by Harold McMillan

This is another installment from the Blues Family Tree Project Oral History Archive. This month we continue with my interview with Martin Banks, from 10 years ago. Here Martin talks a bit more about his life in the jazz scene in New York, his stint in the house band at the Apollo, and his advice for young Austin players who want to breakout onto a larger stage. I hope you enjoy the read. And be sure to check out Martin playing around town with Slim Richey's Dream Band and the Jazz Pharaohs. 'Till Next month.
-- HMc

HMc: Tell me more about New York.

Martin Banks: I had to get to have a base, so I had to stay in New York, Living there and playing there. And every major black musician came to the Apollo. So I was able to play behind all of them and made records with them. And also, another guy from Texas, King Curtis, I was in his band. We made all those things with Aretha Franklin and stuff. That was in New York, and everything was going good. I played with just about everybody.

HMc: Was King Curtis connected to Austin?

MB: King Curtis was from Fort Worth, and I met him in New York. He was over [at] Atlantic records and we made all those records. In fact, the guitar player just left Austin, Cornell Dupree; we were all in the same band. Cornell and Eric Gale and Bernard Purdy -- and Chuck Rainey, he's from Texas too.

HMc: This was the Apollo band?

MB: No, this was King Curtis' band. By me playing in the house band in the Apollo, we worked like three weeks a month and we were off a week. So during that week off I was able to play with any band that came through there that wanted to augment, like B.B. King. All those things. Plus, they had a jazz show once a month. I was able to play with all the singers. In fact, when I was in Los Angeles I played every summer in Las Vegas. I played down there every summer for four years! The first time I played behind a girl from Austin named Donetta. She used to be with the Redcaps. She lives in Baltimore now.

See, she was older than I. I didn't know her here in Austin. She was older. My mother knew her. My first trip to Las Vegas, by me being able to read music out there and playing around, well, I got the job to go. Well, I would go to Las Vegas every summer to play behind all the black acts that the Flamingo would have. I played behind Herb, Brook Benton, Della Reese, and my favorite was Sarah Vaughn. I played with the great Billy Mitchell Sextet; they hired me in California. That was another reason I knew I had to get to New York. I had to do it. I said, "Hot Dog!" Just standing next to Sarah for six weeks! Yep! But when they got back to L.A., I was still trying to get...that was before I joined Ray's band. There was music out there. But in New York I was able to play at the Apollo. And during that time people [were] making records, everybody was making records. Singers, you know, everybody. I was on staff at Atlantic Records, plus all the other record dates around there. I was on call all the time! I was playing lead trumpet too, because I played lead with Lionel Hampton's band, and able to work.

HMc: So, you got busy pretty much as soon as you got out of here?

MB: Yeah. Well, the kind of music I had in my ears that I wanted to try to play wasn't here. And I wasn't old enough, like 14, I wasn't old enough to go nowhere by myself. We used to sneak around to Georgetown; that was a long way, in high school. But I went to Houston a couple of times, but I wasn't old enough to go in no clubs or anything. But I used to hear a band...they had two colleges here, one named Sam Huston and Tillotson. Okay, Sam Huston had a very good jazz band. Bert Adams -- he's still here -- he was over there. I have a lot of respect for him. He had the best band! Oh, they had a band over there! I couldn't go in the band rehearsal, but I could stand outside on the little cliff and look over at the auditorium at the band rehearsing. And I remember some of the names of the guys in the band, like Leroy Cooper playing baritone in the band; Leo Wright was playing alto -- he later played with Dizzie Gillespie you know -- in fact, he just passed too.

Yeah, and playing around all those bands, I was in Count Basie's band six times. I was trying to live in New York, I didn't want to go on the road, see. Fact, now I know really I was a prisoner in New York. I didn't really find that out until Duke Ellington hired me, and I found that I couldn't go out of town. So, that's when, I don't know, I had drinking problems and all kind of stuff through hanging, you know, but that was during -- those were heydays in New York. Play with or behind just about every black artist you can name. Frank foster, he was just here. In fact I used to sit in with... George Benson and he used to have a group, him and Ronda Keywood and them. During that time New York was live. Sugar Ray Robinson had clubs; there was clubs all over Harlem. 'Was really jumping, then all at once it seemed like somebody threw a bomb in there and just blew it all apart. Five years, it was gone.

HMc: Mid '60s?

