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Interview with Mario Bauza
Interviewer: Mr. Roberts
December 1978

MR. Roberts: Now, the club, I've forgotten, the club that you hung out in, all the musicians hung out.

MR. BAUZA: That was the Rhythm Club.

MR. Roberts: The Rhythm Club. Yes, tell me, what that like? What happened there?

MR. BAUZA: In there, the Rhythm Club, they open in there, sometimes don't close at all. And the floor, you walk in and they had a piano, baby grand, so different guys come in there and play, sometimes they’d jam. In the back they had a billiard pool table and they had a poker table, too, like a casino. And nothing but musicians.

MR. : A private club, was it?

MR. BAUZA: Huh?

MR.: Was it a, private club? .

MR. BAUZA: No, it was a --the Rhythm Club, nothing but musicians over there.

MR.: Right.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah.

MR.: Yeah. So it wasn't open to the public.

MR. BAUZA: No, no, no, no, strictly musicians. You us to belong to the club, and that's the man that brought the Negro musician to the 802 local. I came with that bunch too. It was the Clef. Club around somewhere, and they had kitchens. So they brought all this colored musicians from the Rhythm Club into 802.

MR.: So 802 came in from the Rhythm Club.

MR. BAUZA: But everything was already organized. It was strictly a white local.

MR.: Right. So the Rhythm Club –

MR. BAUZA: So this man Beart Hall --the man who used to own that club, he was a very influential man. I think he was from down New Orleans way, too, somewhere around there, I don't know. And he brought all these musicians right into 802. The same thing happened in Chicago too.

MR.: Right. So what was --you said sometimes they used to jam. Do you have any particular memories, any –

MR. BAUZA: Oh, yeah, yeah, the first night that I had, Art Tatum.

MR.: Uh-huh.

MR. BAUZA: You couldn't even move in that place. And Tatum carne to New York to join Andlaide Hall go to Paris. That was in 1931. And before Art Tatum was working in the club, the word got around, half an hour later you couldn't get nobody there. All the musicians are running -there listen to the man play. And that was my first treat and after that, -- you’d say, I wait to hear --nobody wanted to touch the piano, that night, nobody wanted to touch it.

The only guy that played that night I think, was Joe Turner. Yeah, he used to play for Florence Mills, I think, or one of those older singers, I don't know. But when this Art Tat played, I mean, he was so far away from everybody else's, it was unbelievable.

MR.: Yeah.

MR.: And then he used to go and play poker. And I used to tell the guy, but he’s blind. He says, well, he sees in the corner of one eye, but anyway he always had a man with him, and they can fix his cards and put it close to the corner of one eye and he can play. So I guess at that time he was not completely blind. That's what he told me. And then he went to Paris as a piano player for Adelaids Hall. And I met Adelaids Hall when she got back here to America, and she worked with us, with the Hi Clark And the Missourians. We went to Chicago we went to different cities to play vaudeville with her.

MR.: As a backup band?

MR. BAUZA: As a backup band.

MR.: What was Hi Clark? You said it was a Great band but—

MR. BAUZA: Hi Clark was a trombone player. He use to be with the Missourians before. He's from down that way somewhere around there. And he was not such a hell of a trombone player,. but he wasn't bad, either. But he was a man wit a good contact, you know what I mean? One of those straight- up men, you know what I mean? I guess he had leader connections. And he created this band around some Latin musician so he had about four or five Latin musicians.

MR.: In his band?

MR. BAUZA: In his band.

MR.: Who did he have?

MR. BAUZA: There was another trumpet player in the caIled --they used to call him Chico, a Puerto Rican trumpet player. And they had a guy by the name of Napoleon, played tenor, from Santo Domingo. Who --he had a West Indian guitar player named Lufu. He had another practically, everybody was West Indians or Latin or something like that.

MR.: But was he playing American music?

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, strictly American music.

MR.: What about a guy called – Soccaras. told me about a guy who he played with called --was it Nicholas Rodriguez? Piano player.

MR. BAUZA: He's still living?

