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Hal Runyon Narrator

Carl Warmington

Interviewer

September 4, 1987 The Saint Paul home of Hal Runyon

Hal Runyon -HR Carl Warmington -CW CW: I'm sitting here in Hal Runyon's kitchen on September 4, 1987, listening to some of the wonderful jazz that he played with a number of jazz bands during the twenties, thirties, and forties. HR: What about the fifties and sixties and seventies? CW: We're going to cover at least the early days, Hal, and I'm going to start out by asking you to tell us about how you got started. Where were you born? HR: I was born in a very small town--Letts, Iowa, in 1903--a good many years ago. You would like to know how I happened to get into music, I suppose? CW: Yes. HR: Well, our school was so small that our high school didn't even have a music department. But we did have a town band, which was a pretty fair band--maybe not like a real professional band, but they played on Saturday nights in the summertime. They knew that there were a lot of kids in high school who would like to get into music, get into a band. So the clarinet player in the band volunteered to teach a group, if we would all buy a variety of instruments suitable for a band. Everybody thought that was a good idea. Unfortunately, I didn't hear about it as soon as some of them. I guess most everybody likes to play the trumpet, but the trumpet players were all set up with horns before I knew about it. So I thought that the trombone would be interesting. I had always liked the sound of a trombone, so I got a trombone. Eventually, all the kids got their instruments--there were about ten or twelve of us--and the man who was going to teach us and direct us set a date for our first big rehearsal. Apparently, the excitement of the whole thing was just a little bit too much for him, because when we came to our rehearsal, the director was drunk. [Chuckles] Of course, Iowa in those days was dry. I don't think Iowa ever did have booze until after 1932. At least in those days Iowa was dry, and people strangled anybody who would drink. So that was the end of the high school band right there.

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CW: How old were you at that time? HR: I was, I suppose, fifteen, sixteen. CW: But you didn't give up? HR: Well, I gave up for awhile. One of my sisters played the piano, and the guy I bought the horn from gave me three lessons. As a younger kid I had taken piano lessons, so I knew a little bit about reading music. But of course it was altogether different reading the bass cleff, in which trombone music is written. Anyway, I did have a chance to do a little playing. CW: What was your first professional job? HR: Well, when I graduated from high school, I didn't have enough money to go to college. I intended to go to college, but during this time my dad passed away, and one of my brothers was in the war. When I graduated from high school, the Air Service was putting on a big promotion to get people into flying. Remember now, this was early. It was back in the early 1920s. Anyway, they were putting on a campaign to build up the Air Service. "Join the Air Service and learn a trade if you can't go to college." So that was for me. Right after I graduated from high school, I joined the Air Service to learn a trade. I wound up at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. There a really fortunate thing happened to me. The Air Service at that time didn't rate a band. The infantry in most places had bands, but not the Air Service. But some of the officers there wondered if there were any guys who were coming in just out of high school who maybe could play instruments. So we wound up getting a volunteer band. Being in the band got you out of KP [Kitchen Police] and guard duty. CW: No wonder they joined the band. HR: Instead of doing KP and guard duty, we rehearsed every morning for two hours. Then we would go to our school, where we were learning a trade. That was a really good experience for me because there were fellows in the band who were quite experienced players. Of course, they helped the kids who didn't know much. Everybody had a chance to do a lot of practicing, because of that rehearsal with the whole band for about two hours every morning. After a couple of weeks, we were able to go out and play for Saturday morning inspection and parades and things like that. That was my first experience playing with a regular concert-type band. CW: Was there a jazz group within the band? HR: Well, a piano player came along who wasn't in the band, but he knew some of the fellows in it. He said, "Why don't a few of you fellows get together with me, and we'll

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work up some dance music? We can get a job here and there playing for officer’s parties and stuff." There was a trumpet player who was fairly experienced, and he knew quite a bit. There was a saxophone player who was pretty good, and the drummer was pretty good. They figured that I knew a little bit about playing; maybe more than what I was able to do within the big band. Anyway, I was the trombone player. We practiced a few times, and sure enough, we were able to get a job here and there. And the longer we stuck together, why, the better we got. CW: What did you do after the service? How did you make a connection with professional bands? HR: Well, that doesn't jump right in there, either. One thing leads to another. I had remembered going to state fairs when I was kid. In the midway there would always be music going on--some big carnival would have that. So I thought, "I'm going to investigate that." I was home in Iowa and the state fair was going on in Des Moines. My older brother had been in the army. He was home then and lived in Des Moines. So I went out there and got right onto the fairgrounds. I found out who the bandleader was and asked him if there was any chance of joining up in the carnival as a musician. He said, "What do you play?" Well, you see, when I had been in the service, I had had a chance to try out other instruments too. Nobody cared. So I could play trombone. I could play baritone a little bit. And I could even play a tuba a little bit. When you're young like that, you've got all kinds of confidence. So I told him that I could play drums, baritone horn, trombone, and tuba. "Well," he said, "we could use a tuba player right now." So I said, "Okay." They owned the instruments--at least they owned the tubas--and I could play that a little bit. So I got a job. Because he said, "You know, you could be a kind of a utility man here. You probably don't know this. You don't know anything about show business, but these fellows who are working here--tomorrow morning you never know whether it's going to be all the same band or if there's going to be one or two missing. So we'd like to have you." CW: Where did you travel after the fair?