MB: In the 1960s, yeah. '60s it was happening. And then all at once everything just kind of shut down. And also while I was at the Apollo, I couldn't work the show as a permanent person, so they had to hire three trumpets, for one to take each other's place when they out. So by me playing at the Apollo, I was able to play that show half of six years. I made all those Hair records. It was happening during that time. I got to meet all those musicians. Went to Europe a couple of times back then.

HMc: When you were doing all this, what did you think about Austin?

MB: I never came back to Austin until now. See, from Los Angeles I went straight to New York. From here to San Francisco to Los Angeles to New York. And I was in New York for 25 years non-stop. And any band that I played with never came here. One time Lionel Hampton came here. But I had already left his band when he came to Austin. But nobody ever came this way! They'd go to Europe and all up and down the East coast and even California, nothing ever came...

HMc: Didn't come to visit, not even holidays?

MB: I never had time. I didn't have time. I did, I came once from Los Angeles in the '50s, because that's when I came here and come to find out that Fred Smith that I went to college with in San Francisco was teaching school here in Austin, in my home. That's when I met James Polk. He was here, see. He was here. I think Bobby Bradford...I got to meet him then. I think he was here. But he left right after then and went to California. I missed him because I moved to New York. But I've seen him since then, I believe.

HMc: That's Carmen's father?

MB: Yeah. Helluva trumpet player! He and Ornette Coleman hook up together all the time. Bobby, I think, is teaching.

HMc: Let me backtrack just a little bit. When your father was playing, was he playing with the Johnny Simmons Orchestra?

MB: Yeah.

HMc: What years was that?

MB: I was a baby, so I guess it was...I was born in 1936, so it must have been '38 or '40, about '40-something. Mother's got a picture, and I remember it too, when my dad was on the road with one of those bands then. He came through and I took a picture with him. My mother has a picture. I was on a bicycle, and Johnny Simmons died during that time I believe. His wife and my mother, they were good friends. Josephine. I haven't seen him. Supposedly he was the piano player around here during that time.

HMc: What was your father's name?

MB: Martin, Senior. He just passed...how long have I been, I've been here three years. I guess he passed last year. He was living in San Antonio; he didn't play anymore.

HMc: What do you think the state of black music is in Austin right now?

MB: If there is a state, it's the worst. "If" there is a state. It hasn't been really focused on in the black community, see? And`the media, you can't...you hear jazz two or three times a week for an hour. Or like kids coming up, they can't be up at no twelve o'clock at night to listen to no program. But then I believe it's a thing in your ear, too, that you really want to do something. But if you heard it all the time, maybe you would want to more, but I don't know. There's something in you, I believe, that wants you to play a particular...you like a particular kind of music. 'Cause I played first trumpet in Anderson High School band the whole four years, well, three years I was there. The last three years I played first trumpet in the band. There was three of us. Due to segregation it was the only high school, and we had the largest band. We had a 150-piece band, and we won, yeah, we won the state champion contest every year from the time that my father was in the band. See, they won the contest. But they had just black schools.

HMc: They went to Prairie View?

MB: Prairie View for the contest, yeah. I went there at least three times. I remember, I was put out of the band one time or a couple, for trying to play jazz, you know? You hear something and you go to play it. The band teacher, well, he didn't know anything about that, and he couldn't show it to you. But he showed you the rudiments of reading. Then from reading you've got to try to put stuff together for yourself. Fred and all them...Fred, he would go to San Francisco. He was from Bryant, Texas. His father lived in San Francisco. So he was able to hear coming up, but there wasn't any jazz played hardly. Lavada Durst would play some sometimes, you know, but it was strictly like blues-type show because Lavada Durst is a piano player. I don't know...I remember his son, Lavada Jr. He was on the radio before Tony Von. See, Tony Von was a latecomer to me. 'Seemed like Tony Von came here after I left or shortly before I left.

HMc: His name has been brought up in the '50s, late '50s.

MB: Yeah, see I left here in 1953. First day out of high school, the next day I was on the Katy train to San Francisco. Boy, going from Austin to San Francisco, I couldn't find my house! I'd go to the store and come back and couldn't find my house! All of them looked the same and they all tied together. We lived in the middle of the block. All of them painted the same color. Boy, I had problems trying to find my house! 'Finally found my way to Fred Smith and Johnny and them. But then we lived in the Fillmore district. We all in the same community. We had a little theater called the Ellis Theater. That's where I played with Fred Smith and them. We won the contest there, Frank Roberts playing bass. He's a friend. He's still out there. Merle Saunders was playing piano, but he got drafted. No, he joined the Army...he joined the Air Force. He left. And we used to play down at Black Hawk on Sunday evenings. They had a little jazz thing down there, I guess, a little jam session.

