JUDI-MARIE CANTERINO
By Bill Walters
“Judi-Judi – Judi”, an expression used by Cary Grant.. andrepeated many times over the years by imitators, brings to mind a fine singer named Judi-Marie Canterino. Judi-Marie was born in New York City in the 1930’s and became involved in music at the age of 7 with classical piano. Between the ages of 7 and 13 she performed at Julliard School of Music. Then, just out of high school, she was introduced to Lenny Tristano who in turn, introduced her to the Jazz Club called the Half Note in Manhattan. There she was also introduced to Zoot Sims and met Mike Canterino, whose family owned the club, and who later became her husband. Judi began singing at the club where she sat in for many years and doing basically the 4-5 numbers she knew.
During that period she was influenced by Billie Holiday and Anita O’Day. Over those many years Judi got to know and was lucky to sit in with people like Joe Venuti, Jimmy Rushing, Buddy Tate, Wes Montgomery, Bobby Hackett and Teddy Wilson.
Many nights Judi, Mike and Roy Eldridge would sit outside between sets and sing and joke around to pass the time. Judi’s singing was also influenced by other greats at the Half Note Vic Dickenson, Hubie Blake, Cootie Williams, Milt Hinton as she increased her grasp as a jazz singer.
Judi is a pleasant person, who loves nature, flowers, trees, water and gardening in the Riverside section of New York City where she and Mike reside. When she turned 50 she was convinced by Joe Puma and Ross Tompkins to really settle down and build a book that now includes 70 to 75 tunes. Judi can be heard at the Fortune Gardens, Trumpets, New York City hotels and private parties where she is accompanied by Jim Roberts, Chuck Folds, Red Richards, Mark Shane, Norman Simmons, trumpeters Spankie Davis and Doc Cheatham, Warren Vache’, Jr., and sax man, Scott Hamilton.
If you walk into a club and see the most pleasant person in the place, you know you have gotten to know -JUDI-MARIE!
Anita O’Day Is Winging at the Half Note
By JOHN S. WILSON
Anita O’Day is back in town and, as usual, she’s winging it, or improvising.
The singer has ended a year of semiretirement in Honolulu to settle into the Half Note, Hudson and Spring Streets, for a six week run, sharing the bands stand with a quintet led by her old colleague in Gene Krupa’s band, Roy Eldridge. She arrived alone, traveling light, bringing only a few dresses, some music and one of the most consistently inspired vocal styles in jazz.
When she got to town, she I called up a pianist she had once worked with in Los Angeles, Alan Marlowe, went down to the Half Note and added Mr. Eldridge’s bassist, Buddy Catlett, and drummer, Eddie Locke, and began improvising.
She suggests a tune, calls out a key, taps out a tempo. indicates a drum pattern by patting her hip and conducts with one white-gloved hand, with her chin, with her eyes.
Phrases Like Saxophone
Meanwhile she is singing maybe “Honeysuckle Rose” or “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” or “Sweet Georia Brown”-in a voice that has an attractively rough texture, voice that roams casually from a deep contralto to an easy falsetto. She phrases as though her were a jazz saxophone, breaking words or stretchingthem to fill out a musical line, tickling the words to move them into the little fills that a saxophonist might use.
Someone standing at the Half Note bar the other night compared her singing to the words of E. E. Cummings.
“His poems are shredded out on a page,” he said, “and Anita does the same thing with a song.”
Her ability to restructure a song to give it a completely fresh and valid presentation is an astonishing artistic accomplishment. She does this without distorting the essential values of the song. In fact, these values, as a rule are amplified as she explores a remarkable variety of ways of developing material that one might think had long been drained of any new potential.
This well of inspiration is at freshest when she is challenged by musicians with whom she does not work regularly.
Each Tune Race
“This way the whole timing is a little off balance,” Miss O’Dayexplained. “and it keeps you on your toes. When you get your own group going, it gets too relaxed. The way I do it, each tune is a horse race.”
And sometimes she loses,she admitted.
“I did 12 tunes with Oscar Peterson on an album once.” CA she recalled, “and I didn’t win one race.”
For most of the last year, she has relaxed in Honolulu, spending her mornings on the beach and, in the afternoons, studying musical theory and harmony and taking cooking lessons.”After 34 years in night clubs,” said Miss O’Day, who is 49 years old, “I thought I deserved a change. And since music has been changing lately, it seemed better to do nothing for a while in order to get perspective.”
Now she is eager to get into “the folk-rock thing.” This visit to New York, she says, is for the purpose of looking around.
“All my contracts have expired,” she said. “I have no agent, no manager, no record company. I’m completely free. I can keep the things that are necessary, throw out those that are unnecessary. Now I can check around and see if they want an old name with a new style of music.”
TALKING JAZZ
We shifted the subject to Flip’s career and present mode of operations. He went out to Florida long ago and left the jazz centre field. Was he disillusioned like, say, Artie Shaw?
‘No, nothin’ like that. I just settled down there and didn’t go out as much. I felt that way, wanted to live a little bit, too. But I continued to play music and,of course, still do. Now I don’t believe I could stand the one-nighters. I used to do. I think we hold the record for that. We did eighty-one one-nighters in a row, without a single night off. And it’s pretty hard to endure that.However, I still love to play and all that, you know, but I don’t want to kill myself either. That’s why I’m down in Florida. If something comes up that I like,I’ll take it.’
Things that Flip likes include special events such as Dick Gibson’s Colorado Jazz Party and the occasional jazz festival. He goes to a few of these because of the change of scene, saying that they’re nice so long as there’s not too much like, I’ll take it.”travelling involved.
‘And I took up the game of golf,’ he told me, brightening visibly. ‘I’m hitting that little white ball and working my frustrations out that way. Like I said, I want to live a little bit.
”Do you play very much out there?”
‘What, golf?’
No, jazz.’
Oh, that. Yeah, I play enough. I don’t want to play every night of the week. Is he sufficiently well set-up financially, then, to be able to live that way?
‘No, but how much can you eat? I eat enough. I eat very good in fact, and I’ve become a chef, you know, kind of a gourmet cook. So I took up golf, and now I eat good and play golf good. I wish I could play golf as well as I can cook, though.
And when he plays music, does Flip enjoy it as much as he did with Woody Herman, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, Benny Carter and such?
‘I get a lot of satisfaction from playing,’ he answered carefully. ‘Because I don’t do too much of it.”
Zoot Sims
If ever a person sounded as though he enjoyed playing saxophone, that person was Zoot Sims. He didn’t always look happy at work, it wasn’t his nature, but the enthusiasm could be felt, as well as the dedication to flowing melodic phrases, whenever he set about making music. Zoot, it seemed to me, was a pure case of talent, unshowy and firmly based; as he progressed in years he improved in jazzcraft, and his sound grew even more personal and beautiful. For my taste the Pablo albums from his later years are outstanding for musical feeling and that extra ingredient we tend to call soul. He sang the songs on his horn, and swang them, and the effect was magical.
Page 15 up on a pedestal. We weren’t waiting for our break Every time we got a chance to work with guys like Zoot Wes, Trane or whoever we felt like we’d already made it.
The Half Note had to be the most unusual club in the world. It was 1969 outside the doors, but it was timeless inside the joint We checked out of everything, People who came back after being away for a while, maybe years would say the place hadn’t changed at all. All the problems and social issues didn’t exist in the Half Note There was no trouble, nothing bad going on in there. Just music Once in a while Trane would draw some black militants, you know, Yeah, Trane, freedom now. But Trane was just playing his ass off like nothing else mattered in the world. Even when guys sat in with him who couldn’t play just so they could say they sat in with him-he didn’t care. He just played. The only way you could tell it was the sixties in there was the way people dressed. My Judi would wear those white shoes with the high heels and thick soles, and miniskirts. Sometimes she ware pants under the miniskirts She said she ked to be different. I had kind of long hair and mutton chop sideburns
One thing, I guess was that there were some drugs around. They were pretty much everywhere back then. Not too much, though Guys would drink a lot, and maybe once in a while after hours if we were hanging around jamming, we’d smoke some shit. I remember a few guys taking pits sometimes Guys who did any of that would go down in the basement and keep it out of sight That’s the way it was. Not much you could do about it
About two AM, the guys in the band started getting on Judy to come up and do a few songs Judy knew a couple of the guys. Ross had been the piano player on the Tonight Show for a long time and he met her a couple of times when she did the show. Leo Ball knew her pretty well, too,from playing with her in some show: Leo was the musical director for Paul Anka for a long time,and I think, later, for Liza Minnoll. He’s a regular guy, like part of the family for us, too. To this day, he shows up and sits in with Judi Marie and me every Thursday night when we do our steady gig in Larchmont. Anyway, everybody asked her to sing, but Leo’s the one who really talked her into
At first, she didn’t want to do it A lot of show biz people are like that, you know. She was 32 frightened to get up on the stage. Leo kept saying, “Come on.”
I heard her say “I’m so nervous”
Leo says, “You? After all you’ve done?” WET
“I’m so scared,” she says. “What I do?
“Do what you do he says. He had to help her up the stairs to the stage. I didn’t know what was going to happen. She was just standing there, and she looked so thin and so frail and so scared. Come on, Leo says, everybody loves you. Everybody was encouraging her, but finally, Leo seemed to convince her to do it.
I heard that not long before that at some club in England that Judy went onstage, and I guess she wasn’t up to it, and the audience threw rolls from the breadbaskets and silverware at her, and she walked off the stage being hit by that stuff. What a drag They should have just respected her. After all the entertainment she gave everyone. That would never happen in my joint It just wouldn’t. People wouldn’t do that. Or if they did, I’d throw the son of a bitch out.
Judy started with The Trolley Song. She was a little shaky for the first few bars hen all of the sudden, she was her old self. She was Judy Garland again. She went on, got started, and just opened up. It was a gas. She started to swing. Man, the guys loved it. Then she sang Over the Rainbow. Everybody was in awe.
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curved part of the letter “D” and the bandstand, which was the same height as the bar, was behind it, like the back of the “D.”The bar faced the biggest part of the space, so in order for people sitting there to see the band better, we built a terrace. You had to walk up three steps, but the terrace was the same height as the bar and the stage, so if you were sitting at one of the tables up there, you could see right over the heads of the people hanging out at the bar. You had a great view, except for this one pillar right in front of the stage, left over from where we tore the wall out. We couldn’t get rid of it because it was holding the place up.
