Andy Kirk

S = Standifer
A = Andy Kirk

S We are talking to Mr. Andy Kirk. Mr. Kirk resides here in New York City, we are his home, in fact in his study at 555 Edgecomb Ave. His wife is in the living room with his sister-in-law, playing Pokeno or something of that sort and looking at television. Mr. Kirk was just telling me that he was going through some pennies and things that he had just taken from one of his friends and a former member of his band. What was the name of this gentleman and just exactly what has happened.
K Harry Larsen. I met him when he was in Dallas, Texas, back in 1926. I went down there to join.... orchestra and he was working with the.... orchestra. We became very friendly. In 1929 I took over the leadership of the orchestra and that became Clouds of Joy. This man was my first trumpet player for years, from 1928 to 1958, 30 years. He decided he wasn't going to play any longer and went to work for a brewery company. He stayed with them until they moved to Jersey. Then I didn't see too much of him, once a year he would come to the union to pay his dues. He was an honor member, he only paid $6 a year, so he would come down and say, see you Saturday. Saturday would be next year when he would come down to pay his dues. One reason we were very close, he was close to me because I had pneumonia one time. We were in Syracuse, New York. It was in the dead of winter. I had pneumonia and I didn't realize how sick I was and I wanted to get down to Pottsville, Pa., where I knew some people, had a nice warm home. We were going to open at Howard Theatre a couple of weeks later so I thought I would stay there. When we picked Larsen up he saw me and said is that man going? I am not going with that man, can't you see that man is sick and he walked away. That could have saved my life because I did have pneumonia.

S How did he happen to quit? Did he just all of a sudden quit?
K It was suddenly, but he just decided he wasn't going to play any longer. When he did this little thing with his mouth, when he said, man I ain't playing no more, he meant that his lips wouldn't stand it, the pressure.

S Where was this?
K This was right here in New York City. We were playing Ottoman Ballroom.

S When was this?
K That was 1958.

S And the group was the Clouds of Joy, playing at the ballroom and afterwards he just came up and pointed out that was it.
K That was it, he just quite playing. Then I would see him once or twice a year. He came by a couple of times. John Williams and John Harrington were former members of the orchestra one lives in Denver and the other in Columbus, Ohio. We got together one year and goes with us. I think in the middle 60s. We stayed about half the night just talking about old times.

S Did he say whether or not he had picked up the trumpet anymore?
K I know he didn't. He's got a lot of Indian in him. I've got a picture of him.

S He does look Indian there. He's a good looking man, I can tell you that. What age was he when he died.
K He was born in 1902 and he just died this year.

S So that's 78 years old. That is the same age as my father. That is pretty young according to my dad, anyway. You said you came from Dallas. I recall that you came from Dallas and went to Kansas City. That was your next stop and your next place of performance activity prior to leaving there and going elsewhere.
K When we went to Kansas City we were on a regular job, Claymore Ballroom. We were all enjoying that local, Kansas City Local 627. Those were happy days. It was during the depression but we didn't feel the depression in Kansas City.

S Who were some of the people that played? I know that Lester Young played with during that time.
K Lester was with me after Ben Webster, then Buddy Tate, then Lester Young and then Dick Wilson. They were all with Dick Wilson I had Don Byas

S What did he play?
K Tenor sax.

S Lester played tenor too, didn't he!
K All of these that I mentioned are tenor saxophone players.

S That brings up another point. I read somewhere also that Lester left Count Basie and then played with you for about six months and then went back. Then Count Basie told him that he was getting another tenor player and they ended up having two tenor players and that started a tradition in jazz known as the battle of the tenors. Do you know anything about that at all?
K I had two tenors, at one time I had three tenors. It wasn't for any reason other than to get the sound we wanted out of the arrangements that we had. I used two tenors, a baritone, an alto, and my sax section.

S Who were playing these particular parts?
K John Williams was the first alto man at one time, then I had John Harrington who is out in Denver now. He was with me for many years. I had so many different musicians especially during World War II where many of them had gone to the army so I had to replace them.

S I am asking a lot about Lester Young because he is quite historical. Why is it he carn and stayed 6 months? Was he just sort of filling out what he wanted to do and where he wanted to be?
K I think you have the answer there. He just felt that he wanted to, I'll tell you, Lester was stylist, the style of music he played he wanted those around him to be thinking the same way he thinking. Later, he ended up on 5Znd street with the bop musicians. He was a fine tenor man, had a different sound than the other tenor saxophones. Lester was an alto saxophone player firs and I think he thought along that sound that he used to get out of the alto. He had a lighter sound than Ben Webster or Don

S So you are saying that while he played tenor he was probably thinking alto all along an as such he got that type of sound.
K Because he was an alto player before he picked up tenor.

S When he went back to Basie, do you recall what arrangements Basie was doing then, were they mostly his arrangements or did he do some Fletcher Henderson arrangements?
K I don't know.

S Did you ever do any Fletcher Henderson arrangements?
K Yes. Fletcher Henderson was the man who caused me to be in New York City.