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HR: Well, it was during fair season. I joined the band of Rubin and Cherry Shows there in Des Moines for the state fair, and I think we went to Nebraska after that. It was getting to be late in the fall, and the fair season was just about over. The only other place I really remember very much was playing in Milwaukee. Big cities still had a carnival sometimes during the summer and the fall. The whole group was going to winter quarters, and a trumpet player and I took another short job and joined another carnival. We went into Florida for the winter. The carnival went broke, and the fellow said, "I'm sorry. We can't pay you fellows anymore money. You can still eat here, but if you can find anything else to do, whatever you can do, do it." We found a job with a crew that was building roads in Florida, and we worked there all winter. I saved my money as much as I could and went back to join the same bandleader whom I'd been with the year before. This time he was in a different band. The trumpet player stayed in Florida and went into the Barnum & Bailey circus band, with winter quarters there. Anyway, the next season wasn't far along when I decided that I wasn't going to get anywhere playing in a carnival band, so I bought a copy of Billboard. I don't know if it's still in existence or not, but it was an old magazine that covered all kinds of amusements. There was an ad in there for a band that was going to go into Lacrosse, Wisconsin. They were looking for a trombone player. It was for a dance band, and it would be a good job. I wired right in and said that I would like the job, and I was accepted, sight unseen. So I got on the train and got to Lacrosse. One of the boys in the band met me and said, "Do you belong to the union?" I said, "No." "Well," he said, "I'll get you up there, and we'll get you into the union right away, because you've got to be in the union in order to work here." So I joined the union, and I found out that the band that I was going to play with was Little Benny's. Little Benny's eleven-piece band was well known around Wisconsin and Minnesota. The job was a contract for three nights a week in Lacrosse in a ballroom, and then they could book out for extra jobs the four remaining nights. Little Benny had been doing this for a few years, and he had a good reputation. So we did well there. CW: One-night stands with long drives--did you play in the winter? HR: Yes. We played in the winter. We had a Studebaker 6 and a Model T Ford with side curtains--no heat. [Chuckles] CW: Oh, that was good for you.

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HR: Anyway, one thing led to another, and I got a chance to join a band that was going to Minneapolis. And I thought, "Well, things are working out here. I'm getting in the bigger cities all the time, getting more experience, playing with better bands." I had to join this band in such-and-such a town in upper Wisconsin. It was in the summertime. The band--the George Smith Steamboat Band--was only five or six pieces. They got their name from having been on a trip to China or Japan or someplace. Then they happened to get this good job booked in the Marigold for six months. But they first had to build up the band. CW: They all wore a cap--a steamship officer's cap. HR: Oh, sure. We had uniforms, so we looked like we were on a steamboat. That's when they added a trombone, trumpet, and tuba. We got to the Marigold, and things went well there. At the time, the Marigold had terrific business. There were two alternating bands constantly playing dance music. CW: Did they call it a "battle of music?" HR: No. It was just the regular thing. But anyway, somebody who will enter into this story later is a trumpet player by the name of Les Beigel. He was trumpet player in this other band from Iowa. He was just a kid, about sixteen. That's where I first met him--anyway, that's not of any big consequence right at this time. One of the interesting things that happened at the Marigold was that Guy Lombardo and his terrific band were out on a tour. Each member of the band had his own car and his own wife or companion riding with him--about eight cars for an eight-piece band. CW: What kind of cars were they? HR: Oh, Cadillacs--because they not only played good, but they wanted to look good. They had thought they would just bowl the people over at the Marigold, but the people liked us. We'd been there, and we got as much applause as Guy Lombardo did, which kind of surprised them--took them down a notch. [Chuckles] CW: Well, I remember those days, because I remember hearing Steamboat Smith and also Guy Lombardo. Please tell a little bit about the ballrooms in those days, because the Marigold has disappeared, as well as the Colosseum and Oxford Ballroom in Saint Paul. Now The Prom is gone. HR: Well, I would say that for one thing dancing was a big thing in those days, because there weren't as many other types of entertainment as there are now. And that's why they did such a terrific business. Most of the ballrooms were pretty nice places. They were nicely furnished, and you could always get something to eat there. You couldn't get

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anything to drink except pop. But it was a big thing. A lot of people would come. See, it was running six nights a week and Sunday afternoon. Monday would be off. CW: It was a great place for singles, because girls could go there and... HR: ...That's right. That's what I was getting to. The same people often would be there two or three nights a week. Girls would come and dance with girls until they got a fellow who wanted to dance, because I suppose there were a lot of people who didn't know how to dance. But it didn't seem to bother them. They'd still come, and the girls would teach them to dance. CW: How about some of the other bands you played with? What were the biggest bands that you played with? HR: Well, the biggest band I played with, of course, was George Osborne. At the time that I played with him, he had done hotel and dance hall work. He always had about a ten or twelve-piece band, with violins even. The job that I played with him was a commercial radio job for Phillips 66. It was emanating from KSTP, which at that time was in the Saint Paul Hotel. If I remember correctly, we'd broadcast from there five nights a week. It was the first big radio program that ever came out of the Twin Cities. CW: Was it national? HR: I think it was. I'm pretty sure it was. We had about twenty men. We had the full brass section, full sax section, and a violin section, plus all the drums. CW: Did you record with Osborne? HR: No. Let me get back to when I left the Marigold. When our job was done there, in 1927--after we'd been there six months and our contract was finished--I decided that this Minneapolis was a good place for me to stay and make my home. Here in the Twin Cities, there were two big cities and lots of music. Of course, I hardly knew anybody, because most of my associations were with the band. So the first summer here, times were tough. I didn't do much. But I got acquainted as fast as I could with other people and managed to pick up a job here and there. During this time, I played with a band. The bandleader's name was Red Clark. We played at a place close to town, near Anoka, called the Old Mill. It was a nightclub. We had about a seven-piece band there. The man who owned the Old Mill also owned the Stables. They actually had been stables which had been used until recently for the fire department's horses. This man thought it would be a good place to open a nightclub. So he cleaned the place up, and we played there. That was a good job. CW: Very interesting. I remember sitting at a table right in one of the stables.

