Jester Hairston

S = Standifer
H = Hairston

S Today, we are with Mr. Jester Hairston, famous arranger, composer, performer of choral music. We're in his home here on July 14, 1980, we're in his studio. Mr. Hairston is going to tell us something about his life and his accomplishments. Jester, it's delightful being in your home this morning.
H Thank you.

S Could you tell us just a little about maybe recently what you've been doing.
H Well, recently I've been very ill. I have been unable to do any work at all since February. It's now the 14th of July, and on the 19th of February I had a total replacement -- my right hip. Then, right after that, I got well and was about ready to start after about 7 or 8 weeks, and then came down with another disease. And it has kept me down up until now. In fact, I'm just learning how to walk again. The doctor tells me that I won't be able to work before November or December. So it's very discouraging, but still at the same time I feel that I'm making progress and my appetite is coming back and so I look forward to working again possibly in the late Fall in 1980.

S You look very well in spite of the fact that you've had an operation. How old are you, Jester?
H I was 79 last Wednesday.

S Ah, so that would make your birthday -- -- when is your birthday?
H July 9, 1901.

S Well, for someone who's 79 and who just a few weeks ago had a hip operation and a disease that has hospitalized you, you look wonderful. Where were you born, Jester?
H I was born in North Carolina, and it's very controversial because my folks moved up to Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh when I was quite a baby -- a little over a year old -- and my sister was born there, actually in Pennsylvania, but when my father died in a little town called Kunersville, Pennsylvania. He worked in the ____ ____ there and my mother couldn't even go to his funeral because my sister was only 3 days old when my father died. So, her sisters and brothers and her mother had to take charge of the funeral arrangements. She was so demented that several of my aunts said I was born in Pennsylvania also and she said I was born in North Carolina. So I consider myself born in North Carolina because my mother said I was born there. But all I knew is that we moved into Pittsburgh from Kunersville and that's where I grew up in a little town called Homestead, Pennsylvania -- steel mills.

S Now where's that?
H They said you're too young to know anything about one of the old Black baseball teams called Homestead Graze where they formed that Club right in my hometown. It's 8 miles across the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh. There's nothing to do there but work in steel mills. That's the reason I got out of there as quickly as I could.

S Well, you only have one sister. There's no other?
H One sister. Just the two of us. She's about a year and a half or something younger than I am. And she lives now in New Haven, Connecticut.

S Oh, I see.
H She has, oh -- she had 4 girls and 1 boy. Now one of the girls is dead and the boy is dead, so she has 3 daughters and a whole basket full of grandchildren and great -- grandchildren. She's got a generation out there in Connecticut.

S Do you have any children, Jester?
H I have one daughter. She's actually a stepdaughter, but I've had her since she was 9 years old and she's now going to be 50 in September, so I consider her my own daughter. If she'd been my own flesh and blood daughter I couldn't love her any more.

S Is she here in Los Angeles?
H No. She's a nurse and she's up in Oakland now. She has 3 children. So I have 3 grandchildren, 2 boys and a girl, one of the boys (the oldest boy) is a mining engineer and he's going into Colorado School of Mines for his Master's Degree in August. The second boy is 25 years old and is working at learning the trade of -- he's going to be a manager of the Safeway Stores in San Francisco. He's taking that program. The little girl is younger. She's 23, and she's at UCLA and this is her Senior year in meteorology.

S My goodness.
H I said, "You're going to be a weather man?" She said weather person.

S Well, that's the first thing I thought about when you said meteorology. I said well I guess she'll be a weather person.
H Yeah. Yeah, she's a weather person and that's a rough subject, you know.

S It is. Your family is quite accomplished, then, I see. Everyone is doing something.
H I'm very proud of them because they work. My wife worked with me. I married late in life. I married in 1939 and...

S You wanted to make certain that who you married was the right person probably?
H Well, that and also, I've been in the theater all my life since I came out of college, you see, and I came into the theater in New York in 1929, and I met, I can pick out 3 very, very fine women during that time working in the theater, and all of them were very fine women and either one of them would have made me a very fine wife just as fine as my wife, I think. They were all girls of that caliber, but they wanted security and I was determined to stay in the theater until I made it. So, I let them go. And we were all friends and still are all friends. One has passed, but the other two are good friends until this day.

S They were in theater themselves also?
H No. They weren't in the theater.

S Oh, I see.
H And they didn't want the theater. They wanted me to get a job outside, you know, regardless of what I was earning -- -- $10/week or something and it was steady. But the theater is not like that, it's too uncertain, you see. But I was willing to risk my whole future in the theater, and finally when I came out here, the government sent me to San Francisco to direct a play in 1938, and I went up there and met the people that I had to work with and she was in the choir that I worked with. And I met her and we fell in love and she was already in show business. I mean, of course, that was her first show and she was so overwhelmed that the director, you know, paying any attention to her.

S Oh, you directed the show?
H I directed the play in San Francisco. This was a WPA -- -- a Federal Theater project. Roosevelt was President, you see. So this play was a play that Hall Johnson had written years before. He wrote it in 1932 and we did it on Broadway in New York. I directed the choir there. Then the Federal Theater Project wanted to do it with professional actors down here in Los Angeles in 1938. We did it here and it ran a year. And I was involved with it here, with the choir and everything.

S That was also in the 30s?
H 1938.

S I see.
H Yes, so the show ran a year. Then in San Francisco, this was a Federal Theater Project, people in those days you may not know it and many young people may not know it, but what the government did, this is sure enough depression, real depression you see, and people had no money and so the government got all of the professional actors who were out of work in Hollywood and Chicago and New York, and they had them to do plays and put them to work in their own professions -- singers, dancers, operas were put on and these people would put them on and put them on at Federal Theaters here. The federal government rented these theaters and the actors had jobs. They didn't get but $115 a month, but that was more than they were getting and they weren't doing anything with their own professions, you see.

S And they would pay expenses from wherever you worked -- San Francisco or ______?
H Oh, yes. I worked here a year directing the music and putting the show together. Run Little Children was the name of the show.

S This one was by Hall Johnson?
H Yeah.

S Run Little Children?
H Run Little Children. So I had put it together. Clarence Muse was the director and I was the music director. So he and I collaborated and worked together and put this show together here and it was so popular and you could get into the show for -- oh, if you paid $2.00 that was a seat on the floor.

S My goodness.
H Yeah. Sure. $1.50, $.75 get you a fine seat.

S Times have changed, haven't they?
H Yeah, and the government did all that. You could go to the finest operas and everything for $2.00.

S I went to see Chorus Line and Bubbling Brown Sugar, and Ain't Misbehavin. I paid $12.00 for one, $16 for another ticket, and the last ticket I think was $8.00 and that was a matinee in the afternoon. Have you seen Ain't Misbehavin?
H Yeah, I saw it here. But we had that same quality of actors -- Black actors -- right here who did nothing but work in movie pictures you know and things like that and they were quality and the government paid them $96.00 or $98.00 a month and I was a director so I got $125.00 a month.
<Laughter>

S That was pretty good money then, wasn't it?
H Yeah. You could live on it. We were living on nothing, so if you're living on nothing and survive, you certainly could survive on $98.00 a month. Then the government passed out food. You could go certain places and get a great big slab of bacon, you know, and some beans and things like that. Here I was a director and we were broke as we could be, and I was a dignified director, and my girlfriend was in the show, but she really ____ted herself and went and got all those beans and things.
<Laughter>

S Well, we've got to eat. Let's face it, huh?
H Yeah. You've got to eat, so I ate that ham and beans and bacon. So, the show up in San Francisco, they had a theater project up there and they were doing the same thing as we were here. Most all of their plays were flops. So the government was about to close up that whole project and they said -- this was in 1938 -- and they said, "well, maybe if we could do Run Little Children which was a success down in Los Angeles, it might put a shot in the arm in the whole _____ up here. So the government sent me up there to direct the whole play. I went up there and directed the music and the stage production, and these people were 5 singers and they were just as good singers as the professional choir we had here. But, they were all amateurs when it came to acting. So I had to teach dramatics as well as put the music together, and I had a rough time.