Pop put Judy at the four-top in the comer at the front of the terrace where you had the least obstruction from that pillar My Judi, Judi Marie, took her order. I was behind the bar.
It was a nice looking place. We had actors pictures hanging up over the bar, jazz album covers and those Lancer’s wine bottles with the straw on the bottom hung up on the walls around the place. We bought some of that checkered oilcloth for the tables at Woolworth’s, and that looked nice. We had those straw bottomed wine bottles on every table too. Each one had a tulip in it. It was my job to get the tulips, I’d go over to the flowerbeds at the Holland Tunnel late at night, chop a bunch of them and bring them back.
The joint could hold about 130 people, but there were only about twenty people that night, so everybody was sitting up there on the terrace. Nobody was in the smaller space behind the bar and the stage.
So, Judy was sitting up there on the terrace with everybody else, and everybody knew who she was, and everybody was probably as excited to see her as we were. People in the Village are a funny kind of people, though. They’re cool. They didn’t bother her, just like they didn’t bother Hussein or Tony Bennett. Or the Rolling Stones-but, you know, in a joint like ours, they weren’t anybody anyway.
Pop went back into the kitchen to cook Judy some food. I guess he thought he’d better hurry,from the looks of her. I got her a vodka, which Judi Marie served. Judi Marie introduced herselfin the nicest way, just being polite and acknowledging her. Judi wouldn’t ever bother anybody. But the other Judy, she was pretty friendly. Right away, she started doing that Cary Grant imitation, Judy. Judy, Judy, every time she wanted something or anytime Judi Marie passed by So, Judi started doing it right back at her, and they were both cracking up. It seemed pretty funny at the time.
Judi Marie brought her out her food, which, if I remember right, was pasta with meatballs. Practically everybody had Pop’s meatballs, one way or another, on a sandwich, or with pasta, or by themselves. Pop was famous for his meatballs. They were light, not like anybody else’s. Ask any musician who’s still around from that time. Judy said she loved the food, but Judi Marie told me she sure didn’t eat much.
Anyway, we fed her as best we could, and she had a few drinks. As soon as I could get away from the bar, I went over to say hello. I didn’t know what to say-so happy you’re here, great to meet you, we all love you, all the things you’ve done, the singing the movies.
She sat by herself for a long time, just listening to the music. Anita would go over and sit with her between sets.
Anita worked for us Fridays, Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. She started working at the place in 57 or ’58, right after we opened. She drank up everything and she was a little flaky. One night I paid her, then she disappeared. Four years later, I got a call from Bangkok. She said was broke and she wanted to come back to New York. So, I scraped up the money for a ticket, wired it to her and she came back. Then, one time she had a late gig at the Village Vanguard. I went with her to make sure she got there okay. She walked out on the stage, told
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the audience she wasn’t singing that night and came back to hang out with us. Anita was just Anita She’s still around, but she’s in her 80’s now.
Ross Tomkins, the piano player is still around, too. Man. could he play
Zoot isn’t with us anymore. He was a part of that place. I remember times when the joint was dead, Zoot would come in, play three notes and the joint would be swinging. He’d drink a lot of scotch and a case of beer, but he’d swing We had those old, big Christmas lights strung around the stage, and Zoot would hold his glass up to one and turn it like it was a tap, like he was filing up his drink. Zoot was like family. On Christmas Eve, Zoot, his wife, Ross, Major Holley and Mousey Davis would come to our place up in Riverdale for the evening We’d be up all night. At seven AM, our son, Michael, would get up all excited to open his presents and we’d all be wrecked. Anyway, the joint was as much home to Zoot as it was to us.
The joint was home to all the musicians, and to practically everybody who came there. It was its own little music box, and everybody came there to be inside the music box. Inside the music. On Saturday nights we’d get some people from the Upper East Side or some tourists who weren’t like that, but they were the only ones who had any dough. E
Jazz wasn’t doing so well in those days. It seemed like the world had gone on to other things.We had about twenty people in the place that night, but some nights we’d have maybe three. It didn’t matter. The music would be just as swingin’ anyway. A lot of times there were more musicians in the place than customers. They came there to hang out. I remember nights wheneverybody sitting at the tables had a horn and was playing along with the guys up on stage,having a great time. Sometimes the musicians who came down would throw me some money, because they knew there was no bread there. A lot of guys came in and they worked for nothing. Wes Montgomery used to tell me, “Pay the rhythm section. He’d say, “Don’t pay me, man. It’sokay, I’m doing good. Cannonball Adderly used to do that too. And Zoot, he was always there for us.
Around that time my brother had to get a job because things were so bad. He went down to work on a truck to make some bread so we could keep going, because sometimes we made no… money, Judi Marie checked coats and waited tables, I tended bar, We did whatever we could to keep the joint alive. Mostly, we were working for bps Things were tough back in those days, but we never worried about it. We didn’t need much money.
Guys came there to play their asses off. They didn’t care if there was only one person in the joint it was okay, they’d play like mad. Coltrane-man, he played every tune as if it might be his last Like he wanted to get it all out right now, Like he knew he was sick, I don’t know how he did it He would play, like, an hour solo without stopping. The veins would be coming out of his neck,
The music was always great. It was great that night..
Judy seemed to be getting into it. A couple of cats at the bar were talking white Anita was singing, Probably musicians. It was mostly musicians hanging out at the bar. Most musicians don’t listen to singers anyway, you know. They just listen to the music. And it was their club that’s how they felt about it. But Judy said, “Hey, there’s a great performer on that stage, and shushed them. They shut up
Finally, Charlie Cochran showed up with his boyfriend, I think, and they sat with Judy..
I remember Anita inviting my Judi Marie up onstage to sing. Judi Marie did a few songs. What a voice she has. Musicians love Judi because she doesn’t treat them like background, you know? She sings with them, not in front of them. She was trained by the great Len Tristano, and she’s spent her life studying the best of the best, listening to all their phrasing, all their licks. She singe like an angel But, Judi and me too, we put the musicians and the singers we thought were great
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ZOOT SIMS
A letter on the back page of last week’s MM caught my attention: Jazz the word and the cult -is dead as far as young people are concerned, it said. I asked Zoot if he thought the demise was imminent. He said he didn’t think so, though he had to admit audiences were going down a little.
‘But that’s in the clubs. That last Jazz At The Phil concert tour attracted big crowds, and they were more enthusiastic than I expected. I always say one thing: jazz has been dying for seventy years and it’s going to last a lot longer than the record we’re making now.’
During early 1971 the ever-rewarding tenorman shone bis light on the Frith Street jazz room at the head of a quartet. This interview dates from the Melody Maker of 6 February 1971.
It is always something to see and hear Zoot Sims in action at Ronnie Scott’s blowing solidly, creating melody, swinging as if his life depended on it and looking meantime modestly pleased to be there. Without fuss or pretentiousness he offers a steady supply of consistently good and inventive tenor jazz, In a way I suppose he is the perfect jazz pro, getting on with the business of making original music as though it was the easiest thing in the world. And when you talk to him you might get the impression that he thinks it is.
For someone of my jazz tastes, the sound and style of his playing are reassuring factors in a world in which tone quality and logical construction of solos count for less and less. Among other things, he represents a tradition; more than one really, but in any event a tradition which had Lester Young at its fountainhead. And in these days of experimental jazz breaking out on all sides, that traditional discipline and firm way of swinging are virtues to be fostered. I asked Zoot if, as a musician, he felt he was in a tradition-if he even agreed that such talk, much favoured by the writing brigade, made any sense. He nodded, in half agreement at least.
“Well, there are certain slots you can put the music in. Wild Bill Davison is in a tradition, isn’t he? Now Miles Davis is in one, a different one than it was. That’s freedom music, isn’t it? The last time I saw him on TV it was the freedom thing.
Zoot is quite definitely not in that bag, nor heading for it.
‘No’, he insists,’ I couldn’t do it any kind of way; I’d feel a fool if I tried. I just don’t lean to it, can’t do it anyway. Which doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate it. But when I think about trying to play that way…he shook his head and poured a little whisky from a flask into his empty glass. I’ve been playing for twenty-five years, longer, and I can’t just press a button and be someone else. It wouldn’t be real.
‘I’ve changed my playing but very slowly. I can’t really pinpoint it. I just take a tune and play it the only way I can. That’s it. I don’t really dwell on it very much. Some people probably do. I can only say I play it the way I feel it.
‘One thing I do feel is this: I should add a lot of new material to my repertoire. It would be good for me, very satisfying, if I could get around to doing it. And I want to.
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Remembering The Half Note
The Half Note and All That Jazz:
By Mike Canterino.
as told to Jim Shooter
The night Judy Garland dame into the joint, we thought it was no big deal. We had King Hussein of Jordan in there sometimes. Tony Bennett always stopped by when he could. Steve Allen used to come in the place. We had lots of big name players and lots of show biz people, famous people, who came to hear the music. Even the Rolling Stones came in once in a while. I’didn’tknow who they were. Even after somebody told me who they were I wasn’t sure who they were To me they were just some cats from England who always wanted to sit in the back so nobody would better them: Nobody ever did. They used to come in sometimes when Wes Montgomery was playing, I guess to pick up a few licks, Wes practically reinvented guitar playing Everybody learned from Wes
Anyway, sure, it was an honor when Judy showed up. She was Judy Garland. And, man everybody loved Judy .We wereflippin’ out. But practically every night at the joint something great would happen, or somebody you’d never believe you’d ever meet walked in. So, it was just another terrific night in a long string of terrific nights. When I say it was no big deal I mean that at first, it was great, but we didn’t know just how great it was till later.
It was about eleven o’clock on a Sunday night. The band had just started the second set. We had Ross Tomkins on piano, ZootSims on sax Russell George an bass, Denny Sewell on drums and Anita O’Day singing All the sudden, Judy Garland comes walking into the place Man, was glad joint was swingin’.
it turned out that Anita, who had just come back from Japan of somewhere, was staying with a friend of hers, a fellow by the name of Charlie Cochran. He was in show business in a way, a singer, cabaret style. He had a nice pod uptown. Anita was staying there, that woman with the big chest who used to advertise the eighteen-hour bras way back, was staying there and Judy Garland was staying there, too. When Anita came down to work, she didn’t say anything. We didn’t know Judy was coming
Judy was wearing all black, a short skirt and a kind of long jacket Nice, tailored-looking, but pretty average clothes Nothingfancy. What stuck out about her was that she was so sickly looking Very thin
Pop met her at the door and sat her down. He put her at table six, the best table in the house.
