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Maurice Levy: So you were saying that you knew that Meredith Wilson played
the flute and you had him as a guest? What was that, a music educators
club?
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Carl McVicker: Yeah, the Pittsburgh Music Educators Club. It's now
defunct, but. At that time we had him. He told about how he wrote the 76
trombones, you know, and in that show.
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Levy: Well, this. Is after the Music Man. Yes. He did the most to revive
the at least for temporarily the the art of band music with that show,
didn't he?
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McVicker: Well, I'll tell you, I never needed revising out in the Midwest.
Doctor Earhart hired a man to come in there called Lee Lockhart. Hired him
to to. Try to bring the bands up to some kind of a standard in Pittsburgh,
and. So Lee Lockhart came from a Mason. I think he was a Mason City, Iowa.
One of those big Iowa towns. And they they were all known out there for
their fine bands. Pennsylvania was never known for their fine bands for
years non-existent.
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Levy: For the band instrument capital was Elkhart, Indiana, wasn't it?
Isn't that where they made most many of the band instruments?
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McVicker: That's right. Well. I know when you get back to to Sousa, we
were talking about his appearance on the stage, and I met him in the office
and home and. Mr. Leopold was a principal at that time, very religious man
and a no nonsense kind of a guy, a heavy set fella. Since I was from a
minister's family, he realized that I didn't go for a lot of bad language
or anything like that, and I was reliable, which he said that the former
music teacher said he could never he can never count him, and locking up
the instrument doors when he'd go home or anything. So he got rather
friendly with me. So we met Sousa, the back office. Would you want to, Mr.
Sousa, to say? In addition to require all these musical requirements that
he wanted to have a high type, moralistic sort of musician. And Sousa
looked at him and said, I don't care what they h they do or what they say,
it's how they blow their horn. Accounts of me.
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Levy: Although they had to sit up straight in their chair.
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McVicker: He said the man had complete attention. They had to know other
parts. So Sousa directed the. High school cadets. He wasn't a supercritical
or anything. This no nonsense. I had rehearsed my boys on that. I think it
was my first year there. And the. There is a. Naturally, Sousa brought a
lot of attention. One fellow member was not in my band. We met on the stage
because they didn't have a special band room for me yet, just to use the
auditorium. Sousa. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum. Tapped on the
stand. What are you doing back there? And the young man said, I don't have
any music. Well, Sousa said, take that thing and get out in the street. He
I think he realized what had happened because he didn't long demand. I had
no music stand for him, no music. He just wanted to be able to say to his
friends that he played for Sousa.
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Levy: All right. So this was just some kid who snuck into the auditorium
and snuck in backstage, and he said, I played for John Philip Sousa even
though he wasn't part of the band. That's funny.
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McVicker: Take Sousa along about him.
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Levy: That's part of the legends of his family now.
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McVicker: Well, I bet it is. Well, anyway, Sousa gave a little talk. What
do you expect his bandsman's to do? What their background should be and the
training, you know, and education musically and. Hello. Expected
reliability. Reliability. You know. Then he ended up by saying, how many in
here? Would like to be a professional musician. And he'd given everybody
such a going over what he expected. Everybody else faded out of the
picture. They had no idea of being a professional musician if it's going to
be that strict. They thought it'd be a lot of fun traveling around. And so
finally. This trombone player I told you about. Jimmy Emmert raised his
hand. I'd like to be a professional musician. What, you want to be a
professional musician? Yes. After that big bark. Why? He didn't belittle
the boy at all. Yes. I didn't encourage him. Didn't belittle him. I had
some. I had a lot of people came down the aisles there and Westinghouse. We
used to rehearse in the auditorium until we got my own band room. I had a
man come in one day when a boy, was a fine trombone player and baritone,
played Bach.
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McVicker: The. He came to me and said, Mr. McVicker, could you excuse me a
little bit? I have an interview with this man and wants to talk to me about
a job. I said yes. I excused the boy and I never saw him again after that
day. Got in touch with his parents and this man offered him a job
travelling with his group playing in Florida. He became a professional
musician at that. That was pretty common in those days. I received an
offer. I traveled with the, what they call the Chautauqua Company. Similar,
similar at the Chautauqua Institution up here in New York. Only in those
days they had what they call the Chautauqua Companies and. They have famous
senators for speakers, you know, and famous musicians, drama groups and
music groups. And the connection I made with the orchestra up there at the
Mackinac Island, one of the members told me if I ever wanted a job to
contact this man in Chicago. So I traveled with the Chautauqua group all
through the Midwest, and I enjoyed that.