S That's great.
H But I did, and the show ran 3 months up there.

S My goodness. So you did put a shot in the arm for the theater.
H Oh, yeah. Then other shows, they put on other shows and things and that put a shot in the arm. They wanted me to do another show and at that time, the Federal Theater Project in Chicago was doing a show and it was a tremendous hit -- a Black show called The Swing Mikado.

S Oh, yes.
H Yeah, see. They did the Mikado in swing.

S Is that same as the Black Mikado? There was a Black Mikado, I think,
H Well, Bill Robinson did a version of it. It was so popular in Chicago that the Federal Theater moved it to New York on Broadway. And then Bill Robinson's Bo Jangles got Mike Todd, he was a producer, and got him to produce a show for him and presented him in it, right across the street from the Chicago Company and it was called the Hot Mikado. He had two Black companies right across the street from each other.

S Doing the same show, different version.
H Yeah, doing the same show different version.

S Were they both successful?
H Oh, yes. Both of them. Because this one from Chicago is already a hit that came to New York.

S Oh, I see.
H It ran about 3 or 4 months in Chicago and it was such a tremendous hit that the government sent it to New York. So when we ran it 3 months up here in Hall Johnson's place, they suggested they would like me to put on another show. I said okay, I'd like for you to put me on the train and send me to New York and I'll look your shows over and come back and do my own version. So, I went to New York, stayed 4 or 5 days and got a chance to see my mother who lived in Newark, New Jersey and my sister and her kids. So I came back and put on the Mikado in Swing.

S My goodness.
H And Mikado in Jazz.

S This was during the Swing period.
H This was during the Swing music.

S 1930s?
H 1938.

S 1938, okay.
H 1938 and 1939 the music was swing.

S Right. Okay.
H It was swing. And so I did the Mikado in Swing and I played the part of Coco and directed the show and it was a tremendous hit. We did it at the San Francisco World's Fair. The Federal Theater had a theater on Treasure Island out there in the water. Mrs. Roosevelt came to our show. She came backstage and shook hands with all of us. That was a thrill.

S What was the name of the theater in Chicago where you performed, Jester? When you performed there.
H We didn't perform there. The Chicago company did.

S Oh, all right. What was the name of the theater here?
H Mayan. My wife and I passed there night before last. We were somewhere downtown and I don't know where we were -- oh, yeah, we went to a restaurant on my birthday. But last Wednesday she took me to dinner and on our way home we went down Hill Street and passed that theater and I said, "_____, there's where I did Run Little Children in 1938. It ran a year there at this theater."

S And it's still being used as a theater now?
H It's a Mexican theater.

S Oh, I see.
H For Mexican movies. There were two theaters. The Mayan Theater and right next door was the Balasko Theater. Both legitimate theaters. Los Angeles at one time was a good theater town, but I don't think both of those theaters are active. Just one now and it's a Mexican theater.

S Let's go back a bit. You mentioned 1929 was when you were sent to San Francisco for doing some work.
H Would you excuse me?

S Sure.
H ...for application to the college and many of them required a picture of you. So when you sent a picture looking like me, you got a nice diplomatic letter saying the Freshman class is closed; sorry, and that they'd put you on the waiting list, but don't hold out much hope, it may be 20 years before you could get in the colleges. And I received that same letter from Tufts University. Later on they gave me a doctoral degree in 1972, but I received that same letter when I applied at Massachusetts.

S Massachusetts?
H Massachusetts, Tufts University, ...

S You think of that being in the South.
H No, these are Northern schools. Not South. South wouldn't let you go, period. But the Northern schools were deceitful. They would just diplomatically send you a nice diplomatic letter saying that the sophomore and freshman were full and they were very sorry and they'd put you on the waiting list. Never mind, southerners just say "Maybe we don't have it." They don't want you, you see, and I like that much better than the Northern man who is so deceitful.

S In other words, you can deal with honesty.
H I can deal with honesty, but I can't deal with the deceit of the northerners that were saying, you know, they put their arms around you and say, "I love colored people. Some of my best friends are Negroes," and all that crap. So, what was I talking about?

S Well, at the University of Michigan we have 2 Black professors and each of us is in a leadership position but we're in those positions because people _____ ____ and Eva Jesse, Ubie Blake, and others, really made it easier for us. If we had come along when people when people like Jester Hairston was busy trying to make a life, we would have probably not achieved it as easily. But we've achieved because of the work that you -- you sort of already hoed the row for us.
H Well, I appreciate that very much. Now, ...

S So, what I want to ask you now and back to our interview is that when was your first performance in theater? You mentioned 1929 as being an important time of a starting point for you. When did you get into theater?
H In 1929. I majored in music, you see, and had done some drama at Tufts and my major was music and especially voice...

S So you finally got into Tufts then.
H Oh, I finally got in there, yeah, but I had a heck of a time. My getting into Tufts is a story that young people ought to know about, especially in view of the fact that nowadays, young people, high school age and college age, and especially college age, are being given all kinds of grants to go to school and all kinds of help. In those days, college age Blacks could get no help at all, almost every Black during the 20s and right after the first World War, when I came up, those Black boys that went to college were being helped by White people -- men and women -- who took an interest in them. But you had to pay your own tuition, if you got in. So we had to work like anything. I remember the time when all or practically every redcap in Pennsylvania Station in New York City had at least a Master's. Most of them and many of them were PhDs and couldn't get a job. They couldn't get a job.

S Just because they were Black.
H Just because they were Black. So I had a rough time getting in. I sent my application to Tufts, I transferred from the University of Massachusetts -- I got in there, and I stayed 2 years there. At the end of my sophomore year I was studying agriculture and I was going to be a landscape designer and I had me a White women there in Amherst, just like I tell you every Black almost had a sponsor -- a woman or a man -- to help them to go to school. Just like somebody helped Booker T. Washington and all those fellows, well we were right in that same thing. So, I met this woman through a professor at Amherst College and she began to play for me around the town in Amherst. In my sophomore year, she began nagging me about going into music and I told her I didn't know anything about music and I was interested only in being a landscape artist designer, and I was studying agriculture, animal husbandry, poultry husbandry and I knew all those agriculture subjects -- -- chemistry, robratomy(?) and everything. So she kept nagging me and finally she got me into the notion that I could sing. She made me think I could sing.

S You hadn't had any private lessons in singing or piano?
H Oh, Lord, no. Nothing. I sang in the glee club at the college. I could sing, I learned how to read music in the grade schools in Pittsburgh and in Homestead, you see, in those days, thank God for the early training. By the time I was in 6th grade I could read all kinds of music -- the notes. So that's all. And I liked to sing with the boys -- barbershop harmony, but not as a career. So she wanted me to go and take a career. I said I didn't know anything about music, Ms. _______. So she kept after me. She was a single woman. She was a school teacher and just taking care of her mother. She wasn't married and she said, "You've got to go, with the talent you've got you've got to major in music." I said, "No. I don't know anything about it and couldn't care less." But she kept nagging me until she got me -- I don't have any money. I can't go to Boston and study. Boston is too expensive. That woman had a few dollars saved up, and school teachers back in the 20s, they didn't make anything. They don't make too much now.

S Right.
H And this is 1926. So she said, "Well, I have a little money saved up for my annuity and I'm almost ready to retire." She was just a year or so younger than my mother. She says, "I'll draw from that and send you to Boston if you will major in music." And I didn't know note one. And that's what she did. She sent me to college. So, then at the end of my sophomore year, I asked them for my transcript and told them in Massachusetts that I was going to school in Boston the next year. So they gave me my transcript and instead of writing to Tufts and asking them before applying I set my transcript there and applied. And right away I got that letter "We're sorry."

