I Remember Jazz: Six Decades Among the Great Jazzmen

Frankie Newton

10 • I Remember Jazz power, the sight he had, passed on to somebody. Before too long, we'll know who it is. That sight don't ever disappear from this place. You wait an' see. Somebody's gon' be able to tell. One time I thought Willie Pajaud had the sight, but jus' before he died—he had a heart attack in his bathroom—he called out to his wife an' he said, This is it, Honey!' Now if Willie had the sight it would have left him before that and got into somebody else. So Willie didn't have the sight. John Casimir, he had the sight." There seems to be something endemic among Orleanians that makes it easy for them to place credence in such legends as this. I don't know how I ever kept from being bogged down in that morass of superstition. New Orleans musicians are not only superstitious, they're also patient. To them it's just a matter of time until someone comes forward with the sight. At any rate, I suppose I'll find out one day who's carrying the quarters. Frankie Newton Not too many jazz fans remember Frankie Newton. He was an exciting and inventive trumpet player, the one that Bessie Smith collectors hear on her final recording that included "Gimme a Pigfoot" and "You've Been a Good Old Wagon." Frankie lived in Greenwich Village . Like so many jazzmen, he drank more than was good for him. Also like so many jazzmen, he had all kinds of friends, including the popular painter Beauford Delaney, and authors William Saroyan and Henry Miller. A middle-aged black, Delaney had a notorious preference for boys over girls; but in the permissive ambience of the Village of the forties, his straight friends overlooked his amorous vagaries in consideration of his exceptional talent, his boundless cordiality, quick wit, and undeniable wisdom. He was reluctant to sell his work to just anybody, and this idiosyncracy made it necessary for him to reside and paint on the fourth floor of an abandoned warehouse on Greene Street. He didn't really live in dire poverty, because his more economically stable friends, and a few who were daring and ingenious, saw that he was somehow provided with the necessities of life. A mercenary gunrunner for the Israeli Stern Gang in what was Palestine not only stole a refrigerator from a nearby apartment for him, he then tapped the I Remember Jazz • 11 city's powerline to bring unauthorized electricity into the studio. A telephone was installed the same way. Owners of the building had no idea it was occupied. Friends brought Beauford a pot-bellied stove, which we managed to vent illegally through the roof, and we never went up to visit without carrying a bag of coal, a bottle or two of wine, or maybe a Blind Lemon Jefferson phonograph record that Beauford would play until it wore out. So his studio was a kind of social center that was immortalized in Henry Millers book The Air Conditioned Nightmare, in a chapter entitled "The Amazing and Invariable Beauford Delaney." As often as not, if I were looking for Frankie Newton during the day and didn't find him in the bar across from his apartment , the next place I'd look would be Beauford s studio. One day in the early forties some of us were sitting around at Beauford s on folding chairs and pillows. Saroyan and Miller were there, as was a young male model named Dante whom we all assumed was Beauford s special friend. Beauford, as usual, was painting and talking at the same time. We suddenly heard footsteps running up the stairs. Most people didn't run up those four long flights. In burst Canada Lee, without knocking. Canada Lee, once known as a middleweight pugilist, had by then established himself in New York theater circles and, in fact, distinguished himself in Shakespearean roles, especially with his critically triumphant performance as lago (in whiteface ) in Othello. His breathlessness riveted our attention as he announced , "Frankie's place is on fire!" We all jumped up and ran for the door, fearful that our friend was in danger of injury or worse. We ran the couple of blocks, saw the blaze, and watched the firemen at work. Much to our relief, though, we saw Frankie Newton standing behind the rope barrier watching the blaze. "My God!" Saroyan shouted. "Are we glad to see...