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Levy: The term Chautauqua was sort of a generic became a generic term then
for traveling culture. Yes, that's right, it.
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McVicker: Was about culture. To the small Midwest towns.
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Levy: People come and they would, uh, review books and give lectures and,
and have music concerts and things like that. So the Chautauqua wasn't just
Chautauqua in New York. It was just it was just it was.
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McVicker: Uh, like you say, a generic.
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Levy: Term.
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McVicker: It faded out with the advent of radio and TV. Particularly TV.
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Levy: And the movies, of course.
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McVicker: Movies, yes. But it was a not only a culture place, but it was a
meeting place, sociological meeting place. You know, people, some of them
would come and camp there for the whole week.
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Levy: They had tents, didn't they? Weren't they? They were like tent
meetings.
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McVicker: I think I only played in a tent once. Most of them had
permanent, uh, places like county fair buildings and so on. Fairgrounds. I
remember one place I was at the Illinois; I was surprised. Somebody came up
to me. Concert time and said to Carl. All the McVickers here in this town.
Taylorville. Have a picnic plan for you in the park. Want you to come
tonight after the concert. We had a concert in the afternoon. One at night.
And so all the McVickers were there to meet me.
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Levy: So that was another. That was another form of employment for
musicians, that Chautauqua kind of thing.
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McVicker: Out of that, uh, came opportunities in the winter to play for
Keith's vaudeville. I had 2 or 3 offers to.
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Levy: Play on the circuit or just play in, in the, in the house here in
Pittsburgh, the Keith house, Downtown circuit. Oh, you went around?
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McVicker: No, I didn't do it. I'd already accepted a contract to teach in
Pittsburgh, about broke my heart to give that up.
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Levy: So the Keith Orpheum Circuit, uh, well, the circuit, of course, was
they had these vaudeville turns, right? They had these number of vaudeville
players, and they went from city to city. They do a week in each town.
Right. But I thought that the musicians were resident musicians. No, no,
they weren't they they went with the particular company that was coming in
for that week. Yeah. Oh, I see, in other words, if you had a a dance act or
a group of singers or something like that, they had their own musical unit
and they would go from Buffalo to Altoona or wherever it was. That's right.
So they didn't have a.
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McVicker: We were supposed to start, uh, in Chicago with the, uh, I think
it was the sextet had special uniforms to wear and all the stage, and they
had they'd have a singer, but it was a complete act, you know, instrumental
music. So, uh. I turned it over to my good friend Ben Graham Jr. Whose
father was a superintendent of schools later on.
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Levy: So he went on that thing, so he took it instead. Did you do you did
you attend, uh, some of the well, some of the vaudeville shows in downtown
Pittsburgh? Oh, yes. Would you recall that.
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McVicker: Stanley Theater and Penn Theater all had vaudeville shows, and
there was a special vaudeville theater down there the Davis.
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Levy: The Davis Theater.
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McVicker: And then in a in a kind of a way, they had. What we'd call a
kind of a pornographic theater down there.
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Levy: Sort of a semi burlesque, something like that.
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McVicker: They call it complete burlesque, really. And it was torn down.
You know where the, uh.
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Levy: Well, they have the Casino Theatre. There was a burlesque. That's
what I'm thinking. Oh, yeah, that was the casino that was on Diamond
Street, which became Forbes Street.
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McVicker: Right back at the old Grand Theatre. Right? Right. Yeah.
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Levy: That. Yeah, that went, uh,
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McVicker: Every theater had an orchestra those days. Every restaurant had
an orchestra. There was no question getting my good players a job.
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Levy: No. It could play in a child's or some tea room or someplace like
that that.
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McVicker: Even had a.
Levy: Donoho. What? A string trio or a quintet or something like that.
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McVicker: A little jazz group. And I had nightclubs all over the place,
Vogue, Terrace and so on.
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Levy: Yeah, I remember the Vogue Terrace and Bill Green's.
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McVicker: Yes. Jobs for everybody.
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Levy: The union was much bigger then than it is today. They were just
powerful. Let's go back to Westinghouse and we can talk about the others.
