Music was not Enough

233 Pages·1987·16.458 MB·English

by  Bob Wilber (auth.)

MUSIC WAS
NOT ENOUGH
MUSIC WAS
NOT ENOUGH
by
BOB WILBER
Assisted by
Derek Webster
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
Music Division
© Bob Wilber 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 978-0-333-44418-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1987
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
in 10/12pt Caledonia
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Wilber, Bob
Music was not enough.-(Macmillan popular
music studies).
1. Wilber, Bob 2. Jazz musicians-United
States-Biography
I. Title II. Webster, Derek
785.42'092'4 ML419.W5
ISBN 978-1-349-09605-3 ISBN 978-1-349-09603-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09603-9
Dedicated to my wife, Pug,
who has made everything I've ever dreamed of
(including this book)
possible
Contents
Prologue 1
Part I. Aspirations
l. Early years 4
2. Out on my own 18
3. Studying with Bechet 23
4. The Nice Jazz Festival 35
Part II. Despair
5. In Bechet' s shadow 43
6. Oblivion isn't so bad 59
7. Clarinet ala King 71
8. A cry for help 87
Part III. Hope
9. Picking up the threads 101
10. Rediscovering Bob Wilber 119
11. On the road 139
Part IV. Happiness
12. At last 153
13. Jazz education 169
14. The Cotton Club 177
15. Hope fulfilled 189
Selective discography 201
Index 206
Prologue
This is the story of an angry man.
I looked into the mirror on my 50th birthday. I didn't like what I saw. Gazing
back at me was the mild mannered, easy-going Bob Wilber the jazz world
knew, but the real Bob Wilber was an angry and frustrated man, wondering why
he felt that way. I went over my usual targets, my list of scapegoats: my parents
who hadn't prepared me for the rough and tumble of life; the unsupportive,
uncaring public who had destroyed my self-confidence; the short-sighted,
greedy, insensitive critics, agents and producers who hadn't appreciated what I
had to offer. Talking to myself in the mirror on that momentous day, I was able to
say for the first time, "Wait a minute, Wilber. Who is really to blame for your lack
of success? You are, my friend, so stop blaming everybody and everything else.
You haven't dealt effectively with life, and only you can do something about it. So
get busy man, move!"
On that grey March day, the beginning of my 50th year, I took stock of my life.
I knew in my heart that it was really my own fault I hadn't attained the goals I had
sought when I first started playing jazz. I was well aware of the fact that I had
made my life far more difficult than it ought to have been. What had become of
the much talked about protege of Sidney Bechet, the curly-haired teenage
clarinet player, leader of the Wildcats, the youngest American to appear at the
first postwar International Jazz Festival in Nice, France? He didn't even rate a
listing in the Dictionnaire du jazz, published in France in the I960s. A lack of
self-confidence, an inability to deal with people both at business and social
levels, and a mild and almost self-apologetic demeanor in a world that demanded
dynamism and charisma were real and painful problems that had combined to
bring me to a point where I neither felt good about myself nor liked the person I
had become.
I had been an insecure, shy lad, dominated by an over-achieving father and
protected by a loving and caring mother, a combination not exactly conducive to
producing an aggressive and assertive character. At the age of 13 I had taken up
the clarinet, and I immediately made an astounding discovery: I could play jazz!
Crudely, perhaps, but well enough to earn the appreciation of fellow jazz fans in
my home town, and I felt I had finally achieved something. I was flattered by
their interest in me. They were all a couple of years older than I, in my sister
Mary's class at school; they were people I admired and looked up to. When they
2 I MUSIC WAS NOT ENOUGH
started inviting me to jam sessions, referring to me as "Kid Wilber," their great
new find on clarinet, I was elated. I had been accepted by these older, smarter,
sophisticated guys. I belonged! I convinced myself that music was the true
answer to my problems and would provide all the happiness and self-esteem that
I hadn't felt up till then. From that point onwards, all my attention was focused
on music. Music was the thing: to hell with boy scouts, sports, studies-and who
needed girls, anyway? The normal, healthy progression into adulthood became
stunted and suspended by my obsession. Looking back, I realize what had
happened: I had found something I could do better than my father. Music was an
addiction, and my dependence on it as a hiding place from the world was total.
I had discovered jazz. It seemed to me to celebrate the very joy of being alive.
How different from the rest of my life! I felt stifled in the staid environment of
Scarsdale, the suburb of New York City where my family lived. I was fascinated
by the backgrounds and life styles of the musicians I admired so much - Louis,
Bix, Benny, Fats and the Hawk. I became acutely aware of how difficult the
struggle to gain recognition had been for these jazz greats, and contrasted it with
the security and affluence of my own life. The comparisons troubled me. It is not
difficult to appreciate how the poverty and deprivation of Louis Armstrong's
childhood presented barriers that for most people would have proved well-nigh
insurmountable. It says a lot for Louis's resilience and character that he
overcame them in the way that he did. It is much more difficult to understand
how a privileged childhood, in which I had seemingly been surrounded by love
and had wanted for nothing, could have produced problems that in their own
way were just as severe as those facing a boy growing up in the back alleys of New
Orleans. Yet that was the situation in which I found myself.
I was filled with the excitement of learning about jazz. I wanted to tell the
whole world about this wonderful music, to persuade everybody to love it as
much as I did. The more involved I became, the stronger those feelings grew, yet
I felt frustrated. Scarsdale seemed to be the very antithesis of that exciting world
I had discovered. The calm, orderly gentility of the place was in such contrast to
the kaleidoscopic color and excitement in the world of jazz. The town assumed a
mantle of grayness, and like Dorothy, I dreamed of escaping to my own land of
Oz, where life would be one long continual jam session. I loved the title of Ma
Rainey's blues The world is jazz crazy and so am I. Unfortunately the world
