Jazz Patriarch of Newark

Professor J.
Southern (Managing Editor-Publisher)
Jazz Patriarch of Newark

Author(s): Gary Carner and Hal Mitchell
Source: The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 17, No. 1/2 (1989), pp. 109-134
Published by: Professor J. Southern (Managing Editor-Publisher)
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CONVERSATION with
Hal Mitchell:
Jazz Patriarch of Newark

BY GARY CARNER
HTT AL MITCHELL, whom Dizzy Gillespie regard

marvelous trumpet player," was born into the bus
musical environment of Newark, New Jersey, on 28 J
uary 1916.' In his teens he was tutored by stride pianists Do
Lambert and Willie "The Lion" Smith (who often played New
rent parties and speakeasys), and then developed his craft wi
ious local groups and variety shows. In the 1930s Mitchell ca
age with one of Newark's finest bands, the Savoy Dictators, th
group recorded by Newark-based Savoy Records.
Until the mid-1960s, Newark (an industrial city with its
airport and seaport) was a major stop for revues, dance band
itinerant musicians of all kinds. The local jazz scene was part
ly dynamic. Dizzy Gillespie recalls that "In Newark, they
crowd that was much more advanced than the musicians crowd in
Philadelphia because it was closer to New York. Those cats coul
get right on the subway and come over to New York and get any
thing they wanted."2
Since the 1920s, in fact, Newark has been the birthplace an
breeding ground for many important jazz musicians, such as Bob
by Plater, Rudy Williams, James Moody, Sarah Vaughan, Ik
Quebec, Dave Burns, Gil Fuller, Al Haig, Cozy Cole, Tony Scot
Bobby Tucker, Sam Woodyard, Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, Han
Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Walter Davis, Jr., Grachan Moncur, III,
Eddie Gladden, Charli Persip, and Dave Schnitter.
In 1939, newly formed Savoy Records recorded six tracks by
the Dictators at Harris's Saloon in Newark. Bobby Plater remem-
bered the band (with Hal Mitchell and Chippie Outcalt, trumpets;
Howard Scott, trombone; Bobby Plater, alto sax; Count Hastings,
tenor sax; Clem Moorman, piano; Willie Johnson, guitar; Al Hen-
derson, bass; and Danny Gibson, drums) as "the best musicians in
New Jersey at that time, a band ten years ahead of its time."3 "Th
arrangements we used," Plater said in 1980, "were pacesetters-we
still use them with a small band out of the Basie band-we had our
110 THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC
own style and our own syncopation, even when we

stock arrangements. They didn't sound like stock arran
they sounded like us."4
After the Dictators disbanded in 1940, Hal Mitchell s
next fourteen years on the road with Tiny Bradshaw, B
(with whom he recorded two V-Discs and the soundtrack
Weather), Jimmie Lunceford, Louis Jordan, and others.
period Mitchell also relocated in New York City to w
There he recorded his first dates as a leader for Irving
Manor Records (1944, 1947) and Charles Mingus's D
with Kenny Clarke and George Duvivier (1953). He al
as a sideman with Sarah Vaughan (1947) and Louis Jo
1950).
In 1954, after the death of his mother, Mitchell settled per-
manently in Newark. For the next twenty years he worked during
the day at Forman's Foods, a food distribution plant, while continu-
ing to gig at night. Since his return, Mitchell has served as an elder
statesman to a new generation of Newark jazz musicians, which
includes, among others, Woody Shaw, Herbie Morgan, Buddy
Terry, Larry Young, and Andy Bey.
In the mid-1980s Mitchell and his friend, Newark-born printer
and saxophonist Walter Darden, tried to acquire a long-vacant,
rubble-strewn lot in northwest Newark for the purposes of build-
ing what Darden calls an "upscale, white tablecloth restaurant" that
would have jazz entertainment. Several years of frustrating bu-
reaucratic maneuvers by the city thwarted the plan, they say, but
Mitchell and Darden are presently trying to convince Newark's new
administration that their original design is still viable. Mitchell, now
seventy-three, works as a mail clerk at First Fidelity Bank in New-
ark and still gigs from time to time. "It's been an interesting life,"
says Mitchell. "I was taken many places because of that horn."
I met Hal Mitchell at his house on North Ninth Street in New-
ark on Saturday, 16 April 1988. My daylong interview with him
concentrated on his life in music and covered many topics, such as
racism, life on the road as a black musician, greed in the music
business, his association with major and minor jazz figures, and jazz
in Newark. During lunch we were joined by Walter Darden, who
brought to the conversation his own perspective on the Newark
jazz scene. I have altered, with the permission of Hal Mitchell and
Walter Darden, the order of topics discussed and some of their
language to enhance readability.
* * *
Hal Mitchell: It started

storefront on the corner of
HAL MITCHELL 11
the head person there, who was trying to [help] depriv

took me under her wing because I was so quiet, and in
to the advantages of reading. I must have been about
had a band, Duke Richardson's band, that was rehe
New House.6 Duke Richardson was a trombonist. The
his work was done in dancing schools and dime-a-d
used to carry the bell of Al Henderson's sousaphon
hearsals. Bobby Plater played [also in that band].
Blue Dorn, a trumpet player, was with another ban
hearsed at New House. I used to go and watch him
fingers down like he was pushing the valves of a F
Somehow she [i.e., Mrs. Corprew] got word that I wou
and watch this band. About a month later, she sent w
school [that I should] come by the House; she had som
me. So I went by. She said, "You know what that is? O
there was a trumpet. "You think you can learn how t
That was the spark!
I had not really absorbed the impact of discriminat
that I was surrounded by lots of things that I really
stand. Once I got that trumpet in my hand, I didn't e
decipher it. That was probably my escape. I spent
young days with that horn!
I became associated with people that you never h
they were well accomplished: Micky Waters, an al
player, Larry Ringold, alto saxophone player. Both of
were well known by Benny Carter [as] "the guys f
Jersey." They were very good players and writers. Thi
pany I wound up in after I got out of the rank amateu
taught me about the pitfalls that go along with the bus
with musicians; the "competitiveness" that goes on be
which turns out to be animosity; the undercutting; dea
owners of taverns who never have enough money to
matter what the price.
Then along came Mr. Chips [Chippy Outcalt], th
player- turned-trombone player who died recently. He
lot about chords. This group in the photo with the fu
stand, Joe Crump and His Band of a Thousand Them
became augmented with Bill Sawyer (alto), Corn
(tenor), William Lindberg (bass), and drummer Frank
very musically minded. They taught me how to voice
you only have two or three instruments. The next
was The Dictators. They were all learning how to writ
rubbed off on me.
Gary Carner: You said [in an earlier conversation] that you were on
Donald Lambert's knee. What did he do for you musically?
Hal Mitchell: Donald Lambert was booked to play in a place on
Members of the Joe Crump Band, c.1936 (Mitchell, tru
HAL MITCHELL 113
Prince Street. They named it "95" because it was