So you're at Westinghouse, and you had, of course, a number of, uh, uh,
people who became quite prominent in the music world. I guess one of the
most prominent, of course, was Erroll Garner, which.
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McVicker: Before that was, uh, Billy Strayhorn. He graduated in 1933.
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Levy: What can you tell us about Billy Strayhorn?
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McVicker: Uh, it's a shame in some respects. Of course, I'm very proud of
it. It's a shame in some respects that some of the people didn't get the
publicity. Uh, the others did. Now, Billy Strayhorn deserved it. Uh, he was
a poor boy who was interested in, uh. Writing music in the jazz field made
arrangements of it. I didn't help him on that. He did that on his own. I
had him in my orchestra and I encouraged him in the. In classical music, he
was the first one to play the Grieg Piano Concerto for me, and he was
almost self-taught at that time. And he played that for me. And, uh, as I
say, in those days, the Penn Stater and the Stanley Theatre had acts.
Usually the big bands, and they bring their own acts along with them. And
Duke Ellington came to town. And Billy took his arrangements down there and
showed it to him. And. He wasn't a real accomplished pianist. He was way
above the a head and shoulders above the average high school kid, but he
wasn't any Pat Prattis and. Duke Ellington, I think, is more interested in
having him make these arrangements. Anyway, he took an interest in the in
the Billy. And. You said when you graduate, come up to New York, come and
see me and I'll take care of you. Which he did. And was with him until he
died.
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Levy: Yeah. He's most I guess he's best known for take the A train. That's
a Strayhorn, Satin Doll.
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McVicker: Satin doll. Yeah. My son's played a lot of those things as a.
Last groups he's played with and Billy or Harry Herforth was a. All the
years that I taught private, privately trumpet at Pittsburgh Musical
Institute, which is no longer a viable institution. Harry is one of the
best trumpet players we ever had. He learned to transpose and play with the
fine tone. When he graduated from. Uh, Westinghouse. Uh. The man that hired
me down at the Pittsburgh Musical Institute. Doctor Boyd. Charles N. Boyd
as a friend and a friend. His good friend was the head of the New England
Conservatory, so he got Harry a scholarship up at the main conservatory.
And Harry got in. The Boston Symphony's was Charles Mosher. And. Uh, Harry
was flown back from the conservatory to play with the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Remember that time he had him play down there at Syria Mosque? Uh, where
did.
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Levy: He. Where did he go from there?
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McVicker: Well, he played in the Boston Symphony for a while. Then, uh.
The man that had the job came back. I forget what his name was. But he
claimed having a priority order, you want to call it seniority? Came back
from the war duty and Harry lost that job. But he got in at Cleveland
Symphony for a while, and then he gave up and just did the. private
teaching and Cleveland Musical Institute of Art and Kent State, and he had
his own brass group that did a lot of playing. Well, that's that covers the
time around Billy Strayhorn. He and Billy Strayhorn were very close
friends, very close friends. And even even though they're different races
and like I always did at Westinghouse, I paid no attention to the race. I
paid attention to who they were and how they played. If I were standing up
there and directing and somebody asked me, was he a black player or not,
I'd have to stop and think, because I just think the way he played. And so
that went on up to Erroll Garner's period there. Erroll Garner came on the
scene around 1936. And that he didn't. Overwhelm anybody with his academic
ability. So. But he did overwhelm everybody with his. Pleasing personality
and style of playing. You'd have to have two great big Pittsburgh phone
books put on the piano bench, and he'd sit there. After every rehearsal, I
he'd be popping over there to play the piano. And the kids all loved him
for a little, little parties, like Christmas parties or something like that
and said, well, let's have Erroll play. And he couldn't read music. I don't
know how. Much he could read me because he was in my marching band. But he
did play the tuba.
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Levy: He played the tuba.
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McVicker: Tuba? I'll tell you why I can't. With my experience with them.
Memory of it. Anybody could practically learn to play the tuba for a
marching band. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. And he had a terrific
year. Very fine here and there was no problem for him, and the tuba player
sitting next to him helped him with the fingering. I had him in beginners,
so he did learn to read some. Uh, I don't think the, uh. I think he almost
ignored the notes, used his ear because I was rehearsing a stage band for
what we called a, uh. We had a we had a festival. That's what they call a
variety show. It's like a vaudeville show. And among others, was a stage
band that I had. Didn't call a stage band then we'll call it, because it's
a modern name for it, and it was a big band about 17. 18 pieces. Full sax
section. Four trumpets, four trombones. Uh, five saxophones, string bass.
