April 10, 1971: The Colored Musicians Club and bandleader C. Q. Price

 

Shining a light on what was then a neglected Buffalo treasure, back before it became a landmark and got all spruced up. Now it’s going strong. As you’ll see from the photo caption down below, there were some terrific players in the group. 

April 10, 1971 

Keeping Swing Alive 

After the separate black and white musicians’ unions merged here a few years back, the Colored Musicians Club of Buffalo Inc. didn’t need its first-floor office on Broadway near Elm. But the second floor was another matter.

When somebody puts a big band on that bandstand up in that little club room, you can forget about the pool table and the TV and the other comforts of 1971 and just bask in the leftover glow of the Swing Era.

At least twice a week it happens. Tuesdays, Elvin Shepherd has his band here, giving it a pretty good workout, they say. And Mondays, C. Q. Price’s Band is in.

                                            * * *

        C. Q.’s rehearsals, like C. Q. himself, are generally easygoing. Scheduled late because everybody has day jobs. Start even later. C. Q. is one of the last to arrive, sheaves of freshly-copied music charts under his arm.

        “The reason why most of these bands keep goin’ is that it’s a night out for them,” says one of C. Q.’s 17 musicians. “They come down here, play a little, have a few beers . . .”

        “When we first started out,” C. Q. Price himself will tell you, “I don’t think nobody had the idea of going for jobs. It was just a thing where a guy could come down and read some music and play as a group. Rehearsin’ is good, but if you can’t get a job every once in a while . . .”

* * *

“NO JOBS lined up yet, but at the moment I’ve got some very good possibilities,” reports the band’s first booking agent, Anthony Piccolo, who’s been at it three weeks. “Personally, I think this is the greatest band to come out of Buffalo since Jimmie Lunceford.”

        “Gone!” C. Q. yells to get everybody’s attention. Gives a countdown and the band strikes up as lush and mellow as an old radio, sweet and predictable as childhood memories.

        The stamp of Count Basie in C. Q.’s arrangements. Those saxes carrying a melody over percussive swipes and touches by the other horns. Counter melodies underneath the ballads. And dig James (Graff) Young’s solo in “Ode to Billy Joe.” Energy of a guy half his age.

* * *

BUT WHO will listen? The band almost seems caught in a time warp. If we’re just rediscovering the ‘30s now, it may take another 10 years before Swing gains the proper historical credentials. And most of C. Q.’s band is past 50 already.

        “Back when I was a kid,” says C. Q., who is 55, “Swing music was a new kind of music. When we started, people were lookin’ at us like we were nuts.”

* * *

THIS IS C. Q.’s living room now in the house he and his wife Mildred own on East Oakwood Place and he’s got the hot pants issue of Newsweek open to a story about jazz promoter John Hammond.

        “This kid,” he points to guitarist Charlie Christian’s name, “and I started up together in Oklahoma City. I guest you could say he was born a superstar and the rest of us were strugglin’ to keep up.

        “Some of Count Basie’s Band were from Oklahoma City and they knew us from comin’ home and they told Basie about it. When I was asked to join him in Kansas City, I didn’t think he was goin’ up. The next year he went up.”

* * *

THIS WAS the late ‘30s. C. Q.’s leader fumbled a John Hammond offer, so C. Q. brought Hammond a band. He was impressed enough to offer them a spot in Horace Henderson’s band. Plans were that Horace, brother of Fletcher Henderson, would be big in 1940.

        “Horace,” C. Q. remarks, “turned out to want everything at once. He had good bands around Chicago for years, but he couldn’t wait long enough to build them.”

        When Horace’s band disintegrated in New York City, six of its members, C. Q. included, picked up a few jobs in Rochester, where C. Q. met his wife.

        Hammond was ready to back the six-piece group, but money became a problem.

        “Being young guys,” C. Q. says, “everybody wanted a great big salary. Later, when we used to run across each other, we’d say how stupid we were.”

* * *

HE MISSED a second chance to join Basie in 1941. The telegram said to call him in Ohio “tomorrow” and it was a day late. After that, he played two years with Lucky Millender and rehearsed for a Benny Carter tour which fell through.