S What did you do, then after you ?
H I got that letter and now I'm too embarrassed to go back to the University of Massachusetts. I told them that I was leaving them, you see. So I'm too embarrassed and not only that it was 5 years difference. I had to stay out of school from my freshman year to my sophomore year I stayed out of school 5 years. When I went back to my sophomore year my class had graduated 2 years before.

S It's a shame.
H And I was determined to graduate from some college and I had to stay out 5 years to earn enough money to go back as a sophomore.

S What did you do between?
H So now I'm 26 years old -- this is 1927. I'm 26 years old and trying to apply to this school of at Tufts for admission, and they send me this damned letter talking about classes closed and I couldn't get in. So I went to Boston and was working there some on a ship as a waiter, running from Boston to New York -- a passenger ship -- and another old boy, I had lived in Boston for 2 years and I met this old boy I had played basketball against. He was an Alpha man and I wasn't anything. So he was out there and I had played against him in basketball but he had just graduated that year, 1927, from Tufts.

S Aaah, I see.
H He got in. He was uglier and blacker than I am, but he was captain of football, basketball, track and baseball -- a 4 -- letter man. They had to have him to win games, you see. So, he said to me -- he lived in New York -- and he said to me, Hairston, where are you going to school this year. I said that I wanted to go to your school. And he said you got the letter, didn't you? I said, "You're damn right I got that letter." He said, "as ugly as you are if they let me out they sent you the same letter."

<Laughter>

H And he said "I would have sent you the same letter. We don't want anybody at Tufts to look like you." The ugliest and blackest, he looked like something ____ ____ couldn't come ___ ____. And he was a ugly old boy, but he was an athlete. So, finally said, "Do you know anybody at Tufts?" I said, "No I don't know anybody at Tufts. I don't even know where Tufts is." And he said, "Well, it's over in Medford, here, and

<Other voice interrupted.>

H And he loaned me some money and I started studying music. He said, "Do you know any music at all?" And going in as a junior and don't know music one. You see how handicapped we are? And here I am going to study music and going to this fine university -- very expensive, too. If I had known it was so expensive I wouldn't have gone. So anyway, he said the head of the music department is Professor Lewis -- Leo Rich Lewis. He said, "why don't you write him a letter and ask him to let you come over and talk to him. Maybe he could get you in if you're going to study in his department and things." He knew I could sing, but he didn't know that I didn't know music. So, he gave me that tip. When we got into New York, I sat down, I said, "what's his name?, I sat down and wrote him a letter, "Dear Professor Lewis, all my life I have heard of the name Leo Rich Lewis. I have read every article that I could get my hands on about you and all the books that you've written. Man, I laid it on.

S Well, after a letter like that, you can hardly turn a person down.
H I laid it on and he fell for it. And at the end of the letter, boy, I just cried in that letter. I said, "Now, I know good and well that I can't come to the school. They told me I couldn't come to register, but I want to know if I can come over to your house" -- he lives on the campus -- "and just see you a few minutes so I can write my parents in Pennsylvania and tell them at least I saw Professor Leo Rich Lewis." He told me -- Randy Taylor was his name -- and he told me to lay it on strong and I laid it on strong. And that professor wrote me a letter and told me to come over to his house. I went over there -- when the ship came back in again the next trip -- I went over to his house at about 12:00 o'clock in the day. The ship sailed at 5 and I went over there about Noon this day, and he's a very big tall impressive man with New England Van Dyke mustache, you know. He graduated from Tufts in 1887 and this was 1927. Phi Beta Kappa, he had down, you know. He said, "Hairston, can you read music?" I said, "I think so." He said, "I'll find out." He went in and got some music and came out on the porch hot. A screened in porch. The porch was almost as big as this little room.

H I don't want to use your whole tape.

S No. I've got plenty.
H With this story.

S No, go ahead.
H But the kids should know how hard -- and I was no exception. Plenty Arab boys did the same thing, you know, in those days. I didn't stick out. So he went and got some music and came out with a real long _____ _____. I hadn't seen one of them things. It was a foot long. He hit that thing and he said, "That's A. Now, you read the soprano and I'll read the alto." And I read every line. And he said, "Now, I'll sing the alto and you read the bass, you know." We did that for about an hour, one song after another and then he says, "Wait a minute, Jester," and he went in and got some more opera books and things. He said, "Let's be comfortable." This is August. He got down -- and he was so big, about 6 ft. 4", and weighed around 270 pounds and was old, you see. He was almost as old then as I am now. He got down like an elephant on his stomach right on the floor and he and I -- when I saw him get down, he said, "Let's comfortable, Hairston." He was in his shirt sleeves. I said to myself, "I've got him. I've got him." This very big professor and we were like two little boys on the floor, you know. We stayed there reading one song after another. His wife came to the door and said, "You boys want some lemonade?" And he said, "Yeah, bring us some lemonade." I looked at my watch and it was 4 o'clock and the ship sailed at 5:00. I said, "Professor Lewis, I have to go. I don't want to miss my ship." So he said, "Well, Jester, don't hold out any hope. There's nothing I can do because I don't have anything to do with the registrar's office. But I do know the President. We're very good friends." He said, "I'll call over to see what happened." I went to New York, Standifer, and when I came back -- round trip -- there was a letter in my house saying, 'You should feel yourself highly honored that you have been accepted as a student at Tufts University.'

S And this was 1927?
H 1927. And I got in Tufts University and then after I paid my tuition which I borrowed from this woman.... skip in tape ...registrar's office and told me that my grades were high enough to qualify for a full scholarship and as long as I kept up my grades I wouldn't have to pay any more tuition the rest of my life in that school.

S Aaaah. So you were a full ...
H And here I am, didn't know any music at all and got in there and they told me my grades were high -- theory, harmony, and all that stuff, you know and it was just as new to me. So, I didn't have to pay any tuition. My roommate was a kid 18 years and I was 26. He was a freshman and I was a junior. He was from New York City. His folks were in show business and I had run on to ships in the summer time, you know, and he said I was a gangster because a lot of white gangsters ran rum -- this was prohibition days you know -- and a lot of white gangsters ran rum from New York to Boston on this passenger ship that I was working on. I didn't have anything to do with that. I was a waiter, you know. And he said I was a gangster. So, they not only... they gave me my money back that I had paid in September, you see, for the first semester, and I asked them to give it to me in cash. It was about $200 -- $300, and they gave it to me in cash and I put a rubber band around it and we were living in the dormitory upstairs, and I had gone to my room and opened the door and threw the money in there and said, "Hide it, John, the cops are after me." And I cut out, man. That old boy liked to have died. He almost had a heart attack. He thought I was a gangster and the cops were after me.

S My Lord.

<Laughter>

H I went to Boston and stayed about 3 hours in Boston. Didn't come back for 3 hours. When I came back he was still crying and weeping. 18 years old and he said "Take it back." He was so good looking. Oh, Jim, you should have seen this boy. He looked like a Mexican. Tall, handsome and sideburns, you know, he was a picture boy and knew it, and he spent most of his time looking in the mirror and talking about how good looking he was. So, when I finally told him I got the money from the registrar, that they had given my tuition back for the first semester. He looked -- I can see John now -- standing up in front of the mirror looking and primping, you know, he said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, nobody in here but us two. There's no justice. Now here I am, the best looking man I ever saw in my life, I've got everything, I've got a good looking mother and father, and up here and they have to send my tuition and can't come... <Laughter> ...they can't _____ _____. He said "There's no justice." I said, "Well, you got the looks but I got the brains."

<Laughter>

S That makes quite a difference, doesn't it?
H It makes a difference. I said, "I got the brains and you got the looks." All right, now...

S Hester, tell me, after you got out of Tufts, obviously you began to go into earnest into show business. What was some -- right after that -- can you name a string of achievements that you began to establish?
H Awww, man, I can bring you a string of... this apartment because it was 1929 was the crash, and that was the beginning of the real depression. Nobody had money and I couldn't get a job in a show and I was starving. I met a fellow up town, a doctor, a West Indian doctor, and just as fortunate God has always been with me, boy, and I met this man, he was a doctor and a graduate from Tufts and he took me in when he found out, because although he was a very fine stomach specialist he was more interested in music than he was in medicine, so when he found out I was a singer, he took me right in. I stayed with him 3 years. No room rent, no nothing, man. And he helped me to run up and down Broadway trying to find a job and show. I sang with all kinds -- Ms. Jessie -- that same year.

