During a couple of years, 1971 and ‘72, when my employment in the jazz world had dwindled and before I began playing Broadway shows, I was with Peter Duchin’s club date band. We flew out to play at wealthy affairs all over the country. At a country club in Texas, we were booked for two days, first on New Year’s Eve, and the next day at the opening of a new building on the premises. The New Year’s Eve party was held in a huge tent, and the entire ceiling was covered with netting that held hundreds of inflated balloons. At midnight we went into “Auld Lang Syne,” and the waiters pulled the cords to release the balloons. The net fell to the floor, but the balloons all stayed up at the tent’s ceiling. Whoever had prepared the balloons had filled them with helium! Helium balloons were appropriate for the celebration on the following day, an outdoor affair, but they spoiled the intended effect at the indoor party. I guess someone thought that filling them ordinary air wasn’t classy enough.

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When I first got out of the Army in 1949, I was playing drums at the Cirque Club in Seattle. Sammy Davis was with the Will Mastin Trio, which was playing at another Seattle club, and they came to visit us. Sammy sat in and did his whole dance act, then imitated comedy stars from the Apollo, and then sat in on drums and trumpet, playing better than any of us did. I had never seen anyone dance that well, and he continued to be my favorite hoofer, even after the wonderful Gregory Hines appeared on the scene.

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In the days when men were wearing medallions, Papa Jo Jones wore a miniature Zildjian cymbal on a cord around his neck. Sometimes, when he saw someone wearing any kind of a medallion, he would tap on it and say, “I EARNED mine, daddy. Where did you earn yours?”

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When I was in the Second Army Band at Fort Meade, Maryland in 1948, a new jazz club opened in Washington, D.C. that was called Duke Ellington’s. It was meant to be Duke’s home base in his hometown, and it had been designed to present the band elegantly. When you walked in the front door, you stood on a wide carpet that ran forward across the large floor, up onto the bandstand, and up the wall to the ceiling. The lighting and sound were excellent. Sonny Greer’s famous drum set was centered on the top riser, complete with chimes, gong, and tympani.  On the wall above Duke’s piano was a little wrought-iron balcony, with a door through which Kay Davis would step, to sing, without a microphone, her vocal lines as though she were another instrument in the band. Her voice carried beautifully throughout the large room. A long bar was at one side of the room, and they also sold soft drinks to patrons who were too young to buy alcoholic drinks. I went there on three different nights, and I was lucky one night to catch Ben Webster sitting in with the band. On the other nights, Al Sears was the featured tenor player. The other reeds were Johnny Hodges, Jimmy Hamilton and Harry Carney. The trombones were Lawrence Brown, Tyree Glenn, Quentin Jackson and Britt Woodman. In the trumpet section I recognized Shorty Baker, Al Killian and Ray Nance. Wendell Marshall was the bass player. The band sounded wonderful, and I looked forward to hearing them live again. But Ellington only stayed at the club for a month, and then he took the band back on the road. The club booked several other big bands, including Illinois Jacquet and Buddy Rich, but those bands didn’t attract enough business, and by the end of 1949 Duke Ellington’s was no longer Duke’s home base. That space eventually became a radio station.

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I was on a Birdland tour with the Gerry Mulligan quartet one winter. In one arena that we played, Count Basie had the only dressing room with heat, so everybody from the six groups on the tour was in there with him. There was an upright piano in there, and Basie started playing, so I joined in with him. Then I realized that there were five bass players in the room with us, so one of us had to be on stage. Sure enough, it was me. I had never played with Basie before, but I quickly stopped playing with him and ran out on stage, just in time.

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Terry Gibbs told me that, when he played on a TV show with Benny Goodman, Bernie Leighton was subbing for Teddy Wilson. After the tune that was supposed to end the program they needed a little more time, so the MC asked Benny to name the musicians. Benny named everyone, but when he came to Bernie, he blanked out. Instead, he said, “And on piano, Teddy Wilson!”