The joint had kind of an unusual layout, because it had originally been two rooms, which we’d turned into one. The bar and the bandstand were in the middle. The bar was shaped like the
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“Yes, I listen to everything I can. You’ve got to, and I think there’s a lot of great things coming out of the last ten years. Look at the tunes that have been written, like Bacharach and the Beatles. I like many of them, yeah.’
Zoot’s attitude to most things musical is tolerant. When we talked about the power drumming of many percussionists in free or ‘open’ groups, his comment was that a drummer of that type wouldn’t work with his group.
‘I do like loose drummers, but I feel that some of them get idea people came in just to hear them, and that wouldn’t fit my style at all.”
As for electric pianos, so well in today: ‘I don’t think I’d mind one; it’s kind of a pretty sound. But I’m not going out looking for one. Certainly I don’t need it with the things I play. I’d like to keep electricity out of my group. The neon wouldn’t fit.”
On the subject of playing with strings, he had this to say: “Yes, it can be nice. I recorded with strings for Gary McFarland; it was great. And Stan Getz’s Focus album is a favourite of mine. Stan plays marvellously on that record. Eddie Sauter left plenty of freedom for him on that.
I had the chance to play that music when they did two or three college. York. Eddie is up there near where I’m living. It was the same concerts in New thing, with me in Stan’s place, but unfortunately there wasn’t the budget to have all the instruments that are on the album.
‘Yes, Focus-it was quite a challenge, an experience for me. I’ll tell you, after I played it I went back and listened to Stan’s record and appreciated what he did on it even more so.’
Back-tracking to his remark about modifying his way of playing, slowly, I mentioned an aggressive, hard-toned passage with which he’d ended one of his numbers at Ronnie’s the previous night. It was, I thought, almost out of character as set in the known Sims mould.
The tenorman admitted he thought he had changed quite a lot through the years. ‘Of course I hear myself every time I play. Maybe it’s too subtle for most listeners. When I hear an old record of mine, that’s when I really notice it.
But I don’t believe it’s important to alter your style that much. If you’re Johnny Hodges, why change? The only thing I noticed specially on Johnny’s later records was that he just played a little harder. What do people want? They couldn’t expect Johnny to jump up and down on stage.
Zoot and Al Cohn are still in partnership whenever there is work for the two-tenor group. They played in Toronto last year, and thrice in Los Angeles during ’69 and ’70. As Zoot says: ‘It’s so easy to get it together. In fact we don’t even need to rehearse.”
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TALKING JAZZ
‘Some of the singers I work for come on with big bands, so that gives me a chance to write for a big orchestra. Yes, I like that field. I like it all, and I’ve done all different kinds of work in the last couple of years… but not much jazz as it happens.’
And what about the pop field? Modern hippie groups, as opposed to popular singers?
“Well, I haven’t had any call for that so far. What’s my opinion of it? It doesn’t reach me too much. I like guys who can really play, and I don’t think that’s what they’re trying to do.
‘I don’t mean to knock these groups. I guess I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. It’s hard for me to judge what’s good and what’s bad in that music. They tell me some of it is good, but nearly all of it sounds the same to me. I did hear a rock and roll group I liked, though, and it turned out to be the Beach Boys. Very musical stuff, I thought.
‘Really it comes down to age, I suppose. If I was that age, maybe I’d be pt that when I was that age I was practising. In my playing that music, too. Except the young days I was trying hard to master an instrument.”
Zoot Sims’ attitude to that scene is almost non-commital.”No, I don’t even know about it, the music. But those kids and all those flowers and things. I think it’s better than Hell’s Angels, however they do it.”
As for Charles Lloyd, often accused of taking the flower path: ‘Yes, I like his music. It’s a little more advanced than ours. You know, he’s working on newer lines.
I said that I found Al and Zoot’s music fully satisfying. ‘Good, Zoot said, ‘It sounds kind of mainstream, doesn’t it?”
Discussing jazz trends, he expressed a tolerant view about avant-garde music. It’s something that has to happen. I mean, if you’re young you’re not going to play like Coleman Hawkins today. It’s got to change: it cannot stand still. Take Hawkins… he doesn’t stand still, either.
“Mind you, I’m not one of the changers. I know a couple of musicians I grew up with who changed their styles overnight almost, playing this free form. But they can’t do it. It isn’t like pressing a button. You can’t play it if it isn’t in you.’
What does Sims listen to for pleasure these days?
I still like all my old favourites but I don’t have to listen to them so Well, I much now. Mostly I go for guitar music. Oh, Segovia… that’s what I like to hear when I get home. I have to get away from jazz sometimes.
‘But you know what makes very relaxing listening? Old Billie Holiday records. There was something about those records… they used popular songs of the day, Billie and Teddy Wilson, but they picked the best of them.’
‘Before we started talking Zoot was practising flute, the one Harold McNair gave him. I wondered how the new craft was progressing, and whether he’d blown the instrument in public.
‘No, Zoot said firmly. I’m not ready for it. I don’t want to play it until I’ve learnt it properly. I still crack notes once in a while. You know, the embouchure is hard on a flute; you can’t leak any air’.
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We used to go on the road and all but we stopped that. We’ll still occasionally take something that’s not too far from New York, but the Half Note sort of keeps us in town quite a bit. Well, four engagements a year there, and record dates and a few festivals. That takes care of it, and of course Al writes.”
What numbers shall we be hearing from them at Scott’s?
We’ll do the things we’ve recorded,’ says Zoot, ‘and a whole lot of other numbers we’ve added. I’m afraid we’re going to need an extensive rehearsal for some of them.
Today, few tenors can escape the warm wind of the bossa nova, and Sims has been bossa-ing in the studios. He says:
‘Al and I haven’t really been doing bossa novas, but I have an album out in the States and it’s doing nicely. Al wrote half the date, and Manny Albam did the other.
‘How do I feel about bossa nova? The melodies from Brazil, they’re beautiful. And I find the tunes easy to blow on. It’s really big in the States now; you know, it’s really caught on. And on the Continent… more than in this country.
‘Of course, they’re going to run it into the ground, ruin it, but that doesn’t take anything away from the original music.’
In 1967 when the Sims-Cohn group was making another return appearance at Ronnie’s, now situated in Soho’s Frith Street, I asked for joint reactions.
Zoot Sims and Al Cohn are regular visitors to Britain, but this doesn’t mean that their familiar duo sound is any less welcome than it was. The warmth, swing and sheer teams man ship of their current Scott Club offering are as endearing as ever they were, and it is no surprise to see the nation’s saxophonists trekking nightly towards Frith Street. (I’ve been in every night but one since they opened, Harry Klein told me.)
Zoot and Al, to coin a phrase, play good together. And that is something to pleasure the ears of club-goers who feel deprived just lately of the basic jazz sustenance.
‘It’s been a very happy visit this time,’ said Zoot. We’ve had good crowds pretty well every night and we’re both enjoying it. We haven’t played together a great deal recently and this has been a ball. I think I like to play now more than I ever did before.
Al Cohn confirmed the ball. “We generally have a good time. You know what a jazz performance is: it can’t be top all the while but most of the time we have a ball.
I suppose six months of the year would be the most we work together.Generally it’s a little less. That’s why we have fun, I guess, because we’re not playing together all the time. So we don’t get tired of ourselves.”
When the Sims-Cohn Quintet is laying off, Al devotes much of his time to composing and arranging.
‘Mostly I’ve been working with singers, and I’ve done the orchestrations for quite a few industrial shows lately. Paul Anka, Steve Lawrence, Tony Bennett and Bobby Vinton are some of the singers I’ve written for.
Page 6
ZOOT SIMS
John Haley-as I sometimes addressed him, having read Leonard Feather’s dictionary-was the first American ‘single’ to be booked into Ronnie Scott’s fin 1961), and be became a regular and popular ‘resident’ at the club, both old place and new, as a solo attraction and in partnership with Al Cohn. When he wasn’t blowing with Cohn, Zoot was often talking about him. In fact, in conversations with me, he mentioned Al more than any other jazz musician. He also spoke of Basie, Ellington, Herman, Wilson and Holiday, Parker, Rollins, Lester Young, Goodman, Getz and Tubby Hayes with variable approval.
Zoot had his own sense of humour as well as his own sax style. One Saturday I came back from Belfast and realised it was Sims’ final night at Ronnie’s; so down I went to catch him. Backstage between sets I told him I’d just returned from the Belfast Festival. Who’d you see?” he asked. I said: Mostly Illinois Jacquet. He grinned. Illinois, he said. I can hear him from here.
At the close of his first season at Ronnie’s, in November of ’61, Zoot left.Britain for Paris. Before he went, I asked for his afterthoughts on the London trip. This, from the Melody Maker of 2 December, captures the novel nature of these musical exchanges at that period.
Zoot Sims is not a loquacious man; when he said that what he really wanted to say was how friendly everyone here had been, he clearly meant it and more.
‘To tell you how I feel about this visit. I’d have to think about it and write you a letter, he explained.
And later: “Everyone is concerned about jazz over here about what you’re playing and everything, and that’s all right. But what has really impressed me about England is the people themselves, as people. I can’t speak about the British in general, but in our field, those I’ve met have all been fine and very friendly. To me, that’s more important than the other thing, though, of course, I’m delighted if my playing has been enjoyed.’
He broke off after this marathon speech and took a small mouthful of tomato juice-an unusual choice for John Haley Sims (My family gave all of us the wrong names”) and one probably dictated by the previous night’s celebrations. After an eventful farewell date at the Marquee where he played a set with Ronnie Scott’s rhythm section and two final numbers with Johnny Dankworth’s orchestra Zoot had been given a send-off party at the Scott Club. There, besides pushing the boat out, Ronnie Scott and Pete King presented Sims with a silver brandy flask. Other musicians gave him a selection of ‘Goon’ records. Naturally, all this affected him. Zoot told me that he preferred t work to concerts in any event, but this particular club had been nearly everything he could ask for.
I was comfortable there,” he said. “I was here before, as you know, with a concert package, but this is a completely different experience,’ he went on. ‘I don’t enjoy playing concerts too much. And that show I didn’t enjoy at all. So there’s no comparison between my two visits.
The thing about Ronnie’s club is that it reminds me of the Half Note. The atmosphere is warm; it’s an easy-going place; musicians like it; it has the same kind of management. I feel there’s a connection between the clubs already. I’ve
Page7
TALKING JAZZ
played them both, and Tubby Hayes has been over and made it at the Half Note. You know, Tubby-he did it just like that….”
