The Game Changer

by A. G. Lafley

  “Then I’m gonna personally boot his no-good black ass off my show.”

  He was serious and everybody knew he could do it too, even though he was close to sixty at the time.

  “I got a reputation to maintain,” he finished, “and no black cat gonna tear that down for me. Nobody.”

  He was very clear and never had no trouble with the band. And every year after that until 1942, he take the Hayes band out on another package show. Tim and Freddy, singer Ada Brown, and dancers Moke and Poke came along on some of those tours.

  Diz worked steady with the band for about four months through 1938, then go out on other jobs when the band laid off. He left to work with Cab Calloway early the next year, and I recommended Eddie Roane to take his place.

  Hayes took the band out on a new seven-week package tour in the spring of 1939. Had June Richmond, the Dandridge Sisters featuring Etta Jones, the famous Nicholas Brothers, and dancer Honi Coles and the Ubangi Club Boys. It was one hell of a show.

  The Ubangi Club Boys were female impersonators and looked more beautiful then a whole lot of women I seen. The boys came out of the pansy show, as it was called, at the Ubangi in New York. They tore it up wherever we went.

  Hayes then laid off the big band for about three months and took a few pieces in small New York clubs. So I gigged around with Joe Garland’s brother, Moses, and with other bands that didn’t even have no names.

  I did pickup dates with Teddy Hill at the Savoy, and one time when I sang Basin Street Blues, Doc Cheatham whispered I wasn’t taking a serious bow. Said my quick head nod might kill the number and if I bowed from the waist, with a good flair, it would show more appreciation. I always remembered that advice.

  Hayes took the big band out again in September playing Jewish and Italian dances in Brooklyn and down to the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C.

  By 1940, Hayes been in and out of the Savoy, the Renaissance, and the Apollo. Don Byas and Earl Bostic came in for a time. They were in when we worked the Golden Gate Ballroom in New York opposite Charlie Barnet.

  During Edgar’s many layoffs in 1940, I worked the Savoy with the bands of Stuff Smith, Hot Lips Page, and others—and many times again the following years.

  It was September 24, 1940, that my mother died. She was buried in Rosehill Cemetery out in Linden, New Jersey. I took it very hard but was shocked to see her grave right next to this medium-size tree. A lot of flowers on the mound and there was no stone. Lord, it looked exactly like the dream I had in Sweden two years before.

  When I saw my dream in front of me, I’m afraid I broke down. My uncle rushed over to hold me up but I couldn’t tell him what I seen—they all liable to think I was crazy or maybe having a breakdown like when Papa passed. But it worked my mind bad, very bad, seeing that sight once again.

  In January 1941, Hayes took the band down to Washington, D.C., for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Inaugural Ball. It was one of many being held, but I never did see any president and was disappointed.

  Joe Glaser, the big-time manager, booked Hayes to go out with Louis Armstrong’s band on a Battle of Music tour sometime in March. Glaser had Don Redman on the tour so the band was billed as Edgar Hayes and His Orchestra under the direction of Don Redman. Redman would take over his own special arrangements. Then Edgar came on and did the rest.

  Velma Middleton been singing with the Hayes band about two months and was also on the tour. Velma was heavy, you know, and she sing and dance, get to jumping and stomping, then make a long running split across the stage to loud cheers. Glaser caught the show in Roanoke, Virginia, and before Hayes knew it, Velma was working in Louis’ band. Edgar damn near died.

  I suggested he go up and catch this new singer that was working at the Crystal Caverns in Washington, D.C. I seen her in Harrisburg at the Ivancock Boys Place working for nickels and dimes. She was good.

  “Who’s this old gal, Clyde?”

  “Her name is Pearl Bailey and she wants to be a band singer.”

  “You mean Eura Bailey?”

  “No, this is Pearl, her sister.”

  “Oh, you mean that long, black dancin’ gal that won the Apollo contest?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Don’t want her, too black.”

  That got me hot. “Edgar, you don’t look like no damn glass of milk yourself. Why in hell you always bringing up that stuff? That gal can really work.”

