Doc: The Story of a Birmingham Jazz Man

11. Bandleader

11 Bandleader I taught at Lincoln School for twenty-seven years. That’s a long time. I would have these little dreams, sometimes, that I never graduated from Lincoln: I would just be recycled ad infinitum . I knew every brick in that school. I remember when I went there as a youngster, and all the little things that went along with that—how I enjoyed the marching parades and the Odd Fellows—I think about those things all the time. But I found out very early that I wasn’t content just to have a job and then on the weekends do like most teachers : they would go to each other’s homes, have some ham and some drinks, and when the game would come, they would all go out to see Alabama A&M. They were in different clubs that met and socialized. But what was missing in my life was the fact that I wanted to play. I wanted to play some music. When I got back to Birmingham, everybody around here was playing the old tunes. I’d been around groups like Louis Jordan that would do the kicks and movements while they played, and wear the little outfits and all. I thought, that’s a great way to break in here, but who could play it? I met some fellows that had been playing at a lot of little places— I guess you would call them “hillbilly” places—out on the highway. It was an old blues singer, Robert McCoy, and he had a drummer, Clarence Curry. They played at this honky-tonk, the Ironwood Inn. These fellows couldn’t play any jazz, but Robert was one of the old barrelhouse piano players. He could play the old ragtime piano, and 174 chapTer 11 I’d get in there some kind of way with the clarinet or the saxophone. There wasn’t any leader; it was just three guys playing together, and it was enjoyable. A man ran that place named Mr. Charles. He was a typical, mean fellow, but he liked the musicians, and Robert was liked by the clientele out there. They’d have a big Saturday night, and they’d dance and everything. We didn’t even have a microphone, I don’t think, but he’d sit there and he’d play that piano, and they’d tip us. It got to the point that even though we just had a drum and a piano, it got to be pretty tight. Robert would play these things: “Red Sails in the Sunset,” and the old barrelhouse pieces; “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain,” and that kind of stuff. There was not a song he couldn’t sing—even though he didn’t know the words to a lot of songs, he’d ad-lib them. And there were times when you could really feel the authenticity and sincerity of Robert’s stuff. He composed songs, and he knew some things that you’d never heard before. He had those old beats going on, and he could play all those shouts and things. He’d drink a lot and say, “Come on, come on, Clarence!” But when people called for any jazz music, he and Clarence would know nothing about that. They’d find a key, and I would play the Jimmy Chapell, Clarence Curry, Frank Adams, Martin Barnett, and Robert McCoy, 1950s. Courtesy of Patrick Cather. BanDleaDer 175 melody. They’d make all the wrong notes—nobody knew the melody but me—but we just went on and played it. There were little bands going around like that, then—it wasn’t far removed from Banjo Bill—and there wasn’t a lot of money involved, like a big job, but you worked so regularly, and you got tips. That really helped me out: the tips were just little bits of change, but you always knew that if you did “When the Saints Go Marching In,” you could get about five or ten dollars, back in that day. It just progressed from there. Finally I saw that I could probably do a little better, so I took Robert and Clarence along with me, and I added a trumpet player, and I started getting my band together. We went into a place on the Southside, a black club called 2728. It had a good clientele, and we had...