WORCESTER JAZZ,

at the Driftwood Lounge forsix years and I still get toblow.some blues.flTony Finelli's right down

the street at the Bonfire inWestboro. He's blowin' withGeorge Pearson, who is a goodblues organ man."1 guess guys Ilke me and

Tony will always have to blowsome blues. Anyway, its niclto think we will."

Young Drummer

The man that local musi-cians have nick-named "Jef-ferson Lord" goes up on thestand with Dick Hill, his finejazz organist, and his steadyyoung drummer Steve Pap-pas.His foot begins to stomp out

the beat. His fingers aresnapping.And then sucjdenlyhe's lean-

ing-baeJ..wilh,the horn' pushed'up front just the way it oughtto be. The veins bulge in hisforehead and sweat beadsrace dow his face. He's blow-ing B·flat blues at you. Real.gutsy B-flat blues.The tune is "Pork and

Beans" which he has writtenand recorded himself. Theband is cooking.You close your eyes and you

can almost bear Emil Haddadand Miff George and OckieMenard and Barney Pricejoining 'in with him to ex-change choruses.Then it's over. The mob<!is

gone.He's up there with his eyes

clamped shut. And you canstill see the sweat bubble onhis brow and the flicker of apulse at his temple.The tune is a ballad, "The

Shadowof Your Smile."He plays the melody.It is very pretty.The customers are dancing.And you know the price a

man must pay to keep hismusic alive.

what the public demandedand received. Jazz was passe.A few places tried. to

compete with roc k. TheMillstream Steak House inAyer had sessions in the early60's but they fizzled. '"The last of the real ses.

sions was held at the FoxLounge in Westborot" Jeffer-son said. "I hated to see themsessions go. because that wasthe end of the good old dayscrf jazz. I

"Goin' back through the'years, I remember bop neverreally caught on around Wor-cester. Even when things wasgoin' hot down in Boston backin the early 50's, we stuck toblues and traditional jazzaround here."¥ou know there's very few

cats in this area today thatcan play blues. The blues hasto come from the soul, man.And -that's w1.at the-musicianscomin' up ain't got - soul. .

Bread Counts

"Things ain't what theyused to be. Jazz is gone. Mu-sicians don't blow for kicks nomore like they did when I wascomin' up. Today the onlything that counts is the bread."There's plenty of good cats

comin' up today that couldblow real nice jazz if they hadthe chance. But the only gigsavailable are weddings andbanquets and shows and danc-es. And of course, rock n' rollgigs."I don't knock rock n' roll.

Some of those guys blow nicethings. But there's a lot offake musicians hidin' behindthree-chord tunes and ampli-fied guitars. That ain't jazz,man. It may be what the kidsdig and it may have somenice things, but baby, it ain'tjazz. You take the real goodcats t hat are blowin rock,they could play fine jazz too ifthey was brought up blowin'jazz."I'm lucky. I been playin'

Too Much Apathy

"There's far too much apathy in the music business to-day," said Edward Shamogian, president of local 143. "IVeneed a place where musicians and friends can come to re-hearse and experiment and develop their creative abilities.What we really want is a club of our own, like the SaxtrumClub of the late 30s, where musicians can feel free to comeany time of the day or night and play whatever kind of musicthey want."

The musicians have picked a site for the club on theBoston Tunrpike. Ground breaking for the new building isexpected by the beginning of 1970.

Will Rais. Funds

Funds for the building will be raised by the musiciansthemselves through performances in concerts, clubs and lInionsponsored affairs. I

Shamogian, a Worcester lawyer, known in local musiccircles as jazz drummer Eddy Sham, said the American Fed-eration of Musicians is watching the movement very closely.

"They're 100per cent in favor of what we're trying to do,"he said. "They're as much aware of what's happening tothe local musicians as we are. H

•

The spirit of the Saxtrum Club will live again.Musicians want to play jazz, but the public isn't interested.

So the musicians plan to unite and build their own cluhhouse.And they'1! dedicate it to bringing the "artistry" back topopular music.

The Worcester Musician's Association. AFM local 143,plans to consolidate the neighboring associations in Milford,Marlboro, Southbridge, Fitchburg, Athol and Framingham.The union locals have a combined membership of 1200pro-fessional musicians.

Area Musicians PlanClub of Their Own

would set up on the stand andwait until he didn't have an-other note left in his born.Then some other cat wouldcome right up and try to cuthim.