Percussion. Piano. And, uh, we usually had a vocalist, and I was rehearsing
that one day for the variety show, and we used. The commercial arrangement.
The second inning had a modulation into the third chorus, which was usually
a tenor sax or a vocal soloist.
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McVicker: And the piano player is having a great deal of difficulty making
that transition. The modulation over and over we went kept losing the beat,
kept losing the beat, and I discussed. While I was discussing their. You
know, one of the members of the group said, Mr. McVicker, why don't you let
Erroll Garner play a trial? I said, what's the use? She can't read music.
They said, oh let him try it anyway. When I said he can't do any worse than
this. So he sat in. And here's where it's almost incredible. He played that
part, never lost a beat, had the correct harmony made the interlude into
the next course without any problem, we were all so bewildered. We just
applauded our hands off. And I said, Erroll, I don't care whether you read
music or not, you're in this band from now on. See. By that time, the
principal had come around and asked me to take Erroll on to anything I
could with him and just just let him be in my room because he was no
discipline problem and he just loved to be in music.
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Levy: A pleasant young fellow.
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McVicker: Very pleasant young fella. And so I said I'd be glad to do that.
Because otherwise he would just been kept down in the room where the
teacher was reading his stories to them, just until they got old enough to
be kicked out of school. Well, Erroll showed promise. He was playing in
clubs around at that time. I found out later on from one of my friends. I
think it's Joe Negri. Joe Negri Joe Negri featured a. Erroll Garner and
Billy Strayhorn with the River City Brass Band last fall. And I was in the
audience. He called me up the stage and introduced me. Oh, really? And got
me give me a nice hand as a teacher, although I. Oh. Somebody later on
said, how could he be Erroll Garners teacher? Erroll couldn't read music
and then I'm just explaining why.
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Levy: Sure. Well, obviously that that had nothing to do with it. No. Okay.
He knew music. And he was part of your musical group.
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McVicker: He played all these big shows, you know, and. Just did it by
ear. Now there are some things. Of course you can't. You can't possibly
substitute playing by ear by reading the notes.
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Levy: That he could do it. It was certainly appropriate for improvising in
jazz. Wasnt it?
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McVicker: Particularly that kind of music, because he knew the tune and he
could make the transition from one key to another without any problem. But.
So he was in from then on. Well, I was going to say Joe Negri and I were
talking before the concert down at Carnegie Hall and after, and we were
talking about. One of the members she featured on that show. We featured
the Billy Strayhorn's take the A train. My, that was a powerful rendition.
That River City Brass Band was terrific, and they had a fine arrangement
of. I never heard such a driving rendition of take the A train, because
just a little group, you know, playing take the A train doesn't have that
drive of a big band. And it was overpowering. Joe brought the house down.
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Levy: Oh, he just had a small, uh, uh, 5 or 6 pieces. He didn't have the
whole band?
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McVicker: No, just had a group. He had the whole band playing take the a
train. Oh, he sure did. Joe started out with a little group there, but the
big band joined in and he had Erroll Garner's.
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Levy: They played Misty, played Misty.
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McVicker: Among other things, and. And it was very pretty. Joe played that
as a guitar solo. I was, I was explaining. Joe talked to me about that. He
said Erroll had written that song Misty long before it ever became popular.
Remember that in that movie there, Humphrey Bogart said, play Misty for me.
Yeah.
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Levy: I think it may have been Clint Eastwood, but yeah, yeah. That play.
Do you see that movie? Yes, yes, I said.
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McVicker: Play Misty for me. Yeah, that was way back, you know. So, uh,
Joe said that he remembered playing with Erroll on some of these clubs
around Pittsburgh when he was just out of high school. He never did
graduate, but he would have graduated in the class of 1940. And I always am
invited to all these reunions and went to class of 1940 reunion that year
at the Harleigh Hotel. And Martha Glaser keeps in touch with me not once,
but several times a year. She sends me a nice little unique Christmas
present, usually a foreign kind of a calendar, you know, kind of a cloth
kind that unfolds and. So she always asks all the information about Erroll
Garner like you're doing. But this class of 1940 reunion, not the class of
1940, I think is the 40th reunion. I told him that about Erroll Garner. I'd
like to. Have a plaque put up in his honor in Westinghouse outside. So one
one man plunked down $100. He said, I start this with $100. Yeah. And they
raised the money for a nice plaque, which I've never seen it. So. Erroll
went on. He always sent me a record and I have some records here. I heard
one of his records was entombed in a cornerstone of a building in Paris.
