We are filming today for the Hamilton College
Jazz Archive. And it's our great pleasure to have two wonderful musical gentlemen and
really all around great guys I've been able to discover, Al Gallodoro, saxophonist and
clarinetist, and Mr. Spiegle Willcox, trombonist. Welcome gentlemen. It's a great pleasure to
be here with you. AG: Incidentally, thank you for pronouncing
my name correctly. MR: And you made sure I did. You have one
of those names that's easy to misspell. You know I've been thinking, in listening to you
talk, your lives have seen some great changes, not only musically, but everything. Is there
some things that occur to you-that's kind of a hard question because there's so many
things, but what are some of the greatest changes that you have witnessed in your life?
AG: The greatest changes is, in general music has gone down. The good music, the good standards,
you know. Now shall I start back from 1927? MR: Please do.
AG: I was born in Chicago, June 20, 1913. And in 1927, the spring of '27, George Evans,
who is still alive and lives in Pensacola, he asked my mother and father if he could
take me on the road. I wasn't even fourteen. I never forgot this. And we had trumpet, two
saxes, drums, bass and a singer. No trombone. And we were playing, oh, Dixieland tunes,
whatever was popular at that time. Then after being in Florida, we went to Jacksonville
and Gainesville and Pensacola, I ended up in New Orleans. That was October of 1927.
Now in those days, it was prohibition. I played in a night club called The Frolicks. The Frolicks.
Where people drank the whiskey in coffee cups. A block or two down was another youngster,
Louis Prima. Because he was from New Orleans also. And in those days, there were so many
night clubs. You could leave one club tonight and go to another one. You must have had two
dozen clubs in New Orleans. You can imagine what they had in Chicago and New York and
so forth. We played good jazz at that time. But the change has been - I'm not against
rock, don't get me wrong, good rock is great - but there's not enough of the good standard
tunes. See I could go on and on and on, but just let me - I'm going to go ahead. I'm going
to go ahead. I was playing in a club, a bar & grill in Oneonta called Dailey's. Dailey's
Pub. And a lot of the Hartwick College kids came in. And one girl said to me, "Do you
know 'Black and Blue?'" I said, "Frankly, I don't, I might have it at home." I says,
"How did you happen to know 'Black and Blue?'" She says, "Well, my father used to play it."
And sure enough, I looked it up and I had it in a book and I brought it. Now a lot of
the college kids today, they like what we play. But they don't get a chance to hear
much of it. See we don't have enough disc jockeys like Joe Campbell from Oneonta. Every
Saturday morning from eight until twelve, he plays nothing but old standard records.
He goes back and back. MR: And what makes, maybe you gentlemen can
address this question, what makes a standard? What is it that caused those tunes that were
written back then to last so long? AG: Exactly. Like your symphonies, it's the
same thing. They're still playing Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Brahms, and the standard tunes,
they're just great. Take George Gershwin. All of his tunes are great. No matter which
one you pick they all have music, music, you know, beautiful chord changes. Duke Ellington
is another one. His "Sophisticated Lady" is one of the greatest tunes that was ever written.
And there's so many. Johnny Green "You Came to Me Out of Nowhere."
MR: And they had the words. They had the words that the people would remember.
AG: So we've gotten away from that and it's a shame. I hope someday it comes back. Like
the old saying, it took forty years to become an overnight success.
MR: Spiegle, in 1927, let's see you were 25? Is my arithmetic-
SW: I was 24. MR: 24? Okay I'm sorry I pushed it. And you
were into music at a fairly early age. SW: Yeah. You know when we drove into Norwich
today, I saw a sign that said "Sherburne 12 miles" and remember I told you that that is
where I was born, in Sherburne, New York in 1903, and moved to Cortland, New York in 1911
at eight years old. And so actually I was learning to play my father's trombone, a valve
trombone, and I progressed real fast and let's see when I was fifteen years old I was good
enough to play. I played baritone which has the three valves, and I went up to Manlius
Military School, and that was 1918. And that's where my real love for music begin to really
get into me. As you know in the military school, well the students were learning to be generals
and colonels, and they've got to have a band to march them on the field. And so it was,
you know, a brass band. And it was at Manlius actually that education was beginning to interfere
with my music and something had to go. And my mother was broken hearted but she was looking
at a dropout. So anyway that brought me into music real fast. In 1920 I was playing in
Syracuse and Cornell in Ithaca, and the best bands apparently trombone players, maybe they
were scarce or maybe they liked me. But anyway that's what kept shoving me and so I just
went fast from Paul Whiteman's Collegians into New York in 1923, and then in 1925 a
short stint with the California Ramblers, immediately went into the famous Jean Goldkette
band, and of course that's the band. MR: We're going to talk about that. Now both
of you learned to read music at a young age. AG: Absolutely.