S Oh, really. Well, how did you meet her?
H 1929. She had a big reputation then.

S Is that when she was doing Porgy?
H Before Porgy & Bess. Yes. Porgy & Bess was 1933. This was 1929.

S Oh, I see.
H But she had a choir that sang around at what we called in those days "gigs". At churches and schools or wherever she could get a job singing. She had a small choir and I met her and she heard me sing and then she used to use me with her and then 2 or 3 other guys in New York had choirs, too. They all did that. Gigs, you know. So, when I got acquainted with them and sang for them and they knew I could read, just come out of school you know, and so forth, so I got jobs that other fellows who couldn't read couldn't get because I could read the music like that (snapping fingers), you know.

S Were you arranging at that time?
H No. I didn't know anything about music, man. How could you know anything about music in just two years of music up there at Tufts. I didn't know a thing. So finally I met Hall Johnson. I met Eva Jessie before I met Hall Johnson. I met him, sang for him. He said okay I could sing in his choir and when he had a little job I'd sing for him and then I wanted to become his assistant conductor. I got interested in watching his hands, you see. And I didn't take that at school. But when I sat in the back in the baritone section and became fascinated with his conducting, then I said I want to become a conductor and I asked him, I had been in the choir about six months or a little more, and I asked him if I could become his conductor assistant and study under him. And, boy, he let me have it. He said, "No, I don't think you could, Hester." And I said, "Well, what's the matter. I think I'm the best musician you've got in your choir." And he said, "Well, perhaps you are and that's one of the reasons I don't want you." Boy, he told me. And I don't know whether he had been drinking that day or not, but anyway, he let me have it, and he says, "You don't have the right attitude toward our songs." He was singing only Negro spirituals, you see. And I said, "What do you mean right attitude?" He said, "Well, you're sitting back there in the baritone section singing shan't and can't (with Boston accent) from Boston, you know. He said, "I know damned well you weren't born in Boston. We're singing cain't and ain't and you're singing shan't and can't and they don't mix in the Negro spirituals. So, until you come down off of your high horse and willing to get with us and singing like grandma sang it, well, I'm fixing to ask you to leave the choir, period." And he didn't smile at all. He was serious. And he said, "Who the hell do you think you are. I've got more education in music than you." He had graduated from Julliard and Curtis Institute in New York.

S Oh, my goodness.
H And Philadelphia.

S Philadelphia.
H And so, I cowered then, because when he said he was going to put me out and I didn't know a dadgoned soul in New York but maybe Eva Jessie. And he was the biggest one of the choir directors. So, I had to start and unlearn my New England accent as meticulously as I ever learned it in Boston. Because coming from Pittsburgh I didn't have a New England accent there, and went I got to Boston I stayed so long I got in with the "can't and shan't and oughts," too, you know.

S Paak the caaar.
H Yeah, put the caaar in the gaaraage. So, my wife still teases me. That's about the only thing I will say, "a caaar".

S Well, when you get it it's kind of hard to lose.
H Yes. Pretty hard to lose. So, anyway, I did. I stopped my foolishness and began to sing cain't and ain't with them. It hurt me to do it, but I did it, and all of a sudden I began to be interested in these spirituals and what made the slaves tick to create these spirituals that they did. Then I started in the libraries to do some research work and study...

S Oh, you didn't get a chance to study any of this about spirituals at Tufts, then?
H Naaaw. Man, Tufts is all classical music.

S So your education really began with Hall Johnson, then?
H With Hall Johnson. That's where my education started my motivation for going into Negro spirituals, really. I sang them but I looked down on them. I thought coming from Tufts in Boston, I was above them and I was condescending to do them until I could get somewhere else in the theater. And I wanted to study with him so that I could go on in the theater beyond and I was ambitious to get somewhere in the theater, and I knew that it's best to attach yourself to somebody who already has a reputation.

S Exactly.
H You see?

S Right.
H So, that's what I did. And finally he let me get a little group together and we came up to his house and I taught them harmony and theory and sight -- reading, and in those days nobody had work. Everybody was out of work, so I could get friends and they'd come up there and sing all day long. Nobody had any jobs. We could sing for 4 or 5 hours. I had a blackboard and he was sitting in the back in another room and watch me, and when we were finished he would tell me what I did wrong, you know, in the conducting thing and that's how I started to learn conducting.

S My goodness. Well, now, after you became more involved in conducting what was your next step. You said you met Dr. Jessie. Was she still involved in...
H She was doing gigs and she did her own conducting. I sang with her. Sang in the baritone section and then she formed a quartet and I sang baritone in her quartet. I was the best musician in the quartet so she let me be kind of heading and coached the quartet, you see, and things like that and so we got jobs like that. The first job that came by was in 1932. I was there from 1929 to 1932, just digging. Just getting ...

S You get experience.
H ... one and then I'd go down Broadway where sometimes there was a colored fellow down there that had... ...he was an orchestra arranger and he had a little group. I sang in any group that wanted to sing, you know, and pick up a few dollars. And I lived from hand to mouth all those years. So in 1932, Hall Johnson, our choir was going away on a tour across the country and just a week before we were leaving, NBC studio called and told Hall Johnson that they wanted his choir to be on a radio show called "Maxwell House Coffee Hour". Beautiful program. A big radio show down on Broadway. Hall told them that he would need me all that week, you know, and he said, but I have a young choir here and a good conductor and if you want him, he knows and he can use the same songs. Bring him down now and he said, "Okay, we'll take him and it will be the Hall Johnson choir just the same." So he told me, he called me up and told me, "You've got a job. Thirteen weeks on NBC." Thirteen weeks conducting with that little group that I got together and was teaching harmony to.

S That was quite a big opportunity wasn't it?
H That was the best big opportunity I had on Broadway, and going down on Broadway. But then the White conductor down here of the orchestra -- they had a big orchestra and a White conductor was Donald Voorhies, one of the toughest conductors on Broadway -- a stinker, but a great conductor and he wanted me to arrange. And I didn't know a thing about it. I just knew a little harmony, you know, one chord, four chord, and three chord, ones like that, and he wanted me to make an arrangement of a spiritual each week that if he wanted to make a ____ with the orchestra so that we could orchestrate and sing choir and orchestra. And I didn't know a damned about harmony, so then I had to go to Julliard. I went to Julliard two more years. Boy, I'm telling you, I had it rough. I matriculated in Julliard to find out what theory and harmony was all really about, you see. Then I surrounded myself with some friends in the big Hall Johnson choir and who graduated from Julliard. There were two or three boys and I'd get them and they'd get in this room at night and Hall Johnson was gone with the other choir, and I'd get in the room at night with these fellows and they helped me with these arrangements each week, you know, and I'd browbeat them, "What kind of chord do you call that?" you know, "you guys go to these damned schools no wonder you're so dumb, graduating from Julliard. What's the name of that chord?" And they'd tell me, and that's the way I learned how.

S You learned how.
H Browbeating these men. Browbeating these babies, and learning from them. What chord, which so and so and so and so. I browbeat all those guys and I'd give them a few dollars, you know, cause they were hungry and they weren't doing a doggoned thing so they'd sit there all night. "Well, just this chord here can be used so and so and so and so." I'd say, "Well, let me see. Let's put it there and see." And then I'd browbeat them for it and they helped me with that. They actually made these arrangements and I stayed there 13 weeks for this man and he never found anything wrong with my work. And I went to Julliard during the day and battled with these guys at night. So that was my first big job. I was one year behind in my rent. I hadn't paid my landlady. I moved from the doctor's and I hadn't paid my landlady any money on my rent. It was only $4 a week, and I hadn't paid her any money in a year, and she said, "Mr. Hairston, that's all right, you'll get it. Don't pay me now and the first week you'll need some clothes, man." I had so many patches on my pants. So, I waited two weeks and went to the bank -- I had gotten paid -- and went to the bank and got $100 bill and came home and gave it to my landlady and she thought it was a $10 bill. She said, "Mr. Hairston, that's fine." And she went in her room and I heard her holler. She thought I had stolen it. She came running to tell me, "Take it back." She'd never seen $100 bill in her life she said. And I told her no, I wanted her to have it. Then I paid up six months in advance knowing that when this show was over I might be out of work again. And I paid six months in advance.

