Interview with Bobby Alston, trumpeter

I’m a third generation trumpeter, born in 1945 and my father, Bunky Alston, gave me the horn when I was three. I played in school orchestras, junior and senior high school. I was about fourteen when I started in Raleigh Randolph’s band. I had to join Local 589 because Raleigh was the union secretary and I wasn’t supposed to be playing but I got a job.

My dad played trumpet at all of the joints with Percy Lowery’s Orchestra in the 1930s; he started when he was three or four. My grandfather worked on the railroad and the roundhouse was at Twentieth Street and Leonard Ave. The quickest way home was through the alleys and he found a trumpet in a trash can.

Grandad had six kids, three boys and three girls, and he told the boys, “Whoever can play it can have it.” My Uncle Harvey was the oldest, he got the first shot at it, Uncle Cory tried it but couldn't play it. My dad picked it up and got a sound out of it and never put it down.

In the 1930s and 40s, he was playing a similar style to Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and later, Dizzy Gillespie. Louis got upset because my dad had a gravely voice and did all of his songs. Louis later became friends with my dad.

My father was the number one trumpeter in Columbus and during those days there was someone in Columbus on every instrument that no one in New York could mess with. There was someone here during the thirties who could handle anything you brought in from anywhere. Musicians were a dime a dozen; there used to be a lot of competition and your reputation would be at stake every time you hit the band stand.

The first real group I was in was the House Rockers or the Wallace Brothers and it was ten pieces, five pieces of rhythm and five singers. I was with them for three years, then I hit the streets and was with the Sheraton Hotel circuit.

The first time I met Rahsaan Kirk was at the Jazz Workshop in Boston in 1965 and we stayed friends until he died; he came to see me a week before his passing in December, 1977. He knew he was going to die so he had some inspirational things that he wanted to say about keeping the faith.

He was passing his mantle on to cats that he knew. And in 1973 we had a set for him at Club 905 with Don Patterson on organ and Darrell Redmond on drums.

I was in Ted Turner’s East High School Band in the early 1960s. We had Fred Thomas, drums, Lee Savory, trumpet, Nate Fitzgerald, tenor saxophone, Craig McMullins, guitar. That band won the Ohio State championship in 1963 and we traveled the state giving clinics and showing bands how we won.

We were doing Quincy Jones arrangements and I was student director of the band. I was leaning towards Gerald Wilson’s compositions that were very modern. We had a group that would meet at the Beatty Center as a jazz club and that’s when I met pianist Bobby Pierce.

During the time I was at East High School I won two scholarships to the National Stage Band Clinic in East Lansing, Michigan, a summer camp for musicians and Stan Kenton was the founder of it. I got a chance to study with Donald Byrd, Louis Gasca and Marvin Stamm. I learned a lot about playing the instrument from Marvin Stamm, who was a senior at North Texas State.

Back in Columbus I hung out at Mellman’s Club 502 on Leonard Avenue and I saw Horace Silver, Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley. When you went to the top jazz club in town you put on your best three piece suit to go to the 502, the Club Regal or Club Cadillac. The music was right and people looked their best.

I was too young to go into those places but my uncle Harvey Alston was the top black policeman in Columbus and as long as I stayed out of trouble it was OK to visit the jazz clubs. I played my horn and went home.

I played Club 502 with Esther Phillips and Dionne Warwick, who had a hit with Walk On By and Anyone Who Had a Heart. But Esther had a nasty attitude and we quit; she thought she was Dina Washington.

Organist Jack McDuff, out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was looking for a horn section in 1970 and I got the reference but had no money. I called Billy Hopkins, Sammy Hopkins’ son, who was a good friend and had a regular job. We went to Cleveland, I sat in with McDuff and we turned the place out and I got the gig. We went on to record and album together.