MR: And this probably was important. AG: I started right from the beginning with
my father. He was a clarinetist and a very good one also. But he taught me the time and
so forth. Incidentally, I forced my father to play the clarinet. Now this is in my documentary
that WSKG showed last year twice. And he used to say, "No son, you're too young to play
the clarinet." I was five. And he'd be out in the field planting strawberries and he'd
hear SQUEEK, SQUANK and he'd come in and he said, "No, my son, you cannot play my clarinet,
you're breaking my clarinet." It's broken anyways you know. So he tied it. Anyway we
moved from the swamp lands of Louisiana, snake country, to Birmingham, Alabama, Ensley, a
suburb. And by then I was seven years old. And I'll never forget, we had moved and they
were putting a mattress on and so forth, and finally my father comes out with the clarinet
and he says, "Now I'll teach you the clarinet." At seven. And he never forced me to practice,
it was my life. That's what I wanted. That was the old Albert system, the old Albert
system clarinet. But he taught me all the rudiments and foundations and they always
said, no matter what you play always play it clean. Always play it- you must be able
to count every note, no matter how fast. It shouldn't be - no. -. You must count every
note. MR: I heard you play last summer and I think
you remember what they said. AG: Well I remember what they said, some of
the double, triple tonguing I do. MR: Now you both have a connection with Paul
Whiteman, and can you talk about how that came about.
AG: Well Spiegle came first. SW: Actually I was working with the band in
Ithaca. It was called the Big Four. It was all made up of college students. And the drummer
had the big connection with the Paul Whiteman office. So that's how I landed, that's my
portion of the Paul Whiteman part, would be through the Paul Whiteman office. And we made
three Victor records with all the name is just The Collegians. But anyway, but Al is
so much more, I mean has the right to say that he played with the Paul Whiteman big
band. AG: Oh, yeah, I'm glad you said big band.
You know I want to tell you something, Monk and Spiegle. The Whiteman band was never really
appreciated. We did it all. We went from five saxes to seven saxes to nine saxes. We had
great jazz players, the Teagarden brothers, Frankie Trumbauer, great trumpet, and great
arrangements. But 'til this day I respect Glenn Miller, I respect Benny Goodman, but
nobody ever had the exposure on television and radio and television that Paul Whiteman
did. We had all kinds of hours, the Chesterfield Hour, Swan Soap, Goodyear Tire, we had that
on television every Sunday, and we had big arrangements. And you know where Whiteman
was intelligent? He didn't have one or two arrangers, he had four and five. Because by
having different arrangers, they would all sound a little different. Otherwise you get
stale with the same arranger, you see? But our band swung, it really swung. The fiftieth
anniversary album, that's beautiful, beautiful. Buddy Reed did the piano in "Rhapsody in Blue"
and I do all of the work, you know Dwight was in the control room. You hear the clarinet,
you don't have to tune up, you hear the bass clarinet, you don't have to tune up, and Jack
Teagarden is on it, Joe Venuti is on it with a couple of numbers, I know you worked with
Joe, crazy Joe. MR: Yeah you guys share a lot of the same
band mates. I know in your pictures you showed me in your home, some of the same fellows
you just mentioned and the Dorsey brothers. SW: See they all went, the Goldkette band
broke up in 1927 around Labor Day, and history shows you that Joe and Eddie Lang always performed
together you know, Eddie Lang, and I was very close. And then in the Whiteman band, Paul
Whiteman took over Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey and Bill Rank, and Steve Brown the
bass player and let's see there was other guys that went in that band, from the Goldkette
band. But as you know the history was that I stopped playing, I mean really professional,
in 1927. I went home in the coal business, so I was just a small potato in a big puddle.
MR: But your career has like been revived almost.
SW: Well it's just because I've lived so long and, that is interesting, because I played,
I had a band of my own around Cornell, Colgate, Syracuse for years, like a ten, twelve piece
band, and very popular. And then as rock & roll kept coming in later on you know and I got
older, so I did less playing. I didn't think rock & roll was going to last but, and you
know sometimes people ask me, "Do you have a favorite rock group?" And I say, "Yeah,
Mount Rushmore." But anyway, that's what happened. Then finally in 1975, I'll tell this as fast
as I can, in 1975 I was invited to go down to New York City. Why? To re-create a concert
in Carnegie Hall of Bix Beiderbecke's short life with the Goldkette band. And we did another
concert three months later, the same thing, George Wein promoted that one. But at the
end of the second concert, Joe Venuti said, "Spiegle, why don't you get your trombone
and come with me," and he says "I have a lot of club dates and we'll have a lot of laughs."
And my wife and daughter says, "Why don't you go?" And he's the guy that really pulled
me out from under the rug. And ever since he gave me such a shove that from now on,
I don't know, I've just got to live. MR: Yeah? That's great. When you were young
boys and you were hearing music around your house, what was it that was being played?
Can you describe the music that you heard? AG: All right. I can remember, I'm born in
1913 and we'll say 1923, I first heard the famous Rudy Wiedoeft on records. '78s. And
my father took me to Forbes Music Store in Birmingham, Alabama. I never forgot Forbes,
it's still there. Different owners of course. And naturally I marveled at Rudy Wiedoeft.
And he had a lot to do with me emulating him and so forth. And I studied hard. And my father
got me my first saxophone when I was twelve. And it was called "Perfect Tone" would you
believe it? I don't know who it was made by - a C melody, and it was nickel plated. I've
never forgot it. So Rudy Wiedoeft meant a lot to me, yes. I emulated him, and I suppose
there are students today that listen to my records also.
MR: It's obvious that the classical part of music has been a big influence on you too.
I can hear it in your playing. AG: Oh, yeah. Well I studied classically.