MR.: He told --I think Soccaras told me that he took over the chair after the Teddy Wilson in the Benny Carter band.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, he did, he did.

MR.: I heard one recording that he made Socarras. He struck me as a good pianist.

MR. BAUZA: Oh, yeah, he's a good piano player. still a good piano player.

MR. : And so there were a few Latin musicians working about there.

MR. BAUZA: Well, he was one of them. Rodriguez was a --more jazz-oriented than anybody else. And Luis Russell.

MR. :Luis Russell was Panamanian.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah. And Rodriquez is Panamanian too.

MR. : He was, wasn't he?

MR. BAUZA: Rodriquez was a better jazzman than Lee Russell. –

MR. : Tell me about it. Why do you say

MR. BAUZA: He played more in the veins of Art Tatum. And Russell played more the vein of Louis Armstrong.

MR. : So you feel that –

MR. BAUZA: Rodriguez was more progressive.

MR. : Uh-huh.

MR. BAUZA: Than Luis.

MR. : But what happened with Rodriguez? He played with Benny Carter for a while, right?

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, and after that he'd go for the small group, and --or lounge work, and maybe he’d work with Soccoras and then he started teaching, but it never materialized to nothing. Another Panamanian piano player that carne later was [DAVE] Rivera.

MR. : Don't know him.

MR. BAUZA: Huh?

MR. : I don't know him.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, what's his first name? But he's still going, he's still going. He was with Cab for a while. He worked with a whole lot of people.

MR. : So there were quite a few Latin musicians, weren't there?

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, yeah. Quite a few then -- Escoder.

MR. : Escoder was a –

MR. BAUZA: Tuba player with Fletcher Henderson.

MR. : That's right. I was talking about Arbello, but it's Escodero, right?

MR. BAUZA: Escodero, tuba player with Henderson and then he was playing bass with Socarros and then he went b to Puerto Rico and never come back, and he died over there. Time change.

MR. : Right.

MR. BAUZA: And the music got different. And those people was more New Orleans related. They were more relating to that kind of New Orleans music. But you know in the '30s, the music in New York changed.

MR. : Yeah. They didn't go as much for the small band.

MR. BAUZA: The jazz changed. There was a different approach, because there was a clarinet player here, too, named Nick :;4tbotll,~.

MR. : What was his name?

MR. BAUZA: Nick Albert.

MR. : Albert, yeah.

MR. BAUZA: He was a hell of a clarinet player, in the New Orleans style.

MR. : That's not Albert Nicholas?

MR. BAUZA: Albert Nicholas, that's the same one.

MR. : Yeah.

MR. BAUZA: He was more like --he was a good-looking guy, he looked like a Creole, like an Indian.

MR. : Yeah.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah. ..

MR. : Beautiful clarinetist.

MR. BAUZA: Beautiful clarinet player, yeah, yeah. I worked with him.

MR. : You did?

MR. BAUZA: He worked with me in Chick Webb’s orchestra. He was with Chick too. Beautiful man, too.

MR. : He was?

MR. BAUZA: Beautiful man.

MR. : In what way?

MR. BAUZA: In his way of conducting himself, the way he conducted, the way he acted, was well-dressed, very polished.

MR. : I get the impression that some band leaders are much the same onstage as off, and others are very different. I got the impression from some of the things you ere saying earlier that you got on well with Chick Webb, but that Calloway was more difficult.

MR. BAUZA: No, not to me, no.

MR. : But in general.

MR. BAUZA: In general, yeah. He was --let me say one thing. He was difficult for the reason he was a very strict man. Everything about him was business, no way around His band was a well-disciplined orchestra, well-dressed. Everything there was high classed, everything there. And then, naturally, guys --"he was a showman, he still is a showman. .

So no matter how much he wanted to be a musician, he always had a tendency to relate more to show business. So he would rehearse for an arrangement now and we play the arrangement, and arrangement a beautiful (unintelligible). When you play the arrangement four or five times on the stage, right away, they begin to sound strict like a show band. The tempo start running, he's looking for a way to sell the ………….p29

things.