S How did that come about?
K We were playing the Claymore Ballroom and Fletcher used to go out from the Roseland Ballroom, that was his home. He would go out on the road and take a tour. He came to the Claymore in Kansas City and played on the bandstand with me, he was the feature and we were home band and he was the visiting band. He heard the band and we became very friendly. That was 19Z9. When he went back to New York and told the people at Roseland about this western ba so through Henderson I came to the Roseland and stayed six weeks there.

S Did they pick up your option after six weeks were over?
K No, because Fletcher was going to come back. At one time I was MacKinney's Cotton Pickers. They had broken up and he had some dates to play through Ohio, so he got in touch with me and asked me if I had some dates I could play for him so he appeared with me.

S You said, in essence, as a band leader you became and with some of the group the McKinney Cotton Pickers rather than Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy.
K Yes, to fill his dates. I was still Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy but on these dates I was McKinney's Cotton Pickers. Back to Fletcher Henderson. Fletcher, we were down through Ohio at this particular time, and he had a debutante party to play in Cincinnati, Ohio, so he got in to with me because he was recording, on the air here in New York City, on this particular date he came down to Cincinnati to play with my band under his name at that particular time. During the intermission one of the guests came up to him and said, Fletcher, this is a good band, one thin. is amazing, just a half hour ago I heard you on the air from New York.

S With each person I have talked to, especially when we get into the big bands, and I do have a very fine interview with Count Basie. I keep hearing the Fletcher Henderson arrangements and what he would do, what his arrangements did to the sound of certain bands and orchestras. What can you say about his arrangements that maybe contributed to the sound, what made them unique, what made them Fletcher Henderson?
K I don't know that I quite understand what you are saying.

S I am not sure that I understand also. I guess it was the Goodman band where I am told he played a lot of Henderson.
K Oh, yeh, Henderson made a lot of arrangements for Goodman.

S Right. His band really took off after he undertook the Henderson arrangements. I was just curious was it anything that his arrangements did that was unique, maybe give a bigger sound or more cohesive sound, or more swinging sound?
K He was always swinging. It was a Fletcher Henderson style.

S Did he favor one section of instruments as opposed to another?
K He gave different musicians a chance to blow. Coleman Hawkins was his star tenor saxophone player. Had that big song. Others, like Ben Webster copied that sound. Lester didn't have that particular sound. I am not sure, but I know that Fletcher wasn't too happy with the sound that Lester had for his band. Lester was a fine musician and a stylist but Fletcher wanted that big sound like Coleman Hawkins, he was used to that.

S When did Fletcher Henderson get his training to be such a fine arranger. Was he a schooled musician?
K Yeh, he was a schooled musician. I don't recall where, I know he was from Georgia but don't know where he got his schooling.

S Did you insist that your people read?
K It was important for them to read. I came up under a reader. I came up under an orchestra leader who was a violinist, George Morrison. He wasn't a fiddle player, he was a violinist. He used to do a lot of country club work and things like that where he had to play classics. He played solos by the master. It was important out there because in a city of 400,000-500,000 people only 5,000 were blacks.

S So they played mostly for whites then.
K That's where we made our living.

S Did this mean that you perhaps had to gear your sound to the type of people?
K I think it was just natural for us. I don't think I learned too much about jazz until I went Texas. We were playing. society music out in Denver. Larsen's orchestra made a living off of the society people. We played the country club and things like that

S Music to dance and eat by?
K That's right. We played waltzes, we played everything. That was our clientele. He would, the people that come to New York and see the shows, they wanted the music that they heard in the shows. Sometimes we wouldn't play over ten different tunes a night because they wanted it over and over, like Shuffle Along. We had to play I'm Just Wild About Harry over and over. Irene. I think there was a show Irene, Alice Blue Gown was the hit song in the show.

S What did it sound like.
K Alice Blue Gown was a waltz, named after Alice Roosevelt who later became she was Cleveland Roosevelt's daughter. This waltz was the hit song of the show because it was named after Alice Roosevelt. Then we used to have to play other waltzes. That was our background music. Every student in the public school system from the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade had to have music. Paul Whiteman's father was a music supervisor in the public schools in Denver. Wilberforce J. Whiteman was his name.

S When was this?
K I was in high school in 1913, 14, 15, 16.

S And Paul Whiteman's father was supervisor of music.
K He would come with a pitch pipe.... sound and give me some do ra, me fa, so, la, te, and we would sing songs like that. Our background was,well, we had to sing things like German songs in German classes. They had songs like.... I had German in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. The German teacher would never speak English, so she would say....

S So you got your basic training even in school in Denver.
K Right. Everything I got in Denver. I studied saxophone under.... who moved his family from Boston. He played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This was a health climate, people with TB came to Denver. That's the reason he was out there and I studied under him.

S Essentially, that's far back into your home life do you have any brothers and sisters ?
K A little later I'm going to show you my family album. You'll see my grandmother and her five daughters and two sons. Those five daughters, all married, not a one of them had a child. My uncle, Jim Kirk, had three sons, and my father, Charles Kirk, had me.

S Do you have children?
K I had a one son, he died.

S What I am thinking about is the continuation of the line. They will continue through the other boys though. Where are they?
K One of them is in Denver, the other lives in Chicago, and the other one died.

