Herman Autrey |
Trumpeter Herman Autrey is probably best known for his recordings with Fats Waller. Fats was such a strong personality he seems to dominate the recordings to the point where Autrey and clarinettist Gene Sedric sometimes don't get the recognition that I think they deserve. Just listen to the way Herman Autrey picks up on the energy already created by Fats on Dinah in 1935:
There appears to be some debate about this recording and whether it was recorded in 1939 or earlier. Gene Sedric is not on this recording. My discography gives the date as 24th June 1935 with the personnel: Herman Autrey (trumpet); Rudy Powell (clarinet and alto sax); Fats Waller (piano and vocals); James Smith (guitar); Charlie Turner (bass) and Arnold Bolden (drums). Before the clarinet solo, Fats calls "Swing it out then Jackson", leading listeners to think that someone named 'Jackson' is playing, but in fact 'Jackson' is an expression meaning something like 'great guy' (click here). 'Jackson' appears again in Fats Waller's 1940 recording of Cliff Friend and Jack Reynolds' song Send Me, Jackson where Gene Sedric plays clarinet but where John Hamilton is the trumpet player.
Herman Autrey was born on 4th December 1904 in Alabama. His father and two of his brothers were also musicians. His father played tuba and at four or five Herman struggled to play it. His brother then brought home a peck horn (an alto horn / mellophone) which Herman found easier to handle. He took up the trumpet in his teens, played in a cadet band, and was soon gigging in Pittsburgh and Florida. By 1933 he had travelled through Washington D.C. and Philadelphia before arriving in New York City where he joined Charlie ‘Fess’ Johnson’s Paradise Ten.
In 1975, John Wilson interviewed Herman for an Oral History project. The interview is kept at Rutgers University on tape (about 5 hours) and as a transcript (click here). It gives a very full and detailed picture of Herman's life although at times, as can happen in interviews, it wanders away from a subject.
An example is Herman describing how he was auditioned by Fletcher Henderson. Herman had arrived in New York and was walking down Seventh Avenue and met someone who told him that Fletcher Henderson was looking for a trumpet player, so Herman went to Fletcher's house where the band was rehearsing: "I said my name is Herman Autrey. I was sent here. I heard that you wanted a trumpet. So he says , okay, set down. So I took my horn out and I sit down. He starts passing out the music. He picked up his baton and came down. Bang! And I hit it. I didn't stop until I got to the end. he looked at me, and the other guys turned round and looked at me. He pulled out some more music .... I 
did the same thing. He said "What's your name?".... I told him, he calls his wife. "Babe! Come here I want you to meet someone. Nobody's ever played my music like that. Where you from? Who are you?" I said, "Well, I just come into town. He say "uh - you never played - you ever played - you couldn't have played before, I only wrote it last night ...."
Fletcher's wife, Leora, turned out to be a trumpet player and the interview then wanders off discussing women musicians. Later in the interview it turns out that Herman did play with the Henderson band, but for only a few months because of his commitments with Fats Waller.
In his interview with John Wilson, Herman recalls when he joined Fats Waller in 1934. Drummer Arnold Bolling, who had played with Don Redman, said to Herman: "Fats Waller sent me down to ask you if - would you like to do some records with him. I say, man, like I was speechless. I said certainly, sure. He says okay. That's it. He went down and told him. So he says well go down to this address .... I say my name is Herman Autrey. He says well I'm Fats, hello, come on in. We met each other. What do you think? I said man, I'd be tickled to death, you know............ And I never made a record in my life, and never been near a studio ..... So he said okay. Meet me down at Victor's studios tomorrow morning at 8:00 o'clock, at 24th Street ....... We went inside. I didn't know what to do, they pulled off their jackets and coats and thing, and take out their horns .......He said, all right, Herman, you come in and you do this, you play down the first sixteen, the second sixteen, second eight ..... We tried it and, ah, pretty good."
Asked if he remembers the tunes, Herman says: ".... Chamber Maid. A Porter's Love Song To A Chamber Maid, I think that was it. And Arm Full Of Sweetness." Chamber Maid is very much of the style of popular dance music in the early thirties but it is of interest in two respects - it features Fat's off-lyric comments that he became known for and Herman Autrey's first recording where he is given room for an extensive solo.
Listen to A Porter's Love Song To A Chamber Maid.
Asked about the other band members, Herman remembers that Gene Sedric was not there on that occasion and that the other band members were Ben Whittet (alto sax); Billy Taylor (bass) and Ben 'Apple Jaws' (drums) .... "I named him Apple Jaws" .... Al Casey (guitar) ..... "Al Casey was a kid then, in school. And he took Al Casey out of school and put him in the union. Afterwards." Gene Sedric then joined the band to replace Ben Whittet...... "When Gene Sedric came in, with us, boom! He had something. And the people saw it, they heard it, and they liked what they heard......"
Listen to Herman Autrey and Gene Sedric with Fats and If I Were You:
Herman's interview with John Wilson is long, but you can read it all or listen to it online. It is worth sharing part of two sections where Herman talks about Fats:
"I think it was in Pittsburgh ... we'd get into town and he'd need a shave and a haircut .... He called this man. This man came to the hotel and gave him a haircut, a shave, so it lasted for .... I don't know how many years ..... So I happened to be there with him on this particluar instance, and at Christmas time, and he needed this man's services .... at this time he bought this man's wife a winter coat, his son, little boy, must have looked like - to me - about 12, 13, and the husband, a suit, and coat. Said Merry Christmas...... The man cried. The man did not expect it. He was a poor man. He had a - it was a poor family...."
