Boy Saxophonist - Monologue

I was a, a boy saxophonist, and

And it all began in uh, in Los Angeles

And I got an opportunity to uh

To play with Lionel Hampton's uh, new orchestra

At that time new because he had just, he just left Benny Goodman

And he was a very, very big popular name in the

In the states, in the music world

And one afternoon, I got a call, a telephone call

And a person said, you know, "This is Dexter Gordon?" I said, "Yes"

He said, "Well, this is Marshall Royal," you know

And um, 'cause at, at this time I think I was about 17, you know

And I had only been playing a few years and uh

I said, "Marshall Royal, he said

Why in the world is he calling me?" You know

He wasn't so nationally or internationally known at that time

But he was a very big name in Los Angeles, you know

One of the local heroes and so forth

So anyway, uh, he said, you know

"How would you like to uh, join Lionel Hampton's new orchestra?" You know

I said, "This couldn't be Marshall Royal"

It must be uh, you know, somebody's

One of my friends, you know, putting me on or something

But so, and I said, "Who is this?"

He said, "No, this is Marshall, you know, I'm serious business"

I said, "Okay"

So he said, "Come down to Ham's house tonight and uh

We'll uh, have a little session and you know, talk about it," yeah

So I said, "Okay," so and I went down to Ham's house

And uh, some of the guys in the band were there

Verner Allen, Sir Charles Thompson and Leon, Lester's brother

Playing drums and um, and Lionel, and Marshall

So we all, we started playing, jamming, you know

We played for a little while, Lionel asked me

Said, "Well, Gates, would you like to, would you like to join the band?"

You know, so I said, "Yeah, man, I'm there for it"

So about three days later we, we left, you know

And at the time, I hadn't even finished school, you know

I just took off, it was on a Christmas occasion

I think it was December, the 23rd of, pretty sure that's the accurate date

For me it was like, you know, dreamland, you know

It's fantastic, beautiful, and that's where I got all my uh

Most of my schooling, that was my finishing school, you know

Of course, um, I kept expecting them to send me home every night

You know, he should take it back, you know

Go home and study for a couple more years and then maybe, you know

But they uh, had a little faith in me, so after a few months

Well, it started to, it started to get together, you know

And it was all very new to me

Because I was from uh, California, from Los Angeles, and uh

Uh, they never had any outright segregation, uh, in California, you know

But in fact, in the first place we went was to uh

Fort Worth, Texas, you know

So uh, I remember in every, in every southern town

When we get to, into the town, you know

The bus driver would ask, "Where are the railroad tracks?"

And then somebody would say

"Well, the rail trail, the railroad tracks are over there"

So then we knew where we were going, you know

Because we had to go into the uh

Into the black section, into the ghetto, you know

Because this is where we would be living and

And perhaps playing, you know

Not necessarily playing, play all over

But this is where we would be quartered, you know, yeah