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HR: Yes. There were tables out in the middle, and then in the stables. So it was just like having a little private room. A group as big as--oh, I suppose six or eight could have a party right in there. And that led to our playing the Marigold again. This same band played there. I think that we may even have added a few more men, until we got up to about a ten-piece band with Red Clark as bandleader. Red then fell into disfavor with the Marigold's manager somehow or other. I don't know why. But after we'd been there maybe six months, the manager wouldn't renew the contract with Red. But he took us aside and said, "If you fellows will get another trumpet player, I'll keep the band under the management of the piano player," who was Oscar Westlund. So that came about. During that time, we also had a chance to record. A man come through and recorded several of the better bands in the Twin Cities. CW: Was that for the Victor label? HR: No. CW: The Gennett label? HR: I don't even know. Their label was a second label of Columbia, I think. But anyway, then the band got a chance to go out on the road. Because I was married and had a couple of little kids by that time, I didn't want to go. So Oscar Westlund's band went on the road, and Harry Connor became leader of the band at the Marigold. I was in three bands at the Marigold--with Red Clark, Oscar Westlund, and Harry Connor. CW: Was Red Norvo involved in any of the bands? HR: Yes. He was just getting started--he was booked in there for two weeks. I forget which band he played with. I think it was when Harry Connor had the band. Red came in with his xylophone and what do you call the other one? CW: A vibraphone? HR: The xylophone is wood. This was metal--the same one they're using nowadays. Red didn't play all night with the band. No, he'd just come up, and he'd do a special act. We'd play behind him. He would do that maybe three or four times a night. It was really just to get him acquainted with performing in front of people. He was good. CW: I remember him kind of slapping the xylophone. What was that? HR: It was a stick with a kind of leather-like ball on the end, but it was soft--not real hard. It would just kind of plink. It wouldn't ring afterwards. He was the first one, I guess, who had ever done that.

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CW: But he would improvise and play jazz. HR: Oh, yes. In fact, he also played piano. But he wasn't known as a piano player. He played good piano and would play a couple of numbers during the night. CW: Where did you go after playing the Marigold? We are talking about 1926 now. HR: Well, no. We're just about up to 1930 now. See, 1926 was when I first went in with the George Smith band, so we're up to about the thirties. CW: You played with a long list of bands. HR: I would say that actually playing with George Osborne's band came after the Marigold instead of before it, but we won't worry about that. I also played across the river, over in Wisconsin in Somerset, with Eddie Tolck. I played with Hod Russell at a Saint Paul club called Kirch & Gillis. I also played at the Seventh Street Orpheum in Saint Paul. CW: In the pit of the theater? HR: Yes. Oh, then I played with Norvy Mulligan at the Radisson Inn in the Minnetonka area and the Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis. You see, times were tough then. We would play at the Radisson Inn, I think maybe just on Saturday nights, or maybe we'd play out there twice weekly. And then we'd play at the hotel on Sunday nights. And that was another funny thing. You remember that we had a really good band. We were broadcasting coast to coast on Sunday nights. Norvy made the remark one time that we were "the only band in the world recording from coast to coast that was only working two nights a week." [Chuckles] Then I was at the Castle Royal. That was a mushroom cave on Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, near the Mississippi River. CW: Tell a little bit about that, because that is still there, but it is boarded up. HR: Well, there were two men who got together. One of them owned this mushroom cave, and the other one was a concrete worker and plasterer. They made a partnership there. The one man furnished the area, and the other man finished the inside with plaster. It turned out to be a pretty nice place when it opened up. It was a supper club which featured food. It had a fairly small dance floor. It was one of the first places that didn't have a big dance hall and a little kitchen. This one had a big kitchen and a little dance hall. And I got a job there with that band. CW: Were there good acoustics?

