photo © Vic Kalin
Dicky Wells interviewed by Erling Kroner May 14, 1978
Transcribed from tape September 1991.
In May 1978 Dicky Wells and Earle Warren appeared at the Vognporten in Copenhagen accompanied by Finn Otto Hansen (tp), Torben Hertz (p), Carsten Tanggaard (b) and Sven-Erik Nørregaard (d).
It was the first time ever I had a chance to hear one of my greatest inspirations live. I talked to Dicky Wells on a break, and he graciously accepted to meet me a couple of days later for an interview. As I was talking to Dicky, Earle Warren came over and heard what we were talking about. He pulled me aside and looked me deep in the eye: "Don’t bring him no booze, dig?" Earle was chaperoning Dicky, looking out for him. We met at Dicky’s room at the then Hotel Adlon, situated over the Montmartre in Nørregade, downtown Copenhagen. I recorded the interview/talk onto cassette tape. Later I transcribed the interview and translated it into Danish for use in the new jazzmag Jazz Special. I am not much of an interviewer, so I have tried to rephrase the most obnoxious trivialities on my part, but have tried to keep Dicky’s narrative as close to the way it presents itself on the tape as possible.
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You’ve been on this tour – when did you start out?
We started out about the 4th or 5th of this month, we have another week, and that about do it, and then we fly back. We flew to London before, you know, and then we have a few little one-nighters too, here.
You went over here with Claude Hopkins at the piano?
Yeah, he was here, but has taken ill, he fell in London on one leg, and the next night he fell on – in the streets – he fell on the other, and he had three doctors, so they told him to go on back, you know – best that he go back. – We have a good piano player here, you know, we call him "Stretch" he’s so tall, you know – old "Stretch" goes to town, y’know?
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You played the Vognporten two nights ago?
Yeah. They had a nice little crowd, a little dance-floor too, y’know, it makes you feel better playing - see people dancing. . give you a little more life, y’know – yeah, because, you sitting by yourself playing isn’t too bad, you can knock around, so . . .
I noticed the other night at Vognporten, you wanted people to get on the dance-floor, doing like this – come on! – You were watching them all night too . . .
Yeah, you feel better – yeah – ‘cause they do some funny shuffling here, y’know? ‘Cause after being engaged so long at the Savoy Ballroom – y’know – we had two big bands you know, and they would – on the dance-floor – usually get thousand people on it, and the others sitting around, y’know, just looking, and nothing but the bouncers just walking around. If you’d get kinda rough, they would throw a guy down the steps, and the cops would take him to the police station. A whole lot of white kids used to come from Brooklyn, that’s across the river, they would come there. On Sundays and Mondays they had a Ladies’ Day, and they had a, called it, Kitchen Mechanics’ Day - that was Thursday – and all the maids and what not work out for the rich people, that was their night. And they had a night for faggots, about once a month they had a Faggots’ Dance, boy! and they’d come up there and do their thing, y’know – yeah – and Pres, Pres used to call them, Lester used to call them "Miss Thing" – "Here come Miss Thing" – Yeah, boy, ‘twas something else that Savoy Ballroom – they tore it down – I go sit there now, sometimes, and that’s a supermarket where people go buy food – the whole district, two blocks, so there’s no fun anymore like entertainment in Harlem – Small’s Paradise is still there – used to be the biggest nightclub – but they don’t have nothing much going. Showbidness’s just about shot dead – and not only there, all over. Detroit and Chicago used to be good amusement towns, but they are just – you know – so I don’t know where your styles are coming from, here lately. Of late the kids - because most of them are highschool or college kids, they learn there, y’know, so what’s the trick? So I guess it’ll be more legitimate, now. I don’t know about swing, y’know, anymore – maybe they will start swinging later on?
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I was reading through your book Night People last night, and at one point you talk about the problem of being ‘too clean’, you like a ‘fuzzy edge’ to the music, is that what you are talking about now?
Yeah –
Earle, he is from Springfield, Ohio, that isn’t far from where I first met Lloyd and Cecil Scott, first little band I played with after I left Louisville, Kentucky. You see, I was born in Tennessee and raised in Louisville, that’s the next big town coming north. So that’s where I met Earle, in Springfield, Ohio. Pres named Earle Warren "White Folks" – used to call him White Folks – and they still do so now, some of them in New York. Pres caused that business.
