred packed in, and on the third there was seventeen hundred. The man had to stop selling tickets or we all been suffocated.
Oliver’s was the first colored band to appear in that huge Coliseum in Tulsa. That was really a big place—three times larger then the Roseland in New York and just as fine, if not finer. Was so modern—had amplifiers on the bandstand! Never seen microphones before. Always used the old megaphone horns in New York and couldn’t understand what the hell they supposed to do. The damn things scared me, they were so loud.
King Oliver broke the ice almost everywhere he went—played where others could not. Name bands such as Bennie Moten, Jap Allen, Jesse Stone, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, George E. Lee out of Kansas City, and the Oklahoma City Blue Devils all playing good, heavy, special arrangements. But not for Oliver’s audiences.
“They can’t get nowhere near them big white ballrooms I play,” he often laughed.
He played the songs the audiences asked for. Hot numbers like Tiger Rag so the guys could show off; the St. Louis Blues, Beale Street, and the Memphis Blues; waltzes and standards such as My Wild Irish Rose, Danny Boy, and even ’O Sole Mio; Oliver originals like Mule Face Blues and Boogie Woogie. We also did Lazy River, Stardust, and other new tunes and introduced many songs just as fast as they came out. Publishers sent music to Oliver before they published it. I don’t know how many numbers in his book—must have been over three hundred.
He often used Archie Bleyer arrangements and some by Will Hudson and had Ernest Myers and sometimes Paul Barnes make suggestions. And we all did plenty head arrangements. One thing made the band cook was Freddie Moore’s push-drumming. Another was the strong rhythm section and the solos the men played in there. They never overplayed themselves.
Oliver knew just the right songs, just the right tempo, and just the right length to make those people get up off their behinds and fill the floor. Never forgot that he had a dance band.
Sometimes we did funny bits during the numbers to entertain the people. Ernest Myers had a thing where he came out dressed like a tramp in a long coat all torn and tattered. Wore a beat-up old hat falling to pieces and carried a raggety traveling bag in one hand and his guitar in the other. Man, he looked bad, just like he came out of a rag factory.
When he walk out on stage asking to join the band, we wave him away. The audience laugh. After begging and pleading for a chance, Oliver call Tiger Rag. Myers stomp off and play the damnedest solo you ever heard, taking hot choruses behind his back and on top of his head. The audience all cheered and wanted more. Myers was one heck of a solo man.
Freddie Moore had a bit when we did Sing You Sinners. Get up during the number and start to shouting and praying, like he found religion. Suddenly, he start to weave and hold his head. As he was falling over in a faint, Myers run out behind and catch him just in time. The audience would roar. One night, Myers didn’t run fast enough and Freddie fell back off the bandstand, behind the drums. Oliver almost died laughing. The audience thought it was part of the act and wanted more. Cheered for five minutes.
Oliver was a smart band leader. When he worked white dances, and at least 95 percent of our jobs were white, he knew they all wanted smooth, sweet modern numbers, and that’s what he usually played. Whites were not as hip to hot music then as they are today.
When we worked colored places, which was often on our Mondays off, we played a lot of blues and jazz numbers—unless a guy came up and asked us for something else. Some black places did have whites, but they were not allowed to dance. Called them the “white inspectators.” They just sat and watched.
I respected King Oliver and learned a lot from him. He usually called me “son” and I called him “pop”—spoke to him just like I did my Papa and my family. I always found time to talk to him and I think he liked that. Regardless of his nasty words, I respected him.
He was always pushing me to have more confidence in myself. “Son,” he say, “you play much better trombone then you give yourself credit for. I can get almost any damn motherjiver for the price I pay you. If you couldn’t play, you sure in hell wouldn’t be here now.”
Like the time he heard me singing St. Louis Blues on the bus. We just came from a little restaurant where I drank two coffee cups full of moonshine—cost about fifty cents. I was feeling real good, started fooling around, and broke out in song. I never sung on the bus before.
“Who the hell’s singing back there?” Oliver said, turning around.
“That’s old Clyde,” somebody answered.
“I thought it was that big, black son-of-a-bitch that sings with Moten’s band,” he mumbled. He meant Jimmy Rushing, of course. “Goddamn it, you hadda get drunk so everybody know you can sing.”
Well, I been hearing blues all my life. Always sang around the house as a kid, trying to make like Mamie Smith, Mary Stafford, Ma Rainey, and some of the others. But I never took it seriously.
“I’m gonna put that number in tonight, and you sing,” he said.
“Aw pop, I can’t sing nothin’.”
“Goddamn,” he shouted through the bus, “if you can’t, I’ll whip the livin’ hell outta you.”
I was not sure he was kidding.
That night we played the Lakeworth Casino. I thought he forgot all about it, but late in the set he called St. Louis Blues. It always been a instrumental number with him.
“Now get up there and holler them damn blues,” he said, turning to me.
I was not about to argue with the boss. Like my uncle told me, do what the man say.
I’m not bragging, but I broke up the house. After the set, pop came over and poked me in the chest with his stubby finger. “Keep at those damn blues, son, and someday you make a bigger name singin’ then playin’.”
I knew he meant that because he was outspoken and wasn’t the kind of person to tell me something just to make me feel good. After that, I always sang on the show and he gave me a ten-dollar raise.
Many people said he was hard to get along with, that he was evil a lot of times. Well, he had his habits, but I understood them. Never did look for him to be perfect—I’m not perfect myself. I was taught to have respect for older people, so he never had no trouble with me.
He didn’t take to any b.s.ing on the bandstand while we worked—wanted us to always pay attention. When he call a number and have to repeat the same damn thing two or three times over, he got hot.
Like some guy be up there talking worse then a woman—ya-ya-ya-ya-ya—paying him no mind. Suddenly, the guy wake up. “What’cha gonna play? What’cha gonna play?” he ask, looking around fast.
And Oliver lose control. “Goddamn it, stop runnin’ your fat mouth off and you’d know what in hell I’m gonna play.” Say that loud, right on t
he bandstand. Only he was rougher with his words.
See, a lot of musicians, like many other people, they try you. Like when guys come walking up ten minutes after nine and we supposed to hit it at nine, he call a meeting.
‘You gonna do shit like that, you in the wrong band.” And if the guy come late again, he get fired.
No, Oliver wasn’t tough. He was right.
I remember one time down in Louisiana, he really lost his temper bad. It was because we always had young gals come running up to us, trying to make time. Some young toughs at this black dance be jealous and tried to start trouble. This one guy run up and knocked down a music stand. Oliver got real hot and turned to the white policeman the house hired.
“That goddamn nigger there knocked over my music stand,” he shouted at the cop. “If the black bastard comes back up here again, I’m gonna blow his motherjiving head off.”
Then he pulled out his black .38 special he always carried and waved it around. Everybody froze.
“That’s alright, King,” the cop said, “you don’t have to bother none. Leave him to me.”
With that, he took out his nightstick and beat the living tar out of that black guy. Chased him out in the hallway and beat him some more and told him if he ever came back, he kill him himself.
“Everything was goin’ good,” the policeman said as he wiped off his stick, “and here come this nigger starting trouble, chasing out the girls, pickin’ on you boys. I fixed him good, King. Go on with the show.”
We run into a lot of things like that in the Deep South but never had trouble at any time at any of the white ballrooms we worked.
Pop never shot anybody as far as I know. Maybe at some old birds flying while we rode along in the bus, but he missed all of them.
We traveled in a little private bus. Only held about twenty-four people, but it was more then enough for us. Roy Johnson, a white fellow, was the bus driver and also did some road managing.