S Now this was about 1935?
H No, this is 1933.

S 1933?
H And in the meantime, Hall Johnson had written this show, "Run Little Children", and while he was out of work, while he was out in the country, a woman, Juanita Hall and I... Do you remember that name?

S Right.
H Well, Juanita Hall and I got a group together -- 125 darkies show people -- and put this show together up town in Harlem and we didn't have anywhere to rehears and things. We went over to the Masonic Hall and hoodwinked the janitor over there to let us come in and he had heard of us and he loved singing. So he let us come in there and rehearse every day. This was wintertime. This is the winter of 1932. He let us come in there and rehearse all day long. It was warm in there and we put that whole show -- Juanita and I put the show together. When Hall came back about 5 months later, we rehearsed every day and nobody had money in the Masonic Hall, and when 12 o'clock came, we would take up a collection, somebody had a dime, somebody had 15 cents. We put it all together and the women in the show, certain committee women, would go over to 8th Avenue and buy meat and vegetables. The janitor even let us cook down in the basement. They would go down and cook that stuff and when they hollered "come and get it." We would all go down there and eat and go back and rehearse all the afternoon for 7 months. We did that for 7 months.

S And they never caught on and kick you out or anything?
H No. Man, he was tickled to death. The janitor, and the Masons let us do it. Then when Hall came in, they brought the choir in, he went down Broadway and had a White producer come up and look at the show and the producers liked it and took it down on Broadway.

S Now, where did it open?
H It opened at the 42nd Street Theater, right on 42nd Street near 7th Avenue -- between 7th and 8th Avenue on 42nd Street. And right next door to us, Tallulah Bankhead opened a show. I believe it was "Little Foxes".

S That reminds me. In 1938, Ella Fitzgerald sang "A Tisket a Tasket" and they came with the Chickwell Orchestra. Were you around at that time when she sang?
H I came in in 1936.

S Did you ever see Ella in those days at all?
H No. I never ran into her. I ran into Ethel Waters. I worked with Ethel Waters.

S Oh, you did? Was Ethel as popular? Well, she was singing blues at that time.
H Oh, yes, boy. Ethel Waters was really a deep blues singer in those days. I ran into her. I did a little nightclub show with her and I made an arrangement after I had gone to Julliard and found out what it was all about, you know, and I made an arrangement for her in this nightclub act of "Ouchichonia".

S What kind of name is that?
H A Russian song.

S Aaah, I see.
H And she sang it with the choir. We were all dressed as Black Russians and this was in a Russian nightclub. They had all these Blacks sitting down there. She'd start off "Ouchichonia, Ouchistracia, Ouchistrutia, Niprechrosnia"(???), etc., etc. And the choir would hum "Ooooooooooo, jadya dya ja ja"

S Now did you ever publish that arrangement?
H No, man. I wouldn't know where it is, but it was good, boy, we got a heck of a hand with Ethel Waters in that thing. And ended we were strictly hollering, but we started off just as nice, you know.

S That sounds very theatrical. Were you doing any movies.
H Oh, it was theater.

S Did you ever put any of those in the movies? Or conducted like Dr. Jessie did with the choirs behind movies?
H No. Oh, with Hall Johnson. The only time I got in movies was 1933 in "Green Pastures".

S Oh, "Green Pastures". Right.
H "Green Pastures" opened. I was up at -- oh, you shouldn't have this on tape -- but this is my beginning in show business, you see. I was in Hall Johnson's house ____ ____ and two White men, Mike Todd and I recall the other man name who wrote the book of "Porgy & Bess", no, of "Green Pastures", and so they came up to Hall Johnson's and told him they were going to do a new show on Broadway and they wanted the Hall Johnson Choir. At this time I was living with my doctor friend, so after they got through talking and left, Hall told us -- about 4 or 5 of us sitting around -- and he came in the room and told us that these two White men were going to open a show on Broadway, "Green Pastures", and they wanted his choir to do the music, Negro spirituals. So he told me -- I wanted to be his assistant conductor, you know -- he said, "Well, you haven't been in the choir long enough." I haven't been with them long enough. He said, "I don't think this particular choir would work with you because you haven't got enough experience yet as a conductor and I have to let one of these older men with more experience be conductor and you sing in the choir and I can pay you $40 a week." This is 1933. I went back and told my roommate that Hall Johnson wanted me to sing in the choir and they could pay me $40 a week. I hadn't worked since 1929. My roommate, a haughty West Indian, you know said, "Well, what the hell do they think you are. You're a Tufts man. Working for $40 a week. Tell them to go to hell." As a result, I didn't take the job. The damned show ran three years.

S Oh, my goodness.
H I'm starving to death and that show ran 3 years and I didn't have any pants, no shoes, no nothing and ____ ____.

S Did you go back and kill him?
H I felt like killing him. That daggone show ran 3 years on Broadway. So, after the run from 1932 -- 1935 or something like that, so when the show closed Warner Brothers bought it as a movie picture. They came and bought it and instead of the doing the music with a Black choir already out here in Hollywood, they took 50 of us -- they took our choir from Broadway, cause we were finished with the show than they were, and I was back -- while he had the choir in the show he formed another choir -- his All Johnson Concert Choir, you see. And I was assistant conductor of that choir. How are you getting along?

S Oh, fine.
H So I was the assistant conductor of that choir. When Warner Brothers said they wanted us to come to New York, then I came to New York in December of 1935 with Hall Johnson and 50 of us came out here. And that's what happened in Hollywood. We came out to do the music. We had a contract for 6 weeks and they guaranteed us 6 weeks work and we go back to New York, and I've been here going on 45 years.

S My goodness. I heard you on the phone a few moments ago you said, "This is the house that Wayne built." What did you mean by that?
H I was in a picture with John Wayne called "The Alamo." Have you seen that?

S Yes. Right.
H You saw it the other day?

S Well, not recently but I saw "Alamo" several years ago.
H Well, I'm the old man that got killed with Jim Bowie.

S My goodness.
H I was Jethro in that picture.

S I see.
H Yeah.

S And did you go down in Texas with the cast?
H Stayed months down there. I was the only Black with them. Stayed 3 months in Texas it took us to make that picture. He was talking about whoever it was talking to me, it was just on last week, the "Alamo".

S Oh, I see.
H And that's what he was talking about. He saw me in the "Alamo" last week.

S And it had nothing to do with music. This was your acting debut.
H Yeah, I had a lot of acting experience, too. So, did you? Oh, no, you're too young to see or know anything about Amos and Andy.

S Yeah. Well, when I was a little kid I remember on the radio. Yeah, Amos and Andy was very popular. I used to listen to Amos and Andy quite a bit. And I remember seeing you also in a lot of television programs.
H Look at that. "That's My Mama."

S "That's My Mama". That's right.
H Clifton Davis.

S Right.
H Do you want to take it over? Can you see that thing?

S Yeah, Clifton Davis...
H Theresa Harris.

S Okay.
H do you see it?

S yeah. I got it.
H I was 16 years as LeRoy, the Kingfisher's brother -- in -- law.

S 16 years on Amos & Andy.
H That's right.

S Well, Jester, you have made some television money then. I thought all your money was just music money.
H No. And then I was on the radio show with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, just the 3 of us, called "Bold Venture". It was a radio show.

S About when was that?
H Well, that was, let's see now, I been here 20 years, and so that must have been at least 25 years ago. Lauren Bacall had just -- well if you could find out how old her baby is, he was about 3 at that time.