"So Fats said, Follow me! Fats walked in leading the kids, and as they walked down the aisle the guy was s--- handed each one of them a bag of candy. You never saw so many damn kids in all your life. They went -- all went down to the front, you know, and filled all the seats. When that was filled they started going upstairs filling all the seats, and the rest of the people couldn't get in, nothing but kids, and kids and candy, and when the curtain went up, you know, you can imagine what happened. Ra-a-a-ay Fats! (Fats played a good show), and played to the kids, and sang to them, and all their requests, and asked them what they wanted, and the manager was out there, and they were giving him salts, smelling salts, headache powders, aw!
"The next day, and the rest of the week, in fact, they held him over. As far as you could look, parents, grandparents, everything, was standing in line. "I never heard of this man. I must see the man who gave my son, grandson, a free ticket to the show. I've got to see him. He's got to be a good man....."
Herman Autrey with Fats Waller and his Rhythm
Although Herman Autrey played on many of Fats Waller's recordings, other trumpeters such as Bill Coleman, Paul Campbell and particularly John Hamilton played on some. There is information in the Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) but notes elsewhere seem to contradict or add to the entries - (For example Dinah, shared above, does not appear in the DAHR discography, nor does Googie Woogie with the Pat Flowers band, shared below, although Sha-Wa-Wa is).
In his book The Best Of Jazz, Humphrey Lyttelton wrote: 'I know few other performances which demonstrate so unashamedly the sheer joy of taking part in spontaneous jazz creation when total rapport and momentum have been reached. That Fats presided over scores of such performances in sessions designed for the commercial market is all the more wondrous. The end of 'Twelfth Street Rag' brings joy to its culmination. Fats overruns the ensemble with portentous descending octaves culminating in crashing Chopinesque chords, Herman Autrey blows a derisive 'that's all' phrase on trumpet and then Fats unleashes a final ear-splitting shout of 'YEAH!!!'.
Listen to Twelfth Street Rag:
As far as I can see, there is no video footage of Herman Autrey available. He was not present for the filming of Stormy Weather and the 1940s 'soundies' on YouTube (e.g. Your Feets Too Big) feature trumpeter John Hamilton.
The splitting up of Herman with Fats Waller appears to have been a gradual thing. Fats took on two or three tours of Europe and then was away making the film Stormy Weather. While Fats was away, Herman needed work and got club dates wherever he could: "... there wasn't a hell of a lot of them, for me as a colored guy, I'll put it that way.....". Claude Hopkins needed a trumpet player for a tour in West Virginia and engaged Herman. When Fats came back from a Europe trip things had changed: "...we were in town and nothing happening, we were sitting around and I don't know for what reason. I don't know if he didn't feel like going out, or what, because he could always - well I want to go here, go there, and point, and that's where they sent us. And he said go ahead, I'll let you know. I said just let me know when you're ready and wherever I am, I'll come in. He said oh, don't worry about it. So I went with Claude to do a few dates ....."
As I have said, like many free-form long interviews, Herman's interview with John Wilson wanders. John Wilson asks at another point why Herman left Fats: "Well, he was only -- on the outs. He was beginning to close, and things were happening, and he didn't look like he was going -- he just made this movie (Stormy Weather) and while he was doing Stormy Weather I was -- had to be working, of course, and things didn't look up and like it was going -- he had a few dates in Boston around, so I then picked up some other guys ... and meantime I could see the writing on the wall .... so I was in there with my own group .... So it came in over the air. He'd gone ...... Fats, oh my goodness ..... naturally I was a pall bearer, and whatnot, afterwards, and you know. Everything stopped .... everywhere you looked people were crying ...."
Stormy Weather was filmed during January and February 1943. It was released in November 1943 and Fats Waller died in December 1943.
Herman Autrey, as we have seen, was already working with other bands. Here is Herman playing The Joint Is Jumpin' with Gene Sedric's Honey Bears in 1938:
During the 1940s, Herman continued playing as a sideman in several bands. The DAHR discography says that he played in Bob Crosby's Orchestra in their 1940 recording of Cow Cow Blues, but I don't know whether it is, in fact, Muggsy Spanier taking the lead trumpet on this recording.
There are other recordings where we know Herman Autrey is featured, including this one of Umbrella Man with violinist Stuff Smith in 1942:
...... and with pianist Sam (Sammy) Price and his Bluesicians playing I've Got Too Many Blues in 1942 with Mabel Robinson singing the words:
Saluting Fats Waller at WNEW's "Second Annual American Swing Festival" in 1945
(left to right) Al Casey, Herman Autrey, Arthur Trappier, Gene Sedric, Cedric Wallace, and Pat Flowers (picture Anton Sportiello)
Herman also had his own combos with musicians including pianist and composer Herbie Nichols. Here he is with Gene Sedric in 1946 in pianist/vocalist Pat Flowers band playing Googie Woogie:
..... and here he is with in Claude Hopkins' band playing Yacht Swing Club. Herman says "..... I stayed with the group because I did a recording date with Claude Hopkins. He did my tune, for one thing, Yacht Club Swing ... I went in there and I played first trumpet for him, because ... I'm trying to think, who was his first trumpet? Who left. When I came in. Well, on some of the recording dates I played, it was that way, I played first because I was a soloist, and sang a couple of things with them ...."
Herman's playing was interrupted as the result of a car crash in the 1950s but he was back in the 1960s playing and touring with Red Richards and Vic Dickenson’s Saints And Sinners band and then with drummer Buzzy Drootin’s Jazz Family. There is a (restricted) picture of Herman with Buddy Tate and Rudy Powell from the Saints and Sinners band here.
Listen to him on Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans with the Saints And Sinners in 1968.
By the 1970s, Herman was losing his lip on trumpet and spent more time as a vocalist.
He died in New York on June 14th, 1980, five years after his interview with John Wilson.
© Sandy Brown Jazz
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