[Melvin Smith] had taken me to see his brother, [W
[Smith]; he took me to audition for him in his liv
York]. "The Lion" sat and listened, but ignored m
kid, you sound like you'll make it, but you got to
day."
How old were you then?
Sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen. I didn't know nothing
about nothing. He said, "You take that horn with you every place
you go. You got a case?" "Yeah." "Well, put it in the case. When you
get up in the morning, wherever you're going take it with you. Any
time you get a chance, play it." "Anywhere I'm at?" "Yeah: If
there's people around, don't mind. They'll think you're crazy but
take it out and play it anyway. But you play that horn all the time!"
And I did. I got put out of high school for that! I was playing in
home-room! He was right because I did learn how to play, and very
soon. I got through all the fingerings fast. Meanwhile, Lambert was
supposed to go in this place. Melvin said [to him], "Hey, 'Lam.' I
got a kid who plays trumpet. Can I bring him up?" "Why?" "Oh,
give a kid a break. I promise you he won't get in the way." "OK." So
I sat back in the corner out of the way. After a while he said, "OK,
play kid." He started playing "Stardust" on the verse. (Laughs.) I
didn't know a thing about [the verse]! (Laughs.) When he finally
got to the chorus I was so flabbergasted I couldn't even do that.
What he did to that verse was unbelievable! He said, "Confused
you, huh?" I said, "Yeah." "Well, at least you admit it. Just sit back
there and listen."
From him I learned that you can go from the very first change
in the tune to every change there is in the cycle and come back to
where you started. I said, "How in the hell am I gonna learn how to
do that?" He said, "The same thing that 'The Lion' told you: keep
playing. The only way you can do it, and there ain't no other way, is
play. You play, and in your playing you'll get tied up, and you'll
have to find your way back."
I did. I learned how to play in all keys. He said, "I want to tell
you something else: there's two ways-either blow good or play
well. You want to play well, because once you learn how to play,
you got it made, but you can blow from now until you die, and it
won't mean a damn thing. If you don't know how to take a song
and play on the chords that the song is constructed on, you're just
blowing." I said, "Yeah? OK."
That I stayed with for the longest time; by the time I got to the
Al Henderson Band ten years later, that was imbedded. That has
been my main theory of attempting to play anything; you find out
what it's made of, and then you go playing with it.
You told me earlier that you listened to Armstrong and Red Allen.
Yeah, the Smiths owned a windup record player, and th

lots of Victor records.
What kind of influence did Armstrong have on you?
Everything! The only thing I didn't take was the Dixieland mu-
sic. I didn't go with that. I [soon] started hearing Roy [Eldridge],
Dick Vance, Bobby Stark.7 There have been many, many good
trumpeters: Ray Nance, Taft Jordan, Snooky Young, Gerald Wil-
son. A lot of them reached the point of being recorded; a lot of
them didn't.
You mentioned Freddie Webster before.
Oh, man! Freddie Webster, another unrecognized-. Well, life
is full of that.
Freddie Webster wasn't recorded that much.
Not too much. They wanted to tie him down-contracts-and
he didn't want that.
People rave about Fats Navarro.
I remember when he was with Andy Kirk, which was an entirely
different Fats Navarro than he wound up being. He was melodic.
He had a big, fat sound then, like Webster's. Plenty of tone quality.
Then he switched over to a Dizzy approach. He was good at that
too. Idrees Sulieman was the same as Navarro: a melodic, straight
trumpet player [who] turned and went the other way.
When I met Charlie Parker, he wasn't the Parker that he ended
up being. He was a saxophone player, and a good one! But he
wasn't "Yardbird!" I met him out in Kansas City and all them kinds
of places because I was traveling then. But you meet a lot of people!
Then, everybody's shoes are run-over; nobody's got money. "So-
and-so plays his [head] off. Yeah, [he] sure can play." And that was
it! If you were a drinker, you had some drinks and went on your
way. So what? No big deal!
I was with Benny [Carter] in 1942 at Billy Berg's Club. We had a
broadcast in the place, and, if I'm not mistaken, I think the agency
had put Buddy Rich in there. While they were setting up, getting
all the controls ready, we're all sitting up on the bandstand [when]
all of a sudden, a tray of whisky comes up on the stand. And Ben-
ny's out front. He's already called the numbers, and he says, "Hap-
py Birthday!" "Gee, thanks!" I proceeded to drink.
He set 'em up; I proceeded to drink! At the end of the broad-
cast, he said, "You're fired." I said, "Yeah? For what?" "For drink-
ing on the bandstand." I said, "Well, damn. You set it up there!"
"That doesn't mean you should drink it!"
How long had you been in the band?
We went from New York to California with stops in between.
During the course of the tour I had been under falling drops-
background drops. Dust was sailing in the air for an hour and a
half! From Chicago we rode 900 miles in a school bus with metal,
HAL MITCHELL 115
straight-back, hard-back seats! We got caught in a l

must have been around springtime.
How many people were in the band at that time?
Four trumpets, three trombones, five saxophone
and four rhythm. George Treadwell, a trumpet pla
band.]
Were you the first [chair] trumpet player?
No, he kept me under control. One night he turned me loose,
and I took advantage of it. I did! I did everything with that horn
that I thought I knew, and I got a big hand! He just stood there and
looked at me and said nothing.
You had a tour of maybe six months with Benny?
Yeah.
And only one night you were able to let loose? You didn't have any
breaks or anything in the parts? You just played the section work?
Yeah. And, you know, before this I had done single engage
ments with Benny over a period of maybe two years.8 Every time
worked with him we went out of town somewhere-a one-nigh
stand. You ride to the job, play the job, and come back. Big band
so this called for a lot of sightreading. What I played on this gig,
didn't play on the next one. The people he had at that time, t
DeParis brothers, Howard Johnson (who smoked the pipe lik
Sherlock Holmes), were top-of-the-ladder people, real pros.
I came from over there in Jersey. That was my first mistake
(Laughs.) I came from "the country," and these guys played a
kinds of tricks on me: switching parts, turning parts over blank
This is the era I came into music, and this is how I was trained.
They would test you out! You just didn't walk in with your instru
ment or your self and proclaim to be something. They made you
prove you were something. If you didn't prove it, "On your way
That's the way it was. You do not walk to somebody's bandstan
where they're playing and invite yourself in. You might be
genius; they don't give a [damn]!9
All of these things, when he said, "You're fired!," came to mind
Early the next morning I went down to Local 47 and told them th
he fired me during a broadcast, but I learned that he had already
gotten in contact with them (laughs) and given his story.
What was his story?
Oh, that I had acted in an unprofessional manner. What els
could he say?-because I was drinking on the stand. I said, "Yea
I drank on the stand. I drank because he sent me a tray of whisky,
birthday celebration. Yesterday was my birthday. He sent it, and
started drinking it. He didn't tell me not to bother it."
Were you surprised?
Yeah, I was. Considering all the things that had gone on be
tween him and me in his band. If you want to get rid of me, wh
don't you do it under some other circumstance? You