Marcel Mule, when I first played the Concertino de Camera by Ibert, oh yes. I performed that
several times on the air but I never recorded it. I never recorded it.
MR: It's a finger buster. SW: As you talk I have to say something here.
Now you mentioned the reading, you know, you're a good reader, I know that when, remember
I told you about Manlius Military School in that band? We'd play overtures and I got to
learn how to read very well and so when my opportunity came to join, for instance the
Goldkette especially, it was nothing to it. I was a good reader, so there was no question
that I had a tone. You know I was the sweet guy that played the pretty stuff.
MR: Explain "sweet." SW: Well just pretty. I mean, I don't mean
slow music all the time, but nice tone. AG: Well just like Tommy Dorsey.
SW: Yeah, exactly. That's the guy that I replaced with the Goldkette band. It happened in 1925.
If you've got time for it, this was a big point in my life. I was playing in Auburn,
New York. And I was playing all summer at Owasco Lake at the head of the lake, a lakeside
park. And we were coming to the end of the, you know, Labor Day coming up and this guy
by the name of Freddy Ferrar came over to the bandstand one day and I said, "Who are
you? Are you a musician?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "What do you play?" He says, "I play
trumpet." And I says, "Where do you live?" And he says, "I live in Detroit" and he says,
"and I play with a band called Jean Goldkette." Well I had heard in 1924 the record it's called
"It's the Blues." I don't know whether you ever heard it but what it had on it that appealed
to me, it had Joe Venuti playing the four string with Eddie Lang, and I said, "Well
why don't you come over and sit in tonight?" And he did, and we played four or five tunes
and he turned to me and he said, "How would you like to come and join the Goldkette band?
Tommy Dorsey is leaving." Now at that time he was just a side man, and you know Jimmy
was playing in the sax section as a side man. Well anyway I said, "Well I do have to go
to New York I have a commitment with the California Ramblers and then in those days we had what
we called a two week notice, you know, they could say we don't like you anymore or I could
say I don't like you either. And so during that two weeks, the Goldkette office wired
me three times and said will you join us. And I remember in 1923 how much I didn't like
the city. I'm a country guy I guess, you know the sticks. And so I said I'm going out to
Detroit and join this Goldkette band. And as it turned out that really was the best
thing I ever did. And I remember going down there in the Graystone Ballroom and the only
guy I knew was Eddie and I didn't know him very well, that first trumpet player, who
Venuti said was the backbone of the band. And but anyway there was a Russ Morgan up
there shaking the stick, not playing his trombone, and oh, I don't want to say the names, I can
give you the names but you don't care about that do you? Except names like Bix Beiderbecke.
And Trumbauer, and Fred Leveston played a little while. Well you know these names.
MR: The word "jazz" at this time, did it have a different meaning than it does now? I mean
you had the jazz age, and did jazz mean all popular music at that time?
AG: That you improvised on. Like Dixieland. It's all jazz. Like "Struttin' With Some Barbecue"
-. SW: We might even play that.
MR: It seems like the popular music of the day was jazz oriented. Is that right?
AG: Yeah, but you had sweet tunes also. Like "Whispering" that Paul Whiteman made famous.
Oh, God, so many beautiful tunes. SW: Of course we had Bill Challis, Bill was
with Whiteman then of course. AG: That's right. I knew Bill from New York.
SW: Sure. Bill Challis AG: You know this is something funny. He has
a fantastic memory. Everybody says, "Al, how do you remember sixty years ago?" I say you
can't remember everything, but a lot of things are just like it happened today. Like the
day that I got my first job in New Orleans. Howard Vorhees. I went to his house and noodled
and this and that, and he says, "Yeah, kid, I'm going to hire you." Beverly Gardens was
a gambling house. They didn't call them casinos then. A gambling house with about a five or
six piece group, and he picked me up, now this was 1927. He picked me up, we did the
job, coming home he pats me, he says, "Kid you did a very good job, I'm going to up you
to fifty dollars a week." That was- MR: I bet that was big money then, right?
AG: Oh, my God, a pack of gum was a nickel. A frankfurter with sauerkraut was a nickel.
Fifty dollars a week but that was seven days. And you went to work like at ten at night
until two, no, no, maybe until four in the morning.
MR: So you worked for it. AG: And then from then on I went into the
Orpheum Theater and that was over four and a half years playing big time vaudeville.
God I was only fifteen years old in 1928 I went in there. November of 1928.
MR: How did your parents feel about this career? AG: Oh, they loved it. Yeah. Because they
were all musical. They were all musical. I played with Bob Hope back in 1930, '31, '32,
before he was even known, Milton Berle, the ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen, the original
Three Stooges. MR: The original Three Stooges.
AG: Yeah, the original Three Stooges. Oh, God, so many acts that you can't remember,
you know? MR: You know, all those photos you showed
me on the wall and the photos I've seen of the Whiteman orchestra and everything, a lot
of times there was no music in front of the bands. Was that just for the publicity shooting?
AG: Oh, you mean in the movies? MR: Well, Spiegle has a whole bunch of photographs
on his wall. SW: Well at Carnegie we had music, but you
didn't see it, it was kind of a dark picture. MR: Normally you would have music in front
of you on those kind of engagements. SW: Remember in Nice? I showed you the picture
in Nice. Of course we were just jammin' there. But all those famous guys.
