Around the New York scene

Abstract

Being a band jazz man, a band musician, my mind was centered in that direction—playing with bands. Now there were other musicians who played in combos, with novelty acts. Some were guitar players who became soloists and virtuosos. I checked on who were the great bands, the great musicians. Like today we know all the baseball stars: who’s on third base, who’s on second base. It was the same thing then in New York with musicians. You knew who was with the Cotton Pickers; you knew who was the banjo player with Fletcher Henderson’s band, Cab Calloway’s band; you knew who the drummers were, because their names were mentioned, because they recorded. You would read about this in the Amsterdam News in New York; the New York Age; the Chicago Defender, which was published nationally (a famous black newspaper), and later on there came the Pittsburgh Courier. They always had the bands: who was playing, who was appearing, and what band was in what city. Maybe there was some great affair, or a convention in Memphis or Los Angeles. They would tell you what band played, and that’s how you knew. (These were the big bands, not the small groups like the Spirits of Rhythm, or Stuff Smith.)