        “When I finally got to Basie’s band, Hammond was saying how glad he was to see me there. One thing, you never get nervous around Basie. If somebody do somethin’ wrong, Basie don’t tell you. Somebody else’ll say don’t do that to him. Basie just wanted to be one of the fellas. If you had business, he’d say go to the office. He liked to have a good time.”

* * *

THAT WAS 1946 and C. Q. and his alto sax did the one-night stands and theater dates until the big band broke up 4½ years later. He also did arranging, first by just keeping the music books in order, then remaking the parts that got torn or lost.

        The times were turning against big bands, however. Even though C. Q. played Carnegie Hall and had five of his songs recorded, business wasn’t what it was in the early ‘40s.

        “What messed it up was this fella here,” he points to the TV. “We were playin’ theaters a third of the year and it cut the stage shows off.

        “Basie went out with a small group after that. I was supposed to write stuff with them, but I couldn’t see it. With the theaters closin’ up, it looked like one-nighters the rest of my life. I couldn’t take that.”

* * *

SO HE TOOK a job as a mail handler at the old terminal station and headed a six-piece group at the old Club Moonglow four years until the post office put him on nights.

        “I figured now was the time to get me a steady job and make music a sideline,” he says. “It was hard, but you know, I looked at the field and saw only a few guys goin’ at studios. And the odds of getting’ one of those jobs are awfully thin.”

        C. Q. still loads mail on boxcars, but seniority lets him work days and pick up gigs on weekends. Now he’s full of hope for the nine-year-old big band, which still has 80 percent of its original members, including singer Doristine Tydus.

        “It’s still a bit hard. You start rehearsals and you get a call from some guy who can’t make it tonight. But I think I’ve had good cooperation from the guys. It isn’t easy to rehearse month after month without anything coming. That’s why we were so happy when this church thing came along.”

* * *

THE CHURCH thing is a two-hour concert of spiritual and gospel songs sung by City Manpower director Raphael DuBard with a Swing backing. The next one is May 2 in People’s Community Church on Swan Street.

        And there are occasional dates like the union dinner where they met Piccolo, manager of the Buffalo Civic Orchestra and producer of summer Promenade Concerts in Beaver Island Park.

* * *

NOW C. Q. figures it’s time to work up some of the newer music, with advice from his daughter Cynthia, a high school senior. He also wants to take some songs to New York City to see if old friends like Basie, Clark Terry and Chico Hamilton will help sell them.

        “I tell you, you can’t beat that beat now,” C. Q. says. “There’s a lot of life in that rhythm. You want to snap your fingers, tap your feet. I say if you don’t,” he laughs, “then you must be dead.” 

The box/sidebar: 

Learned the Sax in Texas 

        C. Q. Price’s full name is Charles Quincy Price and he learned alto sax in Waco, Texas, where he lived until he went to Oklahoma City in the early ‘30s.

        “My two uncles played sax,” he recalls, “and they used to leave it layin’ on the bed. I used to run through the house and pick it up and play with it.

        “Finally I took lessons and I had a good teacher in school. He told us if we wanted to be good musicians, we had to learn how to read. Over the years it paid off. You come into a group and they don’t have time to school you on the parts.

        “I met Charlie Parker in Kansas City in 1937 and he already was recognized as one of the foremost guys in that part of the country. He’d make all the jam sessions.

        “Somebody told me there was this high school kid with a band travelin’ through the city and I wouldn’t want to get tangled up with him. I’m still in my 20s and I couldn’t conceive with what I did that I’d run into somebody like that.

        “I got to the jam session early and where’s Charlie Parker? I waited until I almost made my mind up I’m going to join this session when he comes in kinda slow and sets up.

        “I listened and then I got up and went across the street and saw my friend. ‘Thanks,’ I told him, ‘you were right.’”

* * * * *

PHOTO CAPTION: C. Q. PRICE’S BAND at the Broadway Musician’s Club, from left, front row: Irving (BoPeep) Greene, James (Graff) Young, Art Anderson, C. Q. Price, Eddie Inge, Robert Crump and vocalists Doristine Tydus and Raphael DuBard; second row, Albert (Aggie) Riding, Maynard Wright, James Legge, Ray Zimmerman and Neal Parker; third row, William Mosby, LeRoy Johnson, Johnny Hargrave, Freddie Simon and Calvin (Cubby) Campbell.