I’m glad we made this tour over here, White Folks called me and said: "You wanna go?" – ‘Cause we play at the West End, that’s a little place - a big bar - but they don’t have any dancing, that’s the onliest fault about it, three or four bars they have. There is a main bar, where you come in, and we play in a little room ‘round the corner there. Over here there is another dining room – they do bidness – easy – ‘bout 4-5 thousand people a night, every night. So that’s where we play and when we are off, they have the ‘Ex-Basie-ites’, and they have different little groups, but they are still small, y’know – Jesus! – I see larger bands here, than I do over there! Yeah last night they had a nice little band, and down where we played – eh – what’s the fellows name that played there? trombone player?
FESSOR!
Yeah that’s a good band.
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Isn’t too many guys around there blowing, around New York, as I told you before, things are kind of cooled down, one or two pieces, maybe – Buddy Tate does a lot of work, and when he isn’t working, Cat Eye’s working – Cat Eye comes down and knocks up, yeah. We did the Billie Holiday Alumni for her, it was very good, must be about a month and a half ago - two months. And we are supposed to do Lester’s! – Eh, last month, just before we came here, the girl told me to contact all the Fletcher Henderson guys, to get them to come down and try to blow a little. So I called Benny Morton, the trombone player – he’s been sick – he can do just a little playing, not much. - I saw him just the other day down in town, in New York, he walks around, come out to get a little air. – And she wanted Cootie Williams, and Cootie, the onliest thing he plays now is the horses – oh, he lives at the tracks. And I called Sandy Williams; Sandy and Procope live in the same building. They got a nice new building there in New York, they send all the local 802 members – they sent us letters to go there – but I didn’t go. Now I think I’ll go down and see about it – but it’s loaded up now. – So Procope’s working down on the East Side - this is on the West Side, near the River – but Procope he lives there, he does very good, ‘s a little cabaret, but they only have one blowing horn at a time, but sometimes they call in extra guys – So I called the girl back to tell her I had a few fellows I wanted to contact, and I kept calling, I called for a week – a girl named Linda Coyle – she writes too, she’s a critic and she had called me to go hear Basie in Washington D.C., which is a good ways from New York, and I told her I was busy. She was driving down there, and I called her when she came back, kept calling, no contact, and I come to find out the poor girl was dead, been dead, yeah Linda Coyle, yes she was good, y’know. So I had to call all the guys to tell ‘em to forget it. ‘Cause they paid nice for those things, once they do them. Give you 130 – 140 dollars to blow, just play a while – yeah – that’s a good little gang. The Overseas Jazz Club they call it. We have a lot of fun. That’s the onliest time we see older guys we played with, ‘cause other than that New York is so big and so many new people. – The local – local 802 - there are so many new managers and everything down there. – You don’t see many people, musicians, around New York anymore. If you go in a bar it costs so much to go in and sit a while – Jesus! – Buddy, Buddy works pretty good, y’know, he had a beautiful job there, called the Celebrity Club. It was nice. Dance-floor and everything – I think it’s still there. But Buddy, he doesn’t go near the place anymore, ‘cause he comes in this direction a lot, now. Whole lot of musicians come to Europe that didn’t before. Like I saw Benny Waters. I hadn’t seen this guy in years – Jesus – last time I saw him he had some wig, now his wig is gone. Yeah he came to the dance and said he would be coming here soon, and tells me he wants to go to New York to see his broad. I say: "What you gonna do with her?" He said: "Look at her!" I said: "OK, go ahead! ‘cause I’m getting your age now!" you know, knocking around! – Yeah, Benny Waters! Said he just had a nice home, he is buying in Paris – he sees Bill Coleman all the time, ‘cause Bill live there – And with the George Wein thing, Earle and I are going, and quite a few more musicians, in July – around July the fourth. We may come back this direction. I know we will be in London, I haven’t been to Copenhagen a long while ago. I knew a saxophone player ‘was here then. I don’t know his name, but I went to see him. He lived out, further out in some place – but I don’t know who he was. He looked like Benny Waters, brown-skinned - - -
Not Ray Pitts?
Yeah!
Was it Ray Pitts? the tenor player?
Oh yeah, tenor – THAT’s right!
Ray Pitts????
Yeah it WAS! – but he disappeared. I thought maybe he would come to the dance.
He is not in Denmark anymore. He is in the Sates, at the Columbia University, I believe –
Yeah, ‘cause we play across the street - in this club where Earle and I work – it’s about ten blocks, ‘cause Columbia is on Broadway, too, way up on Broadway, so we get a lot of college-kids.
