Buffalo Rising Online

May 25th 2005, 12:40pm By George Johnson

I donit sleep a lot. Itis arguable whether or not you can inherit such a trait, but I like to think I got it from my dad. In high school I remember waking up in the middle of the night to find him listening to talk radio and searching the house for quiet things to do. As soon as I was old enough to drink coffee, before I went to school and before he went to work, weid be among the first ones at Gigiis for coffee to go. And weid just drive around, past run-down storefront after razed and littered lot, while he spoke and I sipped and listened. From the driver's seat, my dad transformed a ghost town. With Nancy Wilson on the stereo singing what Van Vechten wrote of as a "peculiar language of its own wreathed in melancholy ornamenti, my dad conjured his old running grounds with reminiscent grins, occasional winces and the names of what once stood.

The Blue Moon, The Padlock on Ferry, The Pine Grill, The Woodlawn Tavern, The Bonton. Mary Sieberts on Jefferson and Northland. Little Harlem on Michigan. The Sportsmanis Club, the black Saturn Club of its day. And the Colored Musicians Club on Broadway. Between the names, heid tell stories whose settings were the places we passed, stories that let me imagine my uncles and great uncles as cads and hot-heads and fun-loving young men and not just the wise and stately patriarchs they had come to be. Those mornings were resurrections of Chilly Water in its prime as well as tours of personal ancestry tied to place, a way I learned about the light and heavy parts of family pieces.

But the Colored Musicians Club on Broadwayodriving past that was different, partly because it was still there. And its past was rich with names my dad didnit have to explain: Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Art Blakey, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. But what really made that part of the drive different was that the CMC stood for something much larger than a device to relate family legacy. Itis history and the fact that it still stood was and still is a powerful metaphor for the struggle of black folks to live proudly and to succeed through years of racial inequality. When unions refused to include people of color, African Americans formed their own local, Buffalo Local 533, making Buffalo the eighth city in the United States with racially segregated musicianis local unions. After moving from temporary meeting place to impermanent residence, the Local moved into a vacant storefront on Broadway, received itis own charter as the CMC and in their constitution resolved to:

...foster the principles of unity and cooperation among the colored musicians of Erie County, N.Y.; to develop and promote the civic, social, recreational and physical well-being of its members; to improve and enhance the professional and economic status of its members; to stimulate its members to greater musical expression; to encourage and develop a fuller appreciation of music on the part of its members and the public; and generally to unite its members in the bonds of friendship, good fellowship and mutual understanding.

My dad had told me that one of the best and worst things to happen to black folks after slavery was integrationothat the separate and sustainable institutions we were forced to create because we were excluded from their existing counterparts were largely subsumed or abandoned after integration began. A forced but, in many ways, thriving independence was sacrificed for the promise of integration.

Late in the 60is, as a result of the Civil Rights Act, Buffalo 533 was forced to merge with its white counterpart, Local 43. Unfortunately, the merged union showed preference to white musicians and black musicians whose power in terms of size and influence had been diminished by the merger were powerless to change it. However unlike black locals in other cities who had lost their real estate as a result of similar mergers, the CMC remained distinct from Local 533 and despite attempts to co-opt the property, was able to remain whole and continue to be a place for black musicians to call their own in Buffalo.

And what a place it was. Rachel Bernstein wrote a comprehensive and compelling history of the CMC which is on the clubis website. In that history are great anecdotes and bits of oral history that convey the glory of its past:

"A bunch of us, we would come from Church, hang out from 4:30 n 10:30, it was packed. People would come down from Canada and up from Pennsylvania. This club brought races together, everyone played, and we didnit see ethnicityOeIt was a joining thing, everyone loved everybody." nBoyd Lee Dunlop

"When I first came down here about 1944, sessions started about two-thirty in the afternoon and went till ten or eleven at night. Our president, Perry Grey, used to entice the artists coming into town to come up here and perform on Sundays before the jam sessions. I saw Nat King Cole; Mary Lou Williams. We used to have a line that went down the stairs and go all the way around the block to get in here." --Bob Davis

The CMC still stands. There are regular performances and jam sessions open to the public. And this summer, rather than just driving by, I think Iill get my dad to park the car and take him in. Driving past conjured places of the past is one thing. Sitting in a testament to the struggle and success of resourceful and talented black peopleothatis quite another.