whole lot of things to do other than that.
He refused to give me fare home, and that [ticked] me
[Local] 47 [I said,] "Either you get me fare home, or
make a big thing out of this, because when I leave you I'
call Carruthers at the International [in Newark] and exp
happened. That's a promise!"'0
And I called him, and he said, "Benny?!" I said, "Ye
you I was going out with him." "Yeah, I got it here on t
said, "Strange as it may sound, that's it. And I'm out he
fornia, and I want [him] to send me where he got me fr
[something] I've been crying on your shoulder about ever
been out here on the road-about the mistreatment, m
abuse of black musicians out on this road-and I don't in
a victim!
Do something! Get a man out here to travel this road
what goes on. You sit there in that office and hear. You
You should get out here and check on some of these sala
you kidding? Pro rata? Who can be on the road pro r
work today you get paid; if you don't work you starve.
the days that you rode? How long's it take to do 900 mil
the pay?"
You weren't supposed to travel more than 250 miles a day, and
if you did, you were supposed to get paid and [receive] a whole lot
of little benefits that would add up to making it sensible to be out
there under these conditions. But if you're out there from Sunday
to Saturday and you only got three days work, what happens to the
other four days? You don't eat, then. That was Starvation Alley!
Anyhow, they got it straight and sent me back." These are the
years, [however], that really enlightened me to the fact that music
did pay money. I never knew that you could make ten, twenty,
thirty, forty dollars an hour at Twentieth Century Fox. Overseas
transcriptions [V-Discs] paid fifty dollars.
So why did you want to come back?
I guess I was angry and still disillusioned.
Can you tell me anything else about the tour with Benny, his writing,
and any impression you might have?
We went to Chicago [from New York]. I think that was the first
stop. Chicago from New York is something like 900 miles!
So you didn't get paid for that either.
Herman Bradley made the tour. Back in the '30s, Herman was
one of the few drummers around here who could play right along
with the horns. I have worked with three drummers like that: him,
Max Roach, and Frank Cross, a mailman. These three drummers
played the line that we played. You don't find that. When we got on
stage for the rehearsal, he froze. He couldn't even hold his sticks.
HAL MITCHELL 117
We knew that he was capable, but [Benny] had to let

cause we didn't have time. We were rehearsing the m
show at the Regal Theater, and after that the show wa
on.
What was the revue like? What was the format?

The band plays an opening number, then a d
singing group, opens the show. The next act wou
little bit to maybe a singer-it's according to who se
This was all live. Probably five acts, which would k
hour and ten minutes on stage. Because of [Herman
"Mouse," a drummer who had worked with Benn
working at the Regal over the years. The show wen
hitch. From there [I think] we went to Little Rock
after that grueling ride, the evening before openin
out that the only place we could stay was about a q
away from the ballroom. We were totally at the me
ers of this place. He was colored and she was white.
wife, which was strange. It was really a rooming h
that, but two in a room.
That was unusual?
Hell, yeah! Who needs a partner in a room? (Laughs.) You had
to have two in a room, and the price was per person. So he ac-
commodated all of us except Benny. Benny went somewhere else.
There was a whole lot of restrictions [in the early forties because of
segregation]. You had to go over to the railroad station to eat. The
railroad station closes-[you're] out of luck.
In the afternoon we go to set up, and we were shown backstage
where we would spend our time when we were not playing: [a]
room about [eight feet by ten feet.] A whole, sixteen-piece band in
there to while away twenty minutes or whatever! Under no circum-
stances would you come out front other than to come up the stair-
way onto the bandstand. You do not socialize with the customers at
all. Well, suppose your customers come up here and request some-
thing? They should address that to the leader.
During our stay there-I think we stayed two weeks-the
Ellington band came through to play the Coconut Grove, which
[later] burned down. Ben Webster, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges,
and, I think, Cootie Williams, came by to visit Benny. At that par-
ticular moment we were on the stand playing. So was Benny. We
saw a lot of commotion down by the door. Can't be us, because
we're up here! A valet or somebody came back and said, "Hey,
Benny! Ben Webster's out there trying to get in to see you and they
won't let him in." He put his horn down and told somebody, "Fin-
ish it up," and off he went right down the middle of the floor.
And we heard more commotion. You ever seen Ben Webster?
Well, these two together is a suicide troupe! Cootie wasn't no baby,
either. They all came back, white folks and black folks, down the
side of the ballroom with hands going up and down a

finally got back to the dressing room.
So this is Benny and the Ballroom manager: "You d
to people like this. These are my friends, my brother
the devil comes here and he's a musician, let him in to see me!"
"Well, you know the custom of the area." "[Damn] the custom of
the area! I'll tell you what: we'll cancel this affair now. Right this
minute before they hit another note." "Well, you can't do that."
"The hell I can't! Don't tell me what I can't do, and don't tell me
what I won't do! You have insulted me in front of my friends, you
have made me look as cheap as you can look because you got some
custom of black folks can't come to see black folks working? What
the hell's the matter with you? That ain't in my contract! My con-
tract is to play, and that's what I'm doing." Back and forth, back
and forth. We finally got through that.
The following night the whole band came, everybody but
Ellington. So now we have two bands in the joint! And now we find
out about drinking: "None of you folks at the bar." But they de-
cided they wanted to drink, so they cleared the whole end of one
part, and they all went to the bar, Benny included. And they
started drinking and talking, because they said they weren't going
to have that from here out. Anytime you hire a black band, you
make preparations where they can come to the bar and sit down
like human beings, and be treated as such.
Is this the way it always was everywhere?
Just about, if it was a black and white affair, because at the
dances, it you played downstairs, white folks were upstairs. If you
played upstairs, then white folks were downstairs. It was also ac-
cording to what kind of entrance they had. If they had one en-
trance, you all came in the entrance but you separated at the stair-
way. Come twelve o'clock, most of the time those from upstairs had
come downstairs, and those from downstairs had gone upstairs. By
then, you've had, what, six drinks? The sheriff was white, and he's
trying to separate the groups. That's all over the South.
From Little Rock [Arkansas]-get a load of these jumps! And
he had the nerve to fire me? My sole subject of conversation with
Carruthers was the circumstances under which black musicians
work, and he would always cite me things that white musicians went
through, which I couldn't deny because I wasn't white, and I hadn't
been with white bands, but I had heard stories of their abuse. My
thought is that musicians, of any color, are a bunch of jerks to put
up with this because you can not go out, away from your home, to
work seven days a week and wind up doing, one, two, three, or four
days a week, and get paid nothing on the other days. First rate
transportation and accommodations is a dream that hasn't come
true yet.
HAL MITCHELL 119
Did you play a lot of Benny's stuff when you were in