S At that time?
H Yes. He was 2 or 3 or something like that. So Humphrey Bogart was at his height then and she hadn't been too long married and had a baby. So they wanted -- that's the reason I tell young people when I go to these high schools and things -- learn everything you can from anybody who knows more than you do. You see? Don't put your foot on it. Learn everything you can from all your teachers, or from somebody contemporary sitting next to you. Just because he hasn't gone as far in school as you, you can learn something from him.

S Right.
H And absorb it. Put it up there and keep it and it'll come in handy one of these days. On that ship, did I tell you I ran -- I ran 5 summers on that ship from Boston to New York. All of them, in fact, I don't think there were 10 American Blacks on there. All the rest of them were West Indies and just for fun, I used to pick up the dialects. I made friends with a boy from Jamaica and I picked up the Jamaican accent and then he and I would make fun of the boys how they talked from St. Kits or from Barbados. Then I had friends from Barbados and I picked up that accent and we made fun of the boys from Neevis. I picked up all the different Western Indies accents and then when this job came out, a call came out 25 years ago that they wanted a Negro who could speak with a Cuban -- they wanted Southern accents, see. I beat all of my competition. When I go out to read for a part, there were 8 Blacks who were 79 years old and we been competing against each other for 40 some years.

S Same fellows?
H Yeah Same fellows. We knew each other and sometimes we'd go on a call and all of us said, "Oh, Christ, this is a cattle call."

<Laughter>

H Oh, we had a lot of fun. I had an agent, they have agents, and when the studio wants -- our pictures are in the studio in what they call their bible. And so, they would call the agents and say, "Send your man over. We're going to cast a picture. So when I get there all those babies are sitting there.

S They're there.
H Yeah. They'd say, "Oh, Jessie, they don't want nobody black as you".

S When was the last time you went for an audition?
H I haven't read for a part in 2 years. I'll tell you why. I keep so busy with schools, I don't have time. And the thing about is I've raised my salary with these universities and schools, they're the same thing that I get in pictures. So why the hell should I sit home waiting for a motion picture when I'm busy every week. Sometimes I did -- that's why I'm down with this sickness now. I was doing sometimes twice -- I'd go away from here and do 3 shows, in 3 different towns before I'd get back home. And at my age, carrying those big bags and things, you know. I charge just as much as I get in a motion picture. So, I don't have to wait for pictures anymore. I'm out of pictures now. I still keep up my union dues and things. Oh sure. I keep my dues up in case my agent calls me to read for a picture. And I like to go over and read just to see if I can compete.
Skip in tape.

S First, I know you work with Dimitre Tiumpkin. You mentioned a few moments ago about having done some work with him. Could you give us some brief explanation about that, Jester?
H With him?

S Yeah.
H Yeah, well, he did -- I met him when we were doing "Lost Horizon", and he would come over and make suggestions and everything. One day where he got crazy about me, Hall wasn't there and we were rehearsing this music of his and he wanted a certain type of a pitch. His English was from nothing. You couldn't understand a thing he said, but I grew up with Hungarians and Polish kids in Homestead, you know, steel mills, so I understood bad English, and I understood everything he said, but you couldn't. So he wanted a certain effect. No lyrics, you know, but if you would see "Lost Horizons" again, you'll see at the beginning of the picture they're making a certain theory effect. I got an idea what he was talking about was ghosts, you know. Kind of a ghostly effect. And he said, "Jester, I don't know how to tell you, but I want this effect that scares you." And I said to the choir, "He's talking about hance. I want ya'll to be hancing this score." He said, "What, a ____ ____?" I said, "all right Mr. Junkin, now see if you like this effect." And I said, "I don't want any two of you to say I had the same effect." Just "rrrrrrrrrrrr". Be hance now, and I raised my hand and started, "____ ____, Jester, hance?" And from then on he would say that about me. After that, he called me for another show and ...
Skip in tape

S When was this in?
H In 1961. I worked all that summer of 1961 all over Germany and all over Europe.

S And you were sent there by the State Department?
H State Department, uh huh. As a Goodwill Ambassador and then in 1963 they sent me back again. Then in 1965, they sent me to Mahlay, West Africa.

S Aaaah. Now did you have any difficulty working with the young people in Africa, or is there English?
H Oh, yeah. Oh, no. I had to learn, when I went to Mahlay, they spoke French. That's a French country. I had to learn French.

S Before you got there?
H No. I learned it after I got there. I didn't know I had to speak it and when I got there in Mahlay and I stayed there 3 months in one town working at a conservatory. They wanted a teacher of sight singing at the conservatory in this town of Bomaco. So, when I got there my boss was a woman. She suggested that they wanted me to teach sight singing at this conservatory and I said, "Fine". So, we kept talking and she said, "How's your French?" I said, "French? I can't speak French? Do I have to speak French?" She said, "Well, yeah, this is a French country. They don't understand Black like you, Potato, you can't say 'hi, ya'll'." There's a White woman telling me that. She said, "You can't say 'hi, ya'll', Jessie. You got say 'Bon jour, Monsieur'". And I didn't know any French at all and I said, "Aw, Lord". And we were in her office and she said -- there was an American Woman sitting there in the office and she said, "Well, Jessie, I can stay you 10 days. I teach 4 hours a day in the school. I teach 4 hours a day and don't know a word of their language." And they're -- you're talking about colored, man, they called me blondie. They thought I was ____.

S That sun bakes them, huh?
H Yeah, man. So she said "I can stay with you for 10 days and interpret for you if that'll help you. Then after that I have to go back to my house." I said, "Well, you stay with me for 10 days and I'll have enough of this mess to get along." So what I do -- I've had a lot of experience with people that don't speak English, so I write out as many sentences as I think I can use the next day for the class, you see. Good morning, gentlemen, how are you? Let us begin the class. Sit down, stand up, where's the bathroom. Anything I could think of, you know.

S Right.
H And then she translates that into French and I can memorize that overnight. Page after page and I walked in the classroom and said, "Bonjour Monsieur". And they said, "Oh, bonjour, Doctor." I said, "shut up". I know what I'm saying, but I don't know what you turkeys are saying. "Ya'll shut up until I get a handle on this."

S My Lord. Now, listen, after 1965, at that time you were involved in the movies, weren't you?
H When I come back to the country, yeah, if there's a movie I do it, but then the government sent me back again. I've been 4 times to Africa, different places. In 1967, they sent me to Guinea. I went to Mahlay this first time, then the next year I went to Senegal and to Nigeria, and to Ghana, and then 2 years later, they sent me to Kenya.

S Now, when you'd go to trips like this, were you able to take your wife along with you?
H No, they won't take. I stayed 6 months the time I went Mahlay and I won't do that anymore. I stayed 3 months, but there's too much, man. At my age and my wife is no baby either, you know. She's 10 years younger than I am, but that means she's 68. So, I won't do it for the government. They wanted me to go now. I'm supposed to be in Egypt right now but I had this sickness. I was supposed to be there conducting a choir in Egypt right now.

S I was in North Africa and Libya in March.
H You were?

S Yes, and it was very interesting. The government again sent for me there, but your health is more important. I'm glad that you're here instead.
H Yeah. You talk about experience, I'm no musician and I know that. But I conducted the Messiah in Madagascar. Down in Madagascar. The whole Messiah -- both sections. The whole sections. And not only that, we did 4 of my Christmas Spirituals and they did about 4 or 5 of their folk songs, plus the Messiah. The concert just lasted until the middle of the night, and I'm conducting the Messiah and reading from my score -- English naturally -- and they're singing it in their language -- Molagosh. Did you ever hear the Messiah in Molagosh?

S Never. I'll be that's something, isn't it?
H They sing it in Molagosh and then the soloists, when the soloists start singing, sometimes it'll take them 3 words to say what we say in one. So I just had to hold up there until they were through.

