Oh, being 27 and full of fire in the belly and dwelling in a little walk up in Manhattan’s “fifties.” More than a “barrel of…”
-Jazz cats! My “crib” was the third fl oor atop a winding little iron and terrazzo staircase at 301 East 56th. An axis of art for real: Down second was Alphabet City and the 14th Street Palladium Corridor. And, since Manhattan is as narrow as she is long, crosstown jaunts were easy indeed. On steamy summer evenings — particularly Thursday (Jazz Night) you could likely find me craning my neck through the peephole into the narrow tunnel-like room spying on trumpeter Ray Eldridge blatting his beautiful crazy bell alongside Eddie Conden’s namesake proprietor strumming his worn Gibson semi-hollow!
Of a frequent early a.m. between scarce acting gigs or kitchen temp work, I loved to rush downtown on the seven train and pop out of a sawtooth deco subway hatch under a robin’s egg solid sky in Chinatown and stumble into Mama Wong’s dinner and allow Mama top greet me with her customary overflow crockery bowl.
What lay within could be quickly inhaled through a filmy curtail of fragrant vaporous steam: hand-spun egg drop. Mama proudly poured free seconds (Hell, in 1980 the base price of only one buck!) She proclaimed lovingly in a Szechuan accent, “Here, more egg glop soup!”
was another formica-tabled in the fort that I huddled over coffee in classic Homer Laughlin ringed motif with City Island native Tony Graye. Born “Graziano” this TV repairman tenor sax whiz shrugged when I cited a Neal Cassidy metaphor regarding the 1940s style china cups.
“Who dat?” he chortled. This from someone who as a boy in knee pants, worshiped at the tarnished throne of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker and absorbed every note of “Donna Lee,” “Just Friends,” “Koko” and so much more! How could Mister Graye, franated would be hipster, not grok on the obvious umbilical connection between Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” and the legendary Dean Moriarty (Cassidy in actuality) in their Bohemian reliance on the energy flow of bebop jazz?
Well, looking back down the wayback machine cardboard (and sign glass) periscope of our present day, I tremble visibly with peasant gratitude. I’m reflecting how, through the kind of offices of Graye/Graziano and his pal on the bandstand Ray Riviera, la smooth tan rhythm guitarist) with when I’d already appeared in a Duke Ellington cabaret sequence of the movie “Cotton Club”) I’d gotten to form a pickup tiro playing on 9th avenue opposite of the main post office. Depending on who showed up, i.e. Danny cell! Or Larry London, we worked into a quartet/quintet. But our name remained NY Aces. And Tom, in 1982, at the time, had his 45 record spinning in every Rock-ola or wurlitzer disc club jukebox up and down ninth and tenth avenues. My dear dad had just died, but I still recall the hit side of the platter: “Both feet on the move.”
Ray River caught up to me in early 83, just after I returned from handling my late father’s affairs in D.C. “Tony kneeled over diving our big band rehearsal in the river boat lounge at the base of the Empire State Building. Massive heart attack. His daughter said it all. Tony died with his boots on!