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So you want to talk about Pres, eh? He was a beautiful guy, he was quiet. Very quiet. Sit in the bus, had his little seat by hisself, and you wouldn’t know, he just sitting there ‘till a little crap-game started up the aisle, and he’d jump out and shoot his little taste, and then he would knock around, go back to his seat to sleep, nobody took his seat. Everybody had their private seat, you know. – Jimmy Rushing had the seat in front of me, and he was crazy about chicken, Jimmy Rushing was. So he would wait ‘till everybody’d go to sleep, and then he would peek around to see if everybody’s asleep, and I would hit him on the back, and he would say: "Here, MF, shut up, take this and eat your piece." So I would wait for him every night, when I see him getting his chicken. And then Pres would kid and talk to him, but Lester never said much to anyone. His style of playing was near his regular dubilities of life. He played alone, like no one else. He didn’t copy no one and he went on to swing like mad by hisself. And had his little language, you know: "oh-reenie, oh-deenie" – he liked that, you know – "oh-vootie" or "squattie", y’know - tell a chick to "come on Baby, let’s go get some a-reenie", you know. As if the girl may know what he was talking about, so he would go to a hotel and knock around – and the onliest time I lived in a hotel with him – it was in Texas – Buck Clayton and I and Pres eh – Cat-eye rather and Pres and myself – went to this hotel. So Buck and I went to eat, and when we come back, we look, Pres is coming down, down the door, I say: "What’s shakin’?" – Pres: "I don’t know, man! They tell me a cat died up there in that same room I had, last week, and he may come back looking for his clothes or something." So Les got out of there and stayed. – I think he slept on the bus – yeah. We had that great Greyhound bus, beautiful drivers and everything, so it’s just like a bed, because you could pronge back your seats. So we hung out, and knocked ourselves out, Pres and I – I mean Cat-eye – got in the bus – Pres is already in the bus, he stayed in the bus, he said: "The guy may come back and look for his room", and he don’t wanna be there, with this dead cat coming in the door. Pres had his bags coming down the stairs and got onto the bus. So the next day we’d leave one town and go on to another, and the same thing. Les would sit and talk, a little crap game starting, would jump in and say: "Okay, I’ll shoot a vootie – a vootie one." – One dollar, you know? Ha! - (laughing) – he would shoot out with his left hand and nothing happens, "Crap!" and he would leap back, "Good-ni-tie-a-reenie, I’ll snore a-reenie, a-vootie, I’ll snore now." And he would go on to sleep. Every night the same thing on the bus, you know. – And we would play the dances, very few of the chicks would come up, ‘cause Les is so quiet – you wouldn’t think he played all that horn – but his horn was quiet and nice too, like – you know – because he and Herschel played – different sound – they didn’t sound any – Herschel was crazy about Hawk. He never heard Hawk, when Hawk came over here and made Body and Soul and got back, Herschel had died. He died early, too. – Yeah, Pres had a tough little end to his life – like the hotel – he lived in a hotel. He got mugged. People stole his money. Because he lived in Long Island – I heared that he has a son and wife. I didn’t know he was married. I saw his son once – that’s out from New York, and they stayed at a hotel, had a hotel, the Alvin, A-L-V-I-N, it was a old hotel on Broadway – all the performers used to stay there, y’know. So when Les came back from Europe, they knew he was there, and that’s when they went in and mugged him, you know after he - - yeah he was dead then, yeah they mugged him, in his hotel, the Alvin Hotel – There’s a parking-lot now. They tore it down, you know.
But as far as I know, he died from a heart attack?
Yeah, he did, he had suffered . . . he was sick already, when he got there. He passed, you know. But other than that, he was a beautiful guy. He never argued too much about anything, would use his weird language, if you’d start arguing with him about something, he would say: "Vootie! man, double p," means: Cool down, you know. "Let the reenie die the f. No f’s, double p and go on to snoozeville!" – sleep, you know. That’s Lester Young, man, ain’t nothing like him. Yeah, he and Herschel were entirely different. Sometimes Herschel would want to borrow a little money and Les would hear – or Les would want to borrow something, Herschel would hear it and say: "Here, man, give old Vootie this – don’t tell him I sent it." – You know like – jive - you know (laughing). You would give it to Pres, he would laugh: "Shit, oh Herschel-a-reenie sent me this, don’t tell him, I’ll get it back to you, and you give it to him." That was Lester, man, he was a beautiful person. Never know he was around, he was so nice and quiet – but he had his fun, you know! But his style of living was just like his horn – smooth an’ – you know? Smooth going. –
It always seemed to me that you were inspired, or vice versa, by Pres. Or maybe it was just a question of hearing things in a parallel manner. To me it was different (from the rest), and I thought I heard a lot of Pres in your playing – say from the forties on. I’m not saying it was like that, but I felt that had something to do with it.