HMc: I'm just interested to know: how did you suddenly get to San Francisco and have such a great time?

MB: 'Wasn't no great time!

HMc: Austin wasn't such a bad town was it?

MB: I was too young to really even know. I remember...see, Leo Wright and them, they were older than me, and I couldn't go in nightclubs. The only thing I used to hear was George Alexander. He's another trumpet player that was here in the band. I think he teaches in Oakland now. They used to have a band down on 11th Street. Leo Wright, George Alexander, and another guy named Blue out of Houston, James Clay, Leroy...well, it was the Sam Huston band, you know? And they used to play down there, and they were playing the kind of music I wanted to hear. That's when I really got to hear it, when they were playing down there. Then again, I was so young I had to sneak out then. The policeman, Juan Jones, lived around the corner from the house. So, if he sees me out there...yeah boy! If he sees me out there, he's sure going to tell my mother!

MB: But, I got put out of the band first thing, see? My mother and them sent me out there. They knew that I wanted to try to play. I guess she talked it over with my uncle and things, you know, because I was trying to play licks. And every time I'd hit a lick, POW! Mr. Joyce would put me out of the band.

HMc: If it ain't on the paper, don't play it?

MB: Yeah. Yeah. But just so happened out there, just wasn't no reason to come back here. When I did come back and Polk and them were all playing, I really did think about staying. But I had to go back to Los Angeles; I was married at the time and had a kid. And before I could really think about coming back here, they were out there, see? So, New York was the place. So I got to play with everybody I ever dreamed of. Duke Ellington was really the thing, and it just happened that he hired me. Like after Hair, there used to not be no black shows and all that, see? The shows were at the Apollo Theater. After Hair they started hiring and having black shows on Broadway, and that's when Harlem started going down.

HMc: 'Seems to be a common thing. One of the things that we've been talking about...

MB: Vicious circle, it's a circle.

HMc: James Polk and Pat Murphy talked about it a lot, how times were hard 25 or 30 years ago in the black community, but there was some amount of community.

MB: Yeah. Well, integration tore all that up, see? And integration is just a word. It's no such thing as no integration! How you gonna integrate with somebody with money and you don't have no money? And everything is run off of money, so anybody that print money has a say-so over you, you know? And so, communities can go up...like New York. It went from sugar to shit in five years, you know? All of a sudden cocaine was dropped into the middle of there, and people around there couldn't afford no cocaine. So where did that come from? All of a sudden, BAM! You know?

HMc: It's not a mistake?

MB: No, it's not a mistake! No! No! It's just...I don't know. Urban removal, that's what I call it. Things start happening.

HMc: The time period you're talking about is mid '60s or so, when you feel like Harlem went into another decline?

MB: 1970s. Yeah, about like 1972. That's when it really, it really slumped. Well, I came here. That's right, I came here in 1971. I came here in 1971 and stayed two years. And 1973, before I went back to New York, I took my kids. I went back to California. And while I was in California, that's when I got a job with Disney. And Disney hired me and shipped me to Florida with Disney World. So I stayed in Florida five years. From Florida I went back to New York. And when I got back to New York, it was entirely different than what it was in the '60s.

HMc: I wonder if the same story happened in all the major cities in the U.S.?

MB: Yeah, yeah, look like it.

HMc: Black folks were thinking post-integration, everything's going to be all right.

MB: Oh, man! Look, how long have you been fighting for civil rights? Traveling through Europe and East and Africa, you really see another kind of life. It's like music here. I tell kids coming up to come by and talk to me. I told him [Chris Searles], "Say, you have to leave here and go somewhere else to hear something, because you are really not hearing nothing here." What you hear is off of a record or something, so you have to play it just like that. But something like, as far as playing drums and the kind of drums he wants to play, go to New York and listen to some guys play, since you like that kind of music. Go there and just listen.

HMc: And find a gig?

MB: Naw. No! It's a multitude there. If you don't like this, you can go here. And [there are] people practicing all the time. Living music. Might not have no limo or nothing like that, but you have an instrument and subway fare.