Zoot snapped a finger and thumb to demonstrate the decisive way in which Hayes won over the American patrons. And now,” he said, “I’d like to see Ronnie have a try there..
‘How would he go over? That depends on the amount of confidence he feels. I’ll tell you this: if he decides to go, everybody there will help all they can to see that it works out all right.
‘I really feel this about the two clubs. Both of them get going; there’s good guys work at both, and if there’s some way of doing a regular exchange between them, then it should be done. It can only be to everyone’s benefit. I mean, if the musicians can play and are happy there… what else? So let’s make a big thing of it. I’d like to see this club exchange publicised, like to see it grow.”
When Sims has finished his three weeks or so in Paris (I’ll be at the Blue Note probably) he hopes to revisit London before returning home.
‘I plan on looking in for a few days,’ he says. I open at the Half Note on Boxing Day with Al Cohn and the quintet. I’d love to come back here with Al and work the Scott club. I think it could work out. We have a whole book of tunes and I’m sure Al is well liked in Britain.’
So Zoot Sims takes away a very favourable impression of us. But not more favourable than the one he leaves behind. Ronnie Scott summed up the situation: ‘My God!’ he said. “What an anticlimax this week’s going to be.”
One year later Sims was back in Ronnie’s and about to be reunited, for his second week, with sidekick Cohn (they first crossed axes early in 1948). Zoot spoke more about Al than himself for the Melody Maker of 8 December 1962.
‘Well, I hope we’ll kill ’em.’ The hope was expressed I ZootSims, hoping as much on Al Cohn’s behalf as on his own. Sims has already been resident for a week at Ronnie Scott’s club, and he hasn’t needed help to keep the place crammed.
‘I’m glad to be back in Ronnie’s myself, he said, ‘but I’m especially pleased about being joined by Al on Friday. It’s his first time here, and I think you will enjoy him.
‘Yes, he’ll enjoy it, too. He always enjoys playing, and on the social side… he has so many relatives here.
As for me, I feel Al and I have something more to say musically when we’re together. We have a library, and a lot of things worked out. You know, it’s easier with Al because we have a band. There’s more we can do. When I’m here alone, I’m up there thinking of tunes to play, and making things up. Yes, I know about improvisation and all that, and I like it. But I know so many tunes I can’t think of when I’m on the stage.
‘Al and I have the arrangements, and we’ve played together a lot since-oh,I guess it was around ’57. We met in 1948 in Woody Herman’s band, of course, but it was in ’57 we made a couple of record dates and just took it from there.
Page 16
That was it Two songs. Maybe ten minutes. But, man, t was great. Maybe she wasn’t at her peak, but she was still Judy Garland, and for those few minutes she was part of the music, she was in the music
We had to help her down from the stage and back to her table. Then we sat down and talked, you know. We all gathered around Judy’s table-Pop, Judi Marie, the guys in the band, Anita, Charlie and his boyfriend. And we got pretty friendly. And me, at that time, I was wide open. I’d say anything. I said, “You know, you look too skinny, man. Very thin looking. And my cid man said, “Now that you know us, why don’t you hang out here? Maybe we can put some meat on you. If Pop had his way, he’d have had her come in every night so he could cook her up somefood
She said, “I really can’t do that? She said she was going to England in the morning. I think she just got married to someone there. But she said she really loved the place and as soon as she got back, she was going to hang out with us, that this was going to be her hang out. You can tell when somebody’s just saying something. I think she meant it. If you’d seen her, she seemed so happy there, just like we were. Just being in the music.
She stayed right till the end, about four AM, when we were closing the place. We wouldn’t let her pay, naturally. She was a little bombed. We all were, I guess.
Everybody said their good-byes. I walked her to the door. We sort of kept little distance, you know. I mean we loved her, but you couldn’t hug her or anything like that. She looked too fragile. It must have been hard being Judy Garland. Everybody in the world knew her. ? Everybody loved her. How could she hug everybody in the world?
She shook Pop’s hand.
I went outside and watched her walk away with Anita, Charlie and his boyfriend. It was summer, and it was nice out. The joint was on Hudson and Spring, and they were walking east on Spring, I guess looking for a cab. The last thing I remember was watching her walk away into the dark Her legs ware like toothpicks.
It was a great night. But, you know, you just got nervous looking at her. There was something ominous, like she was sick or something Like she was at the end of the line. She was like a shadow of herself-except when she was up on that stage. Then she was Judy Garland again,
You wanted to just grab her and keep her there, because for a little while she seemed so happy You wanted to hold onto that. But what can you do? wish she could have come back and hung out at the joint It was such a great place. A place where she could just get into the music. Where she belonged. Where people loved her. Like a home. One thing that Judy taught everybody is that there’s no place like home.
That was on June 15th. We heard on the news that a week later, on June 22nd, they found her dead on her bathroom floor in London. I guess her body just gave out.
Page 21
INSIDE THE Half Note
An affectionate portrait of a unique New York jazz club/ By DON NELSEN
A FREQUENT DAYDREAM of mine concerns an underground of musicians whose mission is to terrorize night club owners, agents managers are men, and selected officials of the American Federation of Musicians Nat calls, this being my dream, critics would be exempt from harassment and so would three New York City gentlemen med Frank, Sonny, and Mike Canterino.
Frank and his two sons would escape the rope because, though members of the club-owning class, they have proved themselves loyal to the jazz proletariat This is why they are probably the only owners in existence who receive birth day presents from musicians and customers and why one well-known group actually refused a raise they offered.
Such events must be unique in the history of night spot and indicate why the Half Note, perhaps the only family operated jazz clues in the country, has become. in seven years, the favorite hangout of many New York City – musicians, writers, accountants, bridge workers and other sound addicts who comprise its nightly auditory, What brings the person back is a combination of comfortable physical surroundings and an atmosphere that reflects the personality of the Canterinos
The Hall Note, 291 Hudson St. part of a corner building located amid a jumble of reputable waterfront think any differently of Sonny and warehouses and trucking firms. For Months New York cabdrivers couldn’t find it which added to its financial strain in the early days.
It is a two-room club split by a bandstand above the bar and deco rated with album covers and modern wood impressions of instruments ram pant on a field of green paint. Everything in the rooms from the bandstand to the raised mezzanine came into being under the hammers of Sonny and Mike.
Unlike most owners, whose attitude toward their clubs reminds one of a man who married a woman for her money, the Canterinos act as if they really enjoy what they are doing. Lennie Tristano, who for years refused all offers to play clubs because of his distaste for owners, has said:
“The Half Note is the most comfortable place I ever worked in. Everybody is cool. Neither Sonny, Mike, nor Frank have ever told me what to do or how to do it. They are the only clubowners I know who haven’t ended by hating musicians. They are friendly, groovy people who pay a musician a good wage despite the fact that they don’t have the resources of other owners who pay less. They share a bigger percentage of their profit with the musicians. I never heard anyone who has worked for them say a bad word about them.”
Tristano’s salute is delivered with strong personal feeling.
In 1958 the pianist was a legendary musician who stayed home and taught rather than play in clubs or for owners he despised. He had no reason to think any differently of Sonny and Mike Canterino when they came to visit him that summer after preliminary soundings on their behalf by Tristano’s friends. Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. Both had played the Note and knew Tristano would like it.But Sonny and Mike didn’t want to rush things. They wanted Tristano to play their club, but, in view of the pianist’s attitude, they trod softly. They made their visits social rather than business occasions and plied him with Canterino pasta brought directly from the Half Note kitchen. Finally they got him to come down in the afternoons to get the feel of the place. Then he tried the piano.
“No good,” he said.
“But it’s a Steinway.” they replied.
“Too stiff,” he said. “We’ll buy another,” they declared.
“Will you pick it out?”
He did: a $2,000 Bechstein. Sonny and Mike wondered where they were going to get the cash. but they signed the bill. That August, Tristano opened with his own group after a four-year self-imposed exile from the scene. He’s never been sorry, he says, and sees no reason to change his original estimate of the Canterinos.
“They haven’t changed a bit in five years,” he said. “They are still the best. Even after all this time they will drive me home at 4 a.m. if I need a lift.”
Tristano was, incidentally, unwittingly responsible for an addition to the Canterino menage. For a time he taught voice to a girl named Judi Derwin, who dropped by the Note to hear him. She dropped by often and now is Mrs. Mike Canterino.
Page 17
Mike Canterino
I first met Mike Canterino in 1962 as a young man in New York to pursue career in jazz, 1 can remember venturing down to Hudson and Spring street to hear the John Coltrane quartet. The placed was so packed that I was barely able to get into the door and so I stood right inside the door amidst a wall of people packed like sardines. I listened to a whole set and didn’t spend a dime because it was too crowded for the waiter to get to where I was and I remember feeling “This is great! I got to hear music of this caliber and all I paid was the subway fare to get there and back. At the time I was poor as a church mouse and hadn’t broken in yet un tie New York scene. I remember also feeling “what a soulful place.” “Nobody seems to care that I’m not paying for this music and somehow I feel welcome anyway.” It wasn’t untill about a year later that my friend Ross Thompkinssent me there to sub for him with Zoot Simms that set the Canterino family. I recall. since I was still struggling, I was hungry and I wanted to order some food and Mama Canterinoasked me if I’d like a meatball sandwich on Italian bread. Of course 1 did and she brought it out and it was delicious. At the end of the night after I got paid I went to pay my bill and they wouldn’t accept any money. Wow, I thought, “Who are these people?” Back then New York was a cold place and people didn’t treat people as well as they do now. I sort of recall that the meatball sandwich was the only food I had that day. Mike was the bartender and Judy was working the cloakroom. The mother and father were running the kitchen. They all took a liking to me and seemed to like the way I played. I could believe how warm and friendly to me they were and I knew right away that was in the presence of some really special folks who genuinely love this music and the people who play. Judy was like this beautiful angel and Mike was like the most accepting guy who loved musicians regardless of their flaws and fallacies. For example, a musician would show up drunk and in most cases would be booted out and told he would never work there again. Not the Canterine family. They would have genuine concern for the musician and pour black coffee down. I’ll try to get him sober enough to make the gig. Then they would pay him in the end as it nothing happened. And furthermore they would book him back because they were very des standing and had a genuine love for this music and the people who played it. I cannot recall any place in the world where I witnessed such compassiontowards musicians in a jazz club than the Half Note and the people who ran it They were like family to the whole community of jazz musicians who played there. I became friendly with Mike and Judy and Sonny as well as Mom and Pop whose memory is still with me too this very day. If you were a jazz musician and scuffing in New York you felt like you mere home with family anytime you were in the Half Note. One of the things I recall about the place was the number of people who fell off the bandstand there. remember: Billy Butterfield being drunk and falling off in the cat room ant demolishing it. Jody was in there, if and the first thing they did to make sure Billy was not hurt the next thing they did was roll on the floor with laughter. he’s the kind of people they were. i recall Major Holly falling and breaking his arm. I had the distinction of falling off myself when I was working there with James Moody and Moody, who was my best friend in life, ran into the coat coons and hid his head among the coats so I wouldn’t see him laughing at me. That was Moody’s thing. If you’d slip on a banana peel he would make sure you were breathing and didn’t need an ambulance and then he would be rolling on the grand laughing.