S Are any of the other Kirks musicians such as yourself. In the old days or even now.
K My father was. He played a little guitar and sang. When I went to Cincinnati he would greet me like a father and son. He would say, what do you want to eat, boy.

S Sounds like my daddy. Fathers always think that children want to eat, and mothers do to. How did you get to jazz. Your education sounds remarkably like mine. I'm not a jazz artist. I am very interested in it and I did a lot of church work. But I am a classical musician at the University of Michigan. You went in a different direction. How did that direction change after school?
K After school I went to a little town called Sterling, Colorado. I was working in a barbershop shining shoes. I was getting $6 a week. I stayed up over the barbershop and shines had gone for 5 cents to 15 cents, this was during World War I, and there were only 7 blacks in the city. Sundays were very dreary. One of the barbers played in the city band, a trumpet player. He always had some musical literature around. So one rainy day there was no shining, nothing going on. I was look through this magazine and he said you interested in music. I said, yeh, I like music. I was taught music in school. He said, look, I'm going to show you something. A saxophone is the new instrument, this is coming instrument, its a German thing. If you want to pick up an instrument I advise you to buy a saxophone. Around the corner from the barbershop was a drugstore and there were an agent for a Chicago catalog firm. They happened to have a tenor saxophone on display there for $75, brand new. Now that same horn would cost over $500 today.

S That was pretty expensive then, though wasn't it.
K Yeh, and I cleared around $60 a week. That is what put me into the instrument. I knew how to read music and I had a chart that taught me.... so I went on back to Denver and studied with.... I told you about the man who was in the Boston Symphony where he played clarinet. So I studied with him awhile and he said what you want to do is get some practical experience, get with some orchestra. So I got with George Morrison's orchestra, I'll show you a picture later.

S Now, let's move back to Dallas.
K I am getting to Dallas. I went on a tour with Morrison in the early 20s and we had 26 weeks on.... time, starting in Minneapolis, Winnepeg, through western Canada to the West Coast and on down and ended in Kansas City. Now I got a bug for music. In the meantime there was a young fellow from Arkansas, Little Rock, Fats Waller, came out to Denver and was playing some jazz. It was a different style than what we were playing out west. I was only 16 when he came out to Denver on a summer vacation.

S What instrument was he playing?
K Alto sax. I thought he was great. I spoke to Morrison about him and Morrison heard him. And then I had to talk to his parents and ask if he could go with us on this tour, this 26 weeks. They consented and told me to take care of him, he was only 16. After the 26 weeks we came back to Denver in a couple of groups, like 4 or 5 pieces playing a lot of roadhouses. He went to a job and I went on a job for the summer. When he came off his job and I came off my job in the summer, we saw an ad on the billboard, they wanted an alto saxophone player and a tuba player. I was also playing bass. I took my tuba and we went to Chicago together. All we did was rehearse and found out the guy didn't have anything. Fats had a call from Dallas to come down. He went down and I stayed in Chicago a couple weeks working in a ballroom on 47th street at the Warrick Hall. The very next week he sent me a telegram and said they needed a tuba player. I went down and joined the same band that he was with. That was T. Holder's orchestra. Holder had been with Alfonzo Trent and left and organized his own orchestra. We worked with Holder for three years for the Northeast Amusement Corporation, touring ballrooms, two in Tulsa and two in Oklahoma City and we would go from one ballroom to the other. After going to Texas I am getting different sounds in my ear, jazz. I was so pleased to hear the southern style, what they were playing in Texas. It became a part of me.

S Who were some other of the big time people, blacks, that remember, jazz people, in Texas at that time?
K Alfonzo Trent had an orchestra.

S ....listen to radios and records and sounds from all over.
K What we were listening too, then, those southern musicians have their own sound.

S Was it more of a black, swinging sound?
K It was swinging. They were improvising. Fats was great. In fact, Holder had a 12 piece orchestra and I used to rehearse the orchestra for him. So we'd get printed music and Fats Waller would take a solo and I would say that sounds good. Then I would copy, write down what had played and voice it for the other two saxes.

S That is very interesting Your musicianship was such that you could take the dictation as they were playing and write it down. Did you actually do it on charts or notation.
K Notation. Then put the harmony to it for the tenor and the other alto, we used three saxes two altos and a tenor.

S For your people who couldn't read did you have to.... Anyway, as a musician you seem as many musicians, more concerned with the music. And sometimes the financial aspects were secondary.
K Yes, they shouldn't have been, but that is the way we worked.

S Are there any other instances that you feel that you were able to identify, that you learned that you weren't getting the full loaf.
K It was laid out to me. The.... Theatre in Los Angeles and one of who had been our office had fallen out with the owner. He had gone with the Frederick Brothers out on the Coast. He came backstage and hit me on the back and said, Andy, what a beautiful band. It sounds so great. He said do you feel like an old steak. I said yeh and we went over to Lyman's Steak House and sat down and had a steak. So he says have you still got the phony contract. I said what do you mean phony. So he laid it out to me. I went to the telephone and called New York. I called Jo and told her. Said what are you all upset about. I said I was upset because didn't think I was going to get a deal like this.

