Part 2 - Shelly Manne on 52nd Street
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
By the spring of 1941, the Street had become a giant jazz block party. The Famous Door, The Onyx, The Three Deuces, Kelly's Stable and the Hickory House, along with the sessions at Jimmy Ryan's, were making 52nd Street a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week event. Now the major jazz stars were vying for the gigs in the basement rooms that held up the brownstone townhouses lining both sides of the street. Shelly Manne was sitting in with the greats and future greats. Young players were coming to the Street from all over the country. If you wanted to play jazz, this was the place, and from this place a young player might get the chance to join a band. Shelly was able to shake off the results of his ill-fated "first chance" with Byrne, had recorded with Marsala and had played with Benny Goodman... well, he had!
In April he joined the traveling band of Bob Astor. Astor had started his band in Hermosa Beach, California (a town that would later play an important role in the life of Shelly Manne), and worked his way towards New York. On the West Coast, he had been one of the first to have a racially mixed band. The scene on 52nd Street had always been color blind, but the rest of the country was something else. Astor didn't care. He was only interested in the music and now he was about to hire the best young guys he could find. Shelly Manne was one, so was Zoot Simms. Les and Larry Elgart, Corky Corcoran, Tommy Allison and Marty Napoleon traveled with the band; so did Illinois Jacquet and Dave Pell. While the band was happening musically, it was not commercial enough to get a recording contract and Shelly left after five months. He had gained more big band experience, had furthered his reputation as a truly professional player, and had traveled and lived with some of the best young jazz musicians in the country. They would remember their times with him for his incredible musicianship and his insane humor.
And funny he was. Spontaneously funny Crazy things —jumping, screaming, doing impressions. He would hang upside down in a closet — all six foot-two, waiting for one of the guys to open the door, and then he would do a perfect "Lugosi." He had something funny to say about everything and everybody, but never in a hurtful way. Never a drinker, high on life, he did experiment with some grass. One night's result found him playing Quasimodo on a hotel rooftop, but he would have done that anyway. During his life he would avoid booze and drugs even though he was in a sea of the stuff. He quickly learned that anything that altered your mind, altered your playing. "I've never heard one person who didn't play better sober than 'out'." Along with being a musical drummer, he was also a time player and he wanted nothing that would affect his musicality.
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