was playing, because his vocalist was later my close friend, Walter Brown, the one who used to
sing "Hooty Hooty Blues.") From there, on the other side of 125th Street, at Seventh Avenue, I
saw the big, tall, gray Theresa Hotel. It was the finest in New York City where Negroes could then
stay, years before the downtown hotels would accept the black man. (The Theresa is now best
known as the place where Fidel Castro went during his U.N. visit, and achieved a psychological
coup over the U.S: State Department when it confined him to Manhattan, never dreaming that
he'd stay uptown in Harlem and make such an impression among the Negroes.)
The Braddock Hotel was just up 126th Street, near the Apollo's backstage entrance. I knew its
bar was famous as a Negro celebrity hang-out. I walked in and saw, along that jam-packed bar,
such famous stars as Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah
Washington.
As Dinah Washington was leaving with some friends, I overheard someone say she was on her
way to. the Savoy Ballroom where Lionel Hampton was appearing that night-she was then
Hamp's vocalist. The ballroom made the Roseland in Boston look small and shabby by
comparison. And the lindy-hopping there matched the size and elegance of the place. Hampton's
hard-driving outfit kept a red-hot pace with his greats such as Amett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Dexter
Gordon, Alvin Hayse, Joe Newman, and George Jenkins. I went a couple of rounds on the floor
with girls from the sidelines.
Probably a third of the sideline booths were filled with white people, mostly just watching the
Negroes dance; but some of them danced together, and, as in Boston, a few white women were
with Negroes. The people kept shouting for Hamp's "Flyin' Home," and finally he did it. (I could
believe the story I'd heard in Boston about this number-that once in the Apollo, Hamp's "Flyin'
Home" had made some reefer-smoking Negro in the second balcony believe he could fly, so he
tried-and jumped-and broke his leg, an event later immortalized in song when Earl Hines wrote a
hit tune called "Second Balcony Jump.") I had never seen such fever-heat dancing. After a couple
of slow numbers cooled the place off, they brought on Dinah Washington. When she did her
"Salty Papa Blues," those people just about tore the Savoy roof off. (Poor Dinah's funeral was
held not long ago in Chicago. I read that over twenty thousand people viewed her body, and I
should have been there myself. Poor Dinah! We became great friends, back in those days.)
But this night of my first visit was Kitchen Mechanics' Night at the Savoy, the traditional Thursday
night off for domestics. I'd say there were twice as manywomen as men in there, not only kitchen
workers and maids, but also war wives and defense-worker women, lonely and looking. Out in the
street, when I left the ballroom, I heard a prostitute cursing bitterly that the professionals couldn't
do any business because of the amateurs.
Up and down, along and between Lenox and Seventh and Eighth avenues, Harlem was like
some technicolor bazaar. Hundreds of Negro soldiers and sailors, gawking and young like me,
passed by. Harlem by now was officially off limits to white servicemen. There had already been
some muggings and robberies, and several white servicemen had been found murdered. The
police were also trying to discourage white civilians from coming uptown, but those who wanted
to still did. Every man without a woman on his arm was being "worked" by the prostitutes. "Baby,
wanna have some fun?" The pimps would sidle up close, stage-whispering, "All kinds of women,
Jack-want a white woman?" And the hustlers were merchandising: "Hundred-dollar ring, man,
diamond; ninety-dollar watch, too-look at 'em. Take 'em both for twenty-five."
In another two years, I could have given them all lessons. But that night, I was mesmerized. This
world was where I belonged. On that night I had started on my way to becoming a Harlemite. I
was going to become one of the most depraved parasitical hustlers among New York's eight
million people-four million of whom work, and the other four million of whom live off them.
I couldn't quite believe all that I'd heard and seen that night as I lugged my shoulder-strap
sandwich box and that heavy five-gallon aluminum coffee pot up and down the aisles of the
"Yankee Clipper" back to Boston. I wished that Ella and I had been on better terms so that I could
try to describe to her how I felt. But I did talk to Shorty, urging him to at least go to see the Big
Apple music world. Sophia listened to me, too. She told me that I'd never be satisfied anywhere
but New York. She was so right. In one night, New York-Harlem-had just about narcotized me.
darsice
(darsice)
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