S You trusted him.
K Yeh. So he said you are in Los Angeles and I am in New York. You are going to be in York in 10 days come on up to the office and any problems that you have come on up and we will talk about it. I came back and went to the office. He shook hands with me and said Frances, that was his secretary, bring Andy Kirk's old contract. He didn't ask me anything about what cause this, got out the papers and said what do you want. I said I want so and so and so. He wrote it down and it took about a half and he said are you satisfied. I said I hope I will.

S , You mean without any discussion he began to ask you what it was you wanted and tore your old contract and drew up a new one.
K Right away. He knew somebody had given me the facts. He wasn't very friendly with me after that. Near the end of the big band era anyway.

S How long were you under contract with him after that?
K About 5 years.

S Did you make many records?
K Yeh, I made a gang of records.

S Which are some of your favorite?
K My hit tune was "Until the Real Thing Comes Along"

S Sometime I talk to people about their hits but that isn't their favorite. It was your favorite? Or do you have some other.
K I had a number of favorites. 1929 we were playing at the Claymore Ballroom, it is a dance orchestra and we play dance music. People from Brunswick and.... came down from Chicago to hear different bands because they were looking for black bands to make some race records. They didn't have a catalog of Brunswick. We went in and did some things. Mary Lou wrote something, things that just come off the top of her head, and write it out and put a name to it. This went on from 1930 through 1934. 1936, I think it was, these people went over to England and got the Decca label, the right to use the Decca label. Then they got in touch with me and told me they had a new label, if I could get into New York, 7th Avenue, they had a studio and we would make some more things on the Decca label. We did. I had a fellow by the name of.... got out of one of the clubs in Kansas City. He was a singer, had a nice voice. We had this tune, Until the Real Thing Comes Along, all the bands in Kansas City played it. It was written by three lids from Topeka, Kansas. They had a ukelale, but their names were not on the song. I asked them, I spoke to Jack Kapp who was the manager and I told him I wanted him to listen to this boy sing and listen to this tune, When the Real Thing Comes Along. He says to me, what is the matter with you. Every time you fellows get something going for yourself you want to do what the white boys are doing. I told him I objected to that, I didn't go along with that at all. His brother in law was a publisher, was doing Fletcher Henderson's theme song and he wanted us to do it on this new label.

S What was the name of his theme song?
K Fletcher's, I'll think of it later. We did it. And I said you said you were going to listen. He shook hands with everybody and thanked them for a good setting. Then I said you said you we going to listen to this ballad. He said what's the matter with you. Every time you fellows get something going good for yourself you want to do what the white boys are doing. I said we aren't doing what white boys are doing we are doing it because we like it, people like it. We did Christopher Columbus, Fletcher's, theme. We did Until the Real Thing Comes Along and he didn't pay any attention to it. But when it came out instead of doing 15,000-16, 000 we did 85, 000. The next time we came in he said Poor Butterfly. I had some jazz to do and it almost took us out of the jazz field because of that. The main thing that they heard was the money come from it.

S These were still the race record people.
K Yes, these were the same people. They had another band for the dance now because they found out we could play these ballads, and the ballads were the biggest sellers.

S What percentage of that were you getting, or were you given a flat fee?
K The recording, we were getting paid for the recording.

S So if they sold 1, 000 records you didn't get anything from that?
K Not from the beginning, but later on. We did a thing some years back called Wednesday Night Hop. It was a jazz tune, a swing tune, fellow by the name of.... wrote it from Baltimore. He got the title from a Ballroom, Wednesday nights were bgi nights. I still get a few pennies from that and that was years ago.

S On what label is that? Decca?
K Decca. I belong to ASCAP and I get writer's royalties.

S Oh, you wrote that? With Mary Lou
K No, with....

S So you are getting the money from ASCAP rather than the recording? We were talking a few moments ago about your recordings here and your favorite one. You have in your hands there several, some of which you can maybe sort of run through. Are any of those the race records that were made.
K Yes, Moten Swing was one of them.

S When was that recorded?
K March 1936

S It is obviously out of print now.
K I think this came from.... This is MCA. Moten Swing of course you know what that was

S Bennie Moten.
K Yeh, Bennie Moten. We did this tune called.... wrote it. He was given You're Driving Me Crazy. When he got through swinging You're Driving Me Crazy it became Moten's tune.

S Oh, the tune was You're Driving Me Crazy.
K The chord progression was all You're Driving Me Crazy but when they got through swinging it, it became Moten's Swing. A lot of sax appeal. It was arranged by Mary Lou Williams.

S Are you performing there?
K I was playing the baritone sax on most of the ballads.

S But you were leading the band, though? When you lead the band and were trying also to perform; did you just stop as a band leader and pick up your horn and play or.... they was just for recording purposes.
K I had singers in front of the band who would direct and I was playing my horn. I was playing bass at first. I heard a bass player I liked better than I liked my sound so I hired him in the sax section. I did that up until the early 40s. Joe Glasser said look I'm selling Andy Kirk, I'm not selling.... get in front of the band, so I got in front of the band.