Not that I remember. Most of the stuff I played
and [Eddie] Durham-instrumental arrangements
and there [for improvisation].
Did he do a lot of soloing when he was fronting his b
Most of the time, yeah.
He played trumpet with the band when you were with
You played with him! He plays the lead. Don't for
trumpet, trombone, piano, and saxophone. He's
He's a top trumpet player. He plays the Fre
embouchure, and it seemed like he could play forev
top to the bottom. He stands out over a trumpet sec
out over a brass section. Big sound. They don't call
nothing! People write about his arranging to the he
when they talk about his playing, it's the same. It's
an exception to the rule.
You were with Lunceford, weren't you.
Yeah.
Was that first-class accommodations?
That was first class because my stay with Lunceford was during
a Canadian tour. I went with them and immediately went to Cana-
da to work. It was fall, going on winter. Very cold; [and] a very cold
association [with the leader]. There was no association!
Was that after your thing with Benny Carter or before?
Right after. If I'm not mistaken, Babs [Gonzales] might have
arranged that.
So, you got to the West Coast with Benny Carter in 1942, met up with
Babs Gonzales, who toldyou, "Hey, Herman [Lubinsky of Savoy Records] put
out the four Dictator tracks," and then you went with Lunceford?
Yeah.
So when did you finally hear those Dictator tracks?
When I got back here. For some reason, [on] that trip with Lunce-
ford, [tenor saxophonist} Joe Thomas took me under his wing
and explained to me the idiosyncrasies of the leader and the pia-
nist, [Eddie] Wilcox. He said, "'Fess,' let me tell you something.
These two brothers here, they come from Fisk, and if you don't
come from Fisk, you ain't nothing." He said, "Don't let that bother
you. You come with pretty good references, so we'll see tonight."
So, sure enough, they spotted me! [Paul] Webster was still the
high-note man. He said, "Go ahead, brother, you got it." I said,
"Got what?" He said, "You got a solo. We heard you could play.
Play!"
This was during a rehearsal?
No, we're working. I had no time for no rehearsal. You can't
come in and say, "Well, can I take this home?" You just play it.
Either you can play it or you can't. So I did that! And [Lunceford]
glanced at me a couple of times from beyond there, bu

say a word. Joe Thomas said, "Yeah, man, you're cool
When we finally finished, [Thomas] said, "Come, let'
breakfast." So, Joe; baritonist [Earl] Carruthers; a trom
from here, Earl Hardy; the drummer; [and I] went out
fast. "You did all right," [said Thomas]. I said, "H
know?" "We belong here. We know! You're in. At least
the tour. No more problems, because we'll see to tha
twenty dates in and out of Canada. That was more or less
because they had been to Canada before many times
liked, and had status, so you got the best of everythin
In terms of pay?
What pay was at that time. I don't even remember, b
above what was being paid locally. To me that was an
spot in my career. I wasn't thinking about money. T
either! I don't remember playing anything that [Luncef
wrote, but he had complete control of his operation.
mastermind. Everybody else would do what he wanted.
strict taskmaster. No playing around.
He's the one who instituted the entertainment factor in that
group. This was an entertaining orchestra. They would put them
horns down and come out on stage and sing you to death, and turn
around, pick up them horns, and play you to death. Not only in-
dividuals: trios, quartets, five parts, vocal chorus, all of them. Very
good on holiday songs.
Whose charts were you using? Who was writing for the band at that
time?
Oliver, Wilcox, Durham. There may have been some of [im-

my] Mundy's stuff in there.
Were you familiar with Lunceford's band in any way?
Oh, yeah. This Dictators band-. If you listen closely, that's
what you're hearing. We had adopted a Basie "attitude," but it was
basically Lunceford-all those choppy syncopations. We adored
the Lunceford band. The bass player [Al Henderson] had been
burned very severely when he was a child. [Altoist Bobby] Plater
and Henderson grew up together. Henderson had a couple of
bands after he and Plater left Duke Richardson; Al took over, or
inherited, Frank Gibb's band.
At the time that I got connected with them, they were working
in Hagerstown, Maryland, with Red Skelton at a Walkathon in a big
circus tent.13 Their trumpet player, Courtney Williams, a good
player, had landed something in New York that he had been work-
ing on for quite some time, so [pianist] Clem Moorman sent me a
telegram to consider coming to Hagerstown.
At that particular time, 1937, I was working at the Colony Club
in Newark. This was a hall that the mob had taken over. They
HAL MITCHELL 121
made a cabaret out of it at the insistence of Willie "The Lion"

Smith's brother, Melvin, who was tight with all of them. So I said,
"All right." I put in my notice. They put Herb Scott in my place and
I went to Hagerstown.
We came back when there was a jam session or benefit [at] the
Dreamland Academy, a popular ballroom. All the bands in the area
were going. We came in about midnight and took over everything.
We immediately got recognition as being the band. No work! No
money! We [finally] went to a place called Harlem-on-the-Hudson
in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where I first [heard about] Chris Colum-
bus's band, because they had just left there.
The next job we had was for a month in the Albany outskirts
called Rudd's Beach with a New York show featuring comedians
Apus and Estrellita. They had a chorus line, a tap dancer, Ralph
Brown, everything you could have in a show. They'd never seen
anything like us. We had odd instrumentation. We only had two
saxophones. It was common to have three saxophones and two
trumpets; not a trombone, alto, tenor, and two trumpets. The
trombone player [Howard Scott] played along with the saxophon-
ists. He had some chops and had to know that slide, which he did!
There weren't no black people to come out to see the show where
we were playing. You couldn't eat in any restaurant, you couldn't
go to the railroad station: you had to sit over on the side of the
station.
O.K. We came back home. Again, Babs [Gonzales]: "Hey, man. I