In those days, when you played for the audience they used to play and cater to the white people, it's more what they see than what they hear. What they hear, they don't know much about get. But what they see, that's what they'd buy from Calloway. He used to get all the hair going and shaking and dancing and jumping with the baton. It was great, that’s what they wanted to hear. They used to give a hell of a performance.

So that can all when they criticize the man -- some musicians, say, oh, well, but this guy --well, he the one pay us and he the one draw the people. The people coming to see him want to see us, to see something of money he made, the way we traveled, the way we dressed, it was first class, everything was first --outside of Duke Ellington, there was no band that high classed, no Negro band.

MR. : Yeah.

MR. BAUZA: And he was a better businessman than Duke.

MR. : But less into the music.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah.

MR. : Why didn't Chick Webb break out? Chi Webb was one of the finest bands of the period and he was –

MR. BAUZA: Well, just like I told you before. Chick was a musicians’ bandleader, not a public bandleader. He was a musicians’ bandleader. There's a different approach.

MR. : He had a physical problem, right?

MR. BAUZA: Ch, yeah, he was a humpback.

MR. : It would make it difficult for him to do a Calloway thing.

MR. BAUZA: Yeah, he was strictly --a hell of a drummer. Guy was really unbelievable. When the music was id it was unbelievable. But he didn't care much about the pub I , He cared more about how he thought the music should be played. And that was a hell of a thing to relate in those days, especially a colored band to the white people.

And the only way that you could make decent money, if you jump the fence, like they used to say, an expression they used to say, you jump the fence, and stop booking at this white club and the theaters and things. The money was in the hotel.

MR. : Right.

MR. BAUZA: So he hold to make a transition after many setback. When the others came to the band, that was a transition orchestra. That was a change of pace right there. And naturally after the change of pace appeared in the orchestra, now the orchestra began to relate to this type of place that he always wanted to play.

So it was easy then to sell the band. She was entertain the public, all these popular tunes and so forth, he played for Dinner, sing these beautiful soft arrangements. (4It Now and then you'd throw one of the Haywire numbers and go back to the thing, like a show. And that's how the band got up to --he was strictly a Savoy band.

MR. : Yeah. But the Savoy at that time -- you were talking about the Goodman band playing a battle of music with Chick vi ebb. So the Savoy was not a strictly black club, or not a strictly black dance hall, right?

MR. BAUZA: No, no, no, anybody come in there. The --in fact, during those days, all these big time movie stars used to come in the Savoy like they used to go to the Cotton Club, and come from the Cotton Club to the Savoy, or come to the Savoy first and then go on to the Cotton Club. They used to come to Harlem, they wanted to see what Harlem was. Harlem in those days was something else.

MR. : Yeah.

MR. BAUZA: All the action was in Harlem. All the action was uptown, in Harlem.

MR. : Yeah.

MR. BAUZA: So they used to cater to everybody. the only difference that happened with Goodman, just like I said the other day, previously in the interview, how can we create a just-white band? And he created it, and then they got a gimmick. Swing, they called it swing. So they started commercializing the word swing. Swing, swing, they made a King of Swing, they made a picture, and then they have all these bobby sox dancing in the aisle. Everything --everybody can know, so the thing was well-planned.

MR. : Did Goodman hang out much with you?

MR. BAUZA: Well, he used to hang around the Savoy all the time'. He and two brothers, Harry and the other one [Irving], the trumpet player, too. The trumpet player was a very close friend of mine. He used to work in a music store with Mann Manny's Music Store. That1s when I met him.

And then later on, he developed more on the trump and Goodman brought him to his band and he played in the band

MR. : So was Goodman a friend? Because I've heard that Goodman got rather kind of stiff and –

MR. BAUZA: Well, he appeared that way. But for some reason at all, and during that time Fletcher and Chick, he like to move around the people. ---in other words, those people had what he was. looking for, let's put it that way. They had what he was looking for. And he got it.

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