S That is what even those of us who do research on you think of Andy Kirk in front of the band. It is interesting that you said you sort of played a dual role at certain times.
K In the beginning I was playing music. I wasn't thinking of that glory in front of the band. I was thinking of the sound. I found it was part of the salesmanship to get out in front. We did a picture called Killer Diller, in 1958, Jackie, "Moms" Mabley, Butterfly McQueen, my orchestra, and a lot of talent. I saw it about three months ago, a little theatre, 96th and Broadway. It had one of Duke's films, Whistling, there were three. Duke Ellington.... jazz, Dizzie and then ours. There were three different films. I saw all three. The one that Duke made was real early. He was real young. I looked at myself and I was real young.

S Where did they shoot these?
K At.... Pathe had studios over on the east side.

S All of these things are coming back our as you see them.
K Somebody else came from California and said, "I saw you in a movie, you and Nat King Cole's trio." You would introduce Nat King Cole's trio. But this was a segment taken because Nat King Cole was in a movie and what was shown out in California they took Nat King Cole's part out of it.

S What are some of the other records that you have there.
K Floyd's Guitar Blues.

S That's not Floyd Smith is it?
K Yes, that is Floyd Smith.

S I was going to ask you, is he living now?
K Yes.

S He was a guitar player wasn't he.
K Yes. He used to play both guitars.

S I read somewhere that he was the first man to do jazz with an electrified guitar and he chose the Hawaiian guitar to do it.
K Yeh. He was one of my special stars. Floyd Guitar Blues, he did that on that.

S How did he compare to Charlie Christian?
K Well Charlie Christian was Charlie Christian. Nobody's like Charlie Christian. It is not taking anything away from Floyd. Floyd was a different kind of stylist. Charlie Christian was a....

S Did he ever play with you? Who was he with mostly?
K No. He was with the Blue Devils down in Oklahoma City. We were playing a date down there and Mary Lou Williams always went around to the jam sessions. She heard him and called John Hammond that very night. That is how he got through Mary Lou Williams, John Hammond Bennie Goodman. He was with a band in Oklahoma City. Boogie Woogie Cocktail, this is one of my favorites.

S Is Mary Lou playing on that?
K No, this is with Ken Kirzy. I got to play that for you. Walking and Swinging, Mary Lou wrote that. "Ring Them Bells" course the Duke had done that. We did that on Decca. "Stepping Pretty," "Foggy Bottom." All good sellers. Little Joe from Chicago, McGee special, Howard McGee the trumpet player. This was a big seller.

S What's the McGee on Broadway now. He's been in a couple of movies. We interview him for Jump Street too.
K 52nd Street. A Latch On My Heart, The Lady Whose.... is a Band, there's Mary Lou on the piano and Harry Mills of the Mills brothers sang to the vocal on it. Dedicated to You. I know this is by the Jubilairs, Andy Kirk band background, Unlucky Blues, Man Blues

S Tell me a little about the Jubilairs. How many were there, how did you happen to get them together.
K There were five of them. They were already together. Decca wanted them to record with us so they did. They did a thing called I Know. It was such a big seller, Amos and Andy, when they had the television show, they hired them through that record. 47th Street Jive, Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone, all of these tunes that we made.

S Now those records were they cut out of studios here in New York or in different parts of the country?
K I think these were done out in California.

S Were they done live, some of them?
K We did do some live though from a ballroom in Cleveland.

S Let me see that picture of you there. The Best of Andy Kirk. That is the one that, do you feel that has the best of Andy Kirk on it.
K I think that some of the things that are in there are the best of Andy Kirk.

S That sold pretty many records.
K Oh, yes. Because the biggest seller was on there, Until The Real Thing Comes Along. That hit a different market.

S That is the book from the swinging era, 1939-1940, and Time-Life did that.
K Yeh, and there were some records.

S As you mentioned, the only person living in your original orchestra, there was a picture in that book of your orchestra, maybe you ought to show me that. The one where your future wife is on there and Jimmy Lunsford.
K That wasn't my orchestra, that was George Morrison's orchestra.

S Oh, and then you became Andy Kirk.
K That was the orchestra I came up under.

S Mary Lou wasn't with you at that time, obviously.
K Mary Lou was married to John Williams. John Williams joined me in Oklahoma City in I think 1928. When he got the telegram he decided to come and he and Mary had a little group in Memphis. That's John's home. When he joined the Clouds of Joy, Jimmy Lunceford was teaching in high school in Memphis. He was interested in music and could play music so he organized out of the high school, he organized a band. Back to John Williams. When John came join us, Jimmy Lunceford played the dates that he couldn't make in Memphis. So he and Mary Lou worked together, Jimmy Lunceford and Mary Lou Williams worked together.

S How long was Jimmy Lunseford with you. Did he play with you or after you all left Morrison's band you went your separate ways ?
K Yeh, that's right. He only played, we played together with Morrison's band.

S As you were developing your band were you reading about and hearing about Jimmy Lunceford?
K He hadn't organized his yet.... He had these kids, these high school kids. They went on the Great Lakes for a summer job and they did so good he also had a couple of teachers, Wilcox was with him. They became, people started about them. When he went back to Memphis he didn't teach much longer, he went out with the band. My orchestra was organized before his.