  So he went up there. Savannah Churchill was the headliner and Pearl was stealing the show every night. Edgar said he liked Pearl better then Velma and took her with us the next day to New York’s Roseland. Hayes even made a special arrangement for her on St. Louis Blues.

  The day before we opened, Joe Brecker, the owner of Roseland, said he wasn’t about to pay for a girl singer. Edgar got all excited knowing he took Pearl out of a paying job. She was staying someplace over near 127th and Seventh where Pop Collins was charging her a quarter for breakfast and Pearl couldn’t pay it.

  Hayes asked if I had any ideas. I suggested he take five dollars out of everyone’s salary and ten out of his and pay Pearl with it. Thirteen guys plus him meant seventy-five dollars a week for the singer. Hell, we only making sixty-five ourselves.

  He wasn’t sure that would work but all the guys agreed to the deal. So we paid Pearl and she was a hit. Those white people went crazy for her. One time, Count Basie’s singer, Helen Humes, got sick and Basie borrowed Pearl with all her arrangements. When she got back, Brecker agreed to pay her fifty dollars a week.

  “Honey,” she cried, “the man done put me on salary and now I ain’t gettin’ as much as you all paid me. I’m fallin’ back!”

  By midyear of 1941 Edgar was starting to be off more then he was working. In July I went out with Horace Henderson’s orchestra for a month playing one-nighters in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and other points south.

  In September, Hayes took out another package tour for two weeks, working first-class ballrooms and halls through North Carolina and Georgia. Savannah Churchill was on that tour, also comedian Rochester, who did fancy dancing in his checkety pants. Kitty Murray, a heck of a entertainer, worked with Rochester. Smiles and Smiles, a man-and-wife act, was also on the show.

  One Sunday afternoon at the Savoy, Pearl and I was practicing a song we did together called Barefoot Blues. The date was December 7, 1941.

  “Lord have mercy,” she wailed, “I just heard on the radio them Japanese done bombed Pearl Harbor. Lord, if they drop one on New York I damn well better not die in the Savoy Ballroom.”

  Everyone knew we might get in a war. I tried to volunteer back in February. Noble Sissle was the head of my draft board and called to tell me they needed young men for the 369th Regiment Band. All the World War I musicians was being let go. I went down to the induction office to get my physical and found out I had hay fever and sinus trouble.

  The top doctor, who was a Regular Army colonel, brushed me aside. “Sorry boy, we can’t take you sick people in the Army. You’ll get to sneezing out there in the trenches and give the whole damn regiment away.” I got put in 4-F.

  Pearl stayed with the band through the spring of 1942, when she went out with Cootie Williams. I was sorry to see her go but was glad to follow her success in show business and later in politics, although I never received even a postcard from her in all that time.

  Hayes went in the Savoy on February 20, 1942, for a two-week stay against the Jay McShann band from Kansas City. Everyone knew Edgar had a damn good band. He worked against Lucky Millinder, Charlie Barnet, and Tommy Dorsey up there and cut them all. Even the Savoy dancers liked him.

  But that McShann gave us a house cleaning. I mean, every night he ripped us to pieces. When Jay turned his boys loose, he had hellions working. Just roaring wild men. Of course, he didn’t have readers like we had, so he couldn’t take care of a show. But as a dance band, he had it all.

  In the early part of 1942, my good friend Cliff Jackson, the pianist, went with me over to the Brill Building in the
heart of Tin Pan Alley. Had a little recording studio there, and I sang a couple songs: Lay Your Habits Down and So Long Blues, two of my originals. I titled that first number Lay Your Body Down but was told to change it. Like all the other tests I done, I didn’t take it seriously.

  I once brought the demo over to play for Sox Wilson and his wife, Coot Grant, old-time vaudevillians living up on Lenox, near 134th. Often went up to see them and thought they were nice people. Sox liked the sides and told me to take them over to Mayo Williams, the black talent scout for Decca.

  So I got up my nerve and went down there with Sox.

  “Yeah,” Williams told me, “I know Hayes had a good selling B side with your Without You number. But you just a old trombone player, Clyde.”

  “Give the boy a chance,” Sox told him.