MR: Now you both got to do a kind of a revival thing at Carnegie Hall, right?
AG: Well, Spiegle wasn't there. MR: But he did the Goldkette group.
SW: Yeah I did that. MR: And you did the Whiteman.
AG: I did the Paul Whiteman Rediscovered. Around 1977. We opened at the Academy of Music
in Philadelphia, standing room, two days later we went to Carnegie Hall, standing room, we
were supposed to go on the road and nothing happened.
MR: That's the music business. AG: I think I told you this before. Dick Sudhalter
had borrowed some of the music from Williams College, because Whiteman donated all of his
music there. So "Last Night on the Back Porch" or one of those tunes, rehearsing, out of,
all of a sudden I seen my handwriting about from here to here, a p, double p here, double
forte here, you know you can't miss your own handwriting.
SW: That back porch tune was written by a guy from Cornell.
AG: Really? SW: Yes. I can't think of his name.
MR: Oh, it's such a small world in the music business. For you to get that music back in
front of you after all those years and see your own handwriting on it. That's very interesting.
AG: You can't miss your own handwriting. No way. Oh, there's so many things. But while
we're talking about Whiteman, let me go back to 1927. The St. Charles Theater on St. Charles
Street, not St. Charles Avenue, I was living there. And I'm a kid in 1927, I'm born in
'13, how old was I? Thirteen or whatever. And I'm waiting in front of the theater and
who pulls up? A cab and Paul Whiteman comes up with the striped pants, afternoon clothes.
At that time he was fat. Man and I'm looking at Whiteman you know, oh my God. I finally
went in to the theater. Chet Haslett was there, Frankie Trumbauer, Bix was in the band, and
Bussy was in the band. Now this was 1927. Who ever thought that 1936 I would be joining
the Whiteman band as first saxophone? But that's the way it is. I left New Orleans in
1933, July 3 to be exact, and then by 1936 I joined the Whiteman band.
MR: How did that come about? AG: Well, Ernie, a sax player, came to me
at WINS when WINS, oh, all the networks had live music. Six piece band, eight piece band,
forty, whatever. He comes to me and he says, "You know, Al, Benny Bonacchio is going to
leave the Whiteman band." Benny took Chet Haslett's place, and he's going to need a
first alto player." I says, "You've got to be kidding." He says, "No, go see him." So
he made an appointment and I went to see him up in Studio 3A, third floor of NBC. This
is early 1936. So Paul Whiteman greeted me fine, he says, "Kid, I'll give you $225 a
week." I says, "No, Mr. Whiteman, I want $250." He walks away. He turns around and says, "I'll
tell you what, I'll give you $235 a week." I says, "Okay." Now that's a true story. I
signed a contract and I was with the Whiteman band from Spring of '36 until he died. He
died in 1967. So up until about 1965. Those were the happiest days of my life, being with
the Whiteman band. Traveling all over. Kansas City, Chicago. Frankie Trumbauer and I sat
next to each other. SW: Isn't that interesting. You see the difference
in the ages right there. AG: Yeah.
SW: Now you're talking about 1936, and you made how much?
AG: With the Whiteman band? $235. SW: Now here we go. Back in 1923, with the
Paul Whiteman Collegians, in 1923, six nights a week, I made a hundred bucks a week. And
now wait. And with the California Ramblers a hundred and a quarter, and then with the
Goldkette a hundred the first year, and then when I came back I- But see now the Goldkette
band was in 1925 so the first year I made a hundred, Bill Rank, he made a hundred, and
you know. And then from 1925 'til 1936, inflation was going. That's how you got to $235.
MR: Did you have to cover your own expenses when you were on the road?
AG: No, no. Oh, hotel you had to pay yourself. But the hotel rooms then were about three
dollars, single, and we used to get a rate for two and a half. Some good hotels, not
flea bags. Decent hotels. Like the Gibson in Cincinnati.
MR: A lot of the engagements were dances, right? Were they all dances or were there
some concerts at times? You were playing for dancing?
AG: Oh, dances, yes. And Spiegle knows this. Half of the crowd was always in front of the
band listening. They weren't dancing, they were just listening.
SW: Yeah. AG: Am I right?
SW: We were a musicians' band. We didn't play very much away from the Graystone. Our recordings,
always we had to go to New York by train, and so actually we weren't on the road very
much. We played oh, once in a while I remember two senior balls, we played at Notre Dame
and University at Indiana, it was so important because that's when I first ever saw or met
Hoagy Carmichael. He and his girl were there that night and after the ball was over, everyone
had gone out of the gym except the band, the Goldkette band and Hoagy Carmichael, and I
could see Bix and Trumbauer wishing them well. He got up on the piano and just played for
us. That was quite a feature for me. I just didn't realize, you know, as history goes,
but I did enjoy it. And then to drop out and go back into the coal business with my Dad
in Cortland for all those years. MR: I wish we had a picture of your home to
show everybody. SW: Oh, I know it but you'd never believe
it. Our driveway is a mile long, the nearest neighbor is a mile.
MR: Can you tell me a little bit about Bix, and what you remember?
AG: Bix? MR: Yeah.
AG: No, the only time I heard Bix was at the St. Charles Theater in Pocanset. But I never
met him. SW: He died in 1931.
