[Trombone-l] Dave Frishberg - REMEMBERING THE HALF NOTE

[Bill Dinwiddie]

Here's a wonderful article about the New York jazz club, the Half Note, by 
composer/vocalist/pianist Dave Frishberg. I believe that Tom Ervin is the 
source. Thanks Tom. Great stuff.


REMEMBERING THE HALF NOTE —

"There's a place called the Half Note not too far from here," I announced to 
my friend one summer night in 1959, as I paged through the New York Post 
looking for a place to hang out and hear some music. "We can walk there 
easily. Lennie Tristano is there this week. How bad can it be?" So I started 
out for the first of what would become hundreds of evenings at the Half 
Note.

We left my apartment on Waverly Place, taking care to bolt all three locks 
on the door, and walked south on Seventh Avenue past Morton and Leroy 
Streets, to where it becomes Varick, and when we got to Spring Street we 
hung a right and headed for Hudson Street. By that time we had passed out of 
the bustling Village night-time scene into a shadowy cobble-stoned area of 
warehouses and factories, all closed up tight for the night. Big trucks were 
parked along the curbs.

I remember my friend said, "This can't be right. There's nobody here. The 
streets are deserted." But then we spotted the neon symbol of a half note on 
the far corner of Hudson and Spring, and we could make out the sound of 
saxophones and drums. We waited to cross Hudson, while some huge trailer 
trucks rumbled over the cobblestones. Suddenly the nightclub door was flung 
open and two men burst out onto the corner. One, a burly guy in a white 
shirt, began to punch the daylights out of the other, who was dressed in a 
business suit. Down to his knees went the man in the suit, and the other one 
jerked him up by the necktie and belted him with a right hand that knocked 
him rolling into the gutter where he lay motionless. Then the white-shirted 
guy picked him up and, with a grunt, threw him into the alley down the 
street, well away from the club entrance, and, dusting his hands together, 
went back inside the club, closing the door behind him.

"Are you kidding?", my friend said. We were both shaken by the violence of 
what had taken place. But we decided to enter, and there, greeting us at the 
door, was the guy in the white shirt, all smiles now and cool, not even 
breathing hard. "Would you like a table?", he said, and thus was I ushered 
into life at the Half Note. This was to be my musical home for the next 
decade, during which time, by the way, I never again witnessed any 
comparable episode of the kind that might ruffle the warm family-style 
ambience of the place.

In time I grew to feel affection for the Canterino family, the owners and 
operators of the Half Note. Poppa and Mama took care of the kitchen, 
preparing pasta, their famous meatballs, and really tasty Italian food in 
general. The two brothers, Mike and Sonny (the guy in the white shirt) were 
behind the bar. The daughter Rosemary, and the two daughters-in-law, Tita 
and Judy, were usually on hand to check coats and help with the hospitality. 
It was a real family operation, and the Canterinos made all the musicians 
feel like part of the family.

Years later I reminded Sonny about the circumstances of my first visit, and 
how I actually felt uneasy about coming in. "You know," he said, "that was 
one of the very few times anything like that ever happened. I remember that 
guy. He was drunk and loud and making obscene remarks. I warned him several 
times, but he kept getting crazier and crazier, until finally I had to take 
him outside. He never came in after that."

During the decade of the sixties I shared with Ross Tompkins and Roger 
Kellaway the position of house pianist, playing in the rhythm section for 
Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge and Richie Kamuca, Bob Brookmeyer and Clark Terry, 
and dozens of other soloists who would appear there for a week or two at a 
time. But the major portion of my Half Note decade was spent with the Al 
Cohn-Zoot Sims quintet, the closest thing to a house band the Half Note ever 
had.

Al and Zoot might be there for three weeks in a row, and then a month later 
be back for three more weeks. Every Friday there was a live radio broadcast 
on WABC. I listen to the tapes sometimes: "From the Half Note on Hudson and 
Spring, this is Por-trits in Jazz, live in stereo with your host Alan 
Grant--tonight featuring the music of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims with the 
fabulous Jimmy Rushing. And now to get things started, what's it going to 
be, Al?" Then comes Al's wordless count-off, his heel banging on the stage 
floor, and the band sails off into Chasing the Blues or P Town or Chicken 
Tarragon. On one tape, Alan Grant says, "What's next, Al?", and then there 
is heard the unmistakable call of Al-the Waiter, placing his order from far 
across the room: "Son-neee! Two stingers!" Al-the-Waiter knew he was on the 
radio. Al-the-Waiter didn't miss a trick.