S Who were some of your contemporaries, other band leaders and band groups, maybe Cab Calloway's band, and what are some of the other?
K Bennie Moten, of course the Cotton Pickers used to come to Kansas City.

S How long were you in Kansas City?
K 1929 to around 1939.

S Did you have a home?
K We had an apartment, a furnished apartment. My son was born in Kansas City. I became the band leader in March of 1929 and my son was born in September 1929. I made my first records in 1929.

S That was a good year for you. Were you making money in 1929?
K Well, That was during the depression. We were working but the politcal machine had Kansas City wide open and I was only paying $32.50 a month for a furnished apartment and it had four -rooms. We could buy milk for about ll cents a quart. I was making $75 a week which was a lot of money then.

S That sounds like ancient history, ll cents a quart for milk. That's incredible.
K Gasoline didn't cost but about 14 cents a gallon.

S Where did your band play out of. Did they have one place that they played out of all the time, like say when they were at Roseland or....
K We were at the Claymore Ballroom.

S And you were the featured band there. What singers if any, different singers that played with you over the years, there.
K I had a singer they stayed. Like part of the band. Like Pha ....spelled his name Pha so they wouldn't think it was Fay. I got Pha, somebody told me about Pha's singing. There were a lot of little clubs in town. He was the operating manager for the group. He was the bouncer, he was everything. I talked to him and said would you like to go with me on a tour and go out to Denver. Yeh, man. He sang Lullaby of the leaves" and it knocked me out.

S I don't know that. I'm digging way down in your memory now.
K He sang it so beautifully. I asked him and he said yeh.

S Let me get this straight. You had a bouncer who sang that beautiful song. He was quite a versatile
K He weighed about 160 soaking wet but he was all muscles. He had bad feet but he could run 100 yds.... He was sort of a athlete. He didn't bother anybody. But because of the way he sang, some people got the wrong impression of him. I have to tell you one good story, true story. We're playing Durham, North Carolina, that's the home of the University. Twelve miles from there is North Carolina State. When the band would come into Durham, those were segregated days, the blacks would be on the floor and the kids from the University in Durham, University of North Carolina, no Duke University. The kids would have to sit upstairs. The whites were upstairs. They were segregated because we had the floor. Some fellow came up, they were singing a song. He would sing the first chorus, we would give the introduction and then he would sing a chorus and then the orchestra would play 16 bars and he would come back and sing the last 16 and make his ending. The fellow looked at him and you just didn't like him. He grabbed the mike and shoved it in his face. Pha didn't say a word. I took the mike and pulled it back so this character couldn't reach it. When Pha came out to sing the last bars he took the mike from me and put it right in front of this character's face. The guy shoved it and Pha had a good grip on it. He took his bow and then he reached down and I don't know what he said to the guy but the guy jumped up on the stage and Pha caught him right there. All the kids said more. That was his business. He only weighed 160 lbs.

S Did he stay with you quite a while.
K Oh, yeh. He was with me until 1942.

S Did he make some of those records with you.
K He made all these ballads. When he made~~ntil The Real Thing Comes Along. I told you, about what the manager said, what's a matter with you fellows, everytime you got something goi for yourself you want to do what the white boys are doing. All right, VJhen The Real Thing Come Along comes out in 1936 we go in, I go in with some more jazz tunes and he says, Poor Butterfly. Now they put us into a ballad field because of that one record. After that it was hard for me to get a jazz tune on because you know how people, they almost typed us. So that was the reason we made All Those Pretty Things. Not because we couldn't play the other things but it was bringing more money in.

S So while you were traveling, go ahead now.
K We used to play about 14 dates in Florida. This particular time we were playing the Lakeland Country in Lakeland. The manager of the club spoke to me and said, Andy, I wonder if you could do me a favor. I got two boys who just love your music and they are musicians, one plays the drum and the other plays bass violin. I wonder if it would be asking too much to let them sit in with you a little while. I said I would love it. They know all your records, don't be afraid to let them play because they know everyone of your records. I figures what will we do. Just before intermission we will put on a little show and then we will have intermission. I will announce that the boys are going to play. So we did. We played and everybody gathered around the bandstand. They applauded and they whistled. And we took a bow at intermission. Now six months later we were playing the army in Atlanta and it was still during the days when it was segregated. So the whites were up in the balcony and the blacks were on the floor dancing. So a intermission this white man came down and said Andy do you remember me. I said I know your face, yeh, he said I was the manager of the Lakeland Country Club. I said you were the manage? He said, yes, I got fired. You know why. Because I let my boys play with you. Now I was born down here but I don't understand them at all.

S Let me ask you. I am going to bring you around to a couple of questions. When did you stop performing or when did you break the group up?
K After we came off the road I started playing clubs around town and dances. During the 50's there were a lot of debutante parties. I did a lot of debutante affairs. I'll show you afterwards some programs. Then in the early 70s, late 60s, they weren't so prevalant, people were tired of them, I guess. Then I went to work down at the union, where I am still working.