I remember Mie and Judy as the most loving people who always treated me with love and respect. They frequently gave me work more and when they moved uptown they booked me as aheadliner with a quintet that I had just recorded a new album with. I was frequently there as a solo pianist between sets of the current headliner. And when business was bad, the first thing. they did was make sure the musicians were paid. Mike was always this straight up guy who was totally honest and didn’t pull any punches when it came to the truth and reality. I recall working there with Ruby Braff who was known for his eccentric personality and he would get into arguments with people all the time but he played so beautifully that people just accepted that from him. Mike, must have gotten the brunt of one of Ruby’s tirades and instead of getting mad at Ruby had a tee shirt made that said, “I had a beef with Braff” That is one of the things I loved about Mike, his marvelous sense of humor towards life. He would tell some of the funniest stories of characters in the neighborhood, like “Mike the Milkman” who drove a milk truck and would be drunk and drive his truck into all the garbage cans along the street where the club was. And instead of getting angry, Mike would find it the most humorous thing in the world and the source of another of his famous folk tales. And to hear Mike’s Zoot Simms stories, which were works of art, was one of the most entertaining things any one could ever experience. I always remember when ever you were around Mike and Judy they always made you feel good and happy to be with them. I recall one incident when I was playing Zinno’s, a club that used to be in the village, and Mike and Judy came by to hear me and Mike had a violin and a bow with no case with him. I think Judy had given it to him as a present and he was club hopping with his violin and bow even though he couldn’t play it. I guess he just wanted pool to see he had one. You see, Mike loved music and musicians and he was just proud to awa musical instrument. Although he wasn’t a musician himself he was one of the few people the musicians considered as one of them. He was “One of the Cats” to many of us and definitely a bona fide member of the New York jazz scene who was loved by all of us as was Judy and the entire Canterino family. I have lost a dear friend and the world has lost a truly great human being and Jazz has lost one of its own. Rest in peace my friend, I will miss you greatly und thanks for the memories.
Mike Longo
HALF NOTE from page 17
and Sunday waiter who frequently turns up during the week to hold court with the Canterinos on women and world affairs.
Dougherty, 6 foot 4 and 250 pounds. is a waterfront wit of considerable skill and is Tristano’s favorite late-night chauffeur. If Tristano is stuck at the club at 4 a.m.. Dougherty will offer him a ride, and the two, usually accompanied by Sonny, barrel out to the pianist’s home in Jamaica, on Long. Island, 35 miles from the club.
These three, but especially Al because he is there all the time and his voice is louder, are standard Half Note fixtures. Because of their popularity with owners, musicians, and customers, they furnish no small portion of the club’s buoyant atmosphere.
ACTUAL BUOYANCY- the faculty of keeping one’s head above water was long in coming, however.
For a year and a half after the club. opened, care lined the faces of the Canterinos. Business was awful. Nothing they tried seemed to work. Sonny had to leave the place at 3 a.m. to load waterfront trucks to support his family. There were times then when he and Mike had to go out on a Saturday night and borrow money to pay the musicians. Finally, liquor dealers threatened to cut off the club’s supply.
But Frank stood solid for the boys. and finally they hit the right combination: Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. This pair and a rhythm section has consistently drawn customers, and a warm friendship has grown between labor and management, warm enough, in fact, for Frank to have invited Al and Zoot to cool off for a weekend at the family’s summer retreat to Lake Hopatcong. N.J. Cohn says:
“That family is something. I never saw any of them argue with or get mad at any of the others. Man, that’s a tight family. The boys must have in herited their beautiful nature from Frank.”
Their liking for musicians is more than surface deep. When pianist Eddie Costa was killed in an auto accident in July, 1962, the Half Note delegation was fully represented at the wake. Sonny, Mike, Rosemary. Arnie, Al the Waiter, Chich, and Dougherty came with mass cards to pay their respects.
So high is the esteem in which Sims and Cohn hold the Canterinos that they once refused a raise from Sonny. Cohn’s explanation proves that, despite the smart guys uptown, a club can be oper ated with decency and with respect between owner and musician:
“The Canterinos really had rough times to make it, but even when business was the worst and they were really aching for money they never complained or continually bugged you. I never saw Frank get strong with any one, and sometimes he’s had cause. We turned down the raise because we didn’t want them to feel that we were getting to want too much, that we were taking advantage.”
Among musicians who know about the Half Note it seems impossible to meet one who doesn’t share Cohn’s estimate. This is why a good percentage of the house on any given night will be made up of musicians who have come down to hear and talk. Of course, this means less bread in the wrapper for Sonny, who gives them all more than the usual break on food and booze; but it doesn’t make that much difference to him. The musicians and steady patrons, in turn. feel this and bring themselves and others back time after time.
Frank occasionally joins his customers at the bar, where he discusses the issues of the day-usually food and money-with his sons and smokes a king-size cigaret. But most of the time he is back in the kitchen-white, short-sleeved shirt open at the neck and bow tie clipped to one side of his collar preparing Italian goodies which would satisfy the most demanding Mafioso. His labors are interrupted only by Al the Waiter, who sticks his thin, black-haired head into the window opening between the kitchen and bar room to yell. “A meat ball sandwich. Mr. Boss” or some such. He then rips a tray of shot glasses from the sill and marches four feet to the bar, where Sonny shakes his head in despair because Al’s voice may have disturbed some musicians or customer.
The bar closes at 4 a.m., and Frank drives home to Brooklyn. But Sonny and Mike and a few regulars might stick around in the darkened rooms talking music or (when he’s there, which is often) challenging Zoot Sims to a game of pool.
Apropos of the green table, the Canterinos arranged a surprise birthday party for Sims last October. At midnight. Al Cohn counted off Happy Birthday, and Sims got about a measure into it before he realized what was happening. A roar went up, a birthday cake arrived, and presents were handed out. Frank gave Sims some shirts, Mike came up with a shaving set and Colpixa&r man Jack Lewis and Al the Waiter dolled the tenorist up in crown and pitchfork. But the best was yet to come. On behalf of Cohn, DiPierro, and Dougherty, Sonny saluted Sims with the grooviest gift of all: a two-piece pool cue.
That’s the Half Note.
The Half Note operation is a family affair. The padrone of the clan is Frank, whose age of 57 roughly parallels his waist size. He couldn’t buy a better advertisement than himself for his food, which he prepares and cooks himself in a small kitchen in back of one of the Note’s two rooms. Tristano said of him:
“To me he is the main influence on the club’s personality and a man of great friendliness and compassion. Frank is wise and intelligent enough to let the boys run the club, but he is still always there in the background, his personality dominating the atmosphere. If a musician walks in hungry, Frank will give him a meal. He’s a fine man.”
This writer has personal knowledge of Frank’s kindness. I walked into the Half Note one night after a three week bout with spastic colitis. Frank saw me from the kitchen, walked out, and, upon learning of the illness, sat down for a half-hour and gave me fatherly advice on what and what not to eat and why. For a short time thereafter, Frank kept the sauce off my meatballs for fear it might foment rebellion in the lower pipes. Lest it be thought that this treatment is reserved for musicians, writers, or others who may be in a position to help the Canterinos, it should be stated that Half Note habitues can name other people who have received meals and even loans from the Canterinos when the only thing the latter could expect in return was thanks.
The musical policy lies solely in the hands of Sonny and Mike. Their procedure is simple: mostly they hire musicians they themselves like to hear.
Perhaps the most popular group is the Zoot Sims-Al Cohn Quintet, which invades the Note an average of 14 weeks a year and is always the attraction on Christmas and New Year’s. Other steadies include Tristano, Bob. Brookmeyer Clark Terry, and Art Farmer-Jim Hall. The rest of the year is taken up by such as Phil Woods, Toshiko and Charlie Mariano, and Al Grey-Billy Mitchell.
A glance at these bookings prove that the brothers paddle firmly in the main stream with a glance or two in the direction of the horizon.
It was Sonny and Mike who started the current business. Before 1956 the Note was just plain old Frank and Jean’s, an Italian pizzeria and a saloon where Frank and his wife Jean turned out pasta for the waterfront trade. The elder Canterinos would have continued in this manner, but Mike left for the Navy that year and, when he came home, began filling Sonny’s brain with strange ideas.
Music on weekends? Sonny was game. Surprisingly, Frank said okay. But Jean had her doubts.
“After all,” Frank said, “the boys had to have a chance to start something of their own. I didn’t know what was going to turn up, but I let them try.”
What turned up seemed to confirm his wife’s doubts. Mike, thinking to cash in on an up-and-coming craze, opened the place on Saturday nights to the rock-and-roll community. It lasted five weeks. Of this, Sonny says with admirable candor:
“The music was awful, and so were the customers it brought in.”
Mike, abashed, fled to Florida, where he worked as a bartender while devising new schemes. It was finally Dwike Mitchell of the Mitchell-Ruff Duo who brought the coals of creation in Mike’s breast to flame. Jazz, said Mitchell optimistically, is the answer to your perplexities. Mike, ever enthusiastic, left for New York ready to renew the battle.
He found Sonny once again agree able. This wasn’t strange. Both had enjoyed jazz since their teens. Frank was cautious but favorable. Jean shook her head, indicating that they were a bunch of loonies. Besides, she said, “music at night will hurt the day business.”
Mike and Sonny quickly pointed out that the day business was getting pretty bad, anyway.
“Some of the old buildings were being torn down, and cafeterias were opening which took a lot of our business,” Sonny said. “Our night business was completely dead, so Mike and I figured we’d try to build it up.”
