A Prez-idential panel in Harlem

The National Jazz Museum's Afternoon of a Basie-ite panel poses at the museum's visitors center, October 22, 2011. L to R: Lewis
Porter, Ethan Iverson, Ira Gitler, Loren Schoenberg, Chris Albertson, Dan Morgenstern.

It was an enjoyable Saturday afternoon devoted to Lester Young, with first-hand recollections, general discussion, and some amazing film footage and recordings. Museum Director Loren Schoenberg knows how to get it together. I recommend a visit to the museum, which is housed at 104 East 126th St. until work is done on the ultimate location, across the street from the Apollo Theater. The phone number is 212-348-8300 and this link will take you to their web site. 

Lionel and Gladys Hampton celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary in Copenhagen on the night of November 11th, 1953. They were in Denmark on a concert tour with a star-studded Hampton band that included Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, and  a singer named Annie Ross. The Hamptons and band were staying at the Richmond, which was not the classiest hotel in town, but a decent place that suited Gladys' budget—she was her husband's business manager and—as any sideman would tell you—quite frugal.

Gladys' penny pinching had the band traveling on a bus where others flew, but it did not prevent her from throwing an anniversary party at the hotel. Not an elaborate affair, just the band, tour crew, an ice sculpture and two local guests: Timme Rosenkrantz and yours truly. Timme, who had known Hamp for many years, kindly took me in tow, giving me my first rubbing shoulders experience with jazz greats. I was at that time involved in the running of the Storyville Club, so it occurred to me that some off the musicians might be persuaded to cap the night there. Well, not exactly there, but in a larger place that we could rent. Timme thought that was a splendid idea, so, when the party began to ebb, he helped me herd some of these star players into taxis. Hamp himself decided to make a brief appearance and when I mentioned that I had my tape recorder there, he said it was okay to record the "cats," but he wouldn't be performing.

Once there, surrounded by a youthful, enthusiastic crowd of Danes, he changed his mind and seated himself at the keyboard, next to pianist Jørgen Bengtson. Spotting my recorder on a table next to the piano, he told me to keep "that thing" off while he played. As I confessed to Hamp twenty years later, I did hit the record button, but I kept the lid on. In retrospect, Hamp was delighted to hear that I had ignored his request, and he asked for a copy of the tape. It was eventually destroyed by a fire in his apartment.

You can read more about the morning of November 12, 1953 and hear a couple of numbers from the jam session that took place if you go here. But first, you might want to listen to Hamp and the two-fingered mallet-styled piano performance that kicked off the night session. The other fingers belong to Jørgen Bengtson, who moved to Norway, where he lives in retirement. The sound quality leaves much to be desired, the opening bars are missing, and there is a short skip, but Anniversary Boogie—as I dubbed this piece for obvious reasons—is an engaging rapid-fire blues.

Echoes of Humph at Mack's, 1953

In March of 1953, I was an apprentice artist in the art department of Fona Radio, Denmark's largest chain of music stores. Fresh out of art school, this was my first job and I loved it, although my salary was insanely low. The art department created window displays for the company's shops, of which about five were in Copenhagen and the rest all over Denmark. As an apprentice, I was not yet entrusted with creative work, but even handling menial chores, such as painting backgrounds and fills, was better than working behind a counter or desk. Given my personal interests, there was much to be said for working in an art environment for a music-related company, and an added attraction was the employee discount that enabled me to purchase a recording machine on time payment.

We owe the principle of magnetic recording to a Dane, Valdemar Poulsen, who demonstrated it in 1898, but it had to wait a couple of decades before electronic amplification made it useful. During WWII, the Nazis began broadcasting magnetically reproduced propaganda—it sounded a lot clearer than phonograph recordings, and it offered enough playing time to capture an entire Hitler or Goebbels rant, but it obviously did not work as these guys wanted it to. Commercial use was another matter—imagine JATP, Coltrane or Cecil Taylor restricted to three minutes.

Humph at 100 Oxford Street, with slightly different personnel.

In 1953, magnetic recordings had just been introduced to Danish consumers via  Bang & Olufsen's first wire recorder. I had to have it, and working at Fona made that possible, but before I could do anything useful with this wire contraption, B&O launched its first tape recorder. That was it for me, and it didn't matter that it cost a year's salary, so I was soon dragging a sixty-pound black box up three flights of stairs to the back house apartment where I lived with my mother and her third husband. I had become quite good at smuggling in the occasional new jazz record that should have been a new pair of socks, or a shirt, but the wire recorder and subsequent upgrade posed a real challenge. I would not have gotten away with it if my mother was not also what we have since come to know as a "gadget freak." Of course, I lowered the price considerably when she asked about it, but I was a seasoned fibber when it came to such things.

Let me pause here to apologize for the redundant nature of this entry—some of it has appeared here in another connection, but my approach to this blog is not linear, so it was inevitable that I would occasionally cross my own, previously recollected paths. This one can be found in my earlier reminiscences about Karl Knudsen and the Storyville Club.