S When did you start that job?
K I have been there 10 years. I always, every father's day for Ruth Williams I do her concert at either Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center. I am already booked for the 14th of June. I have musicians and I have my library I can put together any time I want.

S When you do that will you promise to send me a letter or note or something so I can come up and be a part of it, hear it. I'd love to hear you in person. I had the honor to hear you in person, I've heard recordings and things, so this will be quite an honor for me.
K This wouldn't be like a recording orchestra. They would be qualified musicians and they would play the book.

S You were telling me how the group broke up and then what happened after that, you began to work at the union. What happened with the players?
K They scattered, went with different organizations. The big band era had come to an end. Of course there were club dates, there were no places around like 52nd street, those places had all gone.

S Mintons.... Now I know the big bands didn't have perhaps the kind of organization that would go into Mintons and so forth, but do you remember every going and just visiting or just being a performer.
K Sure. Members of my band and other bands always went by Mintons to jam. That is where they really got the feeling of what the others were doing, style. That kind of thing happened in Kansas City.

S Was that at the Ballroom?
K It was many places in Kansas City. Up on Cross Street and 18th Street. You have heard Ben Webster. Ben Webster was in my band. Irvin Randolph, we'd get through at 12:30 at the Ballroom. If I wanted to talk, to the men about maybe we were going to have a rehearsal tomorrow or the next day in the afternoon, Ben Webster and Randolph would be gone up on l2th street and jam. Mary Lou was involved in that. They exchanged ideas. That's what they did there and they often did it at Mintons.

S Who are some of the people you jammed with?
K I didn't go around much. I was married to the same woman so I had to get home. I wasn't as young as they were. But I would go by and stay a little while and see what was happening.

S You obviously heard about, hey, look last night we jammed with this person.
K Yeh, I knew who was there. Yardbird was with me a while.

S I didn't know. When?
K He was with me about 1946. Right after he left Jay McShann. I had Jimmy Forrest with me at that time. Jimmy Forrest had been in that band, Jay McShann band. He and Charlie Parker were good friends. We were playing Detroit and Jay was there and he fired Charlie, for some reason, I don't know. So Jimmy Forrest asked me if it would be all right if Yardbird rode back to New York with me. I said yeh, he can come on, so I brought him into New York. We used to have on 7th Avenue, a barbeque place, Mary Lou's ex-husband and my wife and me, we opened a barbeque place. Everybody used to come from downtown, we'd stay open until about 4 o'clock in the morning. I remember playing Philadelphia I finished a dance and came in and the barbeque place was still open.

S Do you know where the name Yardbird came from?
K No I don't.

S Did people like Ella Fitzgerald drop in and sing with you?
K I have played for her. She was a guest on occasion.

S Did you know Chick Webb.
K Sure.

S How did you know about him?
K I know he was fantastic.

S Do you mean when Ella started here in New York as a young girl.
K I wasn't here at the time, I was in Kansas.

S Dici you hear a lot about her out there.
K After I came in to do the Roseland I also played track. I played with Chick Webb at the Savoy. I played on one side and Chick on the other side. Claude Hopkins at the Savoy. That was in the 30s.

S Was Ella singing with Chick at that time?
K Right after that.

S They wrote a few things together didn't they?
K Yeh.

S I saw her in Atlanta just before I saw you the other day. I still haven't interviewed her.
K She's beautiful.

S Yeh, incredible. She's made a big splash with a recent hit that she's come out with. Let me ask you another question. I have asked all of the performers over 60 anyway, this same question. What, if anything, you as a performer and you as a creative artist, a leader, I think a conductor or leader obviously has something very special. Not only are you interested in performing your instrument, but those groups of instruments to come an instrument. You are just like a painter. You have all these colors and your job is to sort of put them together so they make a fine painting. Did you find yourself, just when you were maybe at the peak of what your creativity, all of a sudden you didn't have the group to work with because the era died and was that disappointing to you, or were you able to channel those ideas into some other direction'
K That's what we had to do. I have always been a realist, realistic. I saw the end of that era just to give you an example, we use a good bit, a very good job in a club out in Los Angeles during the war. The end of the big band era came in the late 40s. The club owner came to New York and he thought if he could get my band to come out there it would revive the era. Now I took my son, my son was playing tenor and he came along in the Bach era. I had him with me. When we played and showed him off he got all the write-ups because this was the era. I had a few tunes I had around him and he tied it up. Then I saw that things were coming to an end. So I got a job managing the Theresa Hotel.