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HR: Not bad. It was bouncy all right, because the walls were hard. But it was smoky. Uffda! That is where we swallowed a lot of smoke. Oh, the smoke. I don't know how a fellow could live as long as I have--maybe because we had to have our little nips now and then to rinse the smoke down. CW: Well, we haven't said anything about musicians and smoking and drinking and drugs. Do you want to comment about that? HR: I think I was fortunate there. Most of the bands that I played with were pretty clean, and I only knew a couple of fellows in those days who used drugs--and then it was marijuana. One of the best saxophone players I ever played with used it regularly, but he never overdid it. At intermission, he'd go out and maybe smoke a half of a cigarette and then put it out. It wouldn't affect him any, except that he did say, "I can think so much faster on my saxophone. If I don't have this, I'm just clogged up." Now I don't know. Other people have said that. But he at least never did anything that would let you know that he smoked anything at all. He didn't live long, though. I remember that. Whether the marijuana had anything to do with it or not, I don't know, but I don't think he lived to be more than maybe forty years old. I think we missed out on one band here that I played with. There was another thing. In a lot of my experience as a musician, I was fortunate to play with musicians who were much more experienced than I was. I went with this band into the hotel that's across the street from the Curtis. CW: The Leamington? HR: The Leamington Hotel with Jack Malerich. That was one of the best bands I played with. It was a band with a full brass and full sax, and I think that we had one violin. And Jack was an arranger himself. When we would get around to the drinking, the band had a band room of its own where they could leave their clothes and hats and stuff like that. Once a week we'd all pitch in, and we'd buy a gallon of alcohol, and then we'd spike beer. That was until--you'll have to tell me the date. CW: 1932? HR: When we could buy real beer. No more buying alcohol. I was there that night, and everybody really thought that was great--Prohibition had ended! CW: But how did you spike beer? Describe that. HR: Well, the beer would be in a twelve-ounce bottle. You'd pour out the beer that was in the neck, until you had poured out about an ounce. You'd fill that with alcohol, put your thumb over the end of it, turn it upside down, shake it a little bit, and you had...

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CW: Potent stuff, wasn't it? HR: You had potent stuff. Well, you could make it as potent as you wanted. If you wanted really light, you could just put in a little bit. But nobody got drunk on the job. I can't even remember seeing anybody going home drunk. Of course, I was going to say that maybe it was because I was in the same way myself, but I wasn't. [Chuckles] CW: Were you smoking then? HR: Just cigarettes. CW: That was it. HR: Yes, I was smoking. Oh, yes. That's right, and we didn't have air-conditioning much yet either. Just think about a guy blowing the horn with all that smoke in his lungs. CW: And then when you smoked on the job, you could put the cigarette right in your spit valve and keep it lighted. HR: No, you couldn't do that. That would be a dive if you could do that. That wouldn't be the kind of places I worked. CW: Tell me a little bit about the difference between the big bands that played arrangements and the bands that improvised. You would really play without music and get into the Dixieland idiom. HR: Well, of course, I was going into that. I think that happened because as prices went up, the different places that hired music started hiring fewer musicians. So a twelve-piece band would become a six-piece band, and a six-piece band would become a four-piece band. The real extreme was drums and piano, and pretty soon, it became just piano. But of course, that took quite a bit of time. Anyway, what this is leading up to is that as you started to get into smaller bands, you would do without music. You had to learn the tunes, or you didn't get any work. A guy would call you up and ask you if you wanted to play a job. And you'd say, "How many men?" "Well," he'd say, "it will be five. By the way, we won't have any music." So of course you learned the tunes of the day as quickly as you could. Not having any music in front of you, you had to figure out what you were going to play. But I didn't do too much work with big bands, of course. The trombone was considered a small unit instrument, so it usually would be five men. And I used to wonder how some of these fellows knew what they were doing. I had a piano at home, although I couldn't play the piano. But I could try to figure out the chords on the piano and then figure out what I

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wanted to do. And I had listened to some Dixieland bands like Miff Mole, who was my idol from way back, and Jack Teagarden. And one more. CW: George Brunis. Was he one? HR: Well, in a way. I liked some of the bass parts that George would play, but I thought he overdid it with his smears. You see, that was an entirely different style than Miff Mole was playing. So I never really got real hot on George Brunis and his playing. I'm trying to think of a couple of other players whom I admired. One I liked, not so much because of his pretty playing as the way he played Dixie, was Tommy Dorsey and his small group. CW: Oh sure, yes. HR: I liked what he did, because he would play a chorus melody that was both interesting and easy to remember. Another one was Lou McGarity. CW: Oh, yes. HR: Lou played a nice melody too. It wasn't as pretty as Tommy Dorsey, but it was bigger. CW: A beautiful obbligato. I can remember him playing with the radio program. Who was the humorist with a radio program for a long time? HR: The old redhead, Arthur Godfrey. He was the first guy who talked on the radio as if he was talking to somebody. He became famous because of that. CW: Yes. And McGarity was a terrific improviser. HR: Oh, yes. Let me tell you a little bit about improvising. I didn't want to really copy anybody, so I was working up a style of my own. I had it in my mind that a trombone should play a part of its own and not be something that just played a duet with something else. I learned that by playing with regular concert bands. The trombone shouldn't just play second fiddle to trumpets, as a lot of music was written in those days. Three-part harmony would be two trumpets and a trombone; the trombone was always supposed to be able to play harmony. So I thought, no sir. A trombone is supposed to play a trombone part. And so I started thinking from the bass up. First of all, if you can't play anything else, play the bass notes. Then you find some more notes in the chord that fit in after that. And if you play with a trumpet player who phrases and then leaves something at the end of a phrase, that's where you fill it in. That's, of course, the reason why Doc Evans and I got along so well together, because he did that, and he knew that I'd fill in. I'm talking about improvising on the ensemble chorus.