As I may have mentioned, I was shy to a fault in my younger days, but that—and matching naïveté—may well have been what drove me to do some rather bold things, such as contact trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton. His Parlophone recordings were among my most prized possessions and, not having the foggiest knowledge of contractual obligations and union restrictions, I dashed of a letter to Humph. In it, I informed him that I would be coming to London for the purpose of gathering material for a jazz program to be aired by Radio Denmark. In that connection, I wished to record his band and an interview. 

The truth was that I had no connection with DR (Danmarks Radio), nor, in fact, the fare that would get me to London. Driven, in part, by a strong need to be accepted into the inner circle of Copenhagen's foot-stomping jazz scene, I naïvely took pen in hand. As I recalled in an earlier entry (Melly, Mick...London 1953), the swift response from Humph's manager, Lyn Dutton, came as a surprise: 

It had never occurred to me that unions might pose a problem, but I had a feeling that Mr. Dutton was leaving the door ajar, so I began to scrape together money for a third class passage to London. On March 12, 1953, leaving behind a drastically diminished record collection, I boarded a third class car on the London boat train with a round-trip ticket and just enough money to get by—or so I thought. What follows, mostly repeats a previous post. 

Customs inspectors gave me a hard time in Harwich, having never before seen a tape recorder and not quite knowing what it was, but I got the nod and made it to London and Mr. Kerpner's Guest House in Earl's Court— £2 a week, with breakfast.

I phoned Lyn Dutton, who suggested that I join him and Humph for lunch at 100 Oxford Street on the following day. It was here that the band played at night. I don't have to tell you that I was a nervous wreck, but I made it through lunch and was delighted when Humph suggested that we do the interview that afternoon and that I record the band that evening, telling anyone who might ask that it was strictly for my own enjoyment.

I have for several decades kept a discography-style list of my recorded sessions. Here are the two

        pages documenting the 1953 Humphrey Lyttelton session. Click on image to enlarge.

Nobody asked and I filled two reels of tape that night. It was monaural, of course, but pure luck had me place my single B&O ribbon microphone advantageously, except for Johnny Parker's piano, which was too far away. I can at last fulfill my promise to post actual recordings if and when I unearthed them and acquired a working reel to reel tape deck. Last week, I found the former in a closet and the latter on e-bay, so here is the first of the Lyttelton recordings, Chicago Buzz. Humph also plays clarinet on this one, as does Bruce Turner, and drummer George Hopkins turns to the washboard. I will include a detailed description of the Lyttleton Club (i.e. Mack's Restaurant) when I post more sounds from this evening.

Osman Tyner 1932 - 1993

Born in Philadelphia to Roosevelt and Estella Tyner on December 5, 1932, Osman Tyner was a self-taught artist of impressive talent. His aunts recall that he began drawing as soon as he could handle crayons and pencils, and that he showed remarkable imagination at a very early age, so it was no surprise that he chose to major in commercial art when he entered high school at South Philadelphia's Edward Bok Technical School.

In 1951, Osman decided to leave Philadelphia and try his luck in New York City. He had yet to decide on a definite career path, but meeting Alvin Ailey in 1951 turned him towards dance. Ailey, who had yet to form his celebrated dance company, taught Osman the rudiments of modern dance for the following year and encouraged him to stay with it, but Osman was more critical of himself. Having danced "awkwardly" in an Ailey revue at the Waldorf Astoria, he concluded that his true calling was in the field of visual arts and design.

One of Osman's cover illustrations (1966)

Between 1953 and 1955, Osman had an opportunity to hone his drawing skills while serving as a Corporal in the 45th Armored Medical Battalion and at Fort Knox. His assignments were somewhat pedestrian, he recalled, laughing at the fact that his Army career culminated with his being promoted to "head of the sign painting department."  In the Sixties, when our paths first crossed, Osman had done some wonderful work for rights and review, the magazine published by C.O.R.E. (the Congress of Racial Equality). 

Looking back on a long life, such as I have had, I can recall a staggering number of people with whom I shared memorable moments. Some came to my memory to stay, others were just passing through, but that does not mean that they were entirely forgotten. It's funny how we can develop a strong association with someone, share a good slice of life with them and suddenly realized that we both have moved on to another chapter in our lives—what we though was permanent really wasn't. That is an experience I have had many times, but even people who dropped out of my life often left something behind, something that forever says "I was here." I say all this because Osman Tyner did not stay long in my sphere, but neither did he become another blurry figure. He had an exhuberant personality and whenever he came to see me, he was a burst of joy. I recall a time when I was applying finish to my living room floor and not at all prepared for a visit. I think I muttered a curse when the doorbell rang, but my annoyance evaporated when Osman burst into the room. He saw what I was doing and immediately insisted on helping with that chore. 

I don't recall how or where we met, but it somehow never mattered. Osman had a presence that made such things seem trivial. He liked jazz and he knew how deeply immersed in it I was, but I think we had known each other for several months before I found out that his uncle was McCoy Tyner. Most people would have made that fact known shortly after the first handshake, but not Osman—he admired his uncle, but he was self-reliant.