was talking to John Hammond about you all. He got Al [Cooper's
Savoy Sultans] started at the Savoy [Ballroom in New York]. You
want to try for that?" I said, "What are you asking me for? Ask Al.
He's the leader." [He said,] "If I set something up for you, will you
do it?"
He set up an audition at two in the afternoon at the Onyx Club,

on 52nd Street, where [Hot] Lips Page was working. [Hammond]
was about twenty minutes late. He came in, sat down: "My name is
John Hammond. OK, let me hear it." We played three or four
numbers. The sound that we were going to create [on the record-
ings] was already there. Babs came in meanwhile. Hammond says
[to him], "Who am I going to talk to?" Babs said, "I didn't talk with
the leader." "Who's the leader?" "The bass player." "Oh. Ohhh!
Well, who am I going to talk to?" He said, "Talk to the trumpet
player."
So I went over. "That's a great little group you got there," he
says. "Do you belong to any agents?" "No." "Do you have a booking
agent?" "Unattached." He said, "Well, I can do something for you,
I'm sure-maybe in here. Would you like to work in here?" "I'd
love to." So he said, "Well, things can be arranged, but you have to
get rid of that bass player." I said, "What?" He said, "You have to
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HAL MITCHELL 123
get rid of that bass player. This is a nightclub, not a

said, "Well, he is the leader." He said, "He is? Not in h
what. You guys go back home and make a decision.
player I can put in that would suit my purposes." "Yo
Very well." So we came back, sat down, and I told th
happened.
The point was that Al was burned in a fire and kind of scarred, and
that's why Hammond said "side show."
Oh, he was scarred badly, and it was still raw. We talked it over,
and we had a real knock-down-drag-out. The bass player that he
wanted to put in, Joe somebody, from Jersey City, was one of these
bass-spinning characters who slapped the strings. I was gonna re-
place Al with him? No way in the world!
Did you get the sense that Hammond would have negotiatedfor another
bass player you'd rather prefer?
That's not the way he put it. He wanted his man in there. Then
he made another audition for us. He set up an audition with Mr.
Buchanan, the manager of the Savoy Ballroom. You ever heard of
Simon Legree? Simon Legree ran all the plantations in the South.
He's the one who whipped a- and called quittin' time. That's
Buchanan! All right. We set up for the audition with Buchanan, he
finally arrived with his entourage, and we played for him. And
wouldn't you know that his comment was the same: "This is a place
of entertainment, amusement. It's not a side show. You got to get
rid of that man." And loud! I said, "Pack it up, let's go."
He looked that bad?
Well, he looked bad. He could have been put in the shadows-
lighting effects-but they didn't want that.
So the Onyx, the Savoy.
Blown because of Al. We came back and put [the question of
who should lead the band] to a vote because we lost two opportuni-
ties. [The band] out-voted him [and] put it in my name. [Al] was the
only one that said "No." I went out and found a nice Jewish man,
Goldfinger, who believed in me, and they opened up the Lyceum
Theater [on Springfield Avenue]. That's what [later] became the
Newark Savoy Theater, and that's also the start of the Savoy Dic-
tators. The name came from a young black piano player named
Richard Jordan LaRue. At that time dictators were kind of a pop-
ular thing in the news, from Hitler on down! (Laughs.)
The band, with Henderson, played there?
Yeah.
This was the only gig you had after the Albany thing?
That's it. There was such a lack of income that it became neces-
sary to disband. We broke up and four of us [Mitchell, Outcal
Hastings, and Plater went with Tiny Bradshaw in 1940].14 Yo
can't make a day's pay here.
I'll go you one better. I went out in later years on

Louis Jordan, featuring Sammy Davis and the Will M
increased his quintet to eight. We had three trum
Izenhall (his regular trumpet player), Bob Mitchell, a
his regular tenor player; Chris [Columbus]; and th
Billy Hadnott, whom he treated like a dog. He rode th
whip. He verbally whipped him like a little animal. H
I would have taken my horn and knocked him in his
Uordan] paid thirty dollars. Now, get a load of t
man that had an eight-piece band, including himself,
he had a payroll of seven musicians, his personal mana
manager, and his valet. Bandwise, he had a $210 salar
per night. Guarantee: $1,500 dollars.
This was when Louis Jordan was top drawer, wasn't it?
Yes, sir. I had a hell of a time getting my money
had to take [him] to the union. You see, all these big
assume that you are one of the crowd, and that they c
er they feel like and you will go away-that is, if you
again! I don't look at it that way. You take my mone
problem. You give me my money! I worked for it! Pa
How long were you working with Louis Jordan?
There was about thirty RKO theaters, all the way b
Apollo. When that closed down, he let me know that I
er a part of the organization. So I said, "What hap
notice?" "What notice?" "What do you mean, what
week notice! What are you some kind of nut?" "Oh, I
give you no notice."
Was that union regulations?
Hell, yeah. It's mandatory. You got to give two-w
either the leader or the sideman. It ain't recognize
body works two weeks! He assumed that he didn't ha
notice because that was the end of the tour, and that w
the business. New business was new business! When w
into the Apollo, he owed me for three arrangements I
fit that group, which he loved but swore to God they
for him.
Was this the group with Izenhall, Bob Mitchell, Jordan,

