JJ 09/64: In My Opinion - Henry 'Red' Allen - Jazz Journal

This is one of a series of taped interviews with musicians who are asked to give a snap opinion on a set of records played to them. Although no previous information is given as to what they are going to hear, they are, during the actual playing, handed the appropriate record sleeve. Thus in no way is their judgment influenced by being unaware of what they are hearing. As far as possible the records played to them are currently available items procurable from any record shop.

So much was written about Henry ‘Red’ Allen when he visited this country earlier this year, that he should need no introduction to our readers. A first-class musician, of the older school, Henry is one of the most lovable characters to have emerged from the happy world of jazz. A splendid raconteur, Henry’s reminiscences could fill a book – as indeed they should. – Sinclair Traill

Ain’t Misbehavin’. Walter ‘Fats’ Pichon. Brunswick LAT 8181

I worked with Walter back in 1927, just before I left to join King Oliver. As it happens I met Walter not so long ago in Chicago and had a talk with him. Unhappily he had just lost his sight, tho’ it was hoped he would recover. When I played with him he had a band in the Pelican in New Orleans, and after that he was the pianist in the band led by Sidney Desvignes on the riverboats. I played trumpet in that band. The boat was called The Sydney and it ran from New Orleans in opposition to the Stickfus boats in 1928.

I don’t think it is generally known that Walter was a good arranger and a really fine musician. He wrote many of those things that Chick Webb featured, and also did arrange­ments for Lucky Millinder and Fess Williams. These things recorded here are a little on the commercial side. Fats had a TV show from the Absinthe House in New Orleans, where this was recorded, and I guess he had to keep it fairly straight.

Jersey Lightning. Luis Russel & His Orchestra. Odeon XOC 145

It was sad that Luis Russell died just recently – he was one of my favourite band leaders. He was a very great man. We spent a long time together, and I enjoyed playing in his band more than in any other I ever performed in, in those days. He and Walter Pichon were very close friends you know. I think Pichon roomed with him when he came to New York. They had met in New Orleans, for although Luis was born in Panama, he spent much of his early life in New Orleans. In the same way, I came from Algiers, but spent much of my early time in Orleans. However, I have spent most of my life in New York, tho’ I still go back to Algiers each year to visit with my mother and other relatives.

That Jersey Lightning was one of Russell’s favourite pieces. It was a kind of feature for Albert Nicholas, and I re­member Bill Coleman was playing second trumpet to me in those days. They were a wonderful bunch of fellows, Pops Foster, Paul Barbarin, Charlie Holmes and the rest of them. Very nice.

‘We have a club called the Club 50. I meet a lot of my old friends there, and sometimes we have fifty tastes – that’s where the fifty comes in handy’

I see Charlie rather often in New York. We don’t play the same gigs, as it were, but we have a club called the Club 50 and I often see him there. The name of the club is just anyhow you like to take it – fifty years old, fifty members, anything you like. I didn’t hear of this club until quite recently. I was elected a member and I am very proud of it. I meet a lot of my old friends there, and sometimes we have fifty tastes – that’s where the fifty comes in handy – very nice.

Ride, Red, Ride. Blue Rhythm Band. RCA Victor RD 27045

Lucky Millinder played a big part in the original recording of that number and it was his idea in the first place anyway. Thanks for playing it to me. Another great guy, who I see often, Lucky Mil­linder – and another close friend of Walter Pichon’s. There was a fine pianist with that band, Edgar Hayes. He disappeared from the scene in New York and is now living in California. I hear he is still playing and that is good, for he was surely a very fine pianist.

That Blue Rhythm Band were a good band to work for – we worked the Cotton Club most of the time, which was the top club of that kind in New York at that time. The kind of resident band was either Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway and we used to replace either when they were away. I don’t know if we were good or fit enough to take their place, but that is what we did. And of course we did tours ourselves.

That Ride Red Ride happened this way: In those days one always recorded in even numbers; one never did three or five, they were always in evens for the two sides of the record. Well, we recorded Ride Red Ride, but when they played it back, we got a ‘no’ on it. So Lucky that day recorded three numbers only, so that we should have to come back again to fill in the odd side. But to save expense they decided to use Ride Red Ride after all, so not to have to bring us back for another date. As it happened it turned out big, and became a big seller. And I have Lucky to thank for that.

Dixie Jass Band. Original Dixieland Jazz Band. HMV DLP 1065

Well, I never heard that band in the flesh – only on record. I always felt that they played the music the way they felt it; it was different than the way we played in those days, the rhythm was different, but from what I heard on record, their routines were good. Of course they weren’t the first white band I heard, nor the best either. Right across the street from where I lived in Algiers lived the Brunies brothers – five of them. Now, they all played great. They were all brass players and they were all very good. But we had another great trumpet player around in those days, Emmett Hardy. I was coming up in those days and prob­ably listening to everybody and Emmett Hardy impressed me more than most. A kind of a lyrical player, it was a pity he never made a record. I had the great advantage that my father used to hold rehearsals in our home, so I had a chance to hear anyone that was coming on up.