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CW: That's very true. That comes through in your records. I notice how you really take care of the bass, Doc takes care of the melody and then the obbligato or the clarinet comes in and provides very stimulating pyrotechnics. HR: Well, he fills in the higher parts, and the trombone fills in the lower parts. And if they all know what they're doing, it comes out very pleasing. CW: Well, improvisation really separated some trombone players from others. You were able to keep steadily booked because you were skillful at improvising and playing in the Dixieland style. You also knew the standard Dixieland tunes. Tell me about some of the other jazz groups which influenced your style. HR: I think I mentioned all of those which I really listened to as much as I could and from whom I got ideas from what they did. CW: How about the most interesting character--one of the personalities on the local scene whom you remember? Who was the most humorous? HR: Well, our friend, Red Maddock, was not only a wonderful drummer, but a wonderfully funny man. He thought of funny things, and they didn't have to be something that he had read out of a book. He thought of a lot of them himself. Should I give you one of his little things that happened? When he was in the hospital near the end of his life, a nice-looking nurse was leaning over him to give him some medicine. She had a little nameplate on her which read "Diane." He said, "What do you call the other one?" [Chuckles] I thought that was funny and I guess she did too. Red played with Doc quite a bit. One of the things about Red that Doc didn't care too much for would happen when Doc would be making a little announcement or describing what was happening in the next tune--because Doc did that quite a bit. He wanted people to understand what we were doing. Anyway, pretty soon people would start laughing, and Doc would turn around. There would be Red, maybe tossing his drumstick in the air or making faces. Well, Doc never reprimanded anybody. Even after the job was over, he wouldn't go to Red and say, "Don't do that when I'm talking." That was another thing that I liked about working with Doc. He assumed that when he hired musicians, they knew what they were supposed to do. He figured that he never would have to tell them to play louder here, or play softer there, or don't do this, don't do that. Doc figured that you should know that by yourself. And if you didn't know it, well, you wouldn't be working with him. He didn't want to have to tell you how to play. He figured that you would learn things from him and from the other fellows in the band until you fit in properly.

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CW: Didn't you feel that your years with Doc Evans gave you a lot of experience? Certainly you traveled and had recording dates with him. HR: Yes, we did. We don't want to leave out Harry Blons here, either. CW: No. But before we go on to Harry, let's give some more insight into Doc. How many years do you think you played with Doc? HR: Of course, I played off and on with him and Red Dougherty and their going bands. I started playing with Doc in 1952, mostly full-time. The reason I mentioned Harry Blons was because Harry and Doc and I were the front line in lots of jobs. Sometimes it would be Harry's job. Sometimes it would be Doc's. Sometimes they would both have a job. Then usually I would be with Doc, and Harry would get somebody else. CW: That was an interesting combination, because they really played well together. Both were recorded. HR: Yes. Both were recorded. Doc was never on one of Harry's records, but Harry was on several of Doc's records. When Harry was recording, it would probably be at the same time that Doc was doing private work of his own, and Harry then would use Bob Grunenfelder. Not that Harry didn't like Doc's playing. They got along fine. Oh, I can tell you one little incident about how Doc first got started at the Walker Art Institute. They had always had, oh, kind of high class entertainment. They'd have violin concertos and singers and whatever. Because Doc was pretty popular, and he was getting a lot of work around town, they approached him. Doc never was a great promoter. He waited for people to come to him. That's the reason he never got rich. Anyway, he said, "We got a job at Walker Art Institute. We're going to play a concert." Oh, great! So we went over, and we played a concert. CW: Where did you play it? HR: We generally played outdoors behind the building there. It depended on the weather. The first time, we played outdoors, and a big crowd came. The Walker people had been a little bit concerned about how this was going to go, with a Dixieland band. High class people come to Walker Art concerts, you know. Would they like Dixieland? Well, people found out we were going to be there. You bet they liked it. CW: Members of the Walker Art Museum questioned Dixieland as a concert form at the gallery. How successful was Doc and the band? HR: Yes. They were skeptical. They thought maybe that this might be kind of raucous for the people who came to the Walker. Doc already had a pretty good following, because he played at a lot of different places around town. Our concert was outdoors, and the

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place was full. They had to put out more chairs and everything, because they just hadn't anticipated a crowd like that. Afterwards, Doc said, "Do you think we should have some more concerts?" Well, they still weren't sure. So Doc said, "Well, we would like to play a concert next week for just what we take in. You don't have to pay us at all. We'll just take what the gate brings in.” An average night's pay in those days was, I don't know, probably thirty-five or forty dollars, and I think we made sixty or seventy dollars apiece. So the next year, we were pinned down to a contract for a certain number of concerts, and that went on for about four or five years. CW: After all, Dixieland jazz is really America's original art form. HR: Yes. CW: They came to realize that. Well, tell us a little bit about Harry Blons and his band. Was he mostly in Saint Paul, or did he play Minneapolis as well? HR: I think he played probably about as much in Minneapolis as he did in Saint Paul. CW: In the Saint Paul Hotel Ballroom? HR: No, when we first met Harry, we both played together with Red Dougherty at Mitch's. It was located just south of the Mendota Bridge at what is now the intersection of Highways 110 and 55. As far as I know, Red Dougherty was really the first one to get into real Dixieland around the Twin Cities. CW: Tell me a little bit more about Red and the Mendota jazz spot, because we haven't said much about that. HR: I don't know who was in Red's original band. But when I first got into the band, Harry Blons was on clarinet, and Doc was in the band. I think maybe Eddie Tolck was playing drums. Then the war came along, and Harry was drafted. Then Frankie Roberts came in on clarinet. Mitch was the owner of the place, and Red Dougherty had the band. But people were getting short of gasoline, and they weren't getting out there. So Mitch got a hold of a place downtown near Fourth Street and Hennepin called the Casa Blanca and took the band downtown. CW: Was it in the basement? HR: No. It was on first floor. Red still had the band, and Harry was in the army. Frankie Roberts was playing, Tolck was playing, and I was playing. Doc was there part-time, and then Harry Connor was there part-time. Finally, the war was over. In the meantime, I had bought a piece of property up north. I was having trouble with my eyes, and I thought I