Howie Je~ferson on a recent date at the Driftwood Lounge in Shrewsbury.Gazette Photo

Wanled the Best

"Music was competetivethen. Everyone who playedjazz wanted to be the best.But it's not like that tOday."In those days, we'd push

each' other all night. Then, af-ter the gig, we'd all 'fall in'to the Piccadilly Restauranton Shrewsbury Street. For abuck we could get a platter ofspaghetti and pork chops withfive or six forks."Those were the really

great days, when we'd sitaround all night after the gigeating spagbetti and talkingjazz."Today the cats can't get

}IOIiie Sooll enough~fter--agig.""In those days the best jazz

c e n t ere d around ClaytonStreet and was played mostlyby colored musicians and ahandful of whites."Back then a musician

would starve before he'dprostitute his music. Today itis just the bread that countswith most musicians aroundWoreester."The public won't buy jazz.

The old Saxtrum days aregone forever."

Major Influence

The major influence on theWorcester area's jazz scene inthe 40s and 50s was furnishedby Boots Mussulli.The musicians held Kid

Boots In awe. And it nevermattered to this supertalentedartist from Milford what theywanted to blow dixie, swing,mainstream, bop.If it was fazz, Boots blew it.

And everybody listened.Local musicians felt the loss

heavily when Boots died in1965.In the late 40s and early 50s

the nightclubs really began toswing. There were jam ses-sions and jazz sessions all~through the area.The Wonder Bar in Auburn

nsed to close its doors at mid-night so the jazz men couldcome in· and blow till thesmall hours of the morning.The Wigwam in the Hotel

Lincoln in Ayer had back-to-back sessions that lasted allday Sunday. They werefronted by Jefferson and oth-er local jazz stars.Seymour's in Shirley was

swinging with sessions allthrough the 40s and Nelson'sin Fitchburg was turningthem away at the door in the50s.McCann's Cafe in Leomin-

ster regularly featured Mus-sulli, Jefferson, Frankie Capp,Joe Roland, Morgan Sorrelland Howard McKee.

§Iammed Shut

Then, as suddenly as it hadbeen opened, the doorslammed shut.The public no longer craved'

jazz.Rock and roll had begun to

creep into favor with the youngset in the 50s. By the early60s it had a firm hold on themusic scene.Guitars, amplifiers, organs

and loud drummers were

Fort [)evens

"Old Jumbo was stationedup at Ft. Devens." Jeffersonremembers. "It got so he was'at the club every Saturdaynight. If he don't have nopass, he get off the ba.. someway. And before you know ithe be up on the stand blowin',"herl~h;

Reynold, Scat Davis, GeneKrupa, Chu Berry, Carl Hoff,Roy Eldridge, Anita O'Day,Cozy Cole, Cab Calloway,Sam Donaliue, Charlie Ven-tura, Frank Sinatra and manyothers made frequent visits tothe club and "sat in" withthe local musiciaJ.1s.

Tore Roof Off

When he got out of thearmy., Old Jumbo changed hishorn from cornet !o trumpetand made a pretty fair show·ing from the experience hegained in those two years of"falling in" to the SaxtrumClub.His name is Al Hirt.A Jot ""ofjazz musicians in

the late 30s and early 40sfound themselves involved inpersonal struggles. that wereimpossible to shake. Theywere living out of suitcases,traveling about the country,trying to push a product thatthe public wasn't' reallyknowledgable enougb to ac-cept.Some of then, due to the

pressure, the hours, the sensi·tivity that makes up the per-sonality of any artist, turnedto drugs imd liquor.This'is a fact that has been

blown up way out of propor-tion, exploited and dwelledupon in the past. It is enoughto say that these problems ex-isted in the Worcester area toa very small extent, as theyso often will wherever youfind men capable of producingreal art in any form.

Armed Forces

In the early 1940smany ofthe local musicians went intothe armed forces. This wastbe end of the Saxtrum Club.Although the few memberswho stayed out of the servicetried to keep the club alive,things just weren't the same.Funds soon ran out and theclubwas abandoned. Today theSaxtrum is being demolishedfor urban renewal.It was in the 40s that a jazz

band called the Rockie BluntAll Stars was organized by ayoung Worcester drummer,This was one of the first

predominantly Negro jazzbands in the area to have awhite leader. Two of its musi-cians were members of theoriginal Boots Ward NiteHawks'band: Jefferson on saxand Price on trumpet. Theband was rounded out by Hen-ry Monroe on piano, MorganSorrell on bass. and Blunt onjrums.Blunt's band toured the

. Worcester area for severalyears and was noted for itsfine sessions and concerts.HI can remember the carv..

