As the Ampex recording system was invented, Les Paul developed multitrack recording tape techniques, and he and Mary Ford had many hit recordings that used multitracking to turn their voices into a choir, and their two guitars into a big band. I got a chance to see their setup when I was playing opposite them with the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band at Freedomland in the Bronx in 1961.

Les and Mary and an engineer arrived in a station wagon that they parked behind the bandstand. In the wagon were two Ampex recording machines, each carrying a tape that had the mix of their multitrack recordings. Les and Mary each had a guitar with a gooseneck microphone mounted on its front. Les had a switch on his guitar that would direct the microphone input to the loudspeakers, or to the engineer in the station wagon. They sang along with the taped music, and Les could keep the engineer informed about what song to program on Ampex #2 while they were singing with a tune from Ampex #1. The result was a live program using the prerecorded material on the tapes. It worked perfectly.

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During the freedom marches in the 1960s, the students at NYU supported the movement, and as a thank you gesture, Mahalia Jackson gave a free concert at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. She came with a gospel pianist, and they romped into a rhythmic hymn, during which the predominantly young audience began to enthusiastically clap to the rhythm, clapping on the first and third beats of each measure.

At the end of the song, Mahalia said to the audience, “Well, I can see I’m going to have to show you how to pat. Now, when you put your hands together, don’t just let them lay there like a dead fish! Make them pop! And don’t pat on the first beat, wait until the second.” She demonstrated clapping on two and four, and then began another medium tempo hymn, and the audience dutifully waited until beat number two to begin clapping.

But, by the third or fourth measure, they had all turned it around, happily clapping on one and three again. After that, Mahalia only sang hymns that were either very slow, or very fast, and so she avoided the rhythmic clapping for the rest of her very good concert.

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The Brill building at 1619 Broadway, at the corner of 49^th Street in Manhattan, has housed many music publishers’ offices. When I first arrived in New York, the Turf restaurant was on the ground floor. It specialized in very good cheesecake, sold by the slice or by the cake, and they would even mail their cheesecakes for you anywhere in the country. When Aileen, the girl I eventually married, went to California for a long stay with a theatrical company, I lured her back to New York by mailing her a Turf cheesecake.

Around the corner from the Turf, in the stairway exit on the south side of the Brill building, was a small lunch counter, about five stools, operated by Jimmy the Greek. You could get a plate of lentil soup and a slice of bread for 15 cents, and for 50 cents you could get the London broil dinner with Macedonian sauce.

One day I went to Jimmy’s with a Greek friend, George Vetsis, a singer who I had met through Dave Lambert. We were having a cup of coffee at Jimmy’s counter while we listened to him telling another customer what a great country this was. It was the best country in the world, he said, the land of opportunity. As he went on, George said to me, “Watch this.” He leaned over the counter and interjected, “Zeto Hellas!” I found out later that it meant something like “Long live Greece.” Jimmy leaped up, grabbed George’s hand, and repeated the phrase with delight. He was so pleased, he gave us each a free sandwich.

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There was once a jazz club on Long Island called the Cork and Bib. It was a good room to play in, but their piano was an old one, and it couldn’t hold a tuning. While we were playing, you could see some of the pins that held the strings unwinding slightly.

Pianist Billy Rubenstein used to bring a tuning hammer to gigs there, and he would fix the worst strings before the gig, and then he would only keep his right hand on the keyboard. While he was playing, his left hand would be at work with the tuning hammer, keeping the worst notes in better shape.

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I once did a record date for Don Elliot, featuring singer Irma Curry. Al Cohn had written the arrangements for a band of four rhythm and four saxophonists doubling on flutes.

Because of Irma’s range, Al had written one of the arrangements in the key of C-sharp minor, and during the first run through, a passage for flutes was marred by many wrong notes. There was a pause, while the flute players looked embarrassed. Al Cohn said to them, “That key was there all along!” They managed to get it right for the take.

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Frank Rehak wore a beard for a while, but one day he shaved it off. That night he was standing in Birdland listening to the music when a young lady passed him, stopped and turned, and said, “Frank?” Frank did a double take and said, “Oh, I didn’t recognize you without my beard!”