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had to leave the music business, because I couldn't read music anymore. I was way up in Park Rapids when I got a call from Harry saying, "I'm going into Mitch's place. Mitch's son, Bob, has got the place now, and I've got the band. We're going to have a good band. Can you come down and play three nights a week and maybe drive back and forth?" "Well, sure," I said. I had been out of playing, but I still had the horn, and I had played some up there. So I got back into the music business with Harry, and pretty soon it turned into a five or six night a week job. Harry was pretty successful, and he was well liked. The crowd always liked him. Harry was, in a way, a bigger crowd pleaser than Doc, because Harry would go out of his way to make folks happy. Doc's thinking was, "We just can't keep playing these same tunes over and over. The people have got to learn more tunes, and they'll never learn more tunes if we just keep on playing `When the Saints Come Marching In' every five minutes." Harry thought, "Well, if they want that every five minutes, I'll play it every five minutes." That was the difference between the two of them. Doc had a real good point in wanting to play different tunes. But Harry had a good point too, in that they were paying us, so we should do what they want. Some people liked one maybe more than the other. Each one had his own following. CW: Who did the most in arranging? HR: Oh, Doc. Yes, Doc did the most arranging. But Harry did the same trick going into the Saint Paul Hotel as Doc did going into the Walker Art Center. They had never had anything at the Gopher Grill in the hotel except fancy music. And Harry was very popular in Saint Paul. They approached Harry, whose job was going to be over at Mitch's, because the highway was going through the place. They said, "How would you like to come in to the hotel on oh, maybe a four-week plan to see what happens?" CW: Now was this in the basement or the roof? HR: No. This was on the first floor. You would go through the front door, and then to the right was the Gopher Grill. We packed that place. Every night we'd play quiet music, you know, for the people to listen to while they were eating. Then we'd put on a little Dixieland show, where the horns would all get out in the middle. They'd play a real dyed-in-the-wool Dixieland tune. The piano and the drums couldn't get out there, of course. But that went over big. I don't think there was any minimum charge, but the bar would always fill up around ten-thirty, before that Dixieland show. We did really well there, and Harry was there for years after that. I think I was back playing with Doc, and Harry still was playing there. I know I played with him the first time he was there. Then he was out

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for awhile. I was never back there with him. He played there for a long time, because well, there again, the people liked it. CW: Now why did they like it? I can remember the enthusiasm people had for Dixieland. Certainly, there was a buoyancy that really gave them a lift in dancing, but they also would sit and listen. How do you describe it? HR: I like to listen to Dixieland music. I think people just liked it. They wouldn't have liked it if it had been really raucous. Actually, what I can't understand is how people like what they call Dixieland nowadays--with the horns blowing as loud as they can and as high as they can and as many notes as they can. You can't tell what the melody is. With Harry or Doc, at least, we weren't blowing our heads off. We were playing Dixieland music--some of it was dirty, but it wasn't loud. CW: Do you think that maybe the people listened for the improvisation--knowing what the melody is and being excited by the imagination and the execution? Some of the good musicians were really composing as they played. HR: I really don't think most of the people thought of that, but you're right. That is what they're doing. They're composing as they play. Actually, I think good musicians were about the only ones who knew that. The others didn't realize it. CW: People have commented that the Twin Cities have been good music towns since the turn of the century. What is your appraisal? HR: Well, when I came here, I didn't know much about music, so I can't say much about it then. But I know as years went on, we had big bands come here and play in the big hotels--like the bands that used to come and play in the Nicollet Hotel. Right now I can't think of them, but all the big name bands would use it. CW: Dorsey and Glenn Miller. HR: Yes, Glenn Miller. And they said it was a good music town. CW: Well, that was Minneapolis, but Saint Paul also had the Lowry Hotel and the Boulevard of Paris, with Ben Pollack. HR: Yes. I've heard the players in those bands talk about the good musicians around the Twin Cities. And the show musicians always said that they never had to worry about having good musicians in the pit, because the Twin Cities always had them. Of course, they had the symphony here. They've got something to look forward to. They not only get good jazz musicians in here, but they get good symphony musicians. CW: And the park bands too.