Mrs. Canterino, dismayed, retreated to the kitchen. Mike and Sonny went to work.
First, they borrowed money to en large and decorate. They broke through the wall to an abandoned plumbing shop next door for a second room and did all the painting, wiring, and plastering themselves. Dwike Mitchell, who was to have opened the club but who had to withdraw at the last moment, helped them hang up the wooden instrument cutouts, which had been designed by a friend of his.
Meanwhile, the brothers made nightly sorties uptown, tagging cars (including Mayor Robert Wagner’s) with announcements of the club’s debut. When Randy Weston sat down at the key board in September, 1957, Sonny, in what must have seemed to the patrons. a remarkable display of insouciance, was just finishing the plaster work on one of the walls. Since then, a proper bandstand and a raised mezzanine in the barroom have arisen under the Canterino hands.
Sonny and Mike may be the hardiest members of the family, but sister Rosemary is by far the prettiest. A shapely and attractive woman of 23, she checks coats on weekends while her husband, Arnie, helps behind the bar. She also does some of the club’s booking. Jean has long since left the kitchen entirely to Frank. He and the boys sent her into honorable retirement a couple of years ago.
All these, of course, are “family.” But there are three outsiders who account for much of the club’s personality. They are Al the Waiter, Frank Chich (pronounced Cheech) DiPierro, and Richard (Big Dick) Dougherty.
Al is a veteran of countless Jewish delicatessens, but somehow he convinced the Canterinos he could pass for Italian. Few patrons detected his imposture. He is truly a phenomenon. He feeds all the patrons at the Note’s 33 tables on weeknights and rarely gets a beef on his service.
His most renowned accomplishment, however, often startles the customers: slip cigaret from the pack and Al materializes with flaming match, broad casting his standard phrase: “Sorry you had to wait, sir” (or “young lady”).
DiPierro appears in dark glasses as often as not. He is thin, dark-haired, sinisterly handsome. He is a Saturday (Continued on page 37)
RECOLLECTIONS
Keeping the faith at the Half Note
The Canterino family consisted of Frank, Jean, two sons, Michael and Sonny, and a daughter, Rosemarie. The bar that mom and pop Canterino owned and ran after World War II, at the corner of Hudson and Spring Streets, was a neighborhood operation called Frank and Jean’s. It catered to the needs of the locals, who were shot-and-beer drinkers working the warehouses in the neighborhood and the docks just a little farther west. As the children grew old enough, they all pitched in, learning the business but also getting an education in street smarts.
The family was perfectly content with the operation just as it existed. But son Mike, having been exposed to
The Hudson Street jazz club began as one
man’s dream and became a legend.
jazz music and musicians during the Korean War, re turned with the dream. He wanted to turn the “store,” as he called it, into a jazz club where he could hire some of the players he had come to love and admire so much. It was a definite hard sell, as his family had no idea what he was talking about, things were going along fine and the prevailing attitude was, “Why gamble with the un known?” Still, the man with the dream prevailed, and in 1957 the Half Note was born.
Mike was now calling the shots. Winging it all the way. he built a stage behind the bar using empty Coca-Cola cartons. Then he hit the pavement, trying to track down some of his musical heroes and see if he could talk them into working the club.
To know Mike is to love him. So when this naive, unassuming young man approached the likes of even a Charlie Mingus, that most difficult of men was disarmed and charmed into agreeing to do the gig. Soon, the word was out. After checking a map to figure out where it was, hard-core fans were beating a path to the door of the great new jazz club. The drinks were cheap, the food was great and the music was superb.Soon the Zoot Sims-Al Cohn quintet became the house band.” I’ve never heard two people swing any harder nor drink more fiercely than Zoot and Al. Their group played many stints every year and built a solid following that helped Mike, now married with a child, to keep paying the bills.
THE KINDNESS OF A STRANGER
Eventually, the terrible dearth of a jazz audience in America caught up with the Canterinos. Unless Mike could come up with $3,000, the doors were about to be closed. A group of us decided to donate our services for a gala jazz benefit, so Mike rented a Lower East Side theatre, I assembled an all-star big band and, along with some wonderful soloists, Carmen McRae agreed to be the headliner. As it turned out, the music was great but the audience was meager. Between the cost of the advertising and the rent, Mike ended up owing another $2,000, bringing his total debt to $5,000. This truly seemed like the end, but the party at the club after the performance went on as scheduled. Everyone, including the Canterinos, adopted a “what the hell attitude anproceeded to have a ball.
A stranger at the bar, who obviously had been at the benefit, was quite taken with the spirit of the occasion After engaging Mike in conversation and learning of difficulties, the man wrote a check for $3,000 and the left. Mike, certain that the check was worthless, carlessly tossed it aside. On a whim he took it to the ball the next morning and, to his absolute amazement, d covered that it was good. The club found itself back business, reconfirming to all of us that it pays to keep the faith.
Business improved at the Half Note on Hudson Street until Mike made the mistake of putting on a tuxedo a moving the club uptown to West 54th Street. It did catch on, and in a couple of years the Canterinos who finally forced to close their doors for good. Mom pop passed away, Rosemarie married and moved w and both brothers continued to work around N York-Sonny as a freelance bartender and Mike a manager of jazz clubs, always dreaming of getting own “store” again someday.
Atlantic Mutual Jazzfest 2001
Two-day jazz festival/picnic presented by the New Jersey Jazz Society (lineup in accompanying story)
Where: Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Park Avenue, Madison
When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday
How much: One-day ticket, $35; two-day ticket, $65. Students, $10 per day; children under 12, free. Tickets sold at the gate. Call (800) 303-6557 or go to www.nijs.org.
Also: Blankets, chairs and picnic items welcome; no alcoholic beverages allowed.
BY GEORGE KANZLER
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
One of Manhattan’s most fondly remembered jazz clubs, The Half Note – a place where you could hear John Coltrane and eat a homemade meatball sandwich at the same time will be recalled this week end in tributes to the renowned musicians who worked there at the New Jersey Jazz Society’s Atlantic Mutual Jazzfest2001.
When the Half Note opened in 1957, most Manhattan jazz clubs were either in Greenwich Village, Harlem or Midtown. The Half Note was close to the Holland Tunnel entrance, at the corner of Hudson and Spring Streets downtown, which made it very convenient for suburban, car-driving fans. Street parking was plentiful, often right in front of the club.
Originally, the club was the back room of a neighborhood bar run by the Canterino family starting in 1943.
“When I was in the Navy Air Corps, I worked part time in a bar in Jacksonville, Florida, where jazz musicians played, and I fell in love with the music,” says Mike Canterino, 68. “So when I came back home in 1957, I asked Pop if I could start a jazz club and he said fine, use the back room. I painted it up, built a bandstand out of Coca Cola boxes, bought a piano and opened with (pianist) Randy Weston’s trio.
“For a while, it was me in the back room with Randy. No customers. Nobody knew where the joint was. But then Bob Sylvester, a columnist in the Daily News, came down and wrote a half page about us and people started coming”
The back room was getting crowded, especially after Canterinobooked bassist Charles Mingus’ band in 1958. Canterinoknocked down the wall separating the back room from the bar room, and built a stage at bar level that could be seen from both rooms.
“Building inspectors made us put the wall back, but we got a permit and took it down again, officially, a few weeks later,” says Canterino. “By then, we had become a hangout for musicians as well as jazz fans. All the cats came in, even if they didn’t work there. It was their joint. I remember one night (trumpeters) Bobby Hackett and Miles Davis were up on stage, playing together-but it was actually (singer) Carmen McRae’s gig. You can’t get any better than that.”
One of Canterino’s favorite bands was the quintet led by tenor saxophonists Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. The club, which closed in 1972, booked acts for long engagements multiple weeks to months.
“I always hired (Cohn and Sims) to come in following John Coltrane’s quartet After three weeks of Coltrane, when the music was intense but it was hard to make! a buck, having Zoot and Al in was like going to Hawai. It was always so happy, a real jazz party. And they drew a big-spending crowd, bartenders from all over town and studio musicians they knew from uptown.”
On Sunday at Jazzfest, saxophonist Ken Peplowski and Tommy Newsom will lead a quintet that will revisit some of therepertoire and arrangements of the Al and Zoot band. Pianist Junior Mance and his trio will pay tribute to Wynton Kelly, a pianist who often played the Half Note, and will be joined by guitarist Russell Malone, who will remember Wes Montgomery, another Half Note regular. Kelly’s trio and Montgomery recorded an album at the club in 1966, “Smokin’ at the Half Note (Verve).
The Half Note tribute will take place on Sunday in a tent on the lawn of the Fairleigh Dickinson University campus in Madison.” It’s one of three venues that will be presenting jazz both days, along with Dreyfuss Auditorium, a 500-seat theater, and the Aerobics Room, a small gym.
Sunday’s fare will also include clarinetist Kenny Davern’squartet; singer pianist Daryl Sherman’s quartet with tenor saxophonist Houston Person; pianist Bill Charlap and trumpeter Warren Vache, and pianist Rio Clemente.
A Saturday tribute to Louis Armstrong I will feature the quintets of trumpeters Byron Stripling, who played Armstrong in anational touring company bio-musical about Satchmo.
LIFE MUSIC REVIEW
Sims like
old times
ZOOT SIMS AND THE HALF NOTE
Years ago you’d go to hear a man in a room. You’d go up to Harlem to catch Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club. Or you’d drive out on the weekend to the Glen Island Casino where Glen Gray’s Casa Loma band was sure to be playing. Or maybe you’d stay in town for supper and dig the Benny Goodman orchestra at the Madhattan Room of the Hotel Pennsylvania. After the swing era, it got to be an even more individualized scene. You had old Red Allen in stalled like a fixture above the bar at theMetropole. Thelonius Monk bolted to the floor of the Five Spot. Or Coleman Hawkins in long cuffs built into the gloom of Kelly’s Stables.
The idea in all these joints was the same. It was the simple notion that men, especially great performers, create an ambience which can be caught, bottled and quaffed by shrewd proprietors and dedicated, low-pressure fans. It was like you were hanging out with these musicians, getting with their scene, maybe even buying them a drink and experiencing a moment of elbow-by-elbow intimacy with a guy who was, let’s say, a genius.
That was a good idea, a good experience. Today it’s virtually unthinkable. A rock musician hardly figures it’s worth unpacking his ax unless he can hit 2,000, preferably 20,000 fans packed into a seething Sportspalast Far from seeking rapport with his fans, he prefers to hover in the crisscrossed spotlights, watching them break like human waves on the reefs of uniformed cops protecting his skin.
