JE Blog

A Bite of the Apple … Part III

Willie Thomas | February 25, 2011

(This is part 3 of a 3 part series.  Scroll down to see parts 1 and 2) The final three months on the road with Woody's band seemed endless, especially after accepting the Road Manager gig that was like baby sitting fifteen juvenile delinquents. At last, I was on a Greyhound headed for Chicago and who knows what! I was happy to see Jerri after several months apart and when I stepped into Mr. Kelly's where she and Lurleen Hunter were doing a "salt and pepper" duo, I realized how good it was to be off the road, with my wife and with maybe even a chance to get some real playing done.

I had just settled into my new digs in a rather up scale house on Lake Michigan just south of Evanston, when I got a call from Walter Perkins. One more time, right place, right time, another trumpet player, Bobby Bryant, had flown the coup with Frank Sinatra one week before a scheduled record date with the MJT+3, Modern Two Plus Three Quintet with Frank Strozier, Harold Mabern, Bob Cranshaw, Walter Perkins and soon to be Willie T. They wanted Ira Sullivan, but he didn't read music and there was some really tricky stuff to learn, including the title tune Sleepy, written by Bob Bryant. So after a quick look over in the basement of the Sutherland Hotel, the job was mine.

The new position also came with a four night a week gig at Lesters in the hood on the Southside. Heads were popping when the clientele entered the room just next to the bandstand and they saw this ofay with his trumpet getting it on with the brothers. Then, after my first solo, the smiles would appear and the heads would nod in a way that said it all, he's cool, he can stay! And stay we did, for several months in 1959 waiting for our Vee Jay record to hit the market. We knew it was hot, several important people had heard the demo and were ready to help put it out there for people to hear.

This was the album. That's me on the right.

As happens so many time in any business, things don't always get done on schedule and by the time our record was finally released, we had been replaced at Lester's and Bobby and Walter had take gigs with Carmen McRae to pay the rent and put food on the table. Frank and Harold were working whatever came up and I was shedding day and night and hitting about four jam sessions a week with the likes of Ira Sullivan, Nicki Hill, Johnny Griffin, Joe Farrell, Roland Kirk, Wilber Ware, Bunky Green and dozens of other great young players. Jerri also had some gigs at the Playboy and was bringing home some cash every week.

You might say that for a jazz dude, it didn't get much better than that, and you would be right on! I had my mouth full of that apple every night when I played as many choruses as I pleased almost anywhere I went. However, the family we were living with was getting a little restless with guests in the house for over a year and I got a hint, like, "when are you moving into your own place". At the time, I could see that prospects for really making a living or getting any recognition staying in Chicago was very limited, so, Jerri and decided that it was time for me to hit the Big Apple and really go for it!

A week later, I was back on the Greyhound with my trumpet, a couple of gig suits, my toothbrush, some jams and about $200 in my pocket. It wasn't like a wad of cash, but hopefully, enough of a stake to get me into a hotel with enough to eat until some gigs came up. I put my Chicago card in at the 802 Local in NYC, paid my initiation fee and received the rules of the road with some pretty astringent working regulations, like no steady gigs anywhere for 6 months. Steady meaning two or more nights at the same place. So, I worked a few casuals that I picked up on the Union floor every week and hit the road with the weekend bands, like Claude Thornhill, Billy May and others. That was really the pits.

There was a brighter side of being in the City. I was living in the Flanders Hotel on 47th Street, with a bevy of jazz players. Booker Little was living on the same floor. Herman Green and Skinny Ennes were on Lionel Hampton's band and living there as well and a lot of other great cats were in and out of the hotel on a weekly basis, I was set up at a rehearsal studio where I could practice every day for 50 cents an hour next to Art Farmer and his brother's studio, with whom I occasionally was a able to play. Pee Wee Marquette knew me from the Al Belletto group and would let me into Birdland free anytime I wanted to. Harry Edison was also a dear friend from the past and was introducing to a lot of people. So, all in all things were interesting for sure, but, I wasn't playing much jazz and I could see that cracking into the real jazz scene was not so easy by a long shot. My long time friendship with Wynton and others didn't really help as they were never in town nor in a position to help me get connected at their level.