‘My mother wouldn’t let me play trumpet as she thought it was too strenuous for one of my years. She’d see the guy’s blowing with their necks all swollen out and she said I was too young for that’

Altho’ my father’s band was what they call these days a marching band, they had a lot more than just 6/8 time. They could really swing, and that was where I came in! My father would let me play the jazz numbers. I started first on the upright alto horn. My mother wouldn’t let me play trumpet as she thought it was too strenuous for one of my years. She’d see the guy’s blowing with their necks all swollen out and she said I was too young for that. She also gave me a violin, but it had a very short stay with me. But my father, he wanted me to play trumpet, so it came along slowly, and that is perhaps why I don’t have the ball in my cheeks that some other trumpet players do. Because of my mother’s wishes and my father’s, I played trumpet, but I took to it easily and slowly.

Mamie’s Blues. Jelly Roll Morton. Vogue LDE 080

Now you know, I didn’t know Jelly in New Orleans, but I met him later and had a real good time with him. I really became acquainted with him in New York and ever after we met I played those dates with him. As you know, even if Jelly recorded a hundred numbers, then at least ninety-nine of them would be Jelly’s, and he did have a lot of really good numbers, which they are still using today. He was a real good musician, you know. He was a boastful guy, but the funny thing was that he could prove his boasts – and one can’t say anything bad about a guy who can do that, can you? He may have said that he wrote the most beautiful number ever to have been written. Well, to me that tune of his Sweet Substitute is just that! So maybe he only said just what he thought; and it happened to be correct.

‘I don’t think I ever play right on the beat. I never play it right on the head, I like to improvise in a different way. That’s my way of feeling. I don’t know what the books tell you, but there ain’t no books that can really tell you how to play jazz’

His piano play­ing was alright too. He played the right chords in all his numbers and that is the most I look for in any piano player. He put them in the right order and never waited for me, which was a good thing as I don’t think I ever play right on the beat. I never play it right on the head, I like to improvise in a different way. That’s my way of feeling. I don’t know what the books tell you, but there ain’t no books that can really tell you how to play jazz. Those books, they say to play trumpet one must place the horn right in the centre of one’s mouth with so much upper lip showing here and so much bottom lip there. Well, that’s what I’ve read and whilst I have nothing against what it says, I knew a trumpet player by name Oscar ‘Papa’ Celestin, and a trombone player by the name of Russell ‘Big Chief’ Moore, who can only play their instruments from the side of their mouths – and they both do pretty well at that!

Donegal Cradle Song. Spike Hughes & His Orchestra. Ace of Clubs ACL 1153

That was a most enjoyable date for me. And what a beautiful tune Spike Hughes wrote there. I was very honoured to be invited on that session, and what a happy one it was right from the start. I met a lot of fine musicians for the first time and enjoyed working with them. When some people tell me these days that the use of a flute is something new, I tell them they are wrong, for Carver was on that date and he plays real prettily. But one of the happiest moments in my life happened on, I think it was called Fanfare. There, the two tenors Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry really fired each other. It was real happiness to hear them play that way. And there was that slow piece that Dicky Wells played, I don’t remember its name right now, but it was real beautiful. A wonderful date – very nice.

Shake It and Break It. King Oliver & His Orchestra. HMV DLP 1096

I had the pleasure of working with ‘King’ when I was a kid – he played in my dad’s band on the parades and things. And it was King Oliver who made me the first offer to leave home (what you call New Orleans, but what I call New Or’lins). Paul Barbarin was the instigator behind that, and I left and joined the band, but people have got a little confused about my history. It has been said that I went with ‘King’ to Chicago, but I did not. I stayed only a short time in New York and then returned home. As a matter of fact this was the time that Barney Bigard left Or’lins to join Duke Ellington. King Oliver had been offered the job at the Cotton Club, but had held out for better finance or something. But I guess he held out too long, and Ellington got the job. So I caught the next train out. I wasn’t used to going on my own and I didn’t get with it in New York too much – I was used to my mother doing for me, so I made out quickly.

Some time after that a man named Loren Wat­son heard me playing on the boats, and it was him who brought me to New York for the second time. And this time I stuck. Watson, who I have never seen since, brought me back to make some records, and it was through them that I came to join the Luis Russell band. Some of Luis’s men were used when I made these records under the name of Henry Allen Junior and His New Yorkers, and that was how I came to join his band. Originally I was supposed to join Duke Ellington’s band. I think Barney Bigard was the instigator of that – I still have Ellington’s telegram asking me to join. I made some other records with King Oliver – who was great all the way. He was at this time becoming a little ill, and so he made me a feature with his band. This was in 1929-30. I have read that Davie Nelson was the trumpet player on such things as Mule Face Blues, and those others, but it wasn’t. I don’t want to sound like a ‘me’, but I’m only telling you the things as they happened. Davie Nelson was of course on the records, but I was the one who took all the solos. And in those days, I was but half the size, and only half the age too.

But it has been a happy time – a happy life. Three things I will always remember. When I returned to Or’lins one time and my father he took a parade, I led it, and my son, he was driving. So I took my father’s horn and he sat in my car and my son drove him – that was a happy time. Then when I first joined the Luis Russell band, and now when they made me that presentation up in Manchester. I had the time of my life over here and this helps a guy to carry on so much. It has nothing to do with finance, it is a feeling that you’re wanted, that helps a guy so much. Very, very nice!