    I never knew Al-the-Waiter's last name. He was a spindly little 
pinch-faced man, wound up tight, scurrying around in his raggedy tuxedo like 
a crazed magpie, chattering and jabbering to himself or anyone who would 
listen. Often, when he was the only waiter on duty, the place would fill up 
unexpectedly. Al-the-Waiter would spring into action at full vocal volume 
with his "world's greatest waiter" routine: "Your order, sir! Your drink, 
madam! Sorry to keep you waiting!" Now all eyes were on him, and 
Al-the-Waiter, giddy with power, would become an ecstatic whirlwind of 
obsequious service. "Young lady! Young lady! Young lady! Don't light that 
cigarette!" he would call and careen madly across the room, balancing a tray 
of dinners on one hand, and producing an instant flaming match with the 
other. "Beautiful ladies shouldn't light their own cigarette! Isn't that 
correct,sir! Isn't that correct, young lady! Son-neee! Meatball samwich!"

    Once I was there when the terrible-tempered Mingus stopped in the middle 
of a bass solo and fixed Al-the Waiter with a malevolent glare that would 
have frozen a Doberman in its tracks. Al-the-Waiter was unfazed. "Mista 
Chollz Mingus!" he cried. "May I bring you something!" Mingus was speechless 
with rage. He stomped off the bandstand while the audience sat in 
uncomfortable silence. Al-the-Waiter called out, "Intro-mission! 
Intro-mission! Vinny, turn on the juke box!" A lot of the customers covered 
their mouths and laughed discreetly. Mingus was not amused. But with Sonny 
around, people usually curbed their violent impulses.

    Informality -- and sometimes irreverence -- came naturally in the Half 
Note, which was by no means a fancy place. It was one large dingy room 
bisected by the bar, and decorated with album covers tacked up along the 
walls, and red checkered cloths on the tables. The album covers were 
selected, it seemed, at random, because they related to none of the 
musicians and none of the music that was heard at the Half Note. Instead 
there were Sinatra and Perry Como and Tijuana Brass, and assorted items 
jumbled together the way one might expect to find them at a rummage sale. I 
asked one night "Who picked the album covers?", and everybody shrugged. 
Cheech, who stood by the jukebox and smoked cigarettes, said, "Maybe they 
fell off a truck," and everybody laughed.

    The music took place in the middle of the room, on a high narrow 
platform back of the bar, making a theater-in-the-round effect. Sonny and 
Mike poured drinks and punched the cash register directly beneath the 
musicians, and when the bar action quieted they would sometimes stand and 
look up at the players with big beaming smiles. They were real jazz fans.

    On the bandstand, Al Cohn would drain the contents of a shot glass in 
one gulp, then, staring straight ahead, he would hold the glass with thumb 
and index finger at arms length, shoulder level, and let it drop. Sonny or 
Mike would whirl and pluck the glass cleanly out of the air with barely a 
glance upward. Mousey Alexander would "catch" the action with a cymbal 
crash. I never saw anybody miss. The customers told each other, "Now that's 
hip. That's class."

    And they were right, of course. I felt the same way. Not because of the 
trick with the shot glass, even though that gesture did seem to express 
perfectly the casual unflappable worldliness that was Al Cohn's personal 
magic. No, it went deeper than that. When Al and Zoot played, the listeners 
got a message, and it was the same message I was getting where I sat at the 
piano. The very essence of musicality was in the air, and, player and 
listener alike, we all tingled with it.

    The customers smiling at the Half Note tables may not have realized that 
they were responding to the same electric jolt--the jolt of beauty fused 
with excellence--that can galvanize a child's musical spirit and, in an 
instant, render him a musician for the rest of his days. But they knew 
something pure was going on up there on the bandstand. Even the 
plain-clothes detectives, wolfing their free meatball sandwiches in the 
kitchen, knew they were overhearing something special.

    Zoot and Al were majestic in the way they commanded their horns, and 
they played rings around that music. They were locked into each other's 
playing like no other two musicians I ever heard. During their solos they 
were really composing as they played--they couldn't help it. They were 
compulsive composers, and it would be totally out of character for either of 
them to play reflexive licks, or to quote from nursery rhymes or corny pop 
songs, or to trivialize their music in any way. Jazz critics can probably 
point to certain "influences" in Al's playing, or Zoot's--Lester Young is 
the obvious point of departure. But the fire and the swing, and the way they 
swarmed over the changes and discovered ever fresher and more lyrical ways 
to navigate them resembles nothing else that came before or followed after. 
Al and Zoot evolved their own musical ethic, their own point of view about 
improvising, and the way I see it, their music represents the culmination of 
what Lester Young and Charlie Parker brought to the dance band musicians in 
the thirties and forties. Kansas City music, I would suggest, carried to its 
logical conclusion. Anyway, all such speculations aside, it was music for 
adults, played by would-be adults. It became my custom to drop in at the 
Half Note on my way home from other gigs. It normally remained open til 3:30 
or 4:00 in the morning, and I could count on running into someone I knew. If 
not at the bar, then certainly in the basement.

