I Can Hear The Music: The Life of Gene DiNovi

Chapter Fourteen

(The Red Kelley and Gene DiNovi duo circa 1953)

The hardest swinging big band I ever played in beyond question was the one Chubby Jackson put together in the winter of 1949. It was an expansion of the smaller band from a few months earlier, amounting to a big band of young bloods who just wanted one thing--to play, really play, together. Chubby had come off the Woody Herman band, which was a very hot bebop band of the time, and he aimed for something of his own where everybody was really blowing. Man, he got it in spades.

Chubby's band had three trumpets, two trombones, four reeds, Teddy Charles on vibes, Joe Harris on bongos and conga drums, me on piano, Curley Russell on bass at first and then Red Kelly, Tiny Kahn playing beautiful drums, and Chubby who was ordinarily a bassist confining himself to leader, vocalist and cheer leader. Chubby filled the background, and often the foreground, with his "go, go, go" and a whole lot of hollering. We played two weeks at the Royal Roost from late February through to mid-March 1949, going till four in the morning each night. The band never let down for a second, and every set, as Al Porcino, our superman of a lead trumpet, said, "it was like a jet taking off."

Audiences packed the Roost, and everybody was thrilled out of their minds. Tadd Dameron's band, which he called his Big Ten, alternated with us, so did Dave Lambert and Buddy Stewart doing their bebop vocal thing, and the combination of bands and singers drew every bop musician in town to come in to hear us. One night, Bird was in the club, and he got so excited he grabbed Frank Socolow's alto and blew a scintillating solo. Our own soloists were on fire every set: Charlie Walp on trumpet, Frank playing alto, the legendary tenor player Ray Turner. Tiny Kahn drove us, and Chubby screamed and yelled. The energy was ferocious, and it was all very much a complete team of guys with the same ideas about swinging hard.

Chubby's band made two records. One was off a broadcast from the club with all the trimmings, including Symphony Sid handling the introductions. The other was a recording session for Columbia Records in an old church on 30th street near Third Avenue, which had been converted into a great recording studio. It was the place where Glenn Gould recorded a lot of fantastic things for Columbia including his famous version of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

The thing about the session that was personal to me was that, besides three all-out blowing sides (Tiny's Blues, Father Knickerbopper and Godchild, the third of which Tiny sang, leaning into the mic over the high hat while he simultaneously played drums), we recorded a vocal with the band's singer, Paula Castle. Paula was a girl Chubby discovered somewhere, and the tune she sang was a ballad called All Wrong, one of the few places where the band slowed down. I can't remember who wrote the tune--it might have been Chubby--but the guy who wrote the arrangement happened to be me. It was the first thing of mine that got recorded. Usually my writing was too busy, but All Wrong worked out to be more right than wrong, and Paula sang it nicely in a Sarah Vaughan kind of style (in those days, half the girl singers tried to sound like Sarah). I felt quite proud to break in with an arrangement that actually ended up on a record. It was a start.

Red Kelly, the bass player for most of the band's existence, loved his time with Chubby. To the end of his life, Red said it was the peak of his jazz career. Red was a likeable guy, but physically awkward, always knocking things over, an authentic bull in a china shop.

As an example of Red's bull-like propensities, there was the misadventure that began one night when Red felt very sick during a long stretch when he played with Woody Herman's band. The band was out on the road at the time, but Woody managed to get Red to a doctor's house. The doctor said it would be best if Red slept at his place overnight. Red settled into bed in the doctor's guest bedroom.

A few hours later, about three a.m., Red woke up, not at first remembering where he was. He thrashed around and fell out of bed. In the fall, he knocked over an inkwell on a desk in the room. The ink spilled all over the carpet, which, unfortunately for Red, happened to be white.

Red got dressed and took a cab to the hotel where the band was staying. He woke up Woody's manager, Abe Turchen-the guy who was later revealed to have robbed Woody of all his money-and begged Abe to advance him fifty bucks to get the doctor's carpet cleaned.

Back at the doctor's house, Red rang the doorbell, which was answered by the maid in her nightgown. Red explained what had taken place earlier, telling the maid all about the thrashing around and spilling ink on the white carpet. The maid told Red to wait while she woke up the doctor.

Red, still not feeling well, sat down on a chair in the hall. The doctor, it happened, had a very tiny dog as a house pet. When Red sat in the chair, the little dog, unseen by Red, was sleeping in the chair. Big Red landed on the miniature dog and crushed it to death.

Red stood up and surveyed the situation. After a little thought, he placed the fifty bucks on a hall table and went back to the band's hotel. In the morning, the band hit the road, and Red went with it.

Later in the spring of 1949, Chubby's red hot bebop band was booked for the last week in April at the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C. The date, which pretty much marked the end of Chubby's band because it was hard to keep all the busy musicians together, presented me with a problem in logistics. Patsy and I were getting married on the Saturday of that week, May 1. All the plans for the ceremony and the reception were in place, and there was no thought of me postponing things at the last minute. So, as a piano sub for me in Chubby's band on the Saturday night, I hired a guy named John Malachi. He was slightly older than me, and had lots of qualifications, especially as the accompanist for Billy Eckstine, both in Mr. B's big band and as a solo singer. John apparently did a great job as a sub, and Chubby had no complaints. (The subbing thing could be interesting; I once filled in for the great Dave McKenna-on the day he got married--at the Metropole on Broadway. The Metropole was the place where all the musicians stood in a straight line along the high narrow stage, me blasting away with Gene Krupa and a bunch of other swing era guys in the chaos of that strange club).

I headed back to Brooklyn right after the last Friday night set with Chubby at the Howard in plenty of time for the wedding day's festivities. One important formality I had already taken care of; since I was under twenty-one on the big day, a New York State law required me to produce my mother's written permission to marry. She gave it with pleasure, all thoughts of the age difference between Patsy and me having been long since put aside, and the bunch of us went over to the family's neighbourhood church, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The wedding was strictly a family affair with plenty of relatives from both sides. One rare non-family guest was my best man, an old Bensonhurst boyhood friend named Casey Casino. Casey had been the drummer with me in the Don Murray Band that played on Thursday nights at the Midville Club. He was a good drummer, though in a tight way, not loose, and he never made a career out of music. But as a best man, my pal Casey filled the bill.

After the ceremony, we all went to a restaurant-bar in Long Island City and celebrated the nuptials. Everything was loud and fun and joyous, and it wasn't until the next day, Sunday, that some small trouble set in.

Patsy and I got on a plane at the Teeterboro Airport in Jersey and flew to Washington. The flight was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Even though it was a relatively short trip, the plane bounced all over the place in the turbulence. To make the experience even worse, Patsy suffered a slight asthma attack, and she had to go to bed as soon as we got to our Washington hotel. It wasn't exactly the way we intended to spend our first couple of days as husband and wife, but we were very happy to be together.

I played the rest of the gig at the Howard Theatre with Chubby, and then Patsy and I settled in back in Brooklyn at the family house on 76th Street. My mother lived on the second floor, my sister and brother-in-law, Marianne and Louie Coppola, on the third floor, and Patsy and I were down below on the first floor. My mother stayed in the house until a few years later when she moved across the street to my sister Minnie's house. She lived there pretty much until she died on October 25, 1982, ninety-one years of age.

But as of 1949, when Patsy moved in with me after our marriage, it was the beginning of our new family life in my old family home.