BH: This [Jazz] Advisory Committee is addressing things now that I think always needed to be addressed, like some equity for how much places should pay, and for people being aware that to undercut that standard is to do damage to the whole concept. Those things are the things that it sounds like they're working on now, and I want to be a part of that.

BH: I see those things being addressed, and I see them being addressed by a panel of people who have some real knowledge...and have done some solid research, working for the benefit of jazz musicians, who are the ones who have been the most maligned, in my opinion.

BH: I had to have a cabaret card when I came here in May of 1961, and cabaret cards were still very much in effect. I had to apply for one, and I was working with a Cuban women's band, and in order to work with them, I had to get a cabaret card.

BH: No, they were looking to work in several places, and also to travel, in the tri-state area. They had some bookings in Boston, in Connecticut, and New York. I don't remember any specific venues, except for the ones in Boston. So the name on my cabaret card was "Tonita Alvarez." [laughter] and I said to the leader of the group, how am I going to get away with this, I don't speak Spanish, I'm not Latin! And she said to me that I shouldn't worry, that I should just keep my mouth shut when any question were asked, and that the Spanish-speaking musicians in the band would take care of it. And then I just had to smile...This unit went to Boston, to an area called Salisbury Beach. And when we got there, we found out that we were expected, on our break, to sit at the bar and encourage the male customers to buy drinks for us.

BH: That was not written into the contract, and I was livid. The rest of the musicians begged me to look the other way, and just take a sip or two, and not make a big fuss because they would lose the job. I was so outraged, and I told the leader of the band, I didn't come here to drink, I came here to play the piano. And she said, but it's just a little thing-just sit at the bar and pretend to drink! Well the owner had already told us we don't dare pretend to drink, or order something that looked like it didn't have alcohol in it, because the man who bought the drink had the right to taste it, and see if it really had alcohol in it.

BH: So that to me was just above and beyond the call of musical duty. I called up my husband's cousin who had a car, in New York, and said 'I think you all are gonna have to come pick me up.' I told the leader of the band, 'I can't stay on this job' and she was in tears. I said 'I'm sorry, I can't [stay], and you shouldn't stay either.' But apparently they were desperate for the money. To tell you the truth, I don't know what happened afterwards when I left, I don't know if they were able to get another pianist, or if they played it off, 'cause they were wonderful actresses, these Cuban ladies.

BH: I think they probably did.

BH: Right. It may very well have been that they thought they had to find a clever way, or a polite or diplomatic way to work with a rule that they didn't like or even understand. But I wasn't prepared to do it. Plus I didn't drink! At that point in time I didn't even drink, so the whole idea was distasteful to me, I left.

BH: Pretty much. I think we did a few more things when they returned, but I never traveled with them again because I never trusted the situation that we might run up on! [laughter] They were great people, and very good musicians, they were very good at what they did, but I think their idea of how to fit in and what they may have to accept was just a little broader than mine. So I didn't work with them too much after that. That's probably the best of my cabaret card tales.

BH: No, I don't remember having to. And it was just a very short span of time that the cabaret card for me was useful.

BH: Yeah, I think a little bit after that. I came in '61, it was around the time I first came it was in use, I think up until around '64.

BH: No.

BH: Well I think they probably would have come to somebody's attention. I don't know, Boston probably had a very different political situation, where musicians were concerned. . . I just can't see it being something that a lot of people [in New York] would have found it necessary to do. Were men asked to do that? I mean, were men asked to sit at the bar as musicians, because they were popular and people wanted to interact with the musicians, and fraternize with customers and drink?

BH: I don't think so!

BH: I understand some women did try to get around that, now I'm talking in Boston again, and their lives were pretty much, you know, ruined by the idea that they tried to drink club soda, and then they were found out, that the drink didn't really have alcohol in it, and they were accosted.

BH: Or you didn't work. Or you took a terrible chance.

BH: No, it couldn't have been a union job.

BH: Right. So my union days, before I came here from Los Angeles, I had been a member of the segregated union in Los Angeles.

BH: I can't even remember the name of it.

BH: Absolutely. Yes, the "Central Avenue Breakdown Union", and the other one. The one that was in Hollywood, Local 47 I think. They were very distinct, and very territorial. I must've been in my late teens when I first joined, that was when you had to audition, you had to prove you could do what you said...you couldn't go join the union without taking a little test.

S: There's a great story Bill Crow had in his column about a guitar player who, years ago, took the audition, and the person said to him, play an F chord. So he played an F 6 chord, and the guy said to him, No, just a plain F chord. And this jazz musician looked at him and said, "I don't play less than F 6!" [laughter].

BH: That's cute!

BH: Well, let me see, I worked in the clubs on Western Avenue, the Oasis...Johnny Otis' band...all the clubs that were on the west side, I guess they fell under the jurisdiction of the segregated local.

BH: Pretty much. The rooms that were in Hollywood, in Sunset...it was territorially segregated, there was a section like Harlem...

BH: Yeah, the Alabam, the Dunbar Hotel, the Oasis, the Ruby Eyed Room in the Watkins Hotel...when I did work in Hollywood, it was just before I came here, because I worked until my oldest daughter, who's now in her late thirties, I worked until I was eight and a half months pregnant.

BH: Playing a single, I think the room was called the Purple Onion...you know it's terrible, I listen to these guys who are ninety and they can remember December 15, 1943, it was a Thursday, and where they were standing...

BH: I think that was my first job in Hollywood, that was outside that area, except for private parties, and things like that...I'm hoping now to be a part of the whole idea of trying to work in a place that signs a union contract. I think it's really important. That's going to be really tough to pull off, but I think it's important to make the attempt. And it shouldn't be up to us, it should be up to the union to do that once that place is designated as a place where we might be able to find work, and if there's some possibility to negotiate, then hopefully the union can convince the owner to be receptive to that idea with the musicians. I hope that that's part of what's going on [with the Jazz Advisory Committee].

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