    The Half Note basement was the private domain of the musicians and their 
guests. The entrance to the "nether regions", as I used to call it, was in 
the back reaches of the dining room, and I can remember being amused by the 
puzzled faces of the diners as they watched us musicians troop by the tables 
in single file and disappear through a door hidden by shadows.

    You had to stumble down several steps in the dark to reach the string 
that pulled the light switch. It was a bare bulb of course, maybe sixty 
watts, and it jutted from the stairway wall about half way down. Its rays 
shone down through the slats of the stairway, and illuminated just that area 
at the bottom of the stairs. Beyond that, farther into the dark uncharted 
areas of that gloomy place, I never ventured. Instead, we would all stand 
clustered at the foot of the stairs, sometimes as many as a dozen people, 
shouting, laughing, swapping stories and occasionally speaking of deep 
matters. But mostly laughing.

    Mousey used to call it "my office", as in "I'd like a word with you in 
my office." He started a rumor that there were rats down there the size of 
cats, and the thought of that unnerved me to the extent that I would never 
head down the steps first, but would hang back until others had made sure 
that no rats were around. I was sure that rats were watching us from the 
darkness.

    Among the steady customers, especially during the late closing hours, 
you could count on seeing the regular neighborhood "faces", like Big Dick 
the giant longshoreman, and his king-size girlfriend Loretta, who both 
towered over all of us, and Honest John Annen, a glum and silent man, who if 
he spoke at all, spoke in riddles or mysterious monosyllables. I can 
remember entire conversations with him, lasting several minutes, and often 
becoming quite heated, during which I understood not one sentence he spoke 
or one reference he made. I used to ponder over what he might mean, or what 
he could possibly be suggesting, until I finally realized that the guy was 
probably schizophrenic. It didn't hit me until years later.

    Usually, the last customer out the door was Mister George. George was 
his first name, nobody asked his last, and he seemed to take a certain 
pleasure in hearing himself addressed as Mister George. He normally arrived 
after midnight, after his shift at the Christopher Street post office, and 
he always sat at the far end of the bar, opposite the kitchen doors, and 
opposite me, the piano bench being at that end of the stage. After a drink 
or two, Mister George's forehead would rest on the bar, and his arms would 
hang down at his sides. He would then stay in that position for the rest of 
the night, listening with intense concentration to the music, and when 
something especially worthwhile took place on the bandstand, he would 
signify his approval by making the "thumbs up" sign with both hands, while 
his forehead never left the bar.

    Al Cohn wrote a piece for the quintet, and titled it Mister George, and 
when we premiered it at the Half Note, Mister George gave us extravagant 
thumbs-up signals all during the performance. He never admitted as much, but 
we could all tell that he was touched and made proud by Al's gesture. The 
musicians usually took generous intermissions, and I always felt that the 
listeners appreciated a chance to relax and enjoy conversation. Background 
music was provided by the juke box, stocked with the same records it 
contained when the place opened for business in the middle fifties. Often 
the jukebox would go unplayed, and the quiet was nice relief.

    Things began to change in the middle sixties when the Half Note started 
to book two attractions at a time: Al and Zoot PLUS Sonny Rollins, John 
Coltrane PLUS Carmen McRae, Bob Brookmeyer and Clark Terry PLUS Anita O'Day, 
and so on. The regular customers began to stay away in droves. They were 
obviously disgruntled at paying a door charge. But more important, I felt, 
was the factor of wall-to-wall music. No time to talk and enjoy the 
meatballs. I've always felt that audiences get tense and feel irritated when 
they're subjected to music, even excellent music, without some time to sit 
and rest in quiet. I think a lot of people stopped hanging out at the Half 
Note and casually explained that it had become too expensive, and they 
probably believed it themselves. But I think the real reason was that they 
no longer enjoyed the experience. Too much high intensity music with no time 
for rest and conversation. Overkill.

    The magic was gone. The place never felt the same after that, and I 
suspect the profits dwindled. So the Half Note moved into midtown, where 
they catered to an entirely different audience and presented a different 
cast of characters on the band stand. I heard that Al-the-Waiter died, and 
that they found about $75,000 in his mattress. Tip money for sure.

    Anyway, by that time I had left for the West Coast, and I'm not sure 
what happened to the old place on Hudson Street. If they haven't demolished 
the building, there's probably still a lunch place there. After all, the 
kitchen is probably intact. I should visit the place next time I go to New 
York. If it's a restaurant, I'll order a meatball sandwich. Maybe when 
nobody's looking, I'll slip down to Mousey's office. Or maybe not. The rats 
are probably big as German Shepherds by now.

    published 30.06.2005© 2005 jazz news






Tom Ervin
ervint at u.arizona.edu
Prof of Trombone, Univ Arizona (Emeritus)
...now a recovering trombone player.... ; >}
(520)241-4411 (new!)
website:     tom-ervin.com

Forwarded by Bill Dinwiddie
billdin at comcast.net