In 1952, I was playing with Teddy Charles’s trio at the Town Tavern in Toronto when Dizzy Gillespie came into the Colonial Tavern, just a block away. Dizzy had a quintet with Wynton Kelly, Bill Graham and Al Jones. Percy Heath had been his bass player, but Percy had just left Dizzy to join the Modern Jazz Quartet. Dizzy had only booked a week at the Colonial, and he put out the word in Toronto that he needed a bass player. A local trumpet player, Herbie Spanier, also played a little bass, and he took the job.

Herbie had been playing mostly trumpet jobs, and his hands were too tender for the tempos Dizzy was playing. Teddy, who knew Dizzy, found out that Herbie was playing with blisters, and told me to go over between our sets and play some bass with Dizzy. I managed to get in a couple of tunes every night, and at the end of the week Dizzy said to me, “I have a one-nighter in Buffalo on your day off. Why don’t you come down and play it with me?” I agreed, and I took the train to Buffalo the next day.

The job was in a basketball court. We were on a low bandstand in the middle of the floor, with an upright piano for Wynton. Al Jones’s drums sounded very loud in that space, and I had trouble hearing the piano, but I got through the job okay.

When we finished, Bill Graham came out of Dizzy’s dressing room and said, “Dizzy wants to know how much he owes you.” I had never negotiated a salary with anyone before, and said, “Just tell him to pay me what he pays you guys.” Bill said, “No, you’ve got him over a barrel. Tell him what you want.” I asked for $30, and Bill went back and got it for me. Then he said, “Dizzy wants to know if you want to stay on the band.” I told him I couldn’t strand Teddy Charles without a bass player, and so I couldn’t do it. I was a little afraid of Dizzy, and I had only been playing the bass for a year, so I wasn’t sure I could handle the job. Later on, I found out what a sweetheart Dizzy was, and I regretted having had to turn down his offer.

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Dave Frishberg once told me about his first night playing for Ben Webster. After the first tune that they played, Ben said to Dave, “Reminisce.” Dave gave Ben a questioning look, and Ben repeated, “Reminisce. At the piano. While I talk to the audience.” So Dave “reminisced.”

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When I first moved to New York City in 1950, I discovered the old Roseland building. Roseland was a big second floor ballroom between Broadway and Seventh Avenue that had marquees on both sides of the building. The one on the Broadway side was huge, and it spelled out in large black letters: THE XAVIER CUGAT ORCHESTRA featuring ABBE LANE. On the Seventh Avenue side, a smaller marquee proclaimed: XAVIER CUGAT with ABE LANE.

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Pete Hyde sent me this:

In the 1960’s I spent a few summers in the Catskills, playing in the resident show bands of a few different hotels. One year was in the Pines Hotel, with John Danser’s nine-piece show band. One of the weekends, the hotel was taken over by a TV crew that was filming the local “Miss New York” portion of the annual “Miss U.S.A.” contest. It was not the highest-budget production in the world, but it held a certain excitement for us. Nobody in our band had ever played in a live TV broadcast before, and that included our bandleader, John.

He found himself equipped with a set of earphones that was connected to a number of directors and producers who were constantly making decisions on the run, and relaying them to each other and to people on the line who would need to keep abreast of these decisions.

We band members had no earphones, and could only follow John’s vocal orders, given at a fairly loud volume, in spite of the open mikes in front of each section on the bandstand. During a lull in the action, someone on John’s line told him to play a tune. Someone else then clarified it by asking for a jumpy tune. At that point, it appears we weren’t fast enough in getting our charts up. John’s orders were rescinded, just a little too late. Here’s what we heard from John:

“OK, guys, get out number 11. We’re going to play. C’mon, let’s go! One! Two!… No! Get up 23. C’mon, hurry up! One! Two! One Two Three Four! DON’T PLAY!”

I’d give almost anything to hear a playback of that broadcast.

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Steven Cerra posted this item on Facebook:

When drummer Shelly Manne opened The Manne Hole in November 1960, Monty Budwig, his long-time bassist, had moved to San Francisco to work with pianist Vince Guaraldi. Shelly auditioned and hired a very young Chuck Berghofer as his new bassist. In his enthusiasm, Chuck raced some of the tempos a bit. Between tunes, Shelly looked at Chuck and said in a voice that only he and Chuck could hear: “Wait for me.”