My name is Monk Rowe and I'm director of the
Jazz Archive here at Hamilton College. I'm very pleased to have Norman Simmons here
for a second interview and have you at the college for some musical events. Welcome. NS: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here again. MR: At this point in your career, when someone
who doesn't know you and that you don't know, asks what you do for a living, what do you
say? NS: Well I play music. I guess that's what I would say right off
the bat, because that's the broad spectrum of it, before the breakdown, is I play music. And then a lot of times they take it for,
well usually they'll say well what kind of music did he play? And I'll say I'm a jazz musician. You know? Oh wow. And then maybe what instrument do you play
and I play the piano you know. And then it goes on from there. And I guess any instrument that, since I play
the piano you always get the wows. Piano. You know, that big monster. But of all the instruments I imagine they
see them as some kind of a monster to be conquered, which it is in every case. So that's how I kind of answer that. MR: Okay. Was there a point, in your growing up in Chicago,
where you started to feel that you had the confidence that you could actually make a
living in this business? NS: Well that's an interesting concept because
I've always looked at it in a different way. I guess you might say in the artistic sense,
that I didn't consider how I wanted to make a living, I just considered how I wanted to
live. And that decision was made when I was in maybe
my second year in high school - maybe not the second, maybe the third or maybe the fourth
year. Because I had a wonderful English teacher
named Mr. Reinstein, and he had us doing a thing on careers. And in high school I was doing pretty good,
I mean my science teacher, my biology teachers wanted me to advance in science and my art
teacher wanted me to go to the art school, you know what I mean? Because I coasted through everything. I mean I had good instincts, in other words
it wasn't that I was at home doing a lot of homework and stuff like that but I was out
there playing baseball all of the time, you know what I mean? The requirements in the art department, if
we had to turn in three pictures in a week I did all three of them in one night and turned
them in and then played hooky the rest of the time. So it was like that. But they all - and so when we got to this
English class there was significant things about this teacher, in composition - because
we had to write - of course the same thing - I'd just sit down, I just wrote my stuff
out and he loved it. And it wasn't until the second semester that
he decided that we needed to go to the library and pick out a subject and write about it
that. I collapsed. Because I did not want to go to the library
and I did not want to write about what somebody else was thinking. And it was the end of the semester because
he had been carrying me all that semester from the previous semester where he liked
all my creative work, and he said, "you know you have not done your work this semester,"
and he was giving me high marks still. So anyway, when all of the kids, you could
hear them outside in the summertime and everybody's getting out of school, I was up there writing. And we had a course in careers and I decided
to look at it and say well now if I decide to be an artist there's going to be someone
over me. If maybe I'm going to be like painting pictures
and waiting until I'm dead before I get any recognition from them, or I'm going to work
in a situation where someone is going to be telling me what to do. I decided, in being who I was you know, in
the black community, I said democracy was mostly represented in the music. This is where individuals accepted each other
on another level other than the way the rest of society did. And I decided this is where I wanted to be
in that situation. So it was how I wanted to live my life regardless
of how much I was going to make. Because in those days making money, my goodness,
when I left Carmen for instance, which was like 1970, to show you, I had an apartment
in the Bronx with three big rooms in it, and my rent was only $91 when I left there, $91
a month. You know? And well you talked to Joe and he talked about
places where you lived and your rent was $15 a month or something, you know what I mean? So and the other thing about it in Chicago,
I told a lot of people, in healthcare and stuff like this in Chicago, Chicago took care
of it. You could almost go to any hospital and get
healthcare. So the times were different. So you didn't feel this - money wasn't that
dominant entity that it is today. It just wasn't there. The people who had money, they were some different
other people. Most all the rest of us were kind of poor
and so there was a different kind of community with everybody else on this same level of
working hard, resting hard and playing hard. I mean poor people didn't have their money
invested in the stock market and all, only rich people had their money in the stock market. MR: Did you think, or did your father think
of your family as poor? NS: No. And you talk to a lot of people in those days
and they'll say they didn't know they were poor. They didn't think about being poor. Because everybody was kind of on the same
level. So there wasn't a lot - and thing were a lot
cheaper. We didn't have that kind of a capitalism them. And we were more of a democracy then than
we are today, so we didn't have people intentionally just stepping over people trying to get ahead. So it was a different kind of community in
general then. MR: These - I have to say that the decision
about your life that you made in high school, it was a pretty mature decision I think, or
to be able to have that outlook and make that choice. And I'm wondering, you talked about the democracy
and that you noticed it in the music. Was it mostly just the black community that
that referred to in your experience at that time? NS: Well there was some degree of override
because I have to say that like in Chicago we were very divided. I mean all over Chicago. That was one of the things that I talk about,
about the governmental set-up and everything like that, there was no Chicago unity. There was the Polish neighborhood. There was the Italian neighborhood. There was maybe the Irish neighborhood. There was the black neighborhood and just
everybody was separate. Everybody. So consequently there was no real unity there,
because you only represented your district. So consequently there wasn't a governing board
for Chicago as a whole. So you could be replaced and somebody could
replace you. So the mayor was like a king. Mayor Daley was like a king. Like nobody. Not until, when he died, I think it was Mayor
Byrne that was deputy mayor I think, and when she ran for election, we call it "the machine"
if you remember that, that was an organization that was almost like a branch of Al Capone,
it was his town. But the machine didn't want to back her. They backed someone else. So she had to go out and get a coalition from
all these neighborhoods to run. And circumstances, like there was a big snow
or something that happened, and she won. And that brought a coalition into Chicago
instead of having this one dominant force. It broke the machine down that way because
you have representatives and that led to like Mayor Washington who was the first black mayor,
getting elected. Because now people had an input together from
all these different communities. But I mean there was just a sense of total
separateness in all these communities in Chicago. So yeah, that wasn't overlooked because say
for instance that was an idea of maybe feeling special if we had a gig over in the white
neighborhood or over in the - somewhere. There was also the threat that you, I mean
you know you were special over there and you didn't have too much flexibility over there
necessarily either. But yeah you were aware of it to that degree,
that there was this overlap. And because of this separation you realized
that it was within the musicians. You know what I mean? Maybe in the neighborhoods, but among the
musicians there was this coming together. Because at that particular time the south
side, where I lived, was the most dominant area of the modern musicians. The blues was kind of on the west side. The south side, it was really popping on the
south side. The south side was a big community that was
within itself. We had everything. We had, you know like The Balaban and Katz,