S The Theresa Hotel where Castro came to? That's quite a famous place. I was in Libya and the first thing that I was asked by some of.... aides who talked to me about some political things is that had I been to the Theresa Hotel. I said no I haven't. I said what do you know about the Theresa Hotel? He said, oh, Castro and so on
K But before Castro it was the Hotel Uptown. I remember when no blacks worked there. That was in the early days. You heard of the Woodside Hotel. That was the black hotel. That is where some of us went if we came into New York for a short stay would go. That was in the 30s and 40s. No I was managing the hotel in the middle 50s, after the big band era. I was still doing the club date and managing the hotel. Mr. Wood decided he had to sell his hotel because they were going to put up a project. He got something like $86,000 cash. He wanted to take over the Theresa Hotel. My people were glad to get rid of the hotel. Mr. Wood and I went out to Patricia Murphey's and we talked the thing over. I said I didn't want to kill the sale, but I left for this man. He was elderly now. He had cash money and he had another little hotel, one of these fast working things where he is making a pile of money. What does he want with the Theresa Hotel. I didn't say that to him but I did say, when he said I want to make a Waldorf uptown of the Theresa Hotel, I said you got a Waldorf downtown, you don't heed a Waldorf uptown, Mr. Wood. He said, well I'm going to buy it anyway. So he bought it from my people. Castro was the last big deal there. He finally lost his shirt, he lost the hotel, he had a beautiful real estate office on 125th street, he lost it all. I tried to tell him but he wouldn't listen. I couldn't just say now listen. He would of thought that I was trying to save rny job.

S Let me ask you another question. This has to do with aging. Obviously you have a lot to tell those of us that are younger. What happens to a fine musician who doesn't, you have all your faculties, I heard you sing a while ago, I don't know how much people have heard you sing. I wish I could get you to sing that song for us. I am glad you have it copyrighted because maybe you can do it. Anyway, what, I see an Alberta Hunter and she talks about age and what she could have done, what she is doing, why s he's doing. I am not sure how to ask or what to ask but what can you say about a musician of your age bracket in terms of production. Do you think you can get out there and do what you were doing, and have your creative juices dried up?
K No. I was supposed to retire at the union but they asked somebody in the place that they want or need so I am waiting until they get somebody. I got two horns back there. I got my son's horn and my horn in the closet with dust on it. I am going to clean them up. Just for the joy of it I'll play some. I haven't played in a long time. I don't think I will be able to play like I did play but I could enjoy myself. In fact, I was thinking if I move back to Denver and play a little, my wife and I could do some things together. I have never been the type of fellow who was looking for publicity. Else I would have been in front of the band from the beginning. I just like music. I never thought of.... I never felt that way. I always liked to play with musicians but saying I want to be great, I am embarrassed.

S Are you able to or do you take, time now and try to reactivate some of the creative things you have, riot necessarily playing, but maybe writing tunes.
K Oh, yes. I am writing. I got some things that I want to take to Alberta but I haven't been down there. I wrote a thing called I'm In the Pink of Condition, which would fit her. I have it written out and copyrighted. (singing---) I'm In the pink of condition since you've seen things my way. I don't need no physician, you take his place in every way.... Don't need no gym to keep in trim. The joy that you have brought my way, keeps me feeling great all day. In my prime since your heart's mine.... I don't remember. I'll have to get it out and look at it.

S You sit and get these ideas and you get them down on paper.
K Yeh, I write them down and give them to somebody who can do them.

S I have a theory. Most of the older people that I have spoken to say that you don't stop living just because you get past 60, and that you have to try to find ways to sandwich in those different things that you want to do. You maybe get tired more quickly perhaps but maybe you might have more time now.
K I need more time. Down at the union there used to be 5 of us in that department. Now when they went on the computer they thought they didn't need our department so much. They put me in another department. But they found out that they haven't done it. There were five of us, only two of us, they work us to death. So they need somebody and so they say you don't need to retire now. They talk to me that way. You do the job. I want to do something else.

S I think you have a lot to say. Like the music you say you are still writing and so forth. I hope you take the time to say it. Are there any other persons such as Andy Kirk in New York that I might contact to get, I told you I got in contact with Alberta Hunter, Charles Handy, Roy Eldridge, I am sure there are a lot of people and since you work at the union.
K There are. One of my favorites, course he's busy, he's in his 70s but he's a bad man on a saxophone. He always does the circus that comes to town, Barnum and Bailey. They only use a couple blacks in there and they always use him. Eddie Bearfield. He was the music director for Cab Calloway's orchestra one time. Now he's about the only black in the circus. He was with Bennie Moten, he's what you call a fine, great musician, play anybody's book. But he wasn't a stylist, where he could make a hit off of one tune. He's a man who's qualified to play anybody book. He can play circus music, any kind of music.

S When you say he is very busy, does he have a lot of dates?
K Last week we did a radio show for WNYC, about three weeks ago. The tape, I just got the tape today. Eddie Bearfield, they are going to have down there, he's got so much to talk about. He was with Bennie Moten's orchestra and Cab Calloway's orchestra and he's been with White orchestras where there was just maybe he and another one. One of those, fine musicians.

S Cab Calloway is one incidentally that I am trying to interview. I always found it interesting. You don't think of him when, historically about his being the jazz band director. I guess he never was really that. I think of him more as a singer, blues and so forth. What was he, really much of a band director, conductor, or leader as such.
K In the days we were talking about. In those days fronting a band was just a picture. You have contacts with your audience, better than playing the horn. Like in the front of the band you would get requests, somebody to take requests and pass it on to the band leader. A lot of were just like that. Singers mostly.

S Did Cab Calloway do as you did? Did he write for his band or was he just a front man so to speak.?
K I think he did play a little drums at one time. He was listed down the union as drums.

S I noticed that in the book.

END OF INTERVIEW