I was in NYC for about 2 months and was starting to really get that sinking feeling when you just don't see how things are going to get a lot better any time soon. I missed my wife, she wasn't working in Chicago and for sure, we didn't have enough resources to try and make it in the city together. Her career had somewhat faded and the club scene for singers was changing so, I was really getting frustrated with the whole scene. Then bingo, it happened, that big juicy apple got tossed right back into my lap, our album was released and within weeks, the title tune Sleepy was being played night after night by Symphony Sid in NYC, Sid McCoy in Chicago and on the West Coast, we had a hit and everyone wanted to book the group.

The Five Spot in New York

Two weeks later, I had just deposited a $1000 check from C.B. Atkins, Sarah Vaughn’s husband and our new manager, signed a lease for a great two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn across the street from Pratt Institute where my mom and dad had met, had a paid up 802 card in my pocket and was dressing to go to our gig that night at the Five Spot playing opposite the John Coltrane group for two weeks. How’s that for a quick change of fortune and another mouthful of that Apple? The ensuing weeks found the group in Detroit at the Purple Onion with Miles, back in the studio for another album, Birdland for 2 weeks with Basie, Small's Paradise, a big homecoming in Chicago at the Sutherland and a date set for my own record album with Bunky Green.
And so it went for another year or so, two more albums, appearances at clubs all over the country and several great reviews in Down Beat and the Times entertainment section. I had recorded my album with Bunky, Chris Anderson, Bobby Cranshaw, Walter Perkins and it was smoking! There was even talk about Bunky and I starting our own group. The MJT+3 was still a hot commodity and Walter was being approached by other agents to sign up with them. Again, as so often happens, Walter, who had started the group, somehow felt that it was his group and signed a new contract without consulting anyone.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice. We had been working with Joe Glazer of ABC, the biggest and most successful agency in the world. They were so annoyed, that the word went out that if anyone hired our group, they would get no more talent from ABC. That was the end of that! Our upcoming gigs were canceled and we were unemployed and unemployable. Walter and Bobby were back with Carmine McCrea, Harold took a job with Nancy Wilson, Frank went with Miles for a brief stint and I was lucky to get a month and a live album with Peggy Lee at Basin Street East.
I had hopes that my album might be released and Bunky and I cold get some work, but again, fate had other plans and Vee Jay records had declared bankruptcy and wouldn't be reorganized for over a year. Jerry had some work around the circuit in the Playboy Clubs, but things were drying up for jazz singers all over the country. However, another bite of the apple was on it's way for me. A call from Slide Hampton put me back to work sitting next to Freddie Hubbard, George Coleman, Larry Ridley and four other great players in the Slide Hampton Octet.

Slide Hampton

A few months later, Freddie went with Art Blakely and I inherited the jazz chair. We did two albums, worked all of the big jazz clubs on the circuit, and I had the time of my life with all of those cats traveling around in Slide’s VW Bus.

The money wasn't great and gigs were not back to back. Throughout my journey through the apple orchard, I haven't mentioned one of another big influence on my life and the lives of so many other musicians I worked with… substance abuse. I wasn't immune.  I had been a very busy little boy in the reefer row for years and had recently acquired a serious cocaine problem. Without getting into the moribund details, I was involved way beyond my capacity to support my habit. Having access to the best clientele in NYC, one thing led to another and eventually I found myself in the Brooklyn Tombs. Not a great place to be. I lost my cabaret card, my reputation and temporarily, my wife.

Through another unbelievable twist of fate, my alto sax playing college roommate was now the Assistant D.A. in Brooklyn and plea bargained me out of that mess with time served and three years probation. I got a job cleaning apartments for rental where I was living, washed windows, Jerri opened a Recreational Center in the complex and I put my horn in case without the slightest hint of when or if it would ever be front and center in my life again. What I realized is that sometimes you get a little bigger bite of that Apple than you can chew! There was more to come, however, just not in the role of a jazz warrior engaged in nightly battle on that bandstand. You can hear a lot of these recordings in the Willie Works section.


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