An Interview with Lee Oddis Bass lll

L.O.B.(Mickey):  When the "red light" district  closed in New Orleans, there was...an exodus...You know, it's a straight-line train route from New Orleans to Chicago... So, Joe Oliver, whom they called "King" Oliver, left New Orleans and went to Chicago. When the 'red light district' closed down in New Orleans, that's who Louis Armstrong received an open invitation from, to go see...because Joe Oliver was his teacher, y' know, his 'mentor', and that's why Louis went up there.

He got a gig with Olivers' band...and that's when Louis married Lil Hardin, who was the piano player in Olivers' band...Then from there, they came to New York because...well there was a big migration going on. New Orleans was a 'spring-board'...for a lot of 'stuff', and also the Kansas City area... Wichita, Kansas and Kansas City, and stuff like that... and also Oklahoma City; were all these kind of...'mecca's'..for Jazz... they all had bands,  continually rotating.....

CG: Like, a circuit almost?

L.O.B.: Yeah...and all out of the Kansas City area

CG: Okay. Now, a lot of people know about those areas. But we were talking earlier about all of the people that came out of the Pittsburgh area, which isn't a place a lot of people think of when they think of Jazz. But, you know, as you were telling us... there's a lot of... very notable people that come from the Pittsburgh area.

L.O.B.: Oh yeah.....Henry Mancini... also a bass player who played with the Stan Kenton band; Eddie Safranski... and of course, Ray Brown. Ray Brown and I went to the same high school, but he went to school with my Father... although he was a couple of years younger than my Father. So, you know, I went to "Schenley High School", just as he had... and there was a bass there, at the school, with "Ray Brown" carved on it.....that's the bass I used to play when I was in high school.....

CG: And you were talking about... Ahmad Jamal?

L.O.B.: Oh yeah. Ahmad Jamal...he was one of the piano players. He played with a guy named Joe Smith... he's a 'one of a kind' piano player..... You know, Miles Davis wanted him to work in his band, but you know... Ahmad was very.... He made his first record, I think, around 1951-52, when he did "Billy Boy" . Later, around '55, 56, Red Garland played the same arrangement with Paul Chambers and "Philly Joe" Jones in the trio, when they were working with Miles Davis.

So, he was from there...and the Turrentine brothers: Stanley and Tommy Turrentine. Tommy was a great trumpet player, and he was also a great writer and arranger. 

Also Earl "Fatha" Hines.....( who would walk around in his dressing room without any pants on....the reason? So that then when he walked out onstage, his 'pressed' pants wouldn't have any creases in them!)
Errol Garner, who grew up with my Mother & her sister, my Aunt Norma, used to come over to my Grandmothers' house and play the piano.....My Mother always laughed because here was, this little kid, so short that his feet couldn't even touch the pedels, and yet.....here he was "playing his 'butt' off!". There is a common misconception that Errol could not read Music.....meantime he studied at "Julliard"....! He had a brother named "Linton"; whom Billy Eckstine used to talk about - in as much as what a gentleman he was, and in how immaculate his appearance always was; he was the accompanist to Billy Eckstine, and Billie Holliday, he died just recently at the age of 89...Linton Garner and Bobby Tucker used to trade gigs.....

There's a drummer that played with Eric Dolphy, who I kinda grew up with, he's a few years older than me; a guy named J. C. Moses who made records with 'those guys'; he played with 'avant garde' 'cats'...In fact when I was working at Birdland, in 1964 with Bennie Green, he was working with Bud Powell's trio playing opposite us, because at that time "Birdland" had three bands, every night!.......It was continuous music, starting at nine o'clock at night...and playing on until four in the morning.....So! John Ore was the bass player with Bud, and he was always late....so I'd 'have' to play the first set, or the first part of the first set with Bud......J. C. Moses was the  drummer.... oh, man....

 CG: You mentioned the, uh --

 L.O.B.: Dakota Staton is another one. She's a singer from Pittsburgh. She, and Ahmed Jamal were the first Black Muslims to be heard  on the Jazz scene at that time...and they were 'black-balled' because of their Faith.....at that time

CG: -- you were mentioning the, um, the Muslim brothers, that founded the --

L.O.B.: Oh yeah... there was a group... a big band, of ...Muslims, called the "Jazz Messengers".....and that's where Art Blakey got the name from, because Art Blakey was a Muslim; his name was Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. There was a saxophone player; Shafi Hadi, who played in the Mingus band... and another saxophone player from Pittsburgh named Musa Kaleem, they were both original members of the band which became the "Jazz Messengers". So, when Art Blakey had his band down at Birdland, with Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver and Curly Russell... that was the 'first thing'.....Horace Silver had pretty much put those bands together and then he gave them to Art, and that's when they start calling themselves "The Jazz Messengers"..'Grudge town'.....

CG: Okay; hence, the name. And, um... you were mentioning somewhere else, some of the guys that you, uh... played with......with George Benson, back in the day...