  “I don’t take no chance on somebody not known,” Mayo said raising his voice. Then he smiled. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fix it with Louis Jordan to record your songs. They fit him good.”

  Sox was sitting sort of behind him, shaking his head no. But he didn’t have to tell me that. I knew how it worked—take the songs and goodbye.

  I got up and left, went home, and threw the record in the drawer with the others. Didn’t make no more tests for a long time after that.

  Through most of 1942, I worked the Savoy with Franz Jackson, Dave Nelson, and other bands while Edgar was laying off again. Sometimes I doubled on both bandstands and though I was young, it was a damn hard thing to do. I liked to work hard. Do my job. All the Savoy bands knew I took care of business, so I got a lot of work up there.

  I was with Dave Nelson when he recorded some twelve sides but never heard nothing about them coming out—maybe because the people that paid for them was South Americans.

  I was now with Hayes over five years. Although he had a top reputation as a pianist and band leader, by June of 1942 he wasn’t working at all. Even other bands couldn’t understand his problem.

  Then a strange thing happened.

  One day I was walking down Seventh Avenue and saw Edgar standing on the corner. Looked depressed as usual.

  “Man, this is a tough town,” he moaned.

  “What’s the matter, Edgar?” I knew what the matter was—he was a Gemini and those born under that sign just cannot make it in New York. Not his fault, he simply not compatible. I knew that.

  “I’m at the end of my rope,” he said. “I done everything I can. Double and triple booked, booked myself, cut prices, took all the shit jobs. But I still can’t make it. Everytime I get my band started goin’ good, these damn people—if they ain’t them niggers then it’s the ofays—take my jobs, take my men, gimme a bad time. You the onlyest one that’s sticking with me, Clyde.”

  He looked bad. Took his glasses off and held his eyes. I thought he would cry.

  I invited him to join me for a Chinese chop suey dinner. We talked for hours, and I soon realized he was going to give up the business completely.

  “Got a idea,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “Jimmy Butts’ wife’s grandmother is a spiritualist around the corner and I was up some months ago for a reading.”

  “Aw, Clyde, you don’t believe that stuff?”

  “Now listen,” I said, “she told me things about my mother and father that nobody knew but me. Said they still watching over me, guiding and helping me.”

  “Well, I don’t know . . .”

  “Also said the man I work for needed help and she knew what to do about it.”

  “What it cost?”

  “She take two dollars.”

  “Ain’t got two dollars. I’m on my ass.”

  So I gave him the money, and he went up the next day to see Madam Daisy Harod on 130th, near Eighth. She told him all his problems was due to his first wife that put a bad jinx on him and he been carrying that for years. So she took it off and said things would be better, that his greatest wish would come true.

  The very next day the William Morris Agency called him. They never booked Hayes before but gave him a eight-week lounge job playing piano at the Somerset House in Riverside, California—started him off at two hundred a week.

  He did so good they extended his stay indefinately, raised him to three hundred, and allowed him to add some side pieces. Moved his family out there, bought a beautiful home, and was never in debt or out of money again. Edgar worked the Somerset for many years until the place closed. Then had his pick of jobs.

  I visited him out there many times, and we always talked long about Madam Daisy Harod and her strange prediction that come true.

  After Edgar left for the coast, George Wilson, who was in Fats Waller’s band, heard I was at liberty and got me to fill in when he went with Charlie Johnson to Atlantic City. Fats had Bob Williams, Eugene Sedric, Johnny “Bugs” Hamilton, George James, Hank Duncan, Herman Autrey, Al Casey, Slick Jones, and other good musicians. We did a week at the Royal in Baltimore and another at the Howard in Washington, D.C., around July.

  Ed Kirkeby, Fats’ manager, asked me to take a September tour, but I saw Fats only wanted his horns playing parts and that wasn’t for me.

  Took a quick job with the Sunset Royals orchestra backing Ella Fitzgerald out in Staten Island and at the Savoy. Jimmy Smith was on first trumpet for that date.

  It was the Saturday before Labor Day in September 1942. Was playing a week with Dave Nelson’s orchestra against Jay McShann at the Savoy.

  Jay came over. “Houseman, you done played with just about everybody else up here. Now I like to have you in my band—regular.”

  Hell, he couldn’t say that fast enough. I grabbed the job.

  21. Jay McShann’s Kansas City Orchestra, 1942–1943

  Everybody called me Houseman at the Savoy. Jack LaRue, the head bouncer, gave me the name.

  “Man, you here more then me,” he said.

  The Savoy Ballroom was the most popular dancehall in the world. Had a double bandstand featuring two bands working alternate sets. The Number One stand was for the regular house band and the other for visiting groups. They called that the Battle of Music.

  Some of the greatest bands in the country worked there “against” each other: Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Erskine Hawkins, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, the Casa Loma orchestra, the Savoy Sultans. All the best. And two or three times a week there was broadcasts over WMCA radio direct from the Savoy. And on Sunday, too.

  By this time the Depression had died out. People working, more going out for a good time, more people giving dances, and there was more money around. The Savoy was the place to go.

  The Track, as we called it, was bigger then Roseland—could take a hell of a crowd, at least five thousand people. Located upstairs on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, the place stretched all the way between 140th and 141st on the right side going uptown.

  People always lined up on Lenox waiting to get in, sometimes there be more standing outside then inside. After paying eighty-five cents admission, you walked up the marble stairs to a nicely kept ballroom. Fancy wall decorations all over, thick patterned carpets on the floor, soft benches for sitting, round tables for drinking, and a heavy brass railing all around the long, polished dance floor.

  Happy, laughing faces was all jammed in under different colored spot lights. The room sure was terrific. Even the bouncers wore tuxedos and looked more distinguished then most of the customers.

  People danced or just sat around watching the wild, sweating dancers do their steps. The Savoy Lindy Hoppers was the feature and was something to see. Came out in special uniforms, each with different colors—the gals in short, crazy skirts. The fellows had on bright silk overalls.

  And dance? Man, those jitterbugs just loose as a goose. Feet going all which-ways, hands flapping and waving, partners sliding between the other’s legs, frontwards, backwards, bodies tossed in the air, legs straight up, clothes flying—Lord, they were fast. New steps. Old steps. Impossible steps. When they did their thing, e
verybody cleared the floor and watched. Those dancers couldn’t be topped.

  I especially liked to watch old Twist-Mouth Charlie and Betty, they were so hot they later turned professional. The famous Snake Hips Tucker came in regular, but they had guys doing his whole damn routine just as good as he did. Only they didn’t have his name. Every living person up there could dance, and if he was just average, he stayed the hell off the floor because he had no business out there. Liable to get run over and smashed to death.

  The Lindy Hop, The Big Apple, Suzy-Q, Truckin’, The Bumpy Bump, and other dances became popular all over the world and they started right there at the Savoy. Three or four different Lindy Hopper groups worked around town with some of the original Savoy Hoppers heading each. Jitterbug contests was common, and the prize be maybe five dollars, and those Savoy Hoppers won every time.

  People came from everywhere to see the Savoy—Europe, South America, China, Japan. Arrived in busses—come to sit and watch the fun. Downtown people always driving up in limos and cabs. Lana Turner, Jack Oakie, George Raft, Greta Garbo in her dark glasses, all those famous people. Raft was suppose to be a good dancer. Hell, up there he was just ordinary.

  From 1931 all through the Depression, there be more whites coming in the Savoy then blacks. When money was hard to come by, local whites came in from everywhere—East Harlem, Columbia University, downtown—and kept the Savoy going. The place couldn’t of survived the Depression without those white kids.

  Moe Gale was the owner of the Savoy with his two sons, Moe, Jr., and Tim. Charles Buchanan, a West Indian, was the business manager and saw that everything ran good. Hired and fired. Kept order.

  If anybody acted a fool, got drunk, made trouble, then Buchanan got rough. No matter who the person was—guest, dancer, bandsman—he snap his fingers and Jack LaRue, Stackhouse, and some of the other black bouncers was all over him. His butt got thrown down those long stairs right to the policemen that was always stationed there. The bulls pitched the guy headfirst in their waiting patrol wagon and took him away.