Bill Doggett, Ham Jackson on guitar, Hadnott, and Columb
recorded with?
[Yes, but] I don't remember a guitar player. [Befor
with Louis Jordan, Columbus] had a band in Small's P
Madmen, which I also inherited. That was a nine-piec
trumpets, a trombone, alto, tenor, and baritone, bass
drums. Chris left us in Small's Paradise [with] a re
Helen Humes (who came with some music written for
went with Louis Jordan.
HAL MITCHELL 125
We had to take all of that music and cut it down to fit that
instrumentation. She went wild, crazy! She never thought it could
be like that. On that show we also had Ray (a jazz tap, ballet dancer
[and] Ralph Brown. It was a full show. In that band we had me, Ray
Copeland (in his young days just out of Schillinger [School of Mu-
sic, Boston]), Leon Comegys on trombone (later Don Coles), Rudy
Williams on alto, Alva "Bo" McCain on tenor, John Acea, piano
and Fletcher B. Allen on baritone, who was a Juilliard graduate
Schillinger graduate, and somewhere [else] in France. Not work
ing!
[Allen] did an arrangement on "Love For Sale" that was so
heavy in its context, it sounded like thunder. We did everybody's
music over; Copeland, Fletcher, Acea, [and myself] arranged. All
of these people could arrange, so changing the music was no
problem whatsoever. We had two days before the opening of the
show.
When Helen comes in the following night, she's nervous. She
and Fletcher are friends from way back-twenty-five, thirty years.
He's saying, "Helen, don't be nervous. You know I'm going to take
care of you." We [started to play], and she turned around and
started singing. She said, "That sounds just like Basie!" He said,
"Yeah." "Well, how did you do that?" "Tell you later." We went
through everything she would possibly sing.
Now comes the dress rehearsal. When we started, there were
the waiters, Mr. Smalls, and a couple of white people. When we
finished, every table in the house was full-the first time in history
anybody [had] ever seen Ed Smalls walk up to a bandleader and
shake his hand and congratuate him. This is talent the world never
hears about. It happened so many times! The drumbeaters get to
beating on the people who are popular or well-known, and there
may be somebody in the background who is equally talented or has
more talent, and they get wasted. They get lost in the shuffle.
Chris left and put his son, Sonny Payne (who eventually wound
up with Count Basie), in his place. He was twenty, twenty-one. He
didn't fit no kind of way. There was twelve days left. We were kind
of glad when that came to an end. [Then], Small's folded. After
that I think I started working with Hal Singer-"Cornbread." It
was me, Chips [Chippy Outcalt], and Singer. The rhythm section
changed constantly. We went out with every doo-wop group that
came out.
You were based in New York at the time?

No, I was back home. My mother had died in 1954, so I came
back here, and I've been here ever since.
Tell me about Rudy Williams, the alto-saxophonist and star soloist of the
Savoy Sultans.
Rudy Williams was proclaimed a child prodigy. He played that
saxophone all his life.
He was born and bred here?

Yeah. You used to have to get permission from his
take him out of the house to play that horn, deliver
her, and sign something to be responsible. She wa
sure that he got paid because the oldest son, Humpy,
player, and she learned through him that one did no
get paid what one had been promised to get paid!
Did you know him as a child?
No, I didn't.
Basie, in his memoir, said, "I never will forget Al Coop
Sultans back in the old days."15
Most of them didn't because of the oddity of it: th
saxophones, two trumpets, and a rhythm section. An
They had that two-beat groove, just like Lunceford. A
bands that came in there with their sixteen-, eightee
plodding along, trying to beat their four beats and w
have that groove, and the Sultans would eat them up
Basie says he was scared of them: "Every time we came
bandstand, they were right back up there swinging."16
That's right. They'd catch the last part of the last
were some of the tricks I learned and used. Way back
time the Newark Savoy was open, "Pee Wee," the ticke
Savoy, brought the Sultans and the Dictators together
bill]. Everybody had wanted to hear that. Everybody
tators knew about the Sultans. Everybody in the Sult
[Cooper], knew about the Dictators.
Come the night of the affair, the place was packed.
guests; I let them go on first. And as they were play
number I had [my men] ease in on it: we picked up t
their last tune and carried it until they took it out, and t
into our [stuff]. When [Al] came back to that stand h
ing with rage. (Laughs.) He stutters, but he manag
everything that he could possibly think of. (Laughs.) A
didn't speak to me for twenty years. They had eight
group], we had eight. Two different kinds of eights!
You said that your band was playing four- and five-par
They had a totally different concept?
Altogether.
Some of the people in Al Cooper's band were from Newark, right?
All of them except those he picked up in New York after he got
there.
Rudy Williams was in that band. He should have known that the Dic-
tators were tough competition.
Rudy Williams was that band.
Is it true that he died in a drowning accident?
Yeah. An expert swimmer! He was working with Howard
HAL MITCHELL 127
McGhee. Nobody will ever know why, how he drown

of guessing, but as far as swimming was concerned, h
been able to swim from wherever he was. Somethin
somewhere.17
Should we talk about the engagement with Tiny Bradsh
Tiny Bradshaw was a great teacher. I used to talk t
money all the time. Tiny made himself stricty throug
He spent his life on the road and built up a following
and promoters. He could tinkle on the piano, but h
musical education. He sang with the group.
I could have sworn we made a "Jersey Bounce"
Hines! [There is no discographical evidence, however, of su
Appendix.] Jimmy Mundy followed us around for we
him, "What's here that interests you so?" He told me
He wanted it for Earl Hines. It's the property of Ben
now. Nobody renewed the copyright. "The Jersey
first [named the] "Shady Rest Shuffle." [The Dictator
up sitting on the bandstand. All of us. This was '38, '
Rest Country Club in Westfield, New Jersey, is where
used to go play golf. The band that made that their h
Barons of Rhythm.
Who led that band?
Conrad Butler. Conrad made his home here, but I d
he was from here. They were just like the rest of the
gling to hold a band of that size [approximately t
together. Skateland was the home of Pancho Diggs
Pancho's first band had its first rehearsal in my moth
Baldwin Street. They didn't have any place to rehe
never was a player, never would play. He liked music
You did 52nd Street engagements with Jack "The Bear" P
my Young, and Dexter Gordon?
Jack "The Bear" was a stand-up drummer. We work
Street across from the Three Deuces, but not in on
joints. He had a thirteen-inch bass drum. It looked lik
tom, down on the floor. He had a snare drum, a sock
his top cymbals. His cymbals were high [off] the floor
Were stand-up jazz drummers more common earlier on?
No. The conga and bongo drummers more or les
The cocktail groups started using that stand-up routi
bar.
You worked with Trummy and Dexter?

Yeah, that was Trummy's group. Come to think of
in the Three Deuces with Budd Johnson; Jimmy Jones
I think, Curly Russell, bass. With Trummy Young it
ter, [and drummer] Freddy Radcliff.
Then Ted McRae at the Zanzibar and John Kirby at the
Ted McRae was a six-piece job as intermission grou

shows. Pete Clark, alto [and] clarinetist from the Chick
Waller days; Ted McRae from the Chick Webb band;
the front line. We stayed there over three months,
week. We were playing heads. I wrote an introductio
opening of the curtain which made us sound like a full
manager came back there and wanted to know, "What's
You're not featured here!" (Laughs.)
[Kirby] was pretty ill during that time. Buster Baile
there and, I think, O'Neill Spender, the drummer. M
original [members] were gone. The only reason I got in
because he had to finish out his engagement. That was a
You did several sixty-day tours of Southern theaters?
[With] Wynonie Harris, Larry Darnell, Annie Laurie.
had hits out then. Most of my steady work, believe it o
been with the rhythm-and-blues people. Tiny [Lillian] "
was another.
Who were some of the great musicians from Newark who worked with
you or studied with you, or whom you helped bring along?
I helped to train [Hank] Mobley; Walter Davis, Jr.; Herbie Mor-
gan [but] not much-he worked with Calvin Hughes-Woody
Shaw, when he worked with Brady Hodge, but that was in the be-
ginning of his career. He was in a band under an ex-Corporal who
thought he was still in the Army! Andy Bey was brought to me at a
place called Lloyd's Manor on Beacon Street when he was seven. I
showed him how to find middle-C on the piano and work his way
from there. The next time I saw him, [he] was with his sisters. They
had a group and had a very heavy sound. The next time I saw him,
he was a single.
Ike Quebec?
He was an E-flat, A-flat piano player way before [he played
tenor. He played piano only in those keys.] He was on an Earl
Hines kick. We used to listen to the Hines radio broadcasts (from
the Terrace Room) in the hot dog store-until [the manager] put
us out! (Laughs.)
Wayne Shorter?
[No.] He came up with the Gene Phipps organization.
Larry Young?
He had another concept of music. It wasn't what I played.
Tell me about Babs Gonzales.
Babs is Teddy Brannon's first cousin. (Brannon worked with
Jonah Jones for quite a while.) Babs was a hustler, a crap shooter.
He started a lot of fads. He was instrumental in getting auditions
[for Newark musicians].
As a vocalist he was kind of like Cab Calloway, wasn't he?
Yeah, similar; [he used an] unknown language.
HAL MITCHELL 129
Sarah Vaughan?
When we had the Dictators, Sarah must have be
that time, but we can't figure out where because
our way. When we did hear about her, she was wi
Did you have any experiences with James P. Johnson w
Only when they came over to "embarrass" Dona
And they did that?
No, they didn't! They tried.
How about Tatum?
He came too! Right there at 95 Prince Street. One night they
must have brought about six of them characters over there: "The
Lion," Claude Hopkins, James P., Tatum, Marlowe Morris. They
slid [in] "cheek-to-cheek," picked up the bass hand, and kept on
going until nine o'clock in the morning. The piano never stopped.
Morris was out of his class that night. [Lambert] was amazing.
[At this point Walter Darden joined the conversation.]
Walter Darden: Newark has nothing now, and Hal knows it. [In
the '40s and '50s] you could start out on Thursday night in Newark
and by Sunday night you still hadn't gone in half of the places. All
the corner taverns had groups. It started dying in the '60s. In the
first place, the guys tried to get slick and started a war: if you were
making fifteen dollars a night, I'd bring my group in there for
fourteen, the guy next door would bring his group in there for
thirteen. The club owner[s] got sick of it. Like Hal said, they called
us "from the country."
You had some boys around here that could really play, but they
had no business head. All they wanted to do was play. If they got
paid, fine. If they didn't get paid-well, as long as they were work-
ing, "Hey, that's great." It petered down to nothing. In the mid-
'60s the places started closing down. Broad Street-you had two
clubs there. They closed down within three months of one another.
You had Collins on Washington Street, not too far from the Kinney
Club. The Kinney Club had your mainstream entertainment, Col-
lins had local entertainment. The Essex House, the Terrace Room,
the Continental, Wideway-[all] closed.
Hal Mitchell: The Meadowbrook Ballroom [in Cedar Grove,
New Jersey] is being made into condominiums.
Walter Darden: That was one of the last ones. [Rock] is where
the recording industry went, and that is why, to a large degree,
your jazz scene almost disappeared, because the recording outfits
went along with where the money was. That's really what's killed
music around here.
So what's being done to change it?
Walter Darden: Nothing! We tried.
Hal Mitchell: The smarter ones get up in the morning and go to
work. That playing money becomes money on the side. Those who
Hal Mitchell
HAL MITCHELL 131
live on just that-pathetic!

Has it always been that way in your experience, or coul
work in the bands and make it?
Hal Mitchell: The value of money was different.
You were doing shows in New York, weren't you?
I worked the Apollo pretty often. I always worked
and the Savoy during the Thanksgiving-Christmas se
you [really] worked! The money was [nothing]. In th
ness, unless you're on the Johnny Carson Show-
shows are there like that, where you would have a ste
you get paid for rehearsals? You [can't] make money.
The money that you can make in the music busi
Hollywood and the studios] is on the road, where
seven days pay or a guaranteed salary. [Take] R
guaranteed salary, Social Security, disability insuranc
black bands were then. James Brown, [when] he was
offering people twenty-five dollars a night! 175 doll
would cost you that much just to be out there with h
advised by his managers and his folks; after all, you
body you want for this price. Why should you give it
I got news for you: Gladys Hampton was the Midas
ness because every job I made with Hamp, through Bo
paid twenty-five dollars, no matter where it was. [Yo
them, get on the bus and travel, come back; this enta
part of a whole day. Twenty-five dollars. Your sal
down to something like two dollars an hour! You
hours. It's the same coming back. That's eight. You
four. That's twelve hours. Twenty-five dollars? Th
prevails: why should you give it up to them when yo
get somebody else? The top echelon always finds a wa
squeeze on the peasants.
Walter Darden: Because you got a name, I ought to
with you!
Hal Mitchell: At least you're working! (Laughs.)
Walter Darden: If you're gonna get the nucleus satisfied with
that condition, it's never going to change.
Hal Mitchell: How many Ellingtons do we have, how many Bas-
ies, how many Calloways, how many anything do we have? Do you
realize the fame of the New York Savoy Ballrom? To work the
Savoy would lift up the status of your band for your agent 100
percent, but you would never see that money. Most of the time the
leader was indebted to the agent for music, uniforms, bus rentals,
and they never took the time to sit down and see what was coming
in.
Walter Darden: If you don't tend to business, everything else is

going to crumble. Those that tended to business didn't get treated
that way, but how many of them do it? If I'm supposed

ting twenty dollars a day, that's 140 dollars a week. "Yeah
only gave me a hundred. What happened to the other fort
guys would take a walk!
Hal Mitchell: I would venture to tell you that anybody
been in [this] business forty, fifty years has gone through
experiences.
Walter Darden: Go on a damn gig, you're suppose to get sixty
dollars. It comes pay time, you get forty-five. "Hey, what happened
to the other?" "Yeah. Well, you know, they cut the price." Patheti-
cally, most musicians are not business oriented. If I have something
you want, why should I give it to you? Either rent it to you or sell it
to you. Who gave it to me? If nothing else, the time that I spent
learning it should be worth something. How many people think in
those terms, especially [among] us?
NOTES
1. Dizzy Gillespie, with Al Fraser, To Be or Not .. to Bop: Memoirs

