I Remember Jazz: Six Decades Among the Great Jazzmen

Sharkey Bonano

180 • I Remember Jazz li'l gal—but she didn't know anything about work, y' see. An' she played hell of a piano, but she get off the rhythm. You got to have that rhythm. So who that leave? That leave me. We didn' have no drum, we didn' have no bass, jus' me. Them records could have been better. Now when we made them other things—Jelly Roll, ysee an' th' Red Hot Peppers—now that was different—that was some rhythm. Lindsay, John Lindsay, whoo! That was some rhythm—that was some bass and the li'l French drummer, too [Andre Hillaire], he made nice rhythm, so ysee all that make it easy for me and nacherly, the records, they better." Somewhere before, I had read an interview with Johnny in which he maintained, "A jazz musician got to be a workin' class of man," and I realized this was a basic part of his musical philosophy. I reminded him, "Jelly Roll was no working class man. I don't think he ever worked a day in his life." "Yeah," Johnny agreed, "but he was Jelly Roll. Only one like that." The wall turned out beautifully, and I complimented him. "You got to do good work," he told me. "If it's plasterin' or pickin', you got to do it right." Johnny, in his entire illustriouscareer, only had one record album under his name as leader. I'm proud that the album notes are mine. Sharkey Bonano Sharkey really captured the fancy of the Dixieland fans, but not necessarily for the right reasons. A natural showman, his slight figure was never at rest on stage. His brown derby with the little feather in it was one of the best-known trademarks in jazz. His tiny, raspy, almost soprano voice could never be called pleasant, but he'd sing away with all the assurance of a Luciano Pavarotti. All of those things were cute, but they weren't jazz. What was jazz was his hard-driving, flawlessly syncopated lead horn and his beautifully controlled, full trumpet tone. Audiences found him childlike and lovable, but musicians who worked with him saw him in a different light. Sharkey was self-centered and egotistical, characteristics which are never improved by either ignorance or bad judgment. Sharkey had a surplus of all these elements. It may be that Sharkey was the only jazzman I ever knew with I Remember Jazz • 181 whom I was not on speaking terms. Even so, I hated to see him unemployed because in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we needed all the great jazz horns we could find. Yd give anything to have that horn back today, even if we had to take Sharkey along with it. I guess it was early in the 1950s when I pulled all the strings I could, used whatever influence I had, to get Sharkey and his band a booking in the Blue Room. (That's one of the big-name spots in New Orleans, in the Roosevelt Hotel.) The band wasn't too enthusiastic, because workingwith Sharkey didn't represent any jazzman'sgarden of Eden. The Blue Room's management alwaysdid everything in good taste. It was a real class establishment—and still is, for that matter. When the band arrived to open its engagement, the men saw a welldesigned advertisingcard at the entrance of the room. Stanley Mendelson walked over to try out the piano, and the manager was being pleasant, greeting the musicians. The advertising card had a large photograph of Sharkey in the center and, spaced around it, smaller photos of the members of the band—all top names in Dixieland. When Sharkey came in and sawthe card, he accosted the manager . "What the hell is this?" he demanded angrily, pointing to the card. All the musicians were standing around observing the scene. Stanley sat at the piano. "This card stinks!" he charged. "Why the hell do you need pictures of all these guys on it? People come in this place to see me, Sharkey, see! These guys don't make no difference! I could play this job with five Chinamen!" A moment of silence ensued and then Stanley, to ease the tension , idly played "Chinatown, My Chinatown" on the piano—whereupon Sharkey fired the band. I need not go into the details of the attendant chaos in the Blue Room, in the Musicians Mutual Protective Association, and among the musicians. Because the bandsmen were as...