There was no black power. I was sixteen, seventeen years old, white, innocent, and I’d wander around all over the place, at all hours of the night, all night long, and never once was ac-costed. I was never threatened. I was never challenged to a fight. I was never called a honkie. And I never saw any violence at all except for an occasional fight over a woman or something like that. It was a whole different trip than it got be later on.
The club Alabam was the epitome of Central Avenue. It was right off Forty-second Street across from Ivy Anderson’s Chicken Shack. There were a lot of other clubs, but the Club Alabam was really one of the old-time show-time places, a huge room with beautiful drapes and silks and sparklers and colored lights turning and flashing. The bandstand was plush and gorgeous with curtains that glistened. The waitresses were dressed in scanty costumes, and they were all smiling and wiggling and walking around, and everywhere you looked you saw teeth, people laughing, and everybody was decked out. It was a sea of opulence, big hats and white fluffy fur. And the cars out front were real long Cadillacs with little mudguards, little flappy little things, shiny things.
The band had two altos, two trumpets, a tenor, and a rhythm section. On the show was Avery Parrish. He was the one who wrote “After Hours” and made that famous, and when he played the whole place rocked with the music. There was Wynonie Harris, a real handsome guy, light skinned with glistening eyes and the processed hair, all shiny with every hair just perfectly in place. He had a good blues voice and just carried the audience away. The walls would start shaking; the people screaming and clapping. Every now and then they’d get up and start wiggling in the aisles next to their tables. Moke and Poke were on the bill, far-out comedians. When they came on they’d do this walking step, laughing, one right behind the other, moving in perfect synchronization. After their act they’d run into their dressing room, rip off their clothes, and throw on silk robes and come back and do this walk around the audience; every now and then, when they were walking, if the audience was really good, they’d have it so their joints would flop out of their robes, flopping in time, in perfect unison, and the chicks would go, “Ahhhhh!” And we’d just be shouting in the background, playing these real down-home blues. I’d go in there and play and get so caught up in the feeling that I never had a chance to think about anything bad that might be happening to me or to worry at all. It was such an open, such a free, such a beautifully right time.
There was a place on Vernon, right around the corner from the Club Alabam, called the Ritz Club. You went through a door into an empty storefront and walked through a curtain. You took bottles in, and they served mixes and food. The music started at two in the morning and went on all night. People would come and sit in: Jimmy Blanton, probably the greatest bass player that ever lived—he was so far ahead of any jazz musician on any instrument it was just ridiculous; Art Tatum came in; Louis Armstrong, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young. You can imagine what a thrill it was to be in the same room with these people. I used to go sit in after my job at the Club Alabam and play with them. Then the management decided to hire a regular band at the Ritz Club so they’d always have somebody there to play when people came to sit in, and I was hired. That’s when I started smoking pot; I was already drinking every night and taking pills.
I was hanging around with Dexter Gordon. We smoked pot and took Dexedrine tablets, and they had inhalers in those days that had little yellow strips of paper in them that said “poison,” so we’d put these strips in our mouths, behind our teeth. They really got you roaring as an upper: your scalp would tingle, and you’d get chills all over, and then it would center in your head and start ringing around. You’d feel as if your whole head was lifting off. I was getting pretty crazy, and right about that time, I think, Dexter started using smack, heroin.
Dexter Gordon was an idol around Central Avenue. He was tall. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that made him seem like he was about seven feet tall. He had a stoop to his walk and wore long zoot suits, and he carried his tenor in a sack under his arm. He had these heavy-lidded eyes; he always looked loaded, always had a little half smile on his face. And everybody loved him. All the black cats and chicks would say, “Heeeeey, Dex!” you know, and pat him on the back, and bullshit with him. I used to stand around and marvel at the way they talked. Having really nothing to say, they were able to play these little verbal games back and forth. I envied it, but I was too self-conscious to do it. What I wouldn’t give to just jump in and say those things. I could when I was joking to myself, raving to myself, in front of the mirror at home, but when it came time to do it with people I couldn’t.
Lee Young was worried about me. I was so young. I think he felt he had an obligation to take care of me. Lee looked like the typical black musician of the ’40s, the hep black man with the processed hair. He was light complected, very sharp, with diamond rings; he wore his clothes well; and he was a cat you’d figure could conduct himself in any situation. His brother was Lester Young, one of the greatest saxophone players that ever lived in this world. The most fantastic—equaled only fairly recently by John Coltrane. Better than Charlie Parker. In my humble opinion, better than Charlie Parkerr, just marvelous, such beauty. And Lee, Lee played nice drums. He was capable but was in the shadow of his brother, and I think he felt that. He loved his brother and was very proud of him, but I don’t see how he could help but feel sad that he couldn’t have played with his brother and really set the world on fire.
Lee was very nice to me and thoughtful. To show you what kind of a person he was—I was playing my parts and nobody else would have worried about me. Why go out of their way to worry about a little white boy, you know? But Lee dug that I was hanging out with Dexter, and we were on that road, and he sat down with me. He said, “I’ve talked to Dexter, man, and he’s got a way to go. There’s cold awful dues he’s got to pay and he’s just going to have to pay ‘em, I’m afraid. But you, man, why don’t you—boy, I’d love to see you not have to pay those dues.” I said, “No, I’m alright. I’m okay.” He said, “Art, I really like you. I’d sure love to see you do right.”
At that time Jimmy Lunceford’s band lost Willie Smith, who had played lead alto with them for a long time. He went with Harry James. So Kurt Bradford, who had been with Benny Carter, went to Jimmy Lunceford, and Lee got me an audition with Benny. He tried to get me a job where he thought I’d be protected. I auditioned and I made the band.
(Lee Young) I started the band that Art was in after I left Lionel Hampton. Well, when I first quit Lionel’s band, Lester left Basie, and we formed a band out here. Jimmy Rowles happened to be in Seattle, Washington, and he came down here to be in the band. Now, I don’t want to make this a black and white thing, but at the time we’re talking about it was an exception to have a white guy in a black band. Only we didn’t say “black”; we said “colored band,” “colored players.” Music has always been the same to me. It never had any color to me.
Lester and I took our band to Cafe Society in ’42—that’s in New York City. Then our dad died. That broke up the band because I was very close to the family. I came back home to L.A, in the latter part of ’42 or early ’43.
I told you about the Jimmy Rowles thing because for some reason it seems like every band I had, I always had a white player. I don’t remember where I heard Art, but I just believe it might have been at a jam session because that’s all I did all the time. I kept my drums in the back of the car. They had all kinds of jam sessions on Central Avenue; it was against the union rules to play them, but I did it all the time. They must have fined me a hundred times. I’m certain that’s how I met Art, and when I got the gig for the Club Alabam he was one of the first people I thought of because when you build a band you think of the first-chair man. And Art did play lead alto.
We