I don't know if you heard of them, the big theaters that were downtown, they were like
palaces? MR: What was the name of them again? NS: Balaban and Katz. And I don't know if you remember Eddie Condon's
in New York, it was owned by Red Balaban. He was an heir to that. He opened Condon's, the Duke Condon's not
the old one up there on 54th Street, he was the heir to that Balaban and Katz Theatre. You know, Ed Balaban was - Red, Red Balaban. But the Balaban and the Katz Theatre, there
was a Regal Theater was one of them, like a palace. You know we had about three of them over there,
ballrooms and stuff like that. We had them on a taxicab system. Everything was right there in the black community. You didn't even have to go out of there to
do anything. But nevertheless a great deal of the white
musicians who wanted to play came over there. The Beehive was there. So all of the musicians would come from New
York and all those guys that were living there, Earl Hines and Roy Eldridge and all these
guys, Ben Webster, all lived in Chicago for a while, on the south side. And there was just clubs everywhere. MR: Do the white patrons come to those clubs? NS: Yes. MR: Okay, what about the white musicians,
would they come to the clubs also? NS: Well the white musicians are the ones
especially that I'm talking about. MR: Okay. NS: Because that's where the issue was happening
between the white musicians. Because blacks, we didn't have that kind of
community in the other white neighborhoods where we could go over there freely and hang
out. And so most of the white musicians came to
the south side and it was safe at that particular time. But yes. MR: Were you a frequenter of the blues clubs,
like you said, on the west side? NS: Not really, no. It was sort of a migration situation where
if you talk about ghettos or whatever it is, whereas most of the people coming up from
the south from the country went to the west side. And so it had that basic element to it. A lot of the people who had been there for
a while were, I would consider maybe more progressive, lived on the south side. Joe Louis had a big house over there. That's where all these musicians in all of
the jazz clubs mostly were on the south side, so there was a gathering there of another
level of music, although what was happening on the south side, the dominance of the blues
might have been on the west side. There may have been some jazz clubs scattered
over there. But the clubs on the south side, we played
the same clubs that Muddy Waters and them, we might have all played a lot of times the
same clubs alternately to a certain degree, or mixed on a certain level. You know in other words, that was your musicians
like Muddy and them. That was a whole other culture. I played a record date with one of the blues
guys, Tampa Red I think it was, man and I was into some music that I didn't know where
I was, you know what I mean? They were different cats with those harmonica
players and the keys that they played in and all that kind of stuff, was a total different
thing. And the musicians that they used. But that was a transition, because Chicago
was a blues town. And so all these guys lived in Chicago before
they went to England. All those guys were in Chicago. Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, all of them were
in Chicago and recording in there. And so there was a certain level, like I said
when there was a transition, where a lot of them did play with jazz musicians. You know what I mean? They weren't just in that clique. So a lot of them, to think of some of the
names, for instance even when I was at the Beehive we had people like Big Joe Turner
and some of those guys, they all played with jazz musicians. I played for Big Maybelle, you know what I
mean? But that was another, that wasn't the real
country blues. Those were the blues singers that most of
the time - I played for T-Bone Walker, you know what I mean? I had a gig with him and stuff like this,
within a jazz band, not in a blues band. You know what I mean? These guys played - Jimmy Witherspoon - they
all worked with jazz musicians. But that was that transitional era right there. Like if you talk about, what's his name who
was singing with Basie. MR: Jimmy Rushing. NS: Mr. Five by Five. I even worked with him in New York. So that was that situation in Chicago. We all had this foundational blues thing. And a lot of clubs we worked in those particular
days were show clubs. In other words it might have been a combo
of four pieces, a horn and a rhythm section, but other than that you'd have a dancer and
a comedian, and you know what I mean? So no telling who else would be on there. And so there was a mixture going on there. And so therefore, so when it came to calling
musicians it wasn't about calling people for their specialty. You just called people who could play. MR: Was it easier for a jazz musician to exist,
to do a good job, in a blues setting than it would be for a blues musician to go to
a jazz setting? NS: I think in a way it depends. Like I said there was some overlap there,
but I think that, you know it's hard to say because like I said they went to some areas
that, the keys that they played in, you know we all had our compiler with expanded keys
and a standard repertoire. They had keys and repertoires too, you know
what I mean? And I didn't see a lot of overlap when it
came down to really those guys who played that stuff, they were into their particular
element and I would venture to say that they might struggle a little bit in our area, but
I would also venture to say that it's likely we would struggle. Because I know I did struggle in their area. Because the approach was just, it was that
different. And still we coexisted kind of. MR: Do you ever remember a circumstance where
you might be playing with a real basic type blues player and they would like be dropping
or adding beats to accommodate the length of their sentences? NS: That's what the country blues players
did. That's what would have thrown us off, because
we had a more set format. Jimmy Witherspoon and all those cats worked
within that set format. They sang the regular twelve-bar blues. And we had an eight-bar blues, the form, you
know what I mean, and like Joe Williams did all that stuff. And a singer could make the transition easier. But for musicians, even the way the rhythm
section functioned I think, which that would have been the most basic, when you're talking
about the drummer and the bass player and that element, or a guitar player. Because in that particular day you know guitar
wasn't that strong in the jazz element. It was really a blues instrument kind of. So it was, I would say it was almost equal
on both sides. MR: Okay. You mentioned that people seemed to live on
less money or that it wasn't the issue it is nowadays. Do you recall what you would have made in
the late forties perhaps, when you were gigging there, for those long weeks you've described,
working six hours a night and you finally get payday on Sunday night was it. What was a weekly salary for working all those
hours? NS: I would venture to say that if you were
a sideman you might be making $60 a week. MR: That's about ten bucks a night then. NS: Um hum. Ten dollars a night maybe. Yeah. You know and that's talking about scale, which
is very basic, which I kind of broke through that right away. Now I could, by being a band leader I'd get
leader's fee. So I might have been making maybe $75, $100
or $120 a week or something like that. I don't think the leader's fee was quite double
then what the sidemen were making, but you had leader's fee then. And everything was really kind of based on
scale in a way. Because under that we had guys working under
scale. But we had a strong union then, a very strong
union. So it wasn't easy to get away with that a
lot. MR: What would the union do, was there any
such thing as a club that had steady music that didn't hire union musicians? Or was that just not done? NS: Well I tell you, to give you a kind of
an example of that, that we don't have now. The union then had representatives who went
in the neighborhoods and saw who was playing everywhere. The unions had districts, guys who were walking,
and would go into every club and see who was there. They knew the names of all the musicians and
what's happening, you know what I mean? So it was not easy to exist on that level
because of these representatives. The musicians may have wanted to do that at
some particular time, but it wasn't easy because this guy was there, this representative was
there checking everything out. So even if you were working under the scale
you might have had a contract that you signed for scale, and then had an agreement with
the owner. But you needed that contract, because the
union was very strong in those days. They were connected, very connected with all
the other unions. So consequently they could very easily stop
your liquor deliveries. MR: I see. NS: You understand? Because that was a kind of a connection that
for instance to just what I was saying, it was kind of still the Al Capone days when
things were all hooked up with these people who had that kind of control over a lot of
things so you know that liquor deliveries and garbage and all like that were all controlled
by those kind of people. And so the union - I might tell you James
C. Putrello, who got to be the head of the whole Federation, was from Chicago. Chicago was the last union to merge the black
and white unions. Because Putrello would not let them touch
Chicago, because the head of the Chicago black union, he and Putrello were boys together
in the strongarm days. You know? So the point is, they were very allied. So the black union in Chicago itself was very
strong. And even downtown, which would be considered
more in the white area, they were strong all over. MR: Was it - I don't know if you would know
this - but was it a positive thing for the black musicians when those unions finally
merged? Because I know like when you talk about the
black professional baseball league when professional sports got to be integrated, that league pretty
much petered out. So I'm just wondering. NS: Well the theory behind those things, it's
like maybe birth pains or there is definite, at that particular time, major losses in the
transition. It's all in the idea that in the process the
long run is going to create more opportunity. And some people feel a lot of times that it
did not, because there were definitely major losses. For instance in the Chicago union, they had
even bought an apartment building complex where musicians stayed, a very nice complex. They had a lot of establishment that wound
up being caught into the merger and disintegrated, so a lot of benefits like that, you know,
so yeah, it's all in the promise of the future. But in the immediate when it happens, yes
I would say there were big losses. Especially in Chicago where we had a strong
union and for us to have to merge with the white union, they become, and their principals
become, more dominant in general. MR: You were in your early teens during World
War II? NS: Yes. Very early I would say, yeah. MR: 12, 13? Yeah, 11, 12, 13. You have any recollections of those war years? Did it affect your life? Affect your family's life at all? NS: One of the significant things during those
years, like you say early teens, because at that particular time Johnny Griffin for instance
is only maybe a year or two older than I was. I went to Wendell Phillips High School and
even though Milt Hinton went there, Nat Cole went there, Walter Dyett who was the master
musician started here but he went to DeSalvo. So all of our great musicians were coming
out of DeSalvo. Gene Ammons, Johnny Griffin, just a ton of
them were all coming out of DeSalvo. So I didn't get into the band, Phillips at
that time didn't have a great band. I was in the a cappella where all of the sopranos
were. MR: That's a good place to be. NS: I didn't get in the band. But there was a band in the Wendell Phillips
things. But during that particular time, you say early
teens, because I wasn't old enough to be drafted, but we had a dance hall. They opened up a very modern, it was a funeral
parlor, the Parkway Ballroom, and he opened up a big dance hall upstairs called the Parkway
Ballroom. Prior to that time we used to go up on 47th
Street and there was a place up there it was called The Peps, it was a place that Nat Cole
had played before, and we used to go up there and dance to a record player and stuff like
that. Now they opened up the Parkway Ballroom. And we talked about the late hours. Well the Parkway Ballroom started at 8 o'clock
and finished at 4 in the morning. You know? Four bands. Four live bands. You might have Johnny Griffin and the Baby
Band they called them, because all of the were about four feet tall, you know what I
mean? That Eugene Wright and the Dukes of Swing,
Eugene Wright is - MR: The bassist? NS: That's right the bassist who went with-
MR: With Dave Brubeck. NS: With Dave Brubeck, yeah. And we had the Council Rhythm, they were out
of Wendell Phillips, and there was also a couple of white bands. What's his name that used to be with Joe? Joe talked about him all of the time? MR: Played what? NS: He was a tailor. He had a big band in Chicago. MR: What was his instrument? NS: He was the conductor, he didn't play nothing. MR: Oh, oh. NS: I even played in his band one time but
what I'm trying to say is the bands we brought in there we had, except for maybe Gene Ammons
and Johnny Griffin were combos, the others were big bands, you know big, 16-piece bands. And so I be lined up out there, we'd line
up, these kids were lined up out there to get in at 8 o'clock, I danced on every dance
until 4 in the morning. You know what I mean? MR: And you went to school the next day, or
this was the weekend? NS: Well usually on the weekends that would
happen, although you'd come out of there at 4 o'clock in the morning, my mother didn't
have any idea where I was. Because like I told you, where we lived and
I'd sleep on the couch, I'd sleep on the couch with my brothers. We had the studio couch we slept in you know
what I mean? And it was in the living room, right? So I would just come up the back stairs of
the back porch and climb through the window right into bed. But I had that kind of freedom with my mother. As long as - I had a lot of duties to do,
and as long as I did my duties, I never ditched school or nothing, my mother never had to
go to school about me. Because my mother was a terror, you know what
I mean? And so that particular, I call it respect,
part of it was fear, I would never cross her. There were some things that she didn't know,
but as long as I did my duties I had total freedom. Total freedom you know what I mean? But if she had found out any kind of trouble
I got into I would have been just nullified. So I was very careful, I tried to be very
careful. But anyway, I had a little mutilated draft
card. Because I still was not old enough to go in
there. But I had this little mutilated draft card
that I used to show to get in there. So no I wasn't of draft age at that particular
time. But I wished a lot of times, because my friends
who went, particularly the musicians, they were in the band in the Army so they were
playing these guys off on the boat and everything like that, and in the meanwhile they're sitting
around practicing and jamming and going on. Yeah. So I wanted to be in the military. MR: Did you end up doing the military? NS: No. No I was not in the military. When the next war came around, and I think
it was the Korean War maybe, they were drafting - they were not drafting fathers - I mean
they were not drafting husbands, and I had just gotten married. Then they started not drafting fathers and
I had just had a kid. And I had my notice, bring it up close for
three days, you know when you got that you were in the Army. They sent you this notice: bring it up close
for three days. That means you were in. I took that thing down there and I said hey
- I got a baby. I'm outta here. Because I don't think the Korean War itself
had the privileges like the Second World War. Because you know those guys that came out
of the Second World War upgraded our music a great deal, you know. Because whereas when you talk about education,
where we were self-educated a lot among ourselves, you had the G.I. plan. And a lot of guys that went there and came
out was able to go to universities. Maybe people like Quincy and those people
that came out there, and Cannonball. A lot of these guys met in the Army. But the point is a lot of them that came out
of the Army had the G.I. plan and were able to go to universities. And I think this had an upgrade on our whole
musical community with those guys to kind of lead us, the musicians that they became. MR: That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought of that. Do you recall the first time you played in
an integrated band? Or wasn't it even something that would register
in your memory? NS: Well maybe to a certain degree I would
remember that. One thing say for instance when I was at the
Beehive, 'cause I wasn't a guy that hung out a lot. So consequently I remember Duke Ellington,
they used to have the blindfold tests and he didn't know nobody. Because he said I'm at home writing all the
time. And I said yeah, well that's me, so I didn't
worry about it you know what I mean? I was at home writing all the time because
I will still trying to be an arranger then a lot of times. So consequently I didn't hang out as much
at the jam sessions to play. But nevertheless, when I got to the Bee Hive
for instance, I brought in, I met Neils Vertiel from Sweden. MR: What's the name again? NS: His name, we called him Verdell, but his
name was Neils Vertiel Delonda. And he was a Swedish drummer. I went down to the Blue Note to see Duke Ellington
and he was sitting there. I met him, and I invited him up to the Beehive
where I was and he sat in on the jam session night and they hired him, and he became our
drummer. So I integrated that band with him. But then that was Ira Sullivan you know, who
was on the south side all of the time playing with the guys over there. And like I said I wasn't necessarily in his
band, but when we were in the Beehive Ira and Red Rodney were our house horn men. So I had the rhythm section in there and the
house horn men, who played with everybody else who came in, and of course everybody
who came in there was mixed, you know there was J and Kai and just any number of people
who were available. But Red and Ira were the house horn men so
I was very close with Ira Sullivan, and have been even from those days. So we were actually in a band together then. MR: And this was which years? NS: 1955 like. So then after that there could have been other
opportunities where I might have - cause like I said, we had this infiltration of white
musicians who came to the south side, but that wasn't as much - oh his name almost came
to me, the big band leader, because his band was integrated, uh Dailey - uh Joe talked
on him a long time. His name will come to me. MR: Okay. NS: His band was integrated. And he worked on the north side and places
like that. Because I remember I even did a thing with
his band, and it was on the north side someplace. We didn't have necessarily, except the part
where I remember we had any clubs that necessarily had big bands. Everything was combos. The big bands were for dancing and stuff like
that. MR: I was interested in, you said one of the
first times you saw Joe Williams he was dressed in a clown outfit. NS: Singing Pagliacci in the Club DeLisa and
doing a show. And that's how broad the shows were, the kind
of shows they presented. They really, it wasn't just about jumping
up and down, I mean there was a format to what they were doing. Very organized. MR: Did you have a - I think I'm trying to
remember where I read this - that you had sort of a false start as working as Joe's
accompanist and musical director? Did - it almost happened but the guys you
were playing with weren't - NS: You might call it a false start. Actually I was with Carmen's group at the
time. And being in Carmen's group and who she was
and her image, a lot of people had the assumption that for me to play with her and handle her
music and I was even writing a lot of it, that again was one of those situations where
they kind of blew my image up. So at this particular time, and Carmen was
very frugal - well Carmen's reputation was that she still was not making a lot of money
so she didn't pay a lot of money. But she had a reputation. But she wasn't managed very well in those
days I have to say. So anyway when Joe had this gig in Buffalo,
John Levy his manager called and we took the whole trio that I had. And we worked very instinctive a lot. At that particular time, in other words, the
musicians, even though I had a lot of music, Carmen wasn't very demanding about reading
music. So when Joe hired us, I wasn't experienced
either, to try to hold him together. So he worked in a very professional way. In other words, there was not a bunch of rehearsing
and stuff. We just hit. And we couldn't read his music. And I wasn't strong enough to hold him together. On my own I didn't know how to do that. And so Joe knew how to adjust, which I always
gave him credit for that, because when anybody, he could do the thing, his whole show, without
any music. So that's basically what he did. So we swung. We had a good time he'd say, but I didn't
hear my music. That stuck with me, you know. So that was that incident. That was up in Buffalo someplace. And then later on in New York, because even
I had a couple of calls before that I was afraid to take because of that. I just didn't feel experienced enough to go
out with him and do those spontaneous things, you know, that very highly polished musicians
could do. You know like either no rehearsal or like
when I got called to do big band conducting and stuff like that, you know I didn't have
the confidence to do it. So now Paul West, when he came to New York,
and Joe used to have different people in different places. Somebody in Chicago and somebody in California. He was hooked up with Paul West, the bass
player in New York. And I got the gig then. So Paul West was the stabilizer, you know,
at that particular time. So Joe said, "umm, you've progressed." Right away he saw it was different in a way. And that was the beginning of the positive
element of my whole experience in coming with him and it began to grow from there. Because actually John Levy, his manager, is
the one who literally hired me. Because he said well you know you've got to
stop running around the country all by yourself hiring different musicians, you need to have
a musical director. Because he loved going out and rehearsing
the bands himself. Joe loved, yeah, he loved conducting the orchestra
and that's why he could deal with all that himself, and he enjoyed it. But John said that's not good for your image,
you know what I mean, to be going around and sometimes ups and downs. Because Joe, well he could almost work with
anybody. He wasn't as demanding of his accompaniment,
for instance, as Carmen was. He had his thing together where, I could do
my thing regardless of what you do. That's the kind of artist, what kind of strength
he had. And I tell a lot of artists about this, you
know, because when it came time to go on the stage, Joe was out there. It wasn't no where was the band, he was out
there by himself and he would start by himself. Alone. You know what I mean? And we would filter out there kind of. But this is the kind of strength that he had. But John said no, you know. Because this is not good for your image. So Paul was conducting down, he had a symphony
orchestra down there and stuff, he couldn't leave New York. And the guy that he had been using in New
York which was, I can't come up with his name, he got a permanent gig. So that's how I got the call - the pianist
from Baltimore. MR: Ellis Larkins? NS: Ellis. Joe had been using Ellis in New York. And Ellis had gotten his permanent gig, the
guy opened the Carnegie Tavern right behind Carnegie Hall and gave Ellis this gig as a
house - that was his gig. So that's how I happened to get the call and
go in there. And so since Paul couldn't travel, and I'd
known John from Chicago too originally. And he's always been in my corner. And so he said, "get Norman to do it." So actually when Joe called me he didn't go
through any official hiring. He called me and said, "John Levy's going
to send you the itinerary, and you pick out what you want to do." That was his way of saying the job was mine. MR: That's a pretty good imitation. NS: That's right. After he left Basie and he put this group
together with Sweets and them, it was so stressful for him that he did not want to have any more
groups. MR: I'm glad you brought that up. Because I got this, every once in a while
I got this feeling or - that the relationship between Joe and Sweets was strained. NS: It was. Because all these high-powered egos on that
stage. Who was the saxophone player at that time? Was it Jimmy -
MR: Jimmy Forrest? NS: Jimmy Forrest. You understand what I mean? There was ego conflict. Now the rhythm section was okay I think. You had Junior Mance and Bob Cranshaw and
what's his name out in Philadelphia I think. MR: Jimmy Cobb maybe? NS: No not Jimmy Cobb, out of Philadelphia. But anyway they had a wonderful rhythm section
together. As a matter of fact they scared me. Because when I heard them, it's like you listen
to someone play and you say hey, you know, I can do that, or I can do it better. But when I heard them I didn't think I could
do it better. MR: Was it Mickey Roker? NS: Mickey Roker. That's right. And they had it locked down. But the three men, between Joe and Sweets
and Jimmy Forrest, that's where the egos clashed on the front line. MR: Because didn't Joe join - Sweets had a
band, didn't he? Or am I incorrect? NS: I didn't know about that. MR: Okay. I thought when Joe left Basie and Basie helped
him get started or whatever, it was my impression that he sort of stepped into Sweet's band,
which I can see how that might become. NS: Yeah I didn't see that transition because
there was a permanent relationship, for instance, between Joe and John Levy from being in Chicago. And I think that immediately when he left
the Basie band, and it was probably John's idea to put this group together. You know because both of them, these were
Basie alumni too. But even in the Basie band there were these
same kind of conflicts, mostly over women. That's where the ego conflict was, it was
mostly about women I think. MR: Women singers or just women in general? NS: Women in general, you know? Because you know you're traveling a lot and
everything like that and you know you're out on the road a lot and these guys were traveling
a lot, like with the Basie band on the road a lot all of the time. And that becomes a significant thing that
you have these homes away from home, you know? We always had those people who were helping
the band in many different ways. And it's something we used to call a lot,
because a lot of time there was a lot of overlap so there was that worry about being husband-in-laws. MR: Husband-in-laws. NS: Husband-in-laws. That's right. MR: In certain cities you mean. You'd be like -
NS: In certain cities maybe, in transition maybe, that maybe this person there that was
connected with members from several different bands at alternate times or something, and
the members might know about it. But the idea of having someone there to help
you in various different kind of ways. A lot of them were just hostesses, just people
who hung out with the band and helped. I knew people like that and it was good to
know somebody there who could tell you or pick you up or take you someplace or fix a
dinner for you or anything like that. Because when those relationships happen, a
lot of times they got closer and closer. So you might say okay come out and take a
trip with me on the road or something to this next place, you know? So those things actually existed. Because Joe would tell me, naturally being
a singer in the Basie band, you know, and he told me like Freddie Green, who he respected
a lot, had to tell him hey, because he was the singer, he was the big thing, so he was
like eating up everything. You know what I mean? He'd eat all the grass on the pastures, you
know what I mean? So he used to tell me Freddie said one time,
"hey wait a minute - take some and leave some. Don't try to take it all." Because it creates resentment in the band. You're dominating everything. So a lot of it had to do with this travel,
you'd be on the road a lot. And so all these guys came up in that experience. And so I think that's where, it was there,
so that power of who's in charge, and it came from right up on the stage, it would go to
that degree of who's in charge up here. And like I said it filters into the music
too. Because like okay it's Joe Williams, but yeah,
is it Joe Williams, but as far as they're concerned they're on the same level. It might be in your name, but they don't worship
no Joe Williams. And I'm who I am. And so the idea of, I've often looked at the
situation when I was in Chicago and I'd see groups put together that were name groups,
and I'd say well why would these guys use the guys that are in New York. And always I looked it up and they'd put together
a group of some unknown guys. And that's because of the same thing. These established guys have formats and their
own way of doing things. And if you're a leader you have a way of doing
things. So you get people who are more cooperative
with what you want to do. You know because these other guys, they want
to go in their own direction. It's hard to be their leader. MR: Right, right. NS: So I saw that. So that would be the same case, whereas okay
this is my group and I have an idea that I want to do. And maybe somebody else has got some argument
about it. Well there's no argument about it, let's try
to get this done, what I'm trying to do, you know? MR: That's sort of like why supergroups quote
never last very long, you know. Like Miles couldn't hold onto Cannonball and
Coltrane, because they became leader material themselves. NS: Well yeah, although in some of those situations
you didn't have that kind of conflict I don't think, you just had the automatic situation
whereas for instance in, I would say in the sixties somewhere, I remember you could go
to a record shop and it's hard to pick out a record because everybody had a recording
contract. You know? That was the advantage of being in a group
like, in an instrumental group everybody would have a recording contract. You know so there was always that threat that
you would go out and be on your own. So it didn't happen as a matter of conflict
it was just - I'm at a point now where I want to do my ideas of my own situation. MR: And the opportunity was there where you
could do it. NS: Absolutely. Because your name would build up. You know the contract, from what history I
have, is you know Miles bought Coltrane his first soprano saxophone. He's the one that suggested that he play soprano
and bought him a soprano, and helped him get started with his group. You figure hey, like you've got this just
kind of strength now, you need to be on your own. Cannonball had it before he got with Miles,
you know? MR. Right. He had had that experience. NS: That's right. So he had his own format or something, his
own form of music. Miles had his form of music. MR: I wrote down a couple of things from your
first interview with us that I thought were nice little thoughts or quotes. You said, "music is an expression of all the
things in your history." How does your own life experiences and the
way you live your life, does that effect your music? NS: Well just right off hand I would say yes. Right off hand I would say yes, because when
you look at it, if I go back to my beginning, and realize, and look at some certain things
from like - I didn't have to choose to play music. It was not a choice to play music. You understand what I mean? It's not a question where I say well what
should I do with my life. What should I do? It was right there. It was with me. It was a part of the community, the piano
was sitting there, everybody that was involved, not even as a musician, but people were more
involved in you know dancing. There was more of a total involvement that
you became a part of. And you were just sort of, it just happened
in a natural way. So I never say to people that I decided to
study music, or you know at some period in their life they decided to become a musician. You know I didn't have to make that decision,
you know what I mean? When I decided to do it I was already doing
it. I just had to decided that this was going
to be my life, my focus. But there was - say for instance even to the
degree people who weren't musicians could sit down and play something on the piano. Maybe they only had one tune they could play,
you know what I mean? But that was just kind of an overlap kind
of a situation there, to the degree where the music, the dancing - that's the other
thing you realize, that like when I grew up and I go back to Chicago I wonder where are
all these people I knew that was dancing all of the time. Where were they in a nightclub when I came
back. When I got with Joe I started to see them
again. But I used to wonder where they were because
we were all so into the music even though I was a musician, it seemed to me everybody
else was so into music, and this music. MR: And that was the current music of the
time. Sometimes, for younger people it's hard to
I guess get the concept that jazz or swing, that that music could be the popular music
in the community. NS: Well one of the things that we had or
didn't have is, that made life more direct, like I said, people worked hard, rested hard
and played hard. You didn't have a lot of choices, you know
what I mean? Your father or your husband worked in the
steel mill. That was a good job. Or they worked in the stockyard. That was a good job. They got paid well. But they worked hard and they came home and
they slept good. You know what I mean? And they went out on the weekend and they
partied hard, you know? And it was like that. There wasn't so many choices. We have so many choices now, too many choices. So likewise, there weren't that many different
forms of music. You know? This is pre-BMI. Pre-rock 'n roll. So the only music you heard was jazz. There was jazz, and so when you turned on
the radio you were hearing Benny Goodman, you were hearing Duke Ellington, you were
hearing all of these big bands. This was the music up and down the radio. So this was just your automatic - this was
your culture. The blues was so far down on the radio with
so much static down there that you couldn't even tell what they were doing down there. MR: No kidding? It was the wrong end of the dial, huh? NS: Yeah. There was no FM like now, just one thing. But they were down there and there was so
much static down there you didn't even want to go down there you know what I mean? MR: That's interesting. NS: But all the music was jazz. Even when you come to people like, you have
to realize that, I always realize that people like with the sweet bands and stuff like that,
were playing a form of jazz. You know? It could have been more directed toward people
who dance simpler or sweeter, but it was still a form of jazz. And as I read some of the books and you look
at the breakdown of these guys, you go to Claude Thornhill and these people were not
like you know the outright jazz players and they still talk about a form a swing. How the band swung. You know what I mean? The repertoire was different. You go back and you realize that where Miles
came from with Gil Evans and the Claude Thornhill band, where they had French horns and tubas,
you know what I mean? This was different. So the sound of the band was different. This is what Gil brought to Miles. You know? And they're listening to Bartok and his people
and stuff like that. And this was a transformation that they went
through in that area that hit all of these groups: Gerry Mulligan and all these cats
were hanging together in Gil's basement apartment, and so Gil was the big mentor. Just like there was a bunch hanging out in
Thelonious' apartment. You know? And that kind of stuff was happening, this
kind of camaraderie, but this transition, if you go back to the music, like I tell a
lot of people, once they put all the drums together in one thing, it was jazz. It was a jazz technique to play the drums. Once you didn't have one guy playing the bass
drum and one guy playing the snare drum and another clapping the cymbals, you know what
I mean? All of a sudden they put them all together
and it became jazz then, when one guy had all these different - so it was all these
different levels of jazz you know? But that's all that was on the radio until
19 like 45. And
what happened then is that ASCAP ruled the airways kind of. But BMI owned the station, broadcast music
on the stations. And so there was a lot of publishers - you
couldn't get into ASCAP, it was like joining the Masons, you know what I mean? Either someone in there had to bring you in
or you had to have a hit on Broadway. So there was a ton of little writers who couldn't
get in. And BMI started. And when they started they put ASCAP off the
radio. For a while you didn't hear no Benny Goodman. You didn't hear no Duke Ellington. You didn't hear no Tommy Dorsey. All you heard was this repetitive type of
music. MR: Rhythm and blues? NS: Rhythm and blues, rock 'n roll, whatever
you want to call it. That's all you heard every day all day long. That's when payola came in, because that's
when they realized that with this music we didn't have to go get somebody with a name
to sell our product, all we've got to do is nail it on them over and over and over and
over again. I woke up one morning, I was getting ready
to go to school. And there was this music on the radio and
I'm like good God what is that? You know what I mean? Before the end of the day I'm yelling - yeah! You know what I mean? And that's when I realized that they knew
about brainwashing. They kept washing the brain, you know? So this repetitiveness that was going on that
came there, and so that was right from 1945, rock 'n roll came in. And they just dominated it. And they paid these people to play these songs
over and over and over and over again. I was the musical director for the Five Flamingos
at that time. MR: I'll be darned. NS: You know what I mean? I was doing a lot of transcription because
a lot of them couldn't do music. As a matter of fact when rock 'n roll came
up, a lot of jazz musicians were making the record dates because they couldn't read no
music. You know? So at the same time even the songs that they
were making up, I had to take them off the record and write the melody out and send them
off for copyright. MR: I see. Yeah. NS: For the record companies, you know? MR: Most people - you say 1945 rock 'n roll
started. Most people would say that's early, isn't
it? So what's your idea of rock 'n roll? NS: Well rock 'n roll started - it wasn't
rock 'n roll then. Just like we had what they call traditional
jazz and then we had what we call Dixieland. Dixieland was not what the guys - the original
guys were playing in New Orleans. When the white musicians started to play,
they started playing Dixieland because they were writing it down and it was played more
set. These guys were really doing more jamming. So the same thing with rhythm & blues, when
it came up rhythm & blues was out of the black community and it had this basic blues, so
consequently one of the big differences is it was about "My Baby Left Me" and it had
the bass lines. Then when you get to rock 'n roll you had
the white musicians and it was poetry on top of a beat. So you didn't hear any big bass lines no more,
what you heard was backbeat. Nail it down. And poetry, you know what I mean? So that was rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll was represented in that particular
era and rock 'n roll didn't get started for the simple reason is because rhythm & blues
was suppressed. You know what I mean? Like I said, that's the part, they were down
in the end of the radio. The youngsters is what put rhythm & blues
on the map. Because industry started to suppress it because
it was black. But the white kids were hearing it and they
wanted it. And they're the ones that insisted upon it. Now what happens is these guys, all these
guys in Chicago went to England and The Beatles got it. And The Beatles then brought it back over
here - and it was gone. You know what I mean? But they didn't let it happen over here. Because they did not want the black musicians
to have this control over that music. And that stuff was happening. And when you talk about the prejudice situation,
that happened all the way up to this radio station, the one that - the first one that
started here. When they first started they didn't let what's
his name, the famous - they was very selective who they let on there. So but the point is we have a situation now
where whatever the music is there is a certain element of power now among the - and that's
where the capitalism comes in. Because the demand from the young people,
what they want, the industries try to meet that demand. And right now the young people are unified
all over the world. A classical person brought that out, the fact
that this is the first time in history that all over the world young people are unified
on the one kind of music. MR: And that is? NS: Well at the time it was kind of like rock
'n roll going, now it's going like into rap. MR: Yeah. Hip hop. NS: Hip hop or whatever it is. But the point is it's universal now among
young people. You didn't have as much separation you know
what I mean? Like we took jazz to Europe and we were unique
over there and that kind of a thing. Or if it was classical music, you know. But now there's this situation. And so with the capital situation, people
are now trying to follow the money. And the point is since we gave our teenagers
money, that's what happened in the Second World War. And that's what created the generation gap
is when the mothers did not come back home after working in the plants in the Second
World War, they had money. So after the war was over they had this - we
had no mothers at home. MR: I'm not sure I'm following you. NS: Well prior to that time television comes
out, right? All of your commercials are about Oxydol and
the stuff for the housewives. You understand what I mean? Now we get the world war and all these women
are working in the plants making a good salary. You understand? The kids are at home. So after the war they're still out there,
and they've got money in their pockets. So the kids are still at home by themselves
watching television. So the advertising now is focused on the kids. And because the mothers are not there, they're
giving the kids the money. So all of a sudden you've got these kids with
all the money and freedom to buy all of this stuff because the parents not being there
have this sense of guilt, you know what I mean? So they're giving them the money. So now the kids are taking over. But the industry says hey, they don't know
what - so they're selling them this stuff. And they're buying them. So now a pair of tennis shoes costs two hundred
dollars. These mothers up in Harlem who can't pay their
rent are buying two hundred dollar tennis shoes for their kids. You know? This kind of a turnover, and so the focus
begins to be on the piece. So not now, all these kids, they all got their
own cars and everything. Are you kidding? We were lucky to ride in a car. There was one car in the family maybe. You know? Now every kid got his own car, every kid got
his own TV in his own room, 'cause it's like here go do this thing, don't bother me because
I'm out working all day long. You know? But that creates a mentality and a separation
that goes on right within the family that is within itself kind of a war. Because the parents don't get as much respect. So now the parents are following the kids. They're following the kids. And they're following the kids' ideas. I have, where I live right now there was a
teenage nightclub right next door where I was, where I lived. You know they just folded just recently. But these kids are pulling up there, they've
got hearses and vans to bring all this equipment in, and that's what happened to jazz. In the long run the industry saw, hey wait
a minute, let me sell to these people these great big speakers and all this other equipment. These jazz musicians don't need that stuff. You know? And that's the direction they went in. Electronic. Because these kids, well where were they getting
their money from? You know? But now, because now you've got trailers. They're pulling up with trailers and stuff
like that that they're pulling up and unloading out there and now their mothers are coming
with them. Mothers and aunties and whomever, are coming
with them. And situations that I saw, you know what I
mean, because the turnaround is going to come from the young people. You know I saw a situation on television where
this woman is still talking about well, "I let them do this in my house because at least
I know where they are." This young person said, "no, if they're doing
wrong you're supposed to stop them." Because what happens is the sixties, again,
the freedom movement. Those people fought for the right to do whatever
they wanted to do. So in that way no one could tell them nothing. They won that battle. In transition of being in charge of the money
from their parents, to the right, so since they don't let nobody tell them what to do,
what kind of standards do they have for their kids? They can't pass those standards down. They can't say no. Because they wouldn't let nobody say no to
them. So all of a sudden it appears to go in that
direction, so finally their following around and going with - the standards that we follow
are being set by inexperienced people, all the way down to talking about football players
and baseball players, and people that we're worshipping and putting up on pedestals, they
ain't got themselves together. You know? But they're privileged. We listen to them like they're gods. MR: You ought to teach a sociology class here. I'm serious. NS: But all of these things have something
to do with the music. Because at that particular time we also had
this period of time when the atom bomb came out. And we all thought that we're not going to
be here tomorrow. So everybody was building bomb shelters. Do you remember that? MR: Yes I do. NS: In the backyards and stuff like that? The young people decided, hey wait a minute. Why should we listen to anything, the standards
that you all are offering us. Because look where it brought us. It brought us to the end of the world. So that was a break then. And so it was the same break with the musicians. All of the sudden the musicians were not playing
any standards. We couldn't get up on the bandstand with the
young musicians. Because they were not learning the same music
we were doing. They were all doing original music, their
own music. And so we couldn't get up there with them. So that created a generation gap. And that happened. I remember when Ron Carter first started his
group and I went to see him. He said man all over the country I can't find
a bass player to play in the group. MR: Who started the group? NS: Ron, he started playing the baby bass. MR: Oh Ron Carter. Oh he was looking for a bass player. NS: There was no bass player. All over the country, "I can't find a bass
player." They can play the bass but they don't know
no tunes. They ain't got - you know what I mean? Same thing Dakota - when Buster Williams,
when I first was with Dakota Staton, I had been with Carmen and everything like that. And with Buster, "where did you find this
cat?" See I was working down there someplace in
a group and he was down there. He said "I would have brought the whole group
up there except they didn't know no tunes. The piano player knows no songs." You know? And that's what was represented. So now when we come together now they're interested
in our history and now we can all be on the stage together. Because the kids that I work with at William
Paterson and the various different schools, now we can all play together. There was a period of time when we couldn't
play together. MR: I see. NS: And that was a very crucial time. That came from that era. So that message is still apparent. That's why the parents are wore down and no
laces in the shoes and the shoes and all that. That's a message that says hey, we ain't going
the way you want us to go because you ain't taking us there. So all this stuff that we're seeing right
now, they can see it, even though they get trapped in it. But they can see it. But it's gotten so strong now it's difficult
for us to do a lot of things about it but the rebellion is there. The rebellion is there in the way they dress. You know? I heard an interview with one of the rock
'n roll players that said, you know "when we started to rap it wasn't about music, it
was about the destruction of music." You know? And it comes out. "What kind of music y'all play?" "We try to play the music we know our parents
don't know." You know what I mean? I mean there's that consciousness of subtle
rebellion in realizing that hey, these people who are leading us now don't have it together. And even though we may not have the power,
we're making a statement by doing what you don't like. We're going to walk around with our pants
so you can see our behinds or our underwear, you know what I mean, and just everything
is just opposite of what we think is the nice thing to do. MR: Right. Gee. That's some great thoughts you've had there. I wanted to ask you about-
NS: You may have to edit some of this stuff out. MR: No. It's very valuable. NS: But to me I think it affects the music,
like you said, the music being what you have lived. We see this. And I have to tell some of the musician people
that I'm teaching, don't go with the masses. Don't go with them. Because right now for instance when it comes
to vocalizing, I'm saying we don't have singers no more, we have entertainers. Because they're going with the masses. And the masses, the stress that we live under
now, the answer to it is more stress. So the point is a lot of the bands are going
there. They're going there and like creating - you
know "is everybody having a good time?" Hey wait a minute. You're the artist. You don't want the audience on the stage,
you know what I mean? And so I say hey, and you're running up and
down. Because of course they grew up on the rock
'n roll stage, you know what I mean? So they're waving the mic and they're dancing
all over the stage. Hey wait a minute. I thought they came to hear you sing. They're entertaining. But they're adding to the stress that people
already feel instead of realizing that still there's a sense of relaxation and another