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HR: There's entertainment. CW: Yes, the park band at Como and Lake Harriet--not as good as it used to be, but it indicates that there is an appreciation for music. HR: I don't know if this is on that same subject or not, but there's a lot of free entertainment in the Twin Cities. I'll bet there isn't another city in the world that's got something going on almost every night for free. CW: Not only the parks, but downtown and out in the University. At noontime, there's jazz groups and choral groups. HR: Yes. Doc, when he was playing regularly--and I was with him--would play at least five concerts out at the University. Several other Dixieland bands would be working out there too. We weren't the only band. It would all be free. This summer I was surprised to find out that this place over there in the Midway area... CW: ...Bandana Square? HR: Yes. Every Friday night they have a band concert there of some kind--small band, big band or something or other. So I went over there one night, and the place was packed. CW: I went down two Sundays ago to the new Trade Center building and here was a Dixieland band just whooping it up. Well, we shouldn't talk about your musical days without at least mentioning the Musicians Union. You had talked about how you had to get a union card. Would you comment on the influence of the union and the importance of the union benefits over the years? I remember that my first job was in vaudeville with a band that played the circuit and you had to have a musicians' card. In those days, I had to take a test to qualify for the union. HR: Well, when I joined the union, if another union member would recommend you and say that you were okay, that was enough. But if you didn't know anybody, you had to take a test then, too. CW: That's right. HR: But I don't know how to comment on this, because I've always belonged to the union. CW: You belong to two unions. HR: Yes. CW: The Minneapolis and Saint Paul unions.

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HR: Well, it's all one union, but yes. Most of the musicians who were doing a lot of work belonged to both the unions. It was kind of difficult, I guess, to go into a Saint Paul band if they were all in the Saint Paul union but you. And I think we had to pay an extra tax or something if you didn't belong to both unions. So everybody who worked very much just belonged to two unions and let it go at that. I never was a union official. I suppose if I had taken a bigger interest in the union, I'd know more about it. But I never ran for office. CW: How about the social facilities? In Minneapolis, at 32 Glenwood, they had a club. HR: Yes. CW: Did they have club rooms? HR: [Chuckles] Well now, yes. You're going back to way before Prohibition. They also had a pool table up there. I mean, if a man was new in town and didn't know much about what was going on, he would go up and sit in the union hall all afternoon. He would hear what all the gossip was. You could play cards, and you could... CW: ...Have a lunch. HR: Have a lunch. You could even buy booze. What we used to call an E flat was a half pint. It wouldn't be right out in the open, but you could buy your booze there. You had to know what was going on, but you could get booze there too. Yes, it was a good sociable place. You'd go up there and hang around and see if anybody would call in needing a trombone player. Anybody could answer the phone. CW: Well, it was interesting looking back. Fred Bernbach was the secretary of the union when I joined. He later moved to New York to become the international secretary. Then along came another Minneapolitan who... HR: ...Did the same thing. CW: Yes. HR: I can't think of his name right now, either. CW: A saxophone player--Stan Ballard. HR: Yes. Gosh sakes, I was playing a lot at that time and played some with him. Not only was the union a place to hang around in the afternoon waiting for a job, but a lot of people went up there after their job at night and chewed the fat a little bit. CW: It was a social club.

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HR: Yes. I think the union probably kept these people in line a little bit better. CW: Why don't you tell us something about your musical interests in retirement? In the meantime, I'd like to hear some more of you playing on this cassette. While you're talking about that, could you punch the play button and give us a little bit more music? ["Saint Louis Blues" plays in the background] HR: Well, I like to play a lot more than I like to listen. That's one thing that my wife, Dagmar, never could understand--why I don't want to go to all these concerts. Doc's band played the first Dixie Revival Concert in Davenport, Iowa, in July of 1972. I was there with them, playing trombone. Doc was on trumpet, Harry Blons was on clarinet, Hod Russell was on piano, Bob Byrnes was on drums, and Biddy Bastien was on bass violin. My wife has gone to about three more since then. She said, "Why don't you want to go to those?" I said, "I don't know. I like to play, but I'm not much on going to listen, I'm going to tell you." And, of course, I don't go to a lot of the concerts that go on now. I play for funerals, and I play in a few little jam sessions, because I love to play. The only thing is that I don't like to play if I'm not capable of doing a fair job. There again, that's where if you're a good improviser it helps, because you can do what you're capable of and don't try to do anymore. You can still have a lot of fun playing. CW: I sympathize with you, and I think that the wise musician realizes when his teeth are gone, and he doesn't have good breath control, and his embouchure is not responsive, that it's best to listen rather than to play. HR: Yes, I listen. But when I hear guys playing, I'd like to get up there. CW: Yes. Well, you do that. HR: I would play more often if I could just play as long as my lip holds up and then quit. CW: I think if our jam sessions had been a little better organized, that there would be more enjoyment in playing. [Referring to the background music] This is so good here. What year would you say this is? HR: I think it's about 1973. I'll tell you where we were playing. This was New Year's Eve in Fargo, North Dakota. Hod Russell was on piano, Doc was on trumpet, Jimmie Granato was on clarinet, Bob Byrnes was on drums, and I was on trombone. It snowed, and it turned out to be, I guess, the coldest day in the month. We had to drive out there. We drove in two cars, and Hod Russell and I rode out with Bob Byrnes. We had to push part of the way to get there. We were playing in a big motel. We had a room there, so we