MR: Yeah. A very short career. AG: I missed something good that night. The
next day I found out that Frankie Trumbauer and Bix were all over Bourbon Street sitting
in with different groups but I didn't know about this.
SW: Now when was this? AG: 1927.
SW: 1927 Yeah. See the Goldkette band split for a reference number say Labor Day of 1927.
That is when the Goldkette, the Victor band I mean that it was known, and so my portion,
but I played with Bix Beiderbecke in the Goldkette band for about nine months out of his short
life. He died when he was 28 and if he'd a hung out with me, he'd a been 92 now too.
AG: You know Bix didn't play with a lot of notes, but what a style, what a style. Beautiful.
He swung. MR: Yeah. And he influenced people after him
also. AG: I have to mention the famous saxophonist
that I admired to this day, Jimmy Dorsey. SW: You betcha.
AG: Highly underrated. SW: You betcha.
AG: Very underrated saxophonist. Jimmy had a lot of technique, he had a lot of style,
and he was a great improviser, both on clarinet and on alto sax. Jimmy, and I knew him pretty
well, oh goodness, something just skipped my mind. Oh, his "Oodles of Noodles." I had
that, on recording. Now what Jimmy did in later years, he took the slow part, and he
put a name to it, "Contrast." And he used that as his theme song. "Contrast."
MR: And he had a sound that was fairly identifiable. AG: Yeah. A lot of guys didn't like his quiver.
But now, that was a beautiful thing. Now I have to tell you something, the famous Charlie
Parker, who I admired, believe me, he was influenced by Jimmy Dorsey. Did you know this
Spiegle? SW: No.
AG: Absolutely. SW: Is that right?
AG: Charlie Parker thought that Jimmy was great. Because Jimmy played that style, you
know? MR: Well you mentioned earlier, before we
started taping, about how important it was back then to have your own sound.
AG: That's right. MR: So that after a few measures, people would
know who you were. AG: Oh. Sound and style. Back in the 30s,
the minute you heard Benny Goodman you know it was Benny. The minute you heard Shaw, you
know it was Shaw. The minute you heard Jimmy Dorsey, same way. It was like everybody had
an individual style. Today you don't have that individuality. I'm not criticizing the
modern school of jazz, but I think a lot of it is book knowledge. It's not you. Now I'm
going to brag. I'm an improviser. A lot of guys say well Gallodoro's not a jazz man.
No. But I'm a heck of an improviser though. I can take a tune and turn it around. A lot
of guys can't do that. Jimmy Dorsey could do it, Artie Shaw could do it, Benny Goodman
could do it. But today, they all, almost - and I'm not criticizing because you have some
great jazz players, Phil Woods, Buddy DeFranco, they're supreme, Eddie Daniels, these guys
are great, great. Buddy DeFranco is one of the greatest of the modern school. But they
play with taste. They play modern but with taste.
MR: Who were the trombone players whose sound that you might have liked back then?
SW: What'd you say? MR: Trombone players, who had a sound that
you liked? SW: Well when I was a young boy, maybe twelve
or thirteen, I was starting to play trombone, I don't think anyone else ever got this but
there was a trombone player by the name of Arthur Pryor.
AG: Oh my goodness. I never met him. His son became an actor. Roger Pryor. I played his
act. SW: Anyway, isn't that funny that I would
listen to these records you know and no jazz, you know, but he had a beautiful tone. And
isn't that funny that I have to say that Arthur Pryor impressed me. And of course well then,
let's see the trombone player Isham Jones, I liked him too.
AG: Go ahead, I'll get to mine. SW: What was that guy, what was his name?
Mark? The trombone player. AG: Ballard? Not Red Ballard.
SW: No. I can't think. But anyway, he impressed me. I had got wind of -
AG: When I left New Orleans I was headed to New York. But I stopped in Philadelphia because
a fine trumpet player from New York, Danny Ryan, was in Philadelphia. So I go up to the
rooming house and a lady opened the door and she says, "Oh, Danny is playing in Ocean City"
with a certain band. I went there and Danny said that Adrian Fleiss was a violin player
from New Orleans, was playing with the George Olson band in Atlantic City at the Ritz Carlton.
I go there but Olson had just left. And this is a true story. I looked on the marquee and
I see Isham Jones. I says oh boy, I need a job. So I went up to the manager, spoke to
him, he says, oh, I really put it on strong, I'm a great, you have to, I was a great salesman,
twenty years old. He says, "I'll tell you what, kid, come here tomorrow, Ish is rehearsing"
and so forth. I went there the next day with my alto, clarinet and I had baritone with
me, and Ish hired me but the guys didn't like me. You know why? They all wanted a raise.
They wanted a raise. MR: Oh, they didn't want another player.
AG: No. But Ish hired me, and he gave me $75 a week. And a lot of guys didn't like it.
Now I'll tell you who was in the band as an arranger and became very famous. Gordon Jenkins.
Gordon Jenkins was not known in 1933. And that's how I happened to be with the Isham
Jones band until October when he went into the Commodore Hotel in New York. He says,
"Al, I have to let you go." I says, "What's the matter, Ish? No go?" He says, "No kid,
you don't belong to the union and you can't do a steady job until you're here for six
months." You could not hold a steady job. SW: Was there a trumpet player Paniccio?