There came a time when Osman's calls and visits tapered off and the hand painted Christmas cards he used to send stopped coming. I did not know it then, but he had become a victim of the AIDS epidemic—it was a time when so many of us lost friends to this terrible disease, a timer when the medical world had not caught up with it. When it finally took him away, May 28, 1993, I had neither seen nor heard from him in ten years, and I can't recall how I learned the bad news.

Two of Osman's wonderful Christmas cards were never put away by me. For years, they flanked an old marble clock in my living room and had so much become a part of the decor that I would only have noticed if they disappeared. I want to share them with you, along with a third card that Osman called "Lady in Green." Please click on the images to enlarge them. I hope you  like them as much as I do.

Osman's work occasionally makes it to exhibits and auctions. I find the one below to be particularly striking—it was among his last and I  am indebted to Archibald Arts for giving me permission to display it here.

"Audience" — Osman Tyner 1993 (Courtesy of Archibald Arts, New York, N.Y.)

Visit to a Buffet Flat

Buffet Flats, sometimes called Goodtime Flats, were small, privately owned unlicensed clubs where customers could engage in such mundane illegal pastimes as drinking and gambling—for starters. These fun flats also offered erotic shows that featured sex acts of every conceivable kind and were only too happy to accommodate customer participation—for a fee, of course.

Usually owned by women, these establishments were run with admirable efficiency, catering to the occasional thrill-seeker as well as to regular clients whose personal preferences they knew in detail. Often the hostess also served as a bank, a trusted person into whose hands a customer could safely entrust valuables and sizable amounts of cash. Withdrawals could be made at any time in the course of the evening or morning. This probably ties in to the fact that buffet flats were originally set up to cater to Pullman porters, men whose extensive travels, contacts with the white upper class, gentlemanly manners, and good income earned them considerable respect in black communities. Porters had layovers, and what better place to let it all hang out than a neighborhood buffet flat. These establishments had existed for years, but Prohibition gave loose living a boost and made the flats even more popular. In 1970, when I was doing research for my Bessie Smith biography, I learned that the Pullman Porters Club in St. Louis—a staid gathering place for retired elderly men with many stories to tell—once was a buffet flat.

One might describe the flats as earthlier versions of outwardly legitimate “high-class” night clubs, the kind that have tuxedoed maitre’ds discreetly set up sexual liaisons for “important” patrons.

Buffet flats were as much a part of black urban night life of the 1920s as chop suey joints continued to be around the clock into the Fifties, and they were almost as safe. With the right authorities on their payroll, the better flats could pretty much guarantee that any law enforcement men coming through the front door would be doing so as patrons. Police raids were uncommon, as were incidences of violence or theft.

Whenever Bessie Smith appeared at the Koppin Theater In Detroit, she paid a visit to a buffet flat owned by a friend of hers. This lady even sent one or two limousines to the stage door to pick up Bessie and her entourage of chorines, “girls who knew how to keep their mouths shut”.

From various descriptions I received when preparing my book, I pieced together a composite picture of what a typical buffet flat might have been like:

"Drinks in hand, an eclectic crowd of pleasure-seekers packed the house. While some leisurely ascended and descended the linoleum-covered steps, others lined the staircases that connected the three floors. The air was thick with smoke, giggles, and clashing perfumes; two pianists, on separate floors, pounded the ivory competitively, and oooh’s and ahh’s emanated from activity rooms on each floor. Puffed up by their furs, Bessie and her young ladies negotiate their way down one of the corridors, to a room reserved for coats. It was not a cloakroom in the ordinary sense, but rather a bedroom with fur and wool piled high. 'There were so many fur coats that it looked like a zoo,' recalled Ruby.

"As usual, Bessie more or less restricted her participation to voyeurism. She could ill afford to actively exhibit her prurient interest publicly lest word of it got back to Jack. It was bad enough that she was drinking and patronizing a buffet flat, neither of which activity would have come as a complete surprise to her husband. 'Jack knew she wasn’t being no angel,' observed Ruby, 'but Bessie was kinda careful—well, let’s say she would only go so far when strangers were around—but not always. Bessie was well known in that place'.

“Bessie took her favorite girls and, of course, me. We was all dressed up, she had five fur coats. Each one of us would wear one of the coats. It made us feel like we were very important and loaded. I would always wear the mink. The coat was so big on me, I could wrap it around me three times. I didn't care, I just liked to wear the mink. Bessie would have me carry the bad liquor and anything else we wanted to sneak around with, under the mink. By being so big, no one noticed. As usual, when we went into a joint with Bessie it would start jumping; she was like a magnet, she attracted everyone. She wore a white ermine coat and looked like a million bucks. One girl wore Bessie’s chinchilla coat, one had on her black seal. Her nephew’s wife had on her sable. Even the horse had a monkey on her back, what I mean by horse, was a girl named Eva, who reminded you of a horse when she danced—so we nicknamed her "horse". We looked very nice.”

Here is—preceded by another of her accounts—is Ruby's colorful recollection of one such visit to the Detroit flat: