A new phase in my career

Abstract

The apartment in Mount Morris Park was huge, especially for two people, but in a way it was a different life from living in the Theresa Hotel. Pat had leased it from a friend, Bill Alexander, who was at the time producing black movies in Harlem. Having just come from France it was necessary for me to learn of all the changes that had taken place while I was away and it wasn’t too long before I was again familiar with the Harlem scene. Gigs were mostly the thing of the day. There were not too many jobs that were steady unless you belonged with a few chosen musicians that played regularly in the Village at the jazz joints there such as Nick’s, Eddie Condon’s, etc. It wasn’t long, however, before I was in the swim again and traveling all over the big city of New York, as well as in New Jersey and Connecticut. One day I met the great jazzman from New Orleans, Tony Parenti. Tony asked me what I was doing and I told him just what was happening. Now Tony was a dixieland player from way back and I didn’t expect him to have any gigs for me, because I only knew about two dixieland numbers and wasn’t too sure of those. Royal Garden Blues, that I had recorded with Basie with Don Byas, was one; the other was Muskrat Ramble, that I had been playing in France. So anyway, Tony says to me, “Buck, I have a group but we only play dixieland. We sure would like to work with you if you’d be interested in learning some dixieland tunes.” I thought that this would be a new phase in my career so I thought to myself, “Sure, why not? What have I got to lose?” So I told Tony that I was interested.