All of which is enough to send me A down at least once a week to the bottom of Manhattan, where tucked away amidst hulking trailer trucks and looming warehouses there stands the last great personality room in New York, the Half Note. The Note is a dream setting for jazz: crimson walls tiled with nostalgic album covers, flickering lights on oilcloth-draped tables, an intriguing variety of eating. serving and playing areas, all converging on the musicians who stand above the bar-on a tiny stage outlined in Christmas tree lights-showering down music on those who stand and drink or those who sit and eat the good Italian food.
What really gives the room its character, however, is not the decor but the star performer and presiding presence, the great tenorman, Zoot Sims For 12 years Zoot has been working the Note and in that time he has shaped the room around his personality and his horn until now when he blows, he blows the whole club. A 30 year veteran of the jazz scene, Zoot is a pretty salty character. He drinks and smokes on the stand, jives with his band, clowns around after a good solo and clubs with the patrons all over the room. Playful, dressed in old clothes, blowing a time-stained Selmer, old Zoot exemplifies the relaxation and spontaneity of the real jazz life.
When he settles in to play a set, though, there’s nothing casual about what comes out of his horn. Zoot Sims is a meticulous craftsman, an elegant stylist, a musician who can turn his hand to any mood or idiom within the range of mainstream jazz. His bossa novas are sensuous and melanche the improvised melody wear and out of the accompaniment in a beautiful display of musical chiaroscuro. His explorations of classic ballads, like My Old Flame or Come Rain or Come Shine, achieve the abstract eloquence that we have come to expect since Charlie Parker’s achievements in this form. Best of all Zoot’s grooves, though, is his up-tem po jam on tunes like Red Doer or Love for Sale. Kicking these scorchers off with an impatiently tapping heel, Zoot hunches his shoulders, squeezes his eyes shut and puffs his cheeks as he chases the tune round and round the 32-bar track, shifting gears for every slope, curve and tunnel and gunning his engine as he blazes to the close with the horn pealing bright and loud and the whole house caught up in the excitement of the moment.
The sum of a night at the Half Note cannot be written in the usual ciphers of art, entertainment or socializing. It is more like a return to an earlier era of popular culture when values were more humane, the performers more individualized and the whole experience something to be savored in the depths of one’s soul. Leaving the club in the early morning hours, I feel peaceful yet exhilarated, as if I had been fortified through a secular communion at some profane church.
by Albert Goldma
For the love of Jazz
Company Overview
The Half Note Jazz club is proud to present to you one of its kind jazz club. We, at the Half Note jazz, are dedicated to endow our invaluable jazz lovers with some of the great jazz musicians and players. We are doing everything in our capacity to provide jazz lovers with a platform that can satiate their need for amazing jazz music. You will be able to find a massive number of artists including both old and new which gives you a lot to choose from and enjoy your favorite jazz music. We are working with the vision of making jazz music accessible to everyone around the world. If you are suffering from a major FOMO (fear of missing out) on jazz music, the Half Note Jazz is the place for you.
Why Choose Us
Number of Artists
You will have a vast directory of artists to choose from so you can select he music and musician of your own taste. We have a large collection of some of the classic jazz musicians and new ones are encouraged to apply with their singing samples. You will see for yourself, how vast directory of artists we have. You can select according to your mood and your choices. Visit the website once and you will realize what we are talking about.
Lesser Known Jazz Music
When Judie Marie started playing jazz at the Half Note Jazz, she was not a renowned jazz player and she still achieved new heights of stardom. Similarly, you will be surprised by the talent hidden in the faraway places of this planet. Some of the artists from lesser known areas have the best approach to jazz music and we are here to appreciate the uniqueness. Our encouragement to the new singer is what keeps them going and they are finding their place in this new world. You will find jazz music artists from all around the globe on our platform and you can have fun selecting your favorite taste of music.
Downloads
When you love a piece of music, you want to keep it in your place list and it does not matter if you have internet available or not. We have brought solution to this problem as we provide you downloading option of your favorite music pieces. We have different options like you can either download an audio song or a video song or you can directly download an album from the Half Note Jazz platform. This is to give you access to your favorite music pieces whenever you want and wherever you want. Just click the download button and have the song saved in your phone and listen to it whenever you want.
Easy to Use
We are trying to make jazz music access to every jazz lover and the Half Note Jazz is no exception as we are trying to make you access the jazz music easily and efficiently. All you have to do is to visit our website and all the instructions are given. You if you want to download songs, you just have to simply click on the download button and you will have your song downloaded in your cell phone or desk top. We are trying to make our platform as user friendly as possible.
Our Process of Working
We are trying to make our working as smooth and easier as it could be. The user friendliness of the website is kept in mind for both jazz artists and fans of jazz music. You can follow the steps given below to get access to our website.
i. Type haflnotejazzclub.com in your search bar and go.
ii. If you are a fan, you can search for favorites on the website.
iii. If you are a jazz artist and want to get featured on the site, you can contact us by going on the “Contact us” page.
iv. If you are an artist, you will have to ask for a portfolio and you will be given help to build that portfolio and then you will be able to feature your music with us.
v. If you want to subscribe to our website, you just have to give us your email address and click on subscribe and you have signed up for all the updates regarding jazz music.
It is as simple as it can get.
– About Us
Jazz music, one of the most interesting genres of music, has been ignored for years and decades. However, in 1957 a jazz club opened by Michael Canterino and his brother Sonny Canterino has played a huge role to give the much deserved recognition to jazz music. This was a place where every jazz artist was welcome and they were asked to play their music. It was literally the best thing happened to jazz music in the 50s since it was closed in 1975.
However, now we are here to reviving this genre music for the jazz music lovers. We are here to help the jazz artists through this digital platform. We are trying to prove to the jazz lovers that they can play their music and also spread to the people all around the world. The jazz music will continue to thrive with the Half Note jazz club as it has always been.
Mission & Vision
Revive the essence of jazz music
Our Values
• Commitment
We understand how important jazz music is for jazz lovers and that is why we are committed to provide you with the best services you can only imagine.
• You Satisfaction is our Priority
Need we say more?
• Professionalism
All the team of the half note jazz meet the higher standards of professionalism and we try to provide our customers with the best possible service with minimum hassle.
Contact Us
You can contact us on the following E-mail address
Email 1:
Email 2:
Or make a call to us
Telephone 1:
Telephone 2:
You can also drop by for your suggestions or your portfolios as a jazz band or a solo jazz artist on the following address
Phone 9176052894
The Half Note Jazz” Club
Mike Canterino
&
Friends
By
Mike Canterino
Sample Chapter
The night Judy Garland came into the joint, we thought it was no big deal. We had King Hussein of Jordan in there sometimes. Tony Bennett always stopped by when he could. Steve Allen used to come in the place. We had lots of big name players and lots of show biz people, famous people, who came to hear the music. Even the Rolling Stones came in once in a while. I didn’t know who they were. Even after somebody told me who they were, I wasn’t sure who they were. To me, they were just some cats from England who always wanted to sit in the back so nobody would bother them. Nobody ever did. They used to come in sometimes when Wes Montgomery was playing, I guess to pick up a few licks. Wes practically reinvented guitar playing. Everybody learned from Wes.
Anyway, sure, it was an honor when Judy showed up. She was Judy Gat-land. And, man, everybody loved Judy. We were flippin’ out. But practically every night at the joint something great would happen, or somebody you’d never believe you’d ever meet walked in. So, it was just another terrific night in a long string of terrific nights. When I
say it was no big deal, I mean that at first, it was great, but we didn’t know just how great it was till later.
It was about eleven o’clock on a Sunday night. The band had just started the second set. We had Ross Tomkins on piano, Zoot Sims on sax, Russell George on bass, Denny Siewell on drums and Anita O’Day singing. All the sudden, Judy Garland comes walking into the place. Man, I was glad the joint was swingin’.
It turned out that Anita, who had just come back from Japan or somewhere, was staying with a friend of hers, a fellow by the name of Charlie Cochran. He was in show business in a way, a singer, cabaret style. He had a nice pad uptown. Anita was staying there, fat woman with the big chest, who used to advertise the eighteen-hour bras way back, was staying there and Judy Garland was staying there, too. When Anita came down to work, she didn’t say anything. We didn’t know Judy was coming.
Judy was wearing all black, a short skirt and a kind of long jacket. Nice, tailored- looking, but pretty average clothes. Nothing fancy. What stuck out about her was that she was so sickly-looking. Very thin.
Pop met her at the door and sat her down. He put her at table six, the best table in the house.
1
The joint had kind of an unusual layout, because it had originally been two rooms, which we’d turned into one. The bar and the bandstand were in the middle. The bar was shaped like the curved part of the letter ‘fi” and the bandstand, which was the same height as the bar, was behind it, like the back of the “D.” The bar faced the biggest part of the space, so in order for people sitting there to see the band better, we built a terrace. You had to walk up three steps, but the terrace was the same height as the bar and the stage, so if you were sitting at one of the tables up there, you could see right over the heads of the people hanging out at the bar. You had a great view, except for this one pillar right in front of the stage, left over from where we tore the wall out. We couldn’t get rid of it because it was holding the place up.
Pop put Judy at the four-top in the corner at the front of the terrace where you had the least obstruction from that pillar. My Judi, Judi Marie, took her order. I was behind the bar.
It was a nice looking place. We had actors’ pictures hanging up over the bar, jazz album covers and those Lancer’s wine bottles with the straw on the bottom hung up on the walls around the place. We bought some of that checkered oilcloth for the tables at Woolworth’s, and that looked nice. We had those straw bottomed wine bottles on every table too. Each one had a tulip in it. It was my job to get the tulips. I’d go over to the dowerbeds at the Holland Tunnel late at night, chop a bunch of them and bring them back.
The joint could hold about 130 people, but there were only about twenty people that night, so everybody was sitting up there on the terrace. Nobody was in the smaller space behind the bar and the stage.
So, Judy was sitting up there on the terrace with everybody else, and everybody knew who she was, and everybody was probably as excited to see her as we were. People in the Village are a funny kind of people, though. They’re cool. They didn’t bother her, just like they didn’t bother King Hussein or Tony Bennett. Or the Rolling Stones—but, you know, in a joint like ours, they weren’t anybody anyway.