Yeah, seemed to be, because Pres, he was quiet-like in life, and I don’t bother anybody, so I guess we feel the same way. But the loud cats, like little Don Byas - he was beautiful, playing – but he was a loud little rascal. When he get his taste, you could hear him all over the joint. But Les would be sitting in the bus, riding, just looking, paying nobody no mind. – Yeah, so that’s life, that’s Lester Young. Old Pres, the President. Didn’t call him President, just called him Pres, Pres Young. He had a brother that plays drums – Lee – he was in Hollywood – someplace in Hollywood – California rather. Yeah, I haven’t seen him – he stayed in my house when I was with Basie, once – I let him a room. My wife was living, and he stayed a long time. He was a little more erratic than Pres was – a little fly, you know – but Pres was that cool cat, you wouldn’t know he was in the place, he so nice and quiet. He was playing the same thing. Go back, sit down and say nothing all night.
To me it seems there was always one thing about your playing that you have developed more than anybody else on the trombone – you seem to talk on the trombone, all the time, and I never heard anybody talk like THAT! – How the hell did you hit on doing that?
I don’t know, it’s just me, the best I can do, y’know – the onliest way to knock around – just let yourself go – what you’re thinking. That’s the way Pres was. Nobody never knew what he was thinking, but his horn, his horn would tell the story – which wasn’t loud and erratic, not at all.
When you started out playing, you sounded very good, very definite and with your own ideas, but as time went on – I would say that eventually, up through the fifties onward, you stopped sounding like a trombone player, you just sounded like YOU, know what I mean?
Yeah! (grinning)
You just happened to play the trombone, and nobody ever sounded the least bit like you.
Yeah, well, well, well – I came up with those kids, kid-bands, y’know, we had 62 pieces in Louisville, Kentucky – Sunday-school band – so that – you had to go for yourself, what you thought, just play your thoughts – and it wasn’t any erratic people. We had this trombone player, he used to come to Louisville, Kentucky from Jenkins’ band – yeah – left-handed cat – everybody’s following him, he is swinging his horn and – y’know – carrying on. If he wasn’t there, nobody went for the parade. ‘Cause we had quite a few parades in different places. Used to play the fairgrounds. In Lexington, Kentucky, they used to have a beautiful fair, and we play there and go back to Louisville to Sunday-school band and do our little parades, and that’s when they heard me, somebody came in – Lloyd Scott used to come there, that’s why they heard me. We had a place called the Lounge Garden, we used to play – a big ballroom – fairground-like, y’know, - so that’s where they told me to come on to Springfield, Ohio. So they got me up there - and I have been gone ever since! – Yeah, Lloyd Scott – and Cecil – yeah, so that’s it.
I was thinking about that pepperpot mute, you made - the one you designed.
Well, I just bought a straight trombone mute and took my ice pick and all that stuff and got me some wire and what not and hammered it all together and – that’s it. That was my buzz-mute, trombone buzz.
I love that mute!
Yeah, I do too – Earle like it too – he gave me hell for leaving it – "Where’s that mute?" – But home I would keep it wrapped and leave it at the dresser – and I left it at home. I made that mute a long while ago. And we played the Apollo Theatre the first one I lost – about fifteen years ago – and the trombone player – he didn’t tell me he had it – he was working in the house band. So later on, about a year, he said: "Man, why don’t you make me a mute?" I said: "I made you one – you stole it!" he said: "I lost that mute!" So . . . I left mine at home. I got three of them – a little one – yeah – I came out, trying to rush out and get over here – and I left it there!
About 8-9 years ago I said to myself, I have to get a mute like that, I don’t know how the hell Dicky made that. So I started hammering away on straight mutes, making holes with a drill and getting the drill into my legs and what not, but it didn’t work, because I didn’t know what the secret was. So I still have it at home – there’s a lot of holes in it!
(Cracking up) Why don’t you bring it down so I can see it?
It doesn’t work! There’s just a lot of holes!
Oh, you didn’t put the paper in it?
No, I didn’t know what the secret was.
They stopped making that paper in New York. I went to Five'n Ten’ers and can’t get it. They used to have it in supermarkets, the kind of paper you can see through. So I got the nearest I could – just tissue paper – but it isn’t the real sound I wanted – best I can do.
There is another Danish trombone player (Torolf Mølgaard), he used to play lead in the Radio Big Band, he made a mute after seeing you in New York, and he put paper into it, and it did sound quite a lot like your mute.