City, New York: Doubleday, 1979), 85.
2. Ibid., 85.
3. Stanley Dance, The World of Count Basie (New York: Scribners
224.
4. George Kanzler, "In Memorium to Bobby Plater, a Swing Saxman Su-

preme," Newark Star-Ledger, 6 December 1982. Bobby Plater joined Count
Basie's band in the Fall of 1964 and stayed with the band, as alto soloist,
arranger, and musical director, until his death in November 1982.
5. The Neighborhood House, established by the Bamberger's Depart-
ment Store as a place for inner-city youths, relocated to Morton and How-
ard Streets in Newark as the New Neighborhood House. Its name was later
changed to The Fuld House.
6. Richardson's band included Herbert Lee, trumpet; Duke Rich, trom-
bone; Bobby Plater, alto sax; Al Henderson, sousaphone; Henry Walker,
piano; and "Dee," drums.
7. Dick Vance was a trumpeter with Fletcher Henderson's band from
1936 to 1938 and with Chick Webb's band in 1939 until Webb's death that
year. Trumpeter Bobby Stark was with Fletcher Henderson from 1928 to
1933 and with Chick Webb from 1934 to 1939.
8. One such gig with Benny Carter's orchestra was at the Tic-Toc in
Boston.
9. Concerning genius, Mitchell spoke briefly of John Coltrane: "As long as

he sat in the big bands, he was not necessarily unknown, but nothing to
what he wound up being. Listen, the man didn't just come around as a
HAL MITCHELL 133
saxophone player. He's been in business for years. Not o

You make a living at it, and you starve to death at it-fro
the other! All of a sudden he becomes 'The Genius,' but h
must have been! He was working on it!"
10. Carruthers was President of the International Musicia
at that time was based in Newark.
11. He received fare for a trip back to Newark but soon thereafter landed
a job with the Lunceford band, which was traveling from the West Coast
eastward, through Canada to New York.
12. Hal remembers it taking place 900 miles south of Chicago in a small
city theater (possibly the Bluebird Ballroom), which hadn't been used in
some time and eventually burned down.
13. Al Henderson's band in Hagerstown, before Mitchell joined, included
Courtney Williams, trumpet; Arthur Ferguson, trumpet; Clem Moorman,
piano; Al Henderson, bass; Earl Wilson, drums.
14. Trombonist Edward ("Jack Rags") Johnson, who had previously
worked with Eddie Mallory (husband of Ethel Waters), joined the
Bradshaw aggregation at the same time that the Dictators did. According
to Bobby Plater, altoist for the band, the Bradshaw group played mostly in
the South and Southwest.
15. Count Basie, with Albert Murray, Good Morning Blues: The Autobiogra-
phy of Count Basie (New York: Random House, 1985), 212.
16. Ibid.
17. Rudy Williams drowned somewhere in Massachusetts in 1954. S

further in Gillespie, op. cit., 85.
APPENDIX
"The Jersey Bounce": Selected Discography*
Earl Hines Orchestra. New York, 3 April 1941. Arranger

Mundy. Matrix: 063330-1. Bluebird 11126; Victor 20
Louis Prima Orchestra. New York, 15 September 1941

31315-1-2. OKeh. (unissued)
*Compositional credits are officially given to Bobby Plater, Tiny Br

Edward Johnson; lyrics by Robert B. Wright. Copyrighted in 1941,
Bounce" is published by Lewis Music.
Benny Goodman Orchestra. New York, 23 January 1

er, Mel Powell. Matrix: CO-32238-2. OKeh 6590; Columbia
36588.
Jan Savitt and his Top Hatters. Chicago, 19 February 1942. Matrix:
074093-1. Victor 27809; Victor (HMV) BD 5770.
Red Norvo Orchestra. New York, 5 March 1942. Matrix: 32564-2.
Columbia 36557.
Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. New York, 12 March 1942. Matrix:

70483A. Decca 4288; Brunswick 03348.
Les Hite Orchestra. New York, June 1942. Matrix: W-152. Hit
7001. Dizzy Gillespie is featured soloist.
Assumption College

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Professor J.

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Jazz Patriarch of Newark

Professor J. Southern (Managing Editor-Publisher) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

Jazz Patriarch of Newark

HTT AL MITCHELL, whom Dizzy Gillespie regard

own style and our own syncopation, even when we

Hal Mitchell: It started

the head person there, who was trying to [help] depriv

Members of the Joe Crump Band, c.1936 (Mitchell, tru

Prince Street. They named it "95" because it was

Yeah, the Smiths owned a windup record player, and th

straight-back, hard-back seats! We got caught in a l

don't you do it under some other circumstance? You

We knew that he was capable, but [Benny] had to let

What was the revue like? What was the format?

side of the ballroom with hands going up and down a

Did you play a lot of Benny's stuff when you were in

glanced at me a couple of times from beyond there, bu

Oliver, Wilcox, Durham. There may have been some of [im-

made a cabaret out of it at the insistence of Willie "The Lion"

O.K. We came back home. Again, Babs [Gonzales]: "Hey, man. I

He set up an audition at two in the afternoon at the Onyx Club,

---- - -------------- --------- - i:i,~ii:ii:i-i-:iiiii-

get rid of that bass player. This is a nightclub, not a

I'll go you one better. I went out in later years on

Was this the group with Izenhall, Bob Mitchell, Jordan,

You were based in New York at the time?

He was born and bred here?

McGhee. Nobody will ever know why, how he drown

You worked with Trummy and Dexter?

Ted McRae was a six-piece job as intermission grou

live on just that-pathetic!

Walter Darden: If you don't tend to business, everything else is

that way, but how many of them do it? If I'm supposed

1. Dizzy Gillespie, with Al Fraser, To Be or Not .. to Bop: Memoirs

4. George Kanzler, "In Memorium to Bobby Plater, a Swing Saxman Su-

9. Concerning genius, Mitchell spoke briefly of John Coltrane: "As long as

saxophone player. He's been in business for years. Not o

17. Rudy Williams drowned somewhere in Massachusetts in 1954. S

"The Jersey Bounce": Selected Discography*

Earl Hines Orchestra. New York, 3 April 1941. Arranger

Louis Prima Orchestra. New York, 15 September 1941

*Compositional credits are officially given to Bobby Plater, Tiny Br

Benny Goodman Orchestra. New York, 23 January 1

Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. New York, 12 March 1942. Matrix:

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