sense that's going on inside some more screaming. I can't solve it all by just screaming. There's a time to really think. Everybody's got something stuck in their ears
because they can't stand to hear themselves think. They can't deal with that. That's too threatening. The reality of what you have to think about
is too fearful. It's scary. So everybody's blocking themselves out all
the time. Everywhere you go there is music. There is something that's going to block out
some in-depth thinking. And if the music isn't there we've got it
stuck in our ears. So all these things, you see it happening. But music is always, that is to me the positive
element. Like the story of the emperor who wanted to
know, asked his wife, "how will I know when the people are going to rebel?" She said, "check out the musicians and the
artists." Because they're picking up something. Like when Stan Kenton's band came out we couldn't
hear dissonance like that. The same thing. People had their ears like this. Now we can hear it. You know what I mean? When I grew up, we didn't have pastel colors. Everything was solid colors. We didn't have all these in-between colors
like aqua and all that kind of stuff, you know? Now we can see that. The artists conceived it and they put it there
and we sort of grow inside of it. MR: I see. NS: So when I look at the young musicians
that are coming up now that are not on dope the way we were, you know what I mean? They're clean, they're straight and they're
dealing with it? To me that's what tomorrow can be about. You know? But it's in the music, I see it. And then to me, that's the optimistic viewpoint
I have of the whole situation. And it's just a pleasure to be with them a
lot of times, I mean to be with them in the university where they're in my class and all
of a sudden we're in a band together out here. You know what I mean? And they still have this open mind. And they want this stuff. They want to know about the history. And the history is just overwhelming at this
point. Imagine all of the songs that they'd have
to learn now that we just grew up with. You know what I mean? The repertoire. But it's so stimulating to be with that element
that you can say this is the promise of tomorrow. MR: I appreciate your optimism. NS: Hey listen. You have to find a way to be optimistic in
order to live here. MR: Just to wrap up, I was wondering, when
Joe passed away, was that a complete shock to you, or did you have a feeling that he
really wasn't well? NS: It was a fluke to me. MR: A fluke? NS: A fluke, 'cause I always say that Joe
didn't have to go. And he wasn't ready to go. You know? But as the situation was, it's hard to say
how it was. Because as much as Joe was a very congenial
gentleman, still again he had his own thing. He did what he wanted to do basically. And that's another thing too that happens. And that is, in our business
for instance, there was one instance, a woman that owned a club in California. Joe had agreed to come there and play. And he had an attack of whatever he had - emphysema
or whatever - and he didn't show up. And so she decided I'm not going to hire anybody
in their seventies anymore. So you see when you get ill you can't afford
to let it get out that you're ill because people will get afraid to travel you and bring
you places, that something's going to happen. So Joe did not - he had that image, you know,
I know, but whatever his problem was and Henry told me he had this little briefcase that
they had given him for oxygen. But he wouldn't take it with him. You know? And a lot of times he wanted to convince himself. The other thing my mother told me is that
really strong men can't adjust to being weak. They're not used to it. And Joe was always so robust and strong, that
he didn't really accept this idea of being that vulnerable. So he had had some attacks at certain times. Some of them were - I remember one time we
were going to San Francisco and he had an attack and he didn't show, and John was just
upset about it, because we were all there. And all of a sudden he couldn't get there. Three times in San Francisco. But this time, no this was Seattle now. When we arrived in Seattle everything was
fine basically. We were at the airport you know. But the air in Seattle was such that the people
in Seattle couldn't breathe. So we'd go to the club that night, and Joe
had already at one time had an attack in Seattle and they put him in intensive care, boy he
came out like he was 17 years old you know what I mean? We went in the Blue Note and I'm trying to
tell the Basie band to back off of him, and he blew them off the stage. But now we go up there and everything is fine,
so he came to work the first time. The second night he's got a little phlegm
in his throat. And so he comes in maybe the third night and
it's worse. I don't know exactly the procedure, but all
of a sudden his wife had to call the hospital to get an oxygen machine for him, because
it's building up. Then what does he do? He comes to work with the oxygen machine. You know what I mean? So he's now getting up on the stage and that's
going to determine - he had to, you know, so he's in the dressing room maybe with the
oxygen machine, but then he'll come up on stage and sing. I could see the weakness then. You know? So then the next thing, they've got to take
him to the hospital and put him in intensive care. So Ernie Andrews had to come in and finish
the gig. So this time, before, they shipped him down,
this time when he got relieved, he's still in the hospital. That's when it begins to get serious to me. Then they brought him down to Las Vegas where
he lived and put him in the hospital there and the hospital didn't have a great reputation
down there but I understood that anybody who really had any money would go to Los Angeles
to the hospital. But he was in the hospital down there. And in intensive care you know. And even then he was beginning to have these
experiences. I heard people saying that, because he had
a lot of friends that came to visit him and stuff like that, and he was having these visions
and stuff like that. You know? And he got scared, you know what I mean? He could see he was kind of in a decline. Now he was in the hospital you know. And he wanted to get out of the hospital. He told his wife to come and get him. She didn't come. He told Johnny Pate to come and get him and
Johnny Pate wasn't going to come and get him out of the hospital, 'cause he was scared
I think, and from these visions or whatever. And so he got up and left. Now here is this big black gorilla walks right
out of the hospital, no money, I don't even think he had any clothes. And nobody sees him leave. He tried to go home I think, tried to walk
home. MR: Trying to walk home. NS: So there were things that happened there
that I think could have turned it around the other way, that if he, the first thing, if
he had maybe been a little bit more careful. He shouldn't have come to work that next night,
stay home. But his heart, even when he was in the hospital
- "I've got to go out and entertain the people." You know? So I said, when I called up there and they
said, "Well Joe left the hospital." I said, "Well look for him in the nightclub
because he's probably going to go up on a stage someplace," you know. But he had tried to walk home and he was in
somebody's yard. That's where they found him. MR: Yeah that was sad. NS: But always his heart was in it. Even when he was in the hospital he had Johnny
Pate there rehearsing him for some kind of program that he wanted to do. He was always that performer. And the good thing about Joe, Joe recognized
his image. He recognized that I have a podium where I
can lift people. And that's what his thing was. And so that's what was in his heart. He had a lot of faith in the people that supported
him, the doctor and everything like that. So the point is the ball didn't bounce this
time. It caught him by surprise and all of us by
surprise. Because he had had some attacks, the ball
has always bounced and he was right back. So I think just taking that for granted, the
ball didn't bounce that time. MR: Well we're about to run out of tape. We've been talking a long time but I love
your comments and I wish you the best of luck with your Ellington project and all the good
things you do. NS: Well I hope we will have a chance to bring
that project up here. MR: That'd be neat. NS: Because I think it's something that you
in particular would enjoy and everyone else would enjoy that particular project. MR: All right. Well thanks for your time again. NS: Thank you.