AG: Oh, I know that name now. SW: Was he in the band then?
AG: Not when I was in, no. SW: Trumpet player.
AG: George Thow was the jazz trumpet player when I was in it. Sonny something was the
trombone player. Sonny, oh, goodness I can't think of his last name.
SW: You don't mean - AG: And Red Ballard was the bass trombone.
SW: Yeah Red Ballard. I remember the name. MR: Wow, lot of stories.
SW: Oh, we could keep going here. MR: Radio was really important at this time,
right? That's how most people- AG: They had live music. Live music. At 6:00
you played dinner music you know, with a string orchestra and flute and clarinet and bassoon.
SW: Well you see in 1925 with the Goldkette band sometimes I'd go down to Bill Rank's
room and it would be about 1:30 or 2:00 and he'd have the things on there and you'd hear
eeeeee, and we were listening to Carleton Coon, Coon Sanders.
AG: Yeah, Coon Sanders. Very popular. The Black Hawk, Chicago?
SW: That's right. I mean so and the trick was to see how far away you could get. KDKA,
there was a big station in Pittsburgh I think it was. But that Kansas City was a big jump,
that Bill Woods show. So you can see, and here's another thing I'd like to mention,
that in 1923, with Paul Whiteman's Collegians, we made three Victor records, not in mics,
they had a drum on you, they had a, what do you call it, acoustic recording you know,
in the horn. MR: Oh, the megaphone?
AG: That was before my time. MR: It went straight on a metal record or
something, from the megaphone, and I guess that's how they made it.
SW: Well the big end of the megaphone was out here, and everybody got in a circle and
we were blowing in these horns, and the smaller end went into like a little velvet curtain
and there was a big chunk of wax about easy that thick. I don't know how they made the
record but that's interesting because in 1925, no 1926 early in the same room in the Victor
studio, the Goldkette band was recording with one mic and I'll bet you Steve Brown didn't
sit over two feet from that bass you know. AG: That reminds me. You know Andre Kostelanetz
was famous. Everything, he was so particular with intonation. Well I did a couple of the
Coca Cola Hours, Chet Heislick took over. But Kostelanetz believed in one microphone,
way up there. One microphone. And it picked up the whole band. Of course you had a problem
if you were too loud with the melody you wouldn't pick up. But Whiteman used to say, "Boys,
if you can't hear the melody you're playing too loud." But he had a balance and the guys
knew how to play soft behind the lead. One microphone.
MR: So it was up to the musicians to do the balance rather than the recording engineer.
Things have changed. SW: The Goldkette band started off with the
same recording manager, Eddie King. And there was a lot of dislike of him because he kept
the Goldkette band, especially Beiderbecke, he didn't like him very well, he couldn't
appreciate Bix so because if you stop to think, in the early Paul Whiteman days, Eddie King
was the recording manager for all of those records. See I'm talking back, see in 1923,
the Whiteman band only had one trombone player. What did I tell you that-I can't think of
it at the moment because I told you the other day, Sammy Lewis was-
AG: Sammy Lewis. SW: And there was Bussy and I think a guy
by the name of Tommy Gott. Do you remember that name? Just two trumpets so that shows
you how the Whiteman band worked a gig and you were right in the-
AG: Sammy Lewis finally became a symphony player. With the NBC Symphony.
SW: Is that right? AG: Sammy Lewis.
SW: Well I don't doubt it. AG: When I joined Toscannini, in 1942, Sammy
Lewis was the first trombone player. SW: Yeah, and you see that was before the
microphone. Now in 1923, when Sammy, he would sit there, I'm talking about Paul Whiteman's
band in the Ballet Royal, and when he had a chorus he had a like a canary cage with
a big megaphone and a small end, and so here he is and it's his turn to play, he just leans
over and packs that trombone into the small end of that, and that's the way the PA systems
were. They didn't have mics. MR: That's really interesting. Was there any
integration at this time in the music, racially, or was it fairly separate?
AG: No, we got along pretty well. Musicians, in the entertainment field we got along very
well. MR: It seems to have led the way in that kind
of thing. AG: Boy, I remember Roy Eldridge, you know,
I first heard Roy at the Three Deuces in Chicago. I had my wife with me. We were playing at
the Drake Hotel and Roy Eldridge was at the Three Deuces and that's how I happened to
meet him. Then later on he'd meet me on Broadway and he says, "Hey, Al, I'm playing in a club,
come on and sit in." I mean the entertainment field, we didn't have all of that animosity.
This is the truth. MR: That's wonderful.
AG: More people should know about this you know. We were a happy family. Eddie Barefield,
who was Cab Calloway's arranger and sax player, when Cab went out front to do his act, Eddie
would get up and conduct the band. Eddie and I, like this, for years. He'd make some of
my arrangements. We did the circus together. Next to each other. Eddie Barefield. Marvelous
guy. He just passed away about three years ago. No, it was nothing like that.
SW: Buddy Tate, Milt Hinton. Marvelous guys. I'm talking about, oh, twenty years ago. Remember
when I told you Joe Venuti asked me to come with him?