Yeah, I took an ice-pick and made the holes, punch ‘em into it – other than that, that’s what it was – Pepperpot they call it, it’s in the book, there’s a picture of it.
How did you make this book? Was it like telling it to Stanley Dance, or tape-recording it, or whatever?
No, he asked me to just write out something, and he goes for hisself. After that he takes it home and knocks around. Stanley Dance’s a beautiful guy. He just wrote something on Earl Hines – the life of Earl Hines – Yeah he writes most of the jazz books, now.
Getting back to your pepperpot mute, there is one solo I’ll never forget on the album the Big Eighteen – with you and Vic (Dickenson) and Lawrence (Brown) and what have you, and there’ one track (singing Skyliner) where you play a solo which is somehow the craziest solo you ever played. You use your pepperpot mute, and it seems like all you play is – it’s like somebody talking, almost no notes, just bending a little here and there and then: bang! Take your horn down – Projecting a feeling – and a strange one at that!
Yeah, hum, hum, I used to make a lot with that little mute. – And I have a real small one, and I could have brought either of ‘em, but – rushing out to come over here, putting all my jive together – yeah so . . .
The second album you did with the Buck Clayton All Stars after the tour in ’61 – One for Buck – you did ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’, and somebody, knowing your great regard for Tommy Dorsey, suggested you play it like him. Afterwards, there was a mock accusation: "Man, you played it like Dicky Wells!" – And by the way, you talk very nicely about T.D. in your book.
Oh yeah, he was beautiful!
There was one thing about your book that struck me again, as I re-read it last night, and that is your very last words. You say: "I’m still for the cat who treats me as I treat him, black, green, white or blue." It’s a beautiful way to conclude your book!
Yeah. You have to take life for what it is, and treat people nice and expect to be treated nice – it’s the best you can do, y’know.
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Changing the subject rather suddenly, I was thinking about the fact that you were mugged a couple of years ago?
Yeah. This cat was half crazy, y’know. All I had was 16 dollars. I’d have been glad to give it to him, but no, first thing I know I’m lying on the sidewalk, one door from where I’m going. We have a Amsterdam Club – old musicians go there in New York. They have parties and jam on Saturdays. I was going there – about two o’clock, too . . .
I remember when I was told that story, I thought to myself: "Well, that’s the last we will hear from Dickie, because if he in is such a bad shape as rumors had it . . .
So, about half a year ago I received a letter from Eddie Bert saying: " Dicky’s back in music, and he is sounding great!" – That was some good news!
Yeah, I’m glad it was good news – as Pres would say: Yeah, I’m back on the footie again – vootie-a-reenie – yeah Pres – tell a broad he wants some vootie-a-reenie: "C’mon Baby, me‘n you!"
Who did you consider influences in your younger years – if any?
Well, Jimmy Harrison was very good – he’s from Louisville, Kentucky – he would just swing, swung away, a swing-cat, y’know. He played with Fletcher Henderson before he died. Yeah, Jimmy Harrison.
And Big Green?
Yeah! (laughing) later Big Green – yeah he was a wild, big cat, Big Green – played some blues, too. Yeah he could play some blues – phew! But Jimmy had a swing-style – he played blues too – but he swung. He played a hotel where I used to go. He liked to play with just piano. If somebody else come in – saxophone or trumpet – he would put his horn down and go out in the street and come back before closing time – yeah, Jimmy Harrison.
About playing behind singers – like for instance Lester behind Billie Holiday – we all know was out of this world. But another thing, I always thought was out of this world too, is you playing behind a blues-singer or blues-shouter. I remember the first time I heard the so-called Spiritual to Swing concerts from ‘38-’39 where you back Ida Cox in a way I never heard anybody play behind a singer – completely different. And I’m also thinking about the things you’ve done with Mr. Five by Five.
Yeah, a pleasure playing behind him!
And you did it again, just the other night, playing behind Earle.
Yeah, that’s nice, because you can’t bother his voice. You have to take the little spots, when he relaxes. So it’s nice playing behind blues-singers and what not – but that Jimmy Rushing! – We used to have a ball together – Mr. Five by Five – yeah, I hated to see him go – but – when they send for you upstairs, you’ve got to hit the road – and it wasn’t quite my time yet – so . . . . It’s been nice talking with you, y’know . . .
I’m so glad you’d take some time out to do that.
Yeah, ev’rything’s cool – glad to do it, you know.
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Article copyright ©Kroner Music 2003
Transribed from the original tapes
Posted September 1, 2003