My dad liked a lot of old jazz when I was a kid. He was one of those guys who could hear a horn player on a jazz record and tell you who the player was. And if you gave him the name of a racehorse, most times he could tell you about the bloodline. Even though his horse-betting jazz-playing days were well behind him, I think it was something deeply rooted. He used to tell me about the day Wingy Manone came to town and played the Colonial Tavern. My father bought him a shot of booze and sent it up to the bandstand. Wingy told the band to play on – “I’ve got a sponsor”, he said, and he joined my dad at his table.

http://youtu.be/7TVYEMy7fKE

I asked him lots of times why he gave up playing music. Sometimes he wouldn’t answer. Other times he’d say he was a good “reader” and a good arranger too, but he couldn’t improvise. Sometimes in his later years he talked about picking up the clarinet again, and I was all set to go out and find him one, but when I’d bring the subject up, he’s say, “One of these days I’m going to do that” and then he’d launch into one of his old stories.

He loved that old jazz though, Wingy Manone and Kid Ory, and Satchmo and the rest, the Basie Band, with Jimmy Rushing on vocals. Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher. Jimmy Dorsey. Benny Goodman. He could listen to Benny Goodman all day. Lester Young. Duke Ellington. He loved it all until the bebop guys came along.