MR: Right. SW: And that is what did it. It brought me
right out of the woods fast. AG: Excuse me for laughing. You know the story
that Joe Venuti was a prankster. He calls I think six bass players, I think string bass
players or tuba, I never got that straight. MR: I think it was tuba, from what I've read.
AG: "Meet me on 5th Avenue and 55th" or whatever, then he calls another one. He calls about
five or six bass players to meet at the same time.
MR: He told them it was a gig or something? AG: Yeah. He was a great violinist. Incidentally
on the "50th Anniversary" album that I did the "Rhapsody in Blue," and unabridged we
do the whole thing with Buddy Reid. Tommy Dorsey is on this, Jimmy Dorsey is on it,
a lot of guys. SW: Marvelous.
AG: And Venuti is on it. SW: Sure. I have that record.
AG: Right you do have it. SW: I sure do. The "50th Anniversary."
AG: Exactly. The sound is great. I was about to say something about that. It skipped my
mind just for the moment. SW: I know what you mean.
MR: Well you guys are staying active these days.
AG: Oh, yeah. MR: Tell me what you're up to these days.
AG: Oh, I do trios, quartets, duos, you know. MR: And you do some teaching?
AG: I just played in Saratoga at Nina's Coffee House.
MR: Oh, I've heard of this place. AG: I played there twice. Now this is the
truth, I don't brag. We packed them in, standing ovation. Eight months ago the same thing.
So I asked the lady, I says, "Tell me, does everybody get that?" "No, only one other group
gets a standing ovation, but I don't remember who it was." She says, otherwise you do.
MR: Well there's something to be said for the classic music of that day. It has lasted.
AG: Oh, I know what I wanted to say. Joe Venuti is on there. I think you know the story. Many
years ago, Jascha Heifetz went to hear Joe Venuti play. And Yasha told Venuti, he says,
"if you had gone in to be a concert violinist, you would have been one of the greatest."
Because he had the time and he had the intonation. You notice about Joe? You have the record.
He does "How High the Moon," and he does "Autumn Leaves." His intonation is beautiful.
SW: Marvelous. MR: I think he did okay staying in the jazz
field, don't you? AG: Yeah. That's right.
SW: Well you know with me, because in January I go out to Decatur Illinois for a three day
festival. People that know Tommy Saunders, he's the music director of that festival now.
And geez, I know enough if I can only think of it. But Sacramento has been a great thing
for me and that's the largest jazz festival in the world now.
AG: Yeah, I've heard about it. SW: I was the Ember last year they made me,
and there were a 108,000 people, that gives you an idea. And there were 126 jazz bands
there. And I'd just play as a guest, you know. AG: 126, huh? 126 jazz bands.
SW: Yeah. Some of them from New York, and then of course there's the big Davenport thing
where Bix was born, and I don't know of anyone more qualified now because I'm the last guy
I guess that I know of as far as the Goldkette band that played with him now. You know, after
all, when you get to be 92, you've got to be somewhere near the end of the line.
MR: But you're going to Germany too? SW: Oh, in March, I told you about that, I'm
going to go to Wiesbaden, with the Luftsana Airlines are going to fly my daughter and
me over, free, and then I'll go back in Germany. And then this recording, I never dreamed I'd
ever make a CD and I made that, I made two now, in Holland though, but the Holland musicians
are wonderful. Oh, we could talk a long- AG: Oh, my goodness. You mentioned Davenport.
We played Davenport with the Whiteman band in 1940, early '40. And I have photographs
of us being at Bix's home, and the grave, Whiteman and all the guys.
MR: Well tell me about, as we wrap up here, you have some interesting selections here.
I see you do "Saxophobia?" The saxophone has gone through an interesting life since its
invention. I mean it was first a military instrument, wasn't it?
AG: The saxophone? Yeah I think so. Vinnie Hinton was from the old school. Clyde Dorr.
I think Vinnie Hinton came before Rudy Wiedoeft. MR: Well I'm looking forward to hearing these,
both of your recordings, guys, and what do you think of the state of jazz today?
AG: I think it's coming back. I really think if more college kids begin to hear more of
it they like it. I know that they like it. Because we have chord changes, we have melody.
There's something there. And it isn't monotonous. It isn't one thing after another.
MR: What do you think, Spiegle? SW: Well you brought up tunes, well you can
almost tell from all of them, they're all, most of them are what we call old standards.
There a tune there called "That's My Home," is that one on that?
MR: Yup. SW: Way back there in '89. That's my other
tune that I heard, that's the theme song- MR: Oh, I think Doc Cheatham recorded this
recently. "That's My Home," yes. SW: Did he really? Well it's a pretty tune.
Yes it is. Yeah and then another tune on there is "Poor Butterfly," that's been my theme
song- AG: One of my favorites.
SW: That's been my theme song for 65 years. AG: My wife's favorite too.