Really? Yes. I mean, he came to town. His manager was instructed by Erroll
to invite my wife and me to dinner. He had us out to Holiday House there
and had us down at the Hilton Hotel. At the Press Club when the Pittsburgh
Press Club remember was viable thing then. And they used to have a. Uh,
nightclub at the airport called the Horizon Room. He invited my wife and me
and also my daughter and her husband to sit beside the bandstand for a
steak dinner. So he never forgot me. Never forgotten that.
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Levy: And obviously a person of quality.
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McVicker: I was disappointed. My wife invited him for a steak dinner and
my family here when he was staying down at the Carlton House. I drove
around the Carlton House four times. Finally, a man came out and said, are
you by any chance, uh, Carl McVicker? I said, yes, I'm waiting for Erroll
Garner. He said, well, Erroll had to had to fly to Cleveland, so he won't
be with you tonight. You know, I was sitting here waiting with the steak
dinner and. We just sometimes wonder that was his way of. Avoiding
accepting invitations. From. Former. Teachers and friends and so on. You
just can't help but wonder. Kind of embarrassment, you know?
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Levy: Yeah. He may have felt uncomfortable. I think so, because in.
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McVicker: An all white group and everything. Made no difference that those
nightclubs.
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Levy: Did it. Yeah, but that was that was his milieu. That's right, that's
right. That's where he was. The, uh, he led the, uh.
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McVicker: Yes, he had performance. He had our pictures taken together. I
never saw them when. I never did with him. I could name. A lot of players
in between there became well known.
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Levy: Like who else?
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.000
McVicker: Mickey Scrima became the drummer for Harry James.
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Levy: What was his name?
00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:54.000
McVicker: Mickey. Mike Scrima. They called him Mickey Scrima and I had his
brother Larry Scrima on trumpet. People in the GI Bill, Larry, Larry played
with uh uh uh. I can't think of some of these names. Anyway, one of the
groups they played for was the all girl orchestra. Now.
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Levy: Uh, Ina Ray Hutton. Ina Ray Hutton. Yes, yes. Jimmy Pupa played.
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McVicker: With Jimmy, was considered one of the top jazz players in the
United States. Uh, you.
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Levy: Mean an Ina Ray Hutton led this orchestra? Yeah, she was just the
front.
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McVicker: Raymond Scott was in there when I was singing with Larry Scrima
played with, among others. And and, uh, Jimmy Pupa. Then. My former pupil
played French horn in the Buffalo Symphony. I just saw him at a reunion a
week ago Saturday night. He retired with the Buffalo Symphony. Jerry Lucce.
L U C C E. Very fine horn player. And. Paul Ross. Came along as
concertmaster of my orchestra. Very fine musician. Very fine man.
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:54.000
Levy: Paul still with the. He's still with the symphony.
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McVicker: Was it in the orchestra at the same time. And always, always
called the 30s, the depression years. I was. More or less glad to hang on
because. Depression years, kids couldn't afford lessons and the board
couldn't afford to buy a lot of music or anything like that. Then the 40s
came on the war years, and they even drafted kids right out of my band and
orchestra. And the last half of the 40s, of course, was rebuilding. But the
50s were my best years musically. And in the middle 50s, when I had Paul
Ross and Patricia Prattis, she called. She married a man named Jennings,
played saxophone in the. They represent the. My latest and last five
musicians. I had a lot of nice kids in between, of course.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:04.000
Levy: That girl. Pat Jennings, of course, is the pianist for the
Pittsburgh Symphony, and she's recorded a number of pieces with them as the
pianist.
00:29:04.000 --> 00:30:04.000
McVicker: Pat Prattis . Well, a lot of, uh, fine publicity for me. I was
never in it in her classes, in talent and music playing. I think my talent.
Such as it was, was in organizing and teaching these groups and interested
them and going ahead in good music.
