Time traveling with Bill Crow

I used to work with a guy named Russ at a large ad agency. I was a copywriter, he was an art director. This was back when art directors worked out graphic ideas with a felt tip pen and a large paper pad. No computers. Russ and I created some memorable adverting together, but what really connected us was our love of jazz. This was over thirty years ago in St. Louis. He lives in Richmond, Virginia now. We talk or email occasionally, just keeping up. So Russ sent me a book a couple of weeks ago. “Birdland to Broadway.” Obviously a book about jazz. It was written by Bill Crow, a bass player in the 50’s and 60’s, and beyond, who played with some of the great names in jazz and is a highly respected musician and author.

I had just finished reading biographies of two other musicians/composers, though from totally different worlds: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, aka “Wolfie,” and Ludwig van Beethoven, both by John Suchet, an excellent author. So I wasn’t really interested in another book about musicians, but decided to give Bill’s book a try. Two pages and I was hooked. Bill Crow took me into a world I had been part of, not as a player but as a fan, a listener, a compulsive “I’ve gotta see him” perspective.

If you’re not a jazz fan, then these names won’t mean anything to you. But if you are - well, this is like looking at an all-star lineup. To name a few: Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Marian McPartland, Vic Dickenson. And of course Charlie Parker. Aka “Bird.” And that’s the short list. I saw them all. In person. Except Bird.

Crow also took me back to jazz clubs I had spent many a night in, sipping a scotch on the rocks or a beer, don’t ask me what brands. I was probably smoking then too - Newports. A very cool habit, right? So - to the clubs that Bill carried me back to:  In New York: Birdland, of course. The Half Note. The Blue Note. Village Vanguard. The Hickory House. 7th Avenue South. The Five Spot and the Metropole. Condon’s. In LA, I was at Shelly’s Manne Hole, Dante’s, Ellis Island, The Baked Potato (always featuring Don Randi and his band). In San Francisco, the Blackhawk, Jazz Workshop, Club Hangover, Pier 39, Earthquake McGoon’s. Those last two were dixieland/ragtime so I doubt Bill ever played there. Not important.

But I’m getting carried away now, naming clubs I went to but having nothing to do with Bill Crow, who kept me solidly entrenched in Manhattan. I never got to 52nd Street in its heyday, but Bill Crow was there, and took me in my imagination with him.

I knew he was now in his nineties but had no idea if he was still alive. So I Googled him. What do you know? He’s 97 years old, still writing and playing - and swinging -which proves that jazz can allow you to live longer. He plays with a group every Sunday at Small’s jazz club in The Village. I was at Small’s a couple years ago - 2023 - and it feels like a genuine 1950’s New York jazz club. Down 6 or 7 steps into a crowded and welcoming space, a long, narrow room, filled with chairs, a small playing area in front (I hesitate to call it a stage), a long bar down the right side of the room, every stool and chair taken. Only thing missing was the haze of cigarette smoke. Healthier, yes, but a bit of atmosphere and history cleared away.

It doesn’t take much for me to uncover memories built on a solid bedrock of jazz faces and places. I’m almost 90 now, still get out to clubs here in St. Louis, though there isn’t much jazz to be seen and heard in a well-intentioned club. Someday I’ll tell you about my times and memories at a jazz club that was in mid-town St. Louis called Peacock Alley, located in the basement (okay, lower level) of the Atlas Hotel. It’s a good story,

Would I like to be young again? You bet. Time gets by real fast. But - and this is a huge consideration - I would not have wanted to miss all the great jazz I heard, all the great jazz clubs I was in, all the unforgettable men and women I met along the way.

But maybe one final wish: Take me back to Birdland on a cool Manhattan evening, sit me at a ringside table and let me get lost inside the sounds of Stan Getz. Or Horace Silver. Or maybe Basie’s band. Okay. As long as I’m wishing, Charlie Parker with Max Roach, Charlie Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Now that’s living. And make that bourbon on the rocks, please.

Thanks for the memories, Bill.

You can see Bill and his group most Sundays on a live-stream from Small’s Jazz Club in New York.