<Laughter>

H You just have to adjust. And my vaudeville and show experiences helped me to adjust, and I can adjust to anybody. I've had all kinds of experiences in that.

S You're life and you is the best example of what I say -- we get exposure to forms of education in schools, but you don't get an education until you get into life.
H That's right. That's right.

S That's when you really begin to learn.
H That's right. Yeah. Yeah, you get a little

S Introduction made at school?
H ...introduction, but your education comes from living.

S Exactly. And you're a good example of that.
H And you have to adjust and living and working with people shows you how to adjust to them, because if you're going to make everybody do what you do, then you're not going to get along very well.

S What are some of your favorite spirituals, Jester, that... I know you've done a lot, but
H I have a spiritual that -- a new arrangement I made of a spiritual in practice and adaptation, because I did so much on it it's not a spiritual anymore, you know. Most of it is mine. It's called "Lay Your Head in the Window, Jesus". And I like that.

S singing Jesus Lay Your Head in the Window.
H Yeah.

S Is that the one?
H That's it.

S John Work was my conductor.
H & S singing

S Yes. I sang the solo of that when I was at Fisk.
H You did?

S Right.
H Well, now here's how I'll show you how I adapted it. You'll never know. I got a soloist. She says, "Lay Your Head in the Window, Jesus. Lay Your Head in the Window, Jesus. Lay Your Head in the Window, Jesus, can't you hear dis sinner pray. My Lord" then the choir comes in. It's all together different. And the middle part says (the men come in) "I ask my Lord to help me" and the girls "help me, Lord." It's all in there. "Can you help me to lean on His arms, he took my feet out of the miry clay, now the devil can't do me no harm, no, no, no, no, the devil can't do me no harm." And then in 3, "Lay your head in the window, Jesus." And the choir sings -- the sopranos sing the melody, "Lay your laden head oh lay your head, lay down your sweet head." All together different.

S When you're performing in so many countries, obviously, these people want to buy your music. Does your publisher make it available in all these countries?
H Yes. I'm going to Denmark in March. I'll be there for 2 weeks and they're getting the music right now. They get it from England.

S In their language, too, sometimes?
H In English. No, they get it in English. I went to Yugoslavia, Jim, and did one of the best concerts you ever heard and nobody knew a word of English, but they sang it back at the radio show with the best choir. This choir did nothing but long -- haired music, and Yugoslavia and Finland, too. I worked with a choir about 85 people -- 85 people in Helsinki, Finland. They sang for nothing but radio, you see. The youngest person in the choir was 30 years old. Everybody in the choir had graduated from the Helsinki Conservatory. They're musicians. Where are you going to find that kind of choir in this country?

S Never anywhere.
H You haven't got that choir at the University of Michigan.

S No.
H Or nowhere in Michigan. With everybody in the choir had graduated from the Conservatory.

S I bet that was fantastic working with them, wasn't it?
H Aaaah. Read anything you put up there. I have an arrangement of "Wading in the Water" and it's kind of rough in the last part. I have 2 -- part altos and 2 -- part sopranos, and they're all screaming dissonances and things, you know. So I was working with these people and I told them the story about the song, so, I'm working with them and I thought I heard an alto make a mistake in the alto part. And only one woman in the whole choir, I stayed there with them for a week and would rehearse everyday for a week for this radio show and nobody spoke English and they learned 7 of my songs for this radio show in English. And the first day, a woman sitting at my right. I said, "Who speaks English?" Nobody said anything. "Who speaks English?" Nobody said anything. So then, I thought maybe they couldn't hear me and I said, loudly "Who speak English?" And finally, this woman who was very shy said, "If you speak to me slowly, I'll understand what you say." And she was so good. So, I told her she was my interpreter. She didn't understand but one half of what I said, but she was a big help. So, I told her, I think I hear a mistake in the alto parts. So she turned around and said in Finish to the choir, "Professor says he hears mistake in the altos." Well now, an American choir would say, "Yes, so what? Who was it?" Everybody got quiet. Mistake. They looked around at each other. They were hurt. "But Professor we don't make mistakes." They looked at her and said "there hasn't been a mistake made in 20 years." They were hurt. "How could he say we make mistake. We don't make mistakes." And I got so embarrassed because they didn't say a word. "How could that man say we made a mistake? Nobody makes a mistake in this choir." And I told her, I said, "Listen, I'm composing another song in my mind now to write when I get back to America, and it's almost finished, but it's in another key and dissonance and this was my mistake. I heard that song. You tell them this was my fault. I'm composing another song in another key and that's what got it wrong." And she turned around and told them that.

S They felt a bit better, huh?
H Yeah.

S Again, that was tact on your part.
H Yeah. Yeah.

S You knew again that you had...
H Oh, man, I'm in trouble, because I run into those things everyday. I'll tell you what I did in the Cameroon's. Do you know where the Cameroon's are?

S Yeah, right. French Cameroon's? Were you in the French Cameroon's?
H French and English Cameroon's. So, now I'm over in the French Cameroon's. I worked first in the British Cameroon's, but then I went over there to the French Cameroon's and that's where our Embassy is over there in Yaundy, so the Ambassador said to me, "Jester, we need the friendship of these people, the diplomats, and if you can give a concert here and make a big splash for me, it'll help our country out so much, because I'll invite all the diplomats to the concert", and I wasn't going to be there but for 4 days in this country, and how the heck you're going to give a concert when these people speak French -- no English. So I told him, I said, "Well, I'm only going to be here 4 days, I don't see how I can give a concert. How many people have you got?" He said, "I've got 2 choirs and I can combine them over here in town. There's a Catholic Church choir with 130 people, and on the other side of town there's a men's choir of 50 men, so I can combine them and you've got 180 people to work with." And I said, "Can they read?" "Oh, no, they can't read." Now, if they're going to learn from rote, and 3 rehearsals, because the 4th day is the concert, you see.

S That's weird.
H So I said, "I'll tell you what. I don't speak French well enough to carry the rest that fast. I've got to have 3 -- hour rehearsals. So they have to stay 3 hours at least. And I have to have an interpreter." He said, "Okay, I give you an interpreter." He brought a woman in there -- an American woman -- where she spoke French. So she said at the first night of rehearsals, "Now, Jester, I can't hold but 3 sentences at once." This is what you get in the field. You don't get this in school. You've got to adjust to this. Nobody in any school, University of Michigan or nowhere would run into a situation like this unless they go to a country like that. So now, 180 people. That is cool, sitting there waiting for me to teach them. She says, "I can't hold but 3 sentences. So, I gave her 3 sentences that I want to start talking to these people. And I have to be conservative because I want to get into the scene, so I just introduced myself. So I tell her and she told the group what I said in English. When she got through speaking, a man over here on my right held up his hand and said to her in French, "My people are Awoondie(?) and they don't even understand French. So he had to tell his people in Awoondie what she said in French and I said in English. And when he got through in Awoondie, telling his people, another man way over on the other side on my left held up his hand and said, "My tribe is Dwala(?). We don't understand them." All Black, now you see they're all Negroes, Liberalites, now here these people don't even understand these people, right in the same town -- there are different tribes.

S Right.
H And so he had to tell them in Dwala what she said in French that I said in English. Only 3 sentences and every single thing I said had to go through 4 translations.

S So you were lucky to get through ...
H They learned 6 songs, and here's what saved me. The conductor of the men's choir was the best musician I've ever seen on land or sea. He was a good looking man, features, and he came Black as coal, man. He looked like night, but intelligent. He came to me and said, couldn't speak a word of English, he came to me and said in French, "Do you have, could you sing", he brought manuscript paper, you see, and he says, "could you sing? What songs do you sing you can start with?" And I told him, he said, "Could you sing the soprano?" I said, "Yes". I said the soprano line and he writes just like that. "Alto?" You never saw anything like that in your life. And I sang the alto part, tenor, bass, and when I sang the bass part, boom, he had a score and he gave that score to the priest, the conductor of the Catholic church was the priest of the church, and he was a fine composer, too, but he couldn't write like this man. So he gave him that score and then he made another score of that song and he would help the sopranos while this man helped the altos and I'm working with the basses.