L.O.B.: I was fourteen when we first moved to the Hill District. I happened to be walking down Francis street between Bedford and Webster Avenue in the summer of 1957, when I heard a band playing, rehearsing..... That band was the David Cook band with; J.C. Moses on drums, Greg Parnell on bass, Fred Tooks on piano and Willie Love playing tenor sax. This band was really hot and caught my ear. So, into the rehearsal I went, and told them that "I'm new in the neighborhood, and I'm a bass player learning to play"....and they allowed me to sit in with the band! I remember that they looked at one another, and they couldn't quite believe it "He's almost playing all the changes!" So..that's why they allowed me to sit in with them...on a number of occasions...after that I was 'hooked'. David Cook played on vibraphone as well as the trumpet, and played both of them equally as well. Oh yeah. George Benson is another guy from Pittsburgh, we had a band together, he and I, before I left to go to "Howard University'. We played a gig together at "The Musician's Club".....There was an alto player, Larry Smith, he and I are the same age, just as George Benson and I are the same age. George is a month older than me and I am three months older than Larry Smith. Roger Humphries is another great drummer from Pittsburgh, he and I grew up together too, he played with Horace Silver for many years.....So here we all were, fourteen, fifteen years old, and regularly playing gigs on the professional circuit of Pittsburgh...Larry Smith was another one, originally from a town called Aliquippa, just outside of Pittsburgh. Ramon Morris, on the other hand, had just gotten out of the Air Force, and was a few years older than 'us', i.e; George, Roger, Larry and Myself. Ramon was staying with his Grandmother in Pittsburgh; so we all played together in and around Pittsburgh. George had a steady gig at this place called "Mason's", which was kind of catty-corner from "The Crawford Grill". There was "Crawford Grill One" and Number Two... well, this was "Crawford Grill Two", and it was in the 'Hill District'; which was the biggest Black ghetto in Pittsburgh, you know.....'the other side of the tracks.....'       

And there? They'd have all of the 'major' people comin' in, tryin' to work with...and work at, that place.... that was part of.....well, that was owned by Gus Greenlee; he and my Grandfather took the numbers in Pittsburgh, and "Woogie" Harris, because they owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords, which was the black league baseball team... There were two teams out there: the "Homestead Grays" and the "Pittsburgh Crawfords"....'cause that was all a part of the 'stuff', that had been in existence since the late '30s. 'Woogie's' brother,  'one-shot', "Teenie" Harris was a highly esteemed photographer.....

CG: So what do you think it was about, uh, the Pittsburgh area, that --

L.O.B.: Well, a lot of people migrated there from the south, like they did to a lot of northern cities; because there was work available in the factories and steel mills of Pittsburgh. It was wide open; there were all kinds of people working in the Steel Mills and Coal Mines; consequently there was always a great 'diversity' of 'opinions'. There were some 'strike breaker' types too, and a lot of Polish people..and german 'types', you know.....I don't know if you remember 'Yablonski'? Well, he was the Head of the Coal Workers Union, at that time....So, all of 'that stuff' was out there, 'cause like my Father told me, he said, "The 'mob' could never get a good 'foothold' in here, because there were always too many other ethnic groups that were present.."

CG: So, there was so much diversity, they couldn't really..

L.O.B.: ..Yeah

CG: ...get the 'strangle-hold', like they could in those areas of New York, and other cities, where they...

L.O.B.: ...Although; they always had their little enclaves, and some of those little enclaves were right next to the Black communities.... 'cause they used to call them "greaseballs". They were the second most discriminated against group in this Country. The first ones were the Jews, then the Italians. But of course, the whole time, the first was actually the Blacks.....

CG: Right. And you said that your father said something about, uh... what was it that you said he called the Pittsburgh area?

L.O.B.: "Grudgetown". In other words, everybody could do stuff and was talented so, you know, if you played something, it... wasn't really so much.....because well, everybody was really.....basically there was a just a lot of talent in that area, at that time.....There was also a lot of money in Pittsburgh; one of the richest families in corporate investment in Pittsburgh is the Mellon family.  

CG: Oh - as in Carnegie-Mellon?           

L.O.B.: Yeah; you know....and Carnegie; Andrew Carnegie...

CG: Right. Yeah... everyone knows that...

L.O.B.: They were all from there, there's a lot of money in Pittsburgh; 'Pittsburgh Paint' and glass; which was owned by the Mellon family; 'Gulf Oil', they owned 'Gulf Oil'... and 'ALCOA Aluminum'. 'United States Steel' is in Pittsburgh...until quite recently Pittsburgh was the third largest Corporate center in this Country

CG: And of course, where you have that kind of money, you have lots of it to use for 'patronage', and you want entertainment...

L.O.B.: Yeah...

CG: ...therefore, you had 'sponsors' for 'The Arts'.

L.O.B.: There was "The Playhouse", in the Carnegie section... actually, it was in Oakland; it 'housed' all of the Broadway Shows, then there was "The Stanley Theater", which 'housed' all the Orchestras; "Pittsburgh Symphony" was there, that's a big Symphony Orchestra.... which all added to the whole Cultural facet. And then "W.Q.E.D.", the first Educational Television Network was there...

CG: Fred Rogers, of Mister Roger's Neighborhood -- he pretty much founded Public Television as we know it, and that started there...

L.O.B.: So that's why, in my opinion? there is a great deal....culturally...

These are the beginnings of a fascinating interview with Cornell Green, in 2005. 
An 'engaging' discussion with living Jazz luminary, Mr. Lee Oddis Bass III. As Edited by:Jo Telford.

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