Pop went back into the kitchen to cook Judy some food. I guess he thought he’d better hurry, from the looks of her. I got her a vodka, which Judi Marie served. Judi Marie introduced herself—in the nicest way, just being polite and acknowledging her. Judi wouldn’t ever bother anybody. But the other Judy, she was pretty friendly. Right away, she started doing that Cary Grant imitation, “Judy, Judy, Judy,” every time she wanted something or anytime Judi Marie passed by. So, Judi started doing it right back at her, and they were both cracking up. It seemed pretty funny at the time.
Judi Marie brought her out her food, which, ifI remember right, was pasta with meatballs. Practically everybody had Pop’s meatballs, one way or another, on a sandwich, or with pasta, or by themselves. Pop was famous for his meatballs. They were light, not like anybody else’s. Ask any musician who’s still around fiom that time. Judy said she loved the food, but Judi Marie told me she sure didn’t eat much.
2
Anyway, we fed her as best we could, and she had a few drinks. As soon as I could get away from the bar, I went over to say hello. I didn’t know what to say—so happy you’re here, great to meet you, we all love you, all the things you’ve done, the singing, the movies. …
She sat by herself for a long time, just listening to the music. Anita would go over and sit with her between sets.
Anita worked for us Fridays, Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. She started working at the place in ‘57 or ’58, right after we opened. She drank up everything and she was a little daky. One night I paid her, then she disappeared. Four years later, I got a call from Bangkok. She said was broke and she wanted to come back to New York. So, 1 scraped up the money for a ticket, wired it to her and she came back. Then, one time she had a late gig at the Village Vanguard. I went with her to make sure she got there okay. She walked out on the stage, told the audience she wasn’t singing that night and came back to hang out with us. Anita was just Anita. She’s still around, but she’s in her 80’s now.
Ross Tomkins, the piano player is still around, too. Man, could he play.
Zoot isn’t with us anymore. He was a part of that place. I remember times when the joint was dead, Zoot would come in, play three notes and the joint would be swingin’. He’d drink a lot of scotch and a case of beer, but he’d swing. We had those old, big Christmas lights strung around the stage, and Zoot would hold his glass up to one and turn it like it was a tap, like he was filling up his dririk. Zoot was like family. On Christmas Eve, Zoot, his wife, Ross, Major Holley and Mousey Davis would come to our place up in Riverdale for the evening. We’d be up all night. At seven AM, our son, Michael, would get up all excited to open his presents and we’d all be wrecked. Anyway, the joint was as much home to Zoot as it was to us.
The joint was home to all the musicians, and to practically everybody who came there. It was its own httle music box, and everybody came there to be inside the music box.
Inside the music. On Saturday nights we’d get some people from the Upper East Side or some tourists who weren’t like that, but they were the only ones who had any dough.
Jazz wasn’t doing so well in those days. It seemed like the world had gone on to other things. We had about twenty people in the place that night, but some nights we’d have maybe three. It didn’t matter. The music would be just as swingin’ anyway. A lot of times there were more musicians in the place than customers. They came there to hang out. I remember nights when everybody sitting at the tables had a horn and was playing along with the guys up on stage, having a great time. Sometimes the musicians who came down would throw me some money, because they knew there was no bread there. A lot of guys came in and they worked for nothing. Wes Montgomery used to tell me, “Pay the rhythm section.” 1-he’d say, “Don’t pay me, man. It’s okay, I’m doing good.” Cannonball Adderly used to do that too. And Zoot, he was always there for us.
3
Around that time my brother had to get a job because things were so bad. He went down to work on a truck to make some bread so we could keep going, because sometimes we made no money. Judi Marie checked coats and waited tables, I tended bar. We did whatever we could to keep the joint ahve. Mostly, we were working for tips. Things were tough back in those days, but we never worried about it. We didn’t need much money.
Guys came there to play their asses off. They didn’t care if there was only one person in the joint, it was okay, they’d play like mad. Coltrane—man, he played every tune as if it might be his last. Like he wanted to get it all out right now. Like he knew he was sick. I don’t know how he did it. He would play, like, an hour solo without stopping. The veins would be coming out of his neck.
The music was always great. It was great that night.
Judy seemed to be getting into it. A couple of cats at the bar were talking while Anita was singing. Probably musicians. It was mostly musicians hanging out at the bar. Most musicians don’t listen to singers anyway, you know. They just listen to the music. And it was their clu that’s how they felt about it. But Judy said, “Hey, there’s a great performer on that stage,” and shushed them. They shut up.
Finally, Charhe Cochran showed up with his boyfriend, I think, and they sat with Judy.
I remember Anita inviting my Judi Marie up onstage to sing. Judi Marie did a few songs. What a voice she has. Musicians love Judi because she doesn’t treat them lilce background, you know? She sings with them, not in front of them. She was trained by the great Len Tristano, and she’s spent her life studying the best of the best, listening to all their phrasing, all their hcks. She sings like an angel. But, Judi and me too, we put the musicians and the singers we thought were great up on a pedestal. We weren’t waiting for our break. Every time we got a chance to work with guys like Zoot, Wes, Trane or whoever, we felt like we’d already made it.
The Half Note had to be the most unusual club in the world. It was 1969 outside the doors, but it was timeless inside the joint. We checked out of everything. People who came back after being away for a while, maybe years, would say the place hadn’t changed at all. All the problems and social issues didn’t exist in the Half Note. There was no trouble, nothing bad going on in there. Just music. Once in a while Trane would draw some black militants, you know, “Yeah, Trane, freedom now.” But Trane was just playing his ass off like nothing else mattered in the world. Even when guys sat in with him who couldn’t play—just so they could say they sat in with him-he didn’t care. He just played. The only way you could tell it was the sixties in there was the way people dressed. My Judi would wear those white shoes with the high heels and thick soles, and mini skirts. Sometimes she wore pants under the mini skirts. She said she liked to be different. I had kind of long hair and mutton chop sideburns.
4
One thing, I guess, was that there were some drugs around. They were pretty much everywhere back then. Not too much, though. Guys would drink a lot, and maybe once in a while after hours if we were hanging around jamming, we’d smoke some shit.
Guys who did any of that would go down in the basement and keep it out of sight. That’s the way it was. Not much you could do about it.
About two AM, the guys in the band started getting on Judy to come up and do a few songs. Judy knew a couple of the guys. Ross had been the piano player on the Tonight Show for a long time and he met her a couple of times when she did the show. Leo Ball knew her pretty well, too, from playing with her in some show. Leo was the musical director for Paul Arika for a long time, and I thinlc, later, for Liza Minnelli. He’s a regular guy, like part of the family for us, too. To this day, he shows up and sits in with Judi Marie and me every Thursday night when we do our steady gig in Larchmont.
Anyway, everybody asked her to sing, but Leo’s the one who really talked her into it.
At first, she didn’t want to do it. A lot of show biz people are mtce that, you know. She was tightened to get up on the stage. Leo kept saying, “Come on.”
I heard her say, ‘I’m so nervous.”
Leo says, “You? After all you’ve done?” ‘I’m so scared,” she says. “that’ll I do?”
‘ “Do what you do,” he says. He had to help her up the stairs to the stage. I didn’t know what was going to happen. She was just standing there, and she looked so thin and so frail and so scared. “Come on,” Leo says, “everybody loves you.” Everybody was encouraging her, but finally, Leo seemed to convince her to do it.
I heard that not long before that at some club in England that Judy went onstage, and I guess she wasn’t up to it, and the audience threw rolls from the breadbaskets and silverware at her, and she wallced oil the stage being hit by that stuff. What a drag. They should have just respected her. After all the entertainment she gave everyone. That would never happen in my joint. It just wouldn’t. People wouldn’t do that. Or if they did, I’d throw the son ofa bitch out.
Judy started with The Trolley Song. She was a httle shaky for the first few bar then all of the sudden, she was her old self. She was Judy Garland again. She went on, got started, and just opened up. It was a gas. She started to swing. Man, the guys loved it, Then she sang Over the Rainbow. Everybody was in awe.
That was it. Two songs. Maybe ten minutes. But, man, it was great. Maybe she wasn’t at her peak, but she was still Judy Garland, and for those few minutes she was part of the music, she was in the music.
5
We had to help her down from the stage and back to her table. Then we sat down and talked, you know. We all gathered around Judy’s table—Pop, Judi Marie, the guys in the band, Anita, Charlie and his boyfriend. And we got pretty friendly. And me, at that time, I was wide open. I’d say anything. I said, “You know, you look too skinny, man. Very thin looking.” And my old man said, ‘Now that you know us, why don’t you hang out here? Maybe we can put some meat on you.” If Pop had his way, he’d have had her come in every night so he could cook her up some food.
She said, “I really can’t do that.” She said she was going to England in the morning. I think she just got married to someone there. But she said she really loved the place and as soon as she got back, she was going to hang out with us, that this was going to be her hang out. You can tell when somebody’s just saying something. I think she meant it. If you’d seen her, she seemed so happy there, just like we were. Just being in the music.
She stayed right till the end, about four AM, when we were closing the place. We wouldn’t let her pay, naturally. She was a httle bombed. We all were, I guess.
Everybody said their good-byes. I walked her to the door. We sort of kept a little distance, you know. I mean we loved her, but you couldn’t hug her or anything like that. She looked too fragile anyway. It must have been hard being Judy Garland. Everybody in the world knew her. Everybody loved her. How could she hug everybody in the world?
She shook Pop’s hand.
I went outside and watched her walk away with Anita, Charlie and his boyfriend. It was summer, and it was nice out. The joint was on Hudson and Spring, and they were walking east on Spring, I guess looking for a cab. The last thing I remember was watching her walk away into the dark. Her legs were like toothpicks.
It was a great night. But, you know, you just got nervous looking at her. There was something ominous, like she was sick or something. Like she was at the end of the line. She was like a shadow of herself—except when she was up on that stage. Then she was Judy Garland again.
You wanted to just grab her and keep her there, because for a httle while she seemed so happy. You wanted to hold onto that. But what can you do?
I wish she could have come back and hung out at the joint. It was such a great place. A place where she could just get into the music. Where she belonged. Where people loved her. Like a home. One thing that Judy taught everybody is that there’s no place like home.
That was on June 15th. We heard on the news that a week later, on June 22“, they found her dead on her bathroom floor in London. I guess her body just gave out.
So, like I said, it was a bigger deal then we knew at first. The last time Judy Garland ever sang in public was at the Half Note.
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