S Jester, what was this man's -- was he an educator, or composer, or...?
H He was a composer.

S Oh, no wonder.
H He was a composer and he wrote just like a typewriter and I said, "Oh walk lil chilren don't you get weary. Lil chilren don't you get weary."

S Just like that? Right?
H Just like that. You never saw anything like that in your life. And for those 6 scores, he made a score for himself and a score for the priest and that's the way we got through with those 6 songs. We learned 6 songs and gave a concert the night before I left and the people came. Some of the women walked 12 miles from the country into the town just to sing. One night, I was working with the altos, a whole lot of altos, and these were all grown people, you see, and they didn't have but about maybe 10 young girls in their teens. Everybody else were adults, you see. So, I'm working with the altos here and I put my arms around him, you know, and rubbed their hair. They just looked like my aunt, you know. Just like right here at home. So I would put my arms around them and sing with them, you know, with the altos and go to another row and hug this one and sing with them. So, as I walked up the aisle going back to the front of the hall, I hadn't looked back -- all of them were throwing kisses.

S Well I can see you felt right at home and they felt right at home with you.
H Yeah. Right at home. And they couldn't speak a word of English and I couldn't speak a word in their language, but we had the same something in common and they loved these spirituals. And they were just throwing kisses at me, boy. That's when you know you're reaching them, you see. You're reaching them. And the conductor must have more. Now you be sure and tell your conductors this... A conductor must have much more than a knowledge of sharps and flats to be a successful choral conductor -- any kind of conductor, but especially a choral conductor. The people, especially working with volunteer people, you see, you've got to have a personality enough to make the people want to sing for you. If they don't want to sing for you and you're cussing them out and everything -- they worked all day long, 8, 9 and 10 hours in the day and then come home and walk 12 miles to come to sing, and then you cuss her out and tell how great you are, you know and so forth, and cussing her out and telling her how stupid she is, they don't want to hear that. And you can't get a decent performance. But, oh, did I love that man. And I just loved them and called them sweetheart and darling, and they sang their cans off. And the night of the show, the night of the performance, I made a special arrangement right there of "Go Down Moses," and I could have saved a whole of time by singing the solo myself and let them come in on "Let My People Go," you see, but I'm a show man. I'm really into theater. I gave it to the 2 conductors -- both of them were baritones, and I had them sing the solo, and then the night of the performance, the conductor that wrote out the music, was dressed in a beautiful white tuxedo. White tuxedo, boy, against this background of solid black and he was so good looking, you know, and jet Black in his white tuxedo, and the priest was dressed in a long black robe. And these two men standing up there together, and you should have heard them sing in English. Both of them, the priest was a great conductor. I've got some of his records now. He's written 4 or 5 masses in their language -- Catholic masses in their language. Drums and all, see? And like Mr. _____, well he has written some before that. So, this is the way they sang it. "When this trial was in Egypt long, let my people" -- they say peepel -- "let my peepel go." Chest tone quality, but they had the tools. But they sounded just like the people did in Yugoslavia. And here is Black singing "Go Down Moses" sounded just Yugoslavians, because they couldn't speak English, you see.

S Aaah. Right.
H And they didn't sound like -- sometimes I would look at them and say, "Are ya'll kiddin?" And they didn't understand what I was saying and I look at them and said, "Are you _____ kiddin?"

S Cause their appearance is obviously black, huh?
H Yeah. Sure, they're Black. Looked just like me and everything and talking about "Let my peepel go."

S Jester, we have probably 10 minutes. I'm going to ask you some quickies. Could you name, in terms of film or television, name about 5 or 6 plays or shows that you've been associated with. You mentioned "That's My Mama" with Clifton Davis and what's the woman's name who was My Mama?
H Theresa Harris.

S Yes. She appeared in "The Wiz", I believe, didn't she?
H Yeah. She was in that. I was in "Lady Sings the Blues".

S Oh, "Lady Sings the Blues" with Dinah Ross.
H I was a butler in that play. I was in "The Heat of the Night" with Sydney Poitier.

S Right. Did you go on location with them?
H Yeah, sure, on location. We went down to Kentucky or somewhere.

S What was your role in that, Jessie?
H My role was that of a butler. If you see that picture again, and I'm sure you will cause it's very popular, Sydney was a detective, you know, and so they were looking for a man that's a criminal and they went up to the country to a rich man that had a greenhouse. Do you remember that? He was very rich and when they rang the doorbell I came to the door. I was the butler. I let them in and they asked me where was this man and I said I'll show you, and I took them around the side of the house and he was in his greenhouse. Then, when he started talking to him and he asked them would they like some lemonade. They said, "Yes, we'd like it." He sent me for some lemonade. By the time I came back with the lemonade, Sydney and he had gotten in an argument and he slapped Sydney and Sydney slapped him back and walked out. Do you remember that scene? And I'm standing right there with the lemonade and I gave him a hell of a look. The camera spanned right in on me when he slapped Sydney and Sydney slapped him and walked out. And I looked as if to say to him, "You old son -- of -- a -- bitch," you know, looking at the white man, cause I worked for him but I was very disgusted with him smacking Sydney like that. I was in an actor in "The Alamo", and an...

S "The Alamo" with John Wayne and you mentioned something with Humphrey Bogart.
H Humphrey Bogart, that was with a radio program called, "Bold Venture". "Bold Venture" with Humphrey Bogart, and oh, gee whiz I've been in so many radio shows. I was in a show way back with Betty Davis and George Brent.

S Oh, really? What was that?
H Oh, I don't know what the play was. These were back every week, they'd call you for things with different actors, etc., so I've had a whole lot of experience.

S How long were you with Amos and Andy?
H 16 years.

S My goodness...
H I played the part of LeRoy. I started with them in 1944. You weren't even born were you?

S Yes. I was born in 1936.
H Oh, 36?

S That's why I said I had a chance to hear them. I just look young, Jester.
H I worked with for 16 years.

S Are you able to get residuals from something like that, or do they cut off...
H Not from Amos and Andy. It's just in its late years now. Now, I worked in a picture here, oh, I just got a nice residual from, oh, with Fred Astaire in "Finian's Rainbow." I was in a quartet with Fred Astaire.

S And you got residuals from that?
H Yeah. Oh, gee whiz, I got

S That was in the 50s wasn't it?
H Yeah, it was in the 50s, but I got a check of about $200 and something dollars the other day residual.

S Every time they show that movie, ...
H Every time they show it, you did it, but it's progressively less.

S Oh, I see.
H The first time you get according to what you got in the picture, you get a certain percentage. And if they show it again you get less and less and less. I was in a Tarzan picture -- I was in a whole lot of Tarzan pictures -- you don't remember -- oh, no you don't remember, but I was in practically all of the pictures of Johnny Wisemiller. I was a native running around there with a ring in my nose yelling "wanna dis" and "wanna dat". And then I got to be a witch doctor in a Tarzan picture called "Tarzan's _______ in Jungle". I was a witch doctor in that.

S Let me ask you one other question and I want to get this on tape. Now, obviously, we all get older and at some time or another, we're going to die. If, for example, there was one
H And it's on the record.

S One of Jester's most favorite -- what are your favorite spirituals, Jester, again?
H Don't be a weary traveler, come along home to Jesus.

S And it's on that recording that we've just heard.
H It's on the recording of the Danish choir.

S Okay. Very good. Now you mentioned a few moments ago that you had written a poem for President Roosevelt.
H Yeah, back in 1935 I wrote a poem.

S Could you recite that at the end of the tape today?
H Yes. This was in 1935 I wrote this poem for Roosevelt and got the best job I ever had in New York as a result. I had solved a many problems in my days upon this earth, and I've had a lot of fun in doing so. I found out how the Pharaohs built their ancient pyramids and how old Joshua ripped the walls of Jericho. I found out where the star...

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END OF INTERVIEW