Ing sessions we use d tohave," Blunt _said. "A man

Musicians' Language

Those were the days whenthe musician's language wasin tune with the Harlemidiom. You called a cat "hip-ster" and a groovy solo was"solid" and money was"Loot" or "gold" and prettygirls were caUed Hfine din-ners" and not~so-nice girlswere "bimbos."The tunes were by Ellington

and Basie and Goodman.Jump numbers like "OneO'Clock Jump," "Jull1iPing atthe Woodside," and fllndiana"and pretty ballads, now stan-dards like "SophisticatedLady" and "Stardust" and"Body and Soul."About the lime the Saxtrum

Club really began to swing,the big-name bands were ap-pearing at the Plymouth The-ater.Top artists like Tommy

By 1938jazz was firmly es-tablished in Worcester.During that year a group of

local musicians started theclub that would later becomeWorcester's most significantcontribution to the bettermentof jazz music."We had a lot of good cats

camin' up in those days,"Howie Jefferson said. "Man, .they just lived for jazz. They Tuesday mgbts they tore thedidn't go in for no day gigs. roof off tbe Saxtrum.And they didn't want to blow The name bands would ar-commercial. rive in Worcester on Monday"Well, these cats were look- for a three.<fayengagement at

in' for a place where they the Plymoutb. HavIng trav-could just fall in anytime and eled many miles by bus orblow as long as they wanted car, they'd be exbausted afterwithout nobody buggin' them: their Monday night perform."A group of seven of us got ance, so they'd pass up the

together and rented an empty . Saxtrum.store at the corner of Glenn But on Tuesdays the musi-and Ciayton, Streets. We cians were refreshed andnamed it the Saxtrum Club - they'd all fall in to the Sax.SAX TRumpet & drUMs. trum as soon as their gig was"After that things really be- over at the Plymouth. They'd

gun to waiL" play until the early hours ofThe musicians who started the morning, challenging the

the Saxtrum Club were Jeffer- local musicians with new ideasson (alto sax) Dick Murray and sounds.(tenor sax), Ralph Biscotti Then, on Wednesday night,(alto sax), JackIe Byard (pI- the band would finish at theano), Eddie Sham (drums), Plymouth and be back on theHarold Black (bass) and road. It was a ritual each mu-BarneY,Price (trumpet). sician loooked forward to

Impromptu Sessions whenever he came to Worces-ter.

Th~ freedom ~f expres~ion "I remember Sam Donahueand Impromptu Jazz sessIOns . , 'nt th I b d'tthat typified the Saxtrum c.a~m I. 0 e c u an s~- ICI b d· kl th ougl' tm on hiS tenor case a.ndwall-u sprea qwcy r l"'h'the area. Before long musi- .' In rIg t th:ough ~bout 20cians were beating a path to choruses.~ IndIana. ~thoutthe club's door. The member- ~ver comm up .for .?lr, How-ship rose to 135. Ie Jefferson Said. Man, that

. cat could blow."Some of the best local Jazzartists who joined the Sax- Another regular at the Sax-trum Club were: Dave Rob- trum was a chubby youngertson, Henry Monroe, Bobby cornet player they calledHolt, and Barbara Carroll (pi- "Jumbo".ano); Dick Adshead. Joe Fer·razano, Murray Guralnick,Tony Finelli, Phil Scott andKukonen (sax); Bill Tony,Kenny Proctor, Eddie Dol-beare, Al Mercury, Billy Hall-back, Rockie Blunt, HalDrellinger, and Eddie Temple( d rum s ) ; Haddad, BennyHurwitz, Franny O'Connor,"n.i Moe, BatchelderLttw'l,e't);"aml"Edii Wine. Mary'-'Con 1i n and Bert Hardin(string bass).The Saxtrum's reputation

spread far outside the Wor,cester area. Musicians fromall over the country knew thathere was a place where Jazzmen got together to exchangeideas. to create, to Hcarve"each other, and to help eachother.They loved it.

(trumpet), Morgan Sorrell (boss), Howie Jefferson fsox),and Chet Lavallee (piono).

They blew their jazz in ball-rooms and at private clubsand parties and anywherepeople would listen. Therewere no nightclubs in Worces-ter. . ,Their music wasn't polish-

ed. And it didn't wander farfrom the basic roots. A bopplayer of today would put itdown. But believe· it, it wasthe blues. It was soul and itgot right inside you. It wasn'twritten down. You eitherblew it or you didn't. Thatwas jazz.In the late 30s things began

to happen. There were a lot offine, young musicians in theWorcester area who were justbeginning to find themselves.These were men like How-

ard Jefferson, Ockie Menard,Dick Murray and Paul Kuko-nen on sax; Luke Meyers andJudy Wade on guitar; FrannyO'Connor, Barney Price andEmil Haddad on l[umpet; BillTony, Kenny Proctor and Ed-die Dolbeare on drums; PetePrice, Tony Mandel, AlicePrice, Rod Ford and GretchenMorrowan piano; and MiffGeorge - who played withBunny Berrigan - on trom-bone. • /Another wei! known musi-

cian, who played and com-posed music in the Worcesterarea in the 30s was EinorSwan. He is probably most re-membered by jazz men forhis original composition of thegreat standard, "When YourLover Has Gone".