wasn't jazz crazy-it was just me and a few of my buddies. My poor parents didn't
know how to deal with their rebellious offspring. A firm hand on my shoulder
coupled with parental advice might have helped temper my enthusiasm with a
more realistic view oflife, but I probably wouldn't have listened anyway: like all
young rebels, I knew best. Nothing would deter me from immersing myself
totally in jazz. I embarked on the long path that led up to that look in the mirror,
when I faced the fact that music had not provided the answer to all of life's
problems - that indeed, music was not enough.
Part I. Aspirations
ONE
Early years
I made my entrance into the world on 15th March 1928 to join my sister Mary
Margaret, my mother Mary Eliza and my father Allen Sage Wilber, a partner in the
publishing firm ofF. S. Crofts, a small company specializing in college textbooks.
At that time we were living on Sullivan Street, just south of Washington Square
in Greenwich Village, New York City. I was little more than a year old when Dad
took us all out to California to visit my mother's parents, to show them their new
grandson and to attend to some publishing business. He had planned to leave his
family with his in-laws for a few weeks while he visited colleges in the Midwest.
Shortly after leaving California he was shocked to receive a telephone call from
his wife's sister, Margaret, telling him that Mary Eliza had been taken seriously
ill. He returned immediately by train, only to learn that she had died less than 12
hours after Margaret had talked to him. His grief must have been particularly
intense because his wife had no history or indication of illness at all. Many years
later a close friend of the family told me that my father came back from
California to announce in an almost stoic manner that his wife had died "riddled
with cancer." From that day onwards my father was never to mention the subject
again until shortly before his death, some 55 years later.
Looking back, I often wonder what it was that could have allowed Dad to
display to the world such an unemotional far;ade despite the deep grief that must
have been within him. I often wonder, too, about my mother and how she had
successfully concealed not only from family and friends but also from her dear
husband the fact that she was suffering from cancer. She may not have knO\vn
what it was, but it is hard to believe she had no inkling that something was wrong.
I suppose that even then, at that formative stage, I was subconsciously receiving
my first lesson in the art of disguising one's true feelings. If only my father had
allowed his grief to pour out, how much more honest and open would our future
relationship have been.
Dad returned to New York with his two young, motherless children. I
remember little of life on Sullivan Street other than a succession of nannies and
governesses, one of whom treated us very badly until Dad found out and
dismissed her. He eventually engaged the services of Miss Breed, who was a
kindly, genteel, professional nanny, and life was very happy with her. In later
years I found out that one of our Sullivan Street neighbors at that time was John
Hammond, fresh out of college and already beginning to make a name for
4 I MUSIC WAS NOT ENOUGH
himself as a dedicated promoter of jazz. In fact, John's apartment was the one
next to ours, and I have often wondered if the first jazz I ever heard was from
John's phonograph next door as I lay in my crib.
In 1931 we moved to a lovely large apartment in Gramercy Park, between
Third and Park avenues. Gramercy Park is now, as it was then, a London-style
park square ringed by charming and beautifully kept houses dating from the
mid-1800s and recalling the elegance and gentility of a bygone age. I attended
kindergarten at Friends Seminary, a Quaker school just a few blocks away. Our
family were not Quakers; Dad hailed from a long line of Presbyterians. His
father and his uncle, a twin brother, had both been ministers, whilst his mother
was the organist in her husband's church. Curiously enough, my mother's father,
grandfather Clark, was also a Presbyterian minister, along with his twin brother,
Edward. We've had no more ministers in the family since-nor any more twins
for that matter!
I first became aware that there was a new lady in my father's life when Mary
Margaret and I were introduced to Miss Margaret Alder. As a young woman
from an upper-middle-class background, she had graduated from Wellesley
College in 1920 and was employed as a lay-out artist for the magazine Review of
Reviews. She was very kind to my sister and me, and clearly wanted to get to
know us. In November 1933 she married my father and became the only mother
I have ever really known. This beautiful, gracious lady is still alive and well at the
age of89. The marriage took place at my stepmother's home in Montclair. It was
a very grand affair, and when at school on Monday morning we children were
asked what we had done over the weekend, I proudly announced that I had
attended my parents' wedding! The teacher could hardly suppress a smile.
After the marriage we continued to live in Gramercy Park. That winter, Dad,
while watching his two young children attempting to slide down the two-foot
high incline around the statue of Edwin Booth on their new Christmas sleds,
decided that it was about time he gave his family a country environment. He
rented a house in Scarsdale and so set the scene for all the factors that had such a
profound effect upon my life.
Scarsdale is a suburban community to the north of New York, from which
people in business commute some 40 minutes to the city by train each day. It is a
community of wealth and privilege, of country clubs and gracious socializing, an
Ivy League enclave. During the time I was growing up there, the population
was predominantly WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant). After the war, as
Scarsdale grew, many people of Jewish background moved up from the city;
recent years have seen an influx of Japanese families as more executives with
Japanese corporations maintain offices in New York. To this day, there are very
few black people living in Scarsdale. When we moved there in 1934 it was a very
desirable environment in which to grow up, and I can remember being very
happy; my father's affluence provided us with everything children could want.
Dad was an achiever. He had graduated from the University of Kansas a Phi Beta
Kappa, gone to business school and entered the publishing world with
Macmillan in 1913, eventually forming his own company with a colleague, Fred