SW: Pretty, pretty, pretty. Yeah and now and the other, oh this is interesting, this last
one I made was that was last summer, with practically the same band, all in Holland,
Dutch musicians. The first one is called "Ham and Eggs," and last year I was playing at
Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. That's a big park. If you ever go to Copenhagen, you're
bound to go to Tivoli Gardens. And I was playing the jazz house with the number one jazz band
of Denmark. And this "Ham and Eggs" was a tune that they were playing, and I sing now,
and I said I'm going to take that with me right in my head, because I knew I was going
to record in Holland the next week, and it was written by, what I'm leading up to, it
was written by Danny Barker, the guitar player, you know the black guy, he just died here
two or three years ago. And well anyway, it's not real fast and not too slow. But just a
nice, cute song. MR: I sense such a great camaraderie between
musicians, it's just wonderful. We've talked to some wonderful people and if they have
bad things to say about people, they don't say them. They may think them but I mean I've
heard some stories about Benny Goodman for instance, that he was hard to work with, but
nobody ever says really nasty things. They'll say he was a character or something. And I
think it's just so wonderful that you guys have, how they managed to get along.
SW: Oh, you know, really my choice, I love to be around musicians. They're a breed all
to themselves. Even to this day if I go out to a party to a banquet or anything where
there's music, my attention immediately is up there at that band, and if they really
appeal to me, I go right up in front and watch them. And I'm looking at the trombone players,
and that's the way we get acquainted that way. But even to this day musicians.
AG: And we're good tippers, too. Oh, yeah, always.
SW: And good eaters. And good sense of humor. MR: Yeah. You have to have it I think to be
in the music business. This is always a hard question but I'll ask it anyway. Can you think
of a gig that was so ridiculous that you did. Because you mentioned the circus you know.
And I know, did you ever find yourself doing a gig that you said, "I can't believe that
I'm doing this." AG: Son of a gun, I just played one.
MR: You did? AG: I just played one.
MR: So it never ends. AG: But I'm not going to mention the show,
nor the conductor, because the conductor was great. We just did a revival of a famous show.
And I never in my life saw cut to here, cut back to here, then cut way over here, then
cut back. You couldn't possibly come in on time and turn the pages. And absolutely unbelievable.
Odd take shows, yeah, you'd make a cut here, you'd play and then you wait and then a cut
here. But this was back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Hideous. That was the
worst, the toughest. And yet the music was not hard to play. No there was nothing impossible
to play. But the cuts going back and forth. They didn't bother to make photostats and
so forth. Now the circus, the circus was nothing, everything was marked. But the only thing
about the circus, it's loud and louder. You never can play soft. And fast. Well now sometimes
when you play a waltz. If you're playing a waltz, now this is something that I try to
teach - instantly you've got to go fast. Say you're playing a waltz for the trapeze - Right
then, simultaneously, not variable. But that's good experience. The carnival was a great
experience. Oh my goodness. Four and a half years of that.
[inaudible] had to play behind singers. SW: Oh, mercy.
MR: Fascinating. AG: But I didn't mention the show, right?
MR: You didn't mention the show, we don't know who the conductor was. We know what it
must have looked like, like they cut all the music up and put it back together.
AG: He had his hands full. You know what he said then? He says, "Look guys, do the best
you can." But the best you can is not good enough.
MR: Well we look forward to many more years of hearing you guys, and we have some instruments
here, which is a real treat. AG: Can I just say something about my-
MR: Please do. AG: My cassette here, what I did, I compiled
sixteen solos, my whole Columbia album that I recorded in 1951, then I have live performances
that I did at ABC in 1947 like "Dizzy Fingers," 1944 "Flight of the Bumble Bee" on clarinet,
and some I did in McAllen Texas, then it shows double and triple tonguing, which I'm one
of the very few that does it. My brother says, "Al, when you double or triple tongue it sounds
like single tongue." That's because I trained myself correctly to do it. But anyway, there's
a lot of good stuff in here. MR: So this is like a career compilation almost for
you. That's great. AG: Then I do the "Fantasy Impromptu," which
was published by Mel's Music. You know how much money I made on that? Royalties? Is there
any price on peanut shells? A dollar and a half. Terrible.
MR: Well the business of music can sometimes be a little treacherous. But there's not that
many saxophonists or reed players who can step from the classical world into the jazz/popular
music. AG: That's because I've been all around playing.
And this proves it. This proves, now I do one number here that I recorded on the Columbia
album. "Altes Wien" Old Vienna that I do with strings, harp and alto sax. That's real classical,
you know. It's a different thing. This is a variety of all my playing, except the heavy,
like Brahms. I recorded the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Stuyvesant Quintet in New
York in 1947. There again, we didn't get one penny royalty. Not one penny royalty. It was
International Records, then they put it on Concert Hall Recording and that was it.
SW: You know Joe Venuti, now there's a guy that I'll bet any amount of money that he
could step in any symphony, but there's nary a symphony guy that can play like Joe maybe
in the symphony but he can't be far away, he wouldn't even get in the front door. Oh,
Joe Venuti. Can't speak high enough of poor Joe Venuti. And there's Stephane Grappelli,
you know, Frenchman. You take those two guys, they both play just like their personality,
in fact Stephane, he can play a lot of notes and he's slipping and sliding, and he goes
around on his tiptoes. He's still alive though. But Joe Venuti played like an Italian.
AG: But isn't Grappelli Italian? It's an Italian name.
MR: He's French I believe. SW: Well maybe he is, but I'll tell you, he
acts like a Frenchman though. Boy we'll have to check that out.
AG: It doesn't matter that much, they're both great.
SW: Let's check that out. MR: All right. We'll look in our history books.
Well are we going to hear a little music? We'll pause here for a minute.
AG: I think I'm going to stand though. still have the camera running?