Inspiration

The day of the sessions hadarrived. They would continueuntil the early 1960sas an in-spiration and joy to everyjazz musician in the area."The cats loved to blow in

them days," said Howie Jef·ferson, who became one ofWorcester's most noted jazzsax men. ~'Man, everynightafter the gig we'd get togeth.'er someplace and blow theblues until the sun come u~."We h~d sessions at the

r.....,-...~ "~"'~n::"-rj.t..,

Center and- ~at Logan's-inTrumbull Square and Domen·ie's Cafe on Green Street andlots of other joints aroundtown."Them were the good old

days of jazz when c'ats wouldcome from all around andblow all nigbt for nothin' justcause they dug the music."The territory bands were

working the Worcester areathen, playing ballroom andclub dates. The Watson Broth·e r s, Dol Brissette, GeneBroadman, Bob Pooley, andPhil Scott all had bands thatfeatured a few good jazz menlike Menard, Haddad andKukonen.Haddad later had lbe dis-

tinction of blowing jazz withthe immortal Charlie "Bird"Parker. Menard had offersfrom every big band in thecountry. Kukonen was fea~tured on sax and clarinet withBobby Hackett,

Regular Job

After playing for four orfive hours on their regular jobat one of the local ballrooms,

! the jazz men in these territo-ry bands gathered at placeslike the Town Club on LakeAvenue and the Jackson Clubfor jam sessionsI that wouldlast far into the night.

Boots Mussulli. . . BOOTSMUSSULLI!Now we're catch-ing up with you, eh? You re-member the. king from Mil-ford - "Kid Boots" -

The 50s. Nelson's in Fitch-bur g. McCann's Cafe inLeominster. The Wigwam inAyer.Stand in ilne baby. The joint

is swinging.Look out! That's Howie Jef-

ferson on tenor. And he's wai-lin' "Heavy Juice."If you have ever known this

scene - if you've sat in adozen darkened clubs on adozen different nights andheard the sounds come pour-ing from a dozen differenthorns, then the facts of Wor-cester's musical scene in 1969will come as no great shock.But first, in' all fairness, you

must visit every nightclub inthe city. For only after youhave heard all of the musicthat local bands are playingthese days will your suspi-cions become reality.Jazz is dead.The real roots of Worces-

ter's jazz scene began in Har-lem back in the 1930s.It start-ed with the Negro bands inthe days when musicianspiayed all night iong withouta break and often were paidno more than a few dollarsfor their efforts. The musicwas biues: real New Orleansjazz played two to the beat inrich, fat sounds spiked withvibrato that came straightfrom the soul. Those were thedays when' many musicianscouldn't read a note of music.And that really didn't matter.

Gazene Pholo

Of The Gazette Staff

This Being a Requiem for the Way It WasWhen Al Hirt 'FellIn' at the Saxtrum Club

Tony Finelli plays iazz at the Bonfire in Westboro.

The Rockie Blunt AII·Stars swing a diorus of lie-Jam" bluesduring an all.night jazz session at Nelson's Cafe, LeominsterIn 1949; (from leftl Rockie Blunt (drums), Barney Price

By EVERETT M. SKEHAN

Did you ever hear a manblow his horn back in thedays when Harlem was kingand the blues poured out ofeve r y joint on SummerStreet?Did you watch him lean

back and close his eyes andblow in to the smokey dark-ness until the veins bulged onhis forehead and wide beadsof sweat raced each otherdown his face into the opencollar of his shirt.Those were the days of the

upright piano and the steadyclick of a high-hat cymbalhooked to the driving pulse ofa good string bass.Two cats up front with their

eyes clamped tight and thebells of their silver-platedh 0 r n s pushed forward togleam brightly in the thin.blue light.Ah. the Dixie Bar!"Wail Gate .. B-flat

There ain't no bridge baby .Keep right on blowin' till youraxe is empty . . , C'mon dad-dy loosen them chops. Theyain't no mike in here. ; . Yougot to blow, man ... Now Iread you Gate. Tell the story,man ... That's solid Jack!. . . Ahhh. dig them mugglesman. sweet like cotton candy... This sure do beat workin'for the WPA."Are you with .me?Do you remember Boots

Ward's Nite Hawks and StewWatson and the Phil Scott bigband?