The Jazz Review - Jazz Studies Online

had a ROTC commission as 2nd Lt.
and Chief musician and if the war
lasted another six months, I'd have
gone. I filled out a questionaire and
was qualified an A-l cook, cabinet
maker carpenter musician and
mechanic. I had it made anyway the
tide turned
I took the teachers' course at Kansas
University at Lawrence and in
one semester finished a three-year
course with good grades. I took
piano, voice, violin, sax, composition
and arranging. It cost me $79.00
every nine weeks. We had to pay
$2.50 for each concert G 0 LI r se. Mischa
Elman and other fine concert
artists used to come through ... it
\vas a wonderful foundation. All
during this time I was still working
with Bennie Moten and Dave Lewis!
and during vacations I worked in
g V IS
dining service with the Union Pacific
That was one of the reasons I
quit" college
With the Union Pacific Fd travelled
as far as Denver and Cheyenne
but never as far as California and
I'd always wanted to go there be­
Walter Page's Blue Devils, Oklahoma City, Okla. 1929
Left to Right: Seated—Leonard Chadwick or Leroy
White, trumpet; Druiebess, trombone;
Water Page; Lips Page, trumpet; Buster Smith,
alto; Unknown; Standing—Unknown; Doc Ross,
tenor; Unknown; James Simpson, trumpet; Charlie
Washington, piano; Ernest Williams, vocal.
cause I heard so much about it. This
road show was headed for California
and the violinist, Roland Bruce was
a good friend of mine. He persuaded
me to go with them.
I joined Billy King's road show
on January 1, 1923. Ermir Coleman
was the leader, on trombone. Others
in the band were William Blue, clarinet,
Lawrence Williams on cornet,
Eric McNeill on drums and myself.
Willie Lewis on piano had come out
of Polytechnic school in Peoria and
had a fast, powerful left hand that
really jumped. He'd learned to write
like I had. All the musicians in the
band were top men. We played the
"tab" shows for T.O.B.A. We got
so we wouldn't nlav anything without
music I used to write from ear
at one in the afternoon and by seven
that niffht we'd have a romnlete ar
ranrement We had three arranger/
which meant thirty dollars extra'
wWh J 7 t l w"r,,
hZ „f fnn u l ! hid Kr,XJ , n
ots ot tun, out the sand nroKe up
the next year in Jexas. Wed gone
on to a little theatre in Uklanoma
City and one of the co-owners tell
in' love with me. She wanted me to
go on the road with her as her assistant.
She had big ideas and wanted
to form a band in the cadet corps in
the school in town with me as the
director. Down in Texas wv ran into
the road co m pa n y of Shuffle Along
and it turned out that our overture
was the Shuffle Along overture,
which we played by heart and it killed
them That was our last annear
ance hefore going un to Oklahoma
and disbanding Frmir Coleman
wanted In ai\ intn nnlities an T was
X d J ate I .he hand wl,en he
l l f t ^ S ^ l ^ L n v folded nn
lett ihe touring company lowed up,
so 1 formed a small group and play¬
ed around the same part ot the
country tor a while.
We used to run into some fine
outfits down in Texas. Gene Coy and
his Happy Black Aces were out of
Amarillo with seven or eight pieces
and they were really jumping. Gene
played drums and his wife played
piano like a man. Another good
group was the Satisified Five led bv
Carl Murphy. They were placing the
oil fields then.
We were playing in the silent
picture houses a lot for movies like
the Ten Commandments with appassionatas,
andantes, pianissimos and all
those things. I had cued in cello
parts. We only had five pieces, but
sometimes we sounded like ten.
The top band then was Alphonso
Trent's. He was famous at the Adolphus
Hotel with musicians like T.
Holder and Chester Clark, two of
the sweetest trumpet players I ever
heard.
I had to scuffle around for a while
trying to keep my family together,
and I decided to get together with
some of the influential men I knew
around Oklahoma City. I got a bunch
of them in a hotel room and told
them I wanted to organize a big
band, and that I needed money to
get them together all in one place.
One of the men put them up in a
large room and fed them all.
The men in my band were James
Simpson. Jimmy 'LuGrand and Lips
Page on trumpets; Eddie Durham
and later on. Dan Minor, on trombone;
Buster Smith, Ruben Roddy
and Ted Manning on reeds; Turk
Thomas on piano, Reuben Lynch on
guitar Alvin Burroughs on drums
and myself on bass horn, baritonJ
and bass violin. Jimmy Rushing
and Count Basie both joined later
on in 1928
We started working around El