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knew that we didn't have to get out and go someplace after the job was over. But we played the best job we ever played. I had my tape recorder along. The only thing that gets cheated on this is the piano. He's always in the worst place. The horns can manage to get to the mike all right. Hod Russell plays piano. He does a good job--a wonderful job. But sometimes it's kind of covered up with drums or something else. CW: Now did you all play two choruses when it was your turn? HR: If you wanted to, you would do it. If you didn't want to, you would look over to the next guy before you got through, and he'd take it up. CW: Did Doc ever have you on the out choruses play the two out choruses so that the first one you'd play real soft and then pick up the last? HR: Not all the time. I mean, if he wanted you to do that, why he'd tell you. Start this an octave up. Or else, he'd just go down himself and you'd easily get the idea. CW: Is that a banjo playing here? HR: No. No, this is five men. CW: That's very good. One of the questions I should have asked you is what was the most interesting job? HR: This one was, I guess. This Fargo job was one of the most interesting. CW: Did you have any arrangements? HR: Well, I'll tell you what. Doc would start doing a figure, and everybody would catch on. He wouldn't rehearse what he would do. By the second or third time he played it, it would be as if it had been rehearsed or written out. CW: In "A Closer Walk With Thee," Doc plays just a little simple figure, as you know. HR: Yes, now the clarinet player, Jimmie Granato, came from Chicago. He was older than me. When Doc couldn't get a clarinet player, if both Harry Blons and Dick Pendleton were working, he would call up this guy. If there were enough jobs for him that it would be worthwhile for him to travel here, why he would come out. He knew all the tunes. He played all his life. He played with "The Nose" going way back--a comedian. CW: Jimmy Durante?

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HR: Right. Jimmie Granato played with Jimmy Durante. I don't mind listening to this. About twice a year maybe, I'll play this tape. So it still is interesting. CW: What do you remember about playing with Les Beigel? HR: Like I said, the first time I played at the Marigold, Les Beigel was playing trumpet in the other band. He was just a kid. The next time I played with him was eleven years later, when we had this picture taken. [Looking at photo] Biddy Bastien was in the band. After that, Les went with Glenn Miller. But he was there at Lindy's, let's see... CW: ...It must have been the thirties. HR: That was 1937. Glenn Miller and his friend used to come and listen to us, because they'd be through at the Nicollet at twelve-thirty. Glenn and his clarinet player brought their horns a couple times and sat in and played. Now, I didn't hear him say this, but Frankie or somebody told me that Glenn had wanted to take our whole band as a Dixieland group. He had said that he couldn't let his own guys get out of his band, but he wanted to put our band as a stand-out a couple of times a night. Bands used to do that sometimes, if you had some Dixieland. We had done that with Red Clark and his band. There were at least four of us--no, just the three of us would stand out in front. But Glenn had said, "I'd like to have this whole band." What happened after the job was done, I don't know. It must not have been much longer after that that Beigel joined him. Beigel worked with him for years, I think. I just heard from him. CW: Where is he now? HR: He's out in Seattle. He went to the West Coast after he had finished with Glenn Miller and has been there ever since. He's had a band of his own most of the time. CW: I'm going out to Seattle in another week. I wonder if I could meet him. HR: Oh, are you? I'll get his address for you. I am sure he would be glad to hear from somebody who knows some of the musicians with whom he worked around here. I'm also curious. This fellow who told me about Les had a clipping that Les had sent him. The clipping showed where he was playing, and it also had a picture of him. And I'll swear, that picture was about twenty years old. That's the reason I'm wondering if this clipping was twenty years old too or... CW: ...He might be playing with a Dixieland band out there. HR: Well, he would be. Les had his own band. CW: Did you ever go out to any of the Sixth Avenue North places?

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HR: No. I never went out there to play. I went a couple times to listen, but I wasn't a drinker, so I didn't go very often. CW: Yes. I never went out myself. HR: [Referring to background music] You might not know that this is "A Closer Walk with Thee." CW: Yes. Nice. HR: I intended never to get so far away that you wouldn't know what the tune was. Now this was a nice little head arrangement. CW: I've heard Doc do something like this. HR: On the last chorus, the clarinet takes the lead, and Doc plays a kind of an accompaniment to him--partly duet and partly not duet. CW: Yes. Actually, Doc never really got credit for his skills. HR: Oh, I miss Doc. CW: Yes. HR: [Referring to clarinet playing] Now listen. CW: I remember hearing that kind of an accompaniment. HR: Not too long ago, Bob Gruenenfelder was describing Doc's playing. He said, "I just seem to appreciate Doc's playing now, because Doc never played a note that didn't mean something." CW: That's right. Every note does. HR: Actually, I would say I was learning more and more as I went along. I'm sure that I did some of my best playing in the last years that I played, because I was getting looser, for one thing. See, I was kind of legit, starting with a regular band that played nothing but notes. Later, I was really getting loose. That's the reason why I like this tune so well. CW: I wish I could have spent some time with Hod Russell, because he knew some piano ideas. He plays so nice. HR: Did you study piano?

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CW: I used to fool around with it now and then. HR: Yes, Hod said to me, "Why don't you practice the piano and learn how to play it?” I can play a little bit, but I just don't like to practice. CW: One thing this tune reminds me of. Very few trumpet players could improvise a second part as well as Doc did. The only person who could--but it was not just like Doc--was Dex Lyons. Dex used to play a good second part. Well, thank you, Hal Runyon.

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