Minton's Playhouse

by Bill Simon- Iajrc Journal - Summer 1998:
'Tony Scott: Some reminiscences of a best friend'

Minton's Playhouse 1953: Tony Scott was appearing at Minton's Playhouse, the birthplace on Bop in Harlem. He had Milt Hinton on bass. (Cab Calloway had just folded his band and Milt was struggling.) Osie Johnson, a discovery of Tony's, was the excellent drummer, Percy Heath was on bass, and Dick Katz on piano. On a couple of nights Johnny Mandel-then a jazz trumpeter, later one of the great arrangers and Academy Award songwriter- brought in his tape recorder. The result-a 10-inch LP which Bob Thiele released on Brunswick.

by © Tony Scott

Minton's playhouse: “In four months of playing six nights a week, I played eight bars that I remember as pure creation.
Those eight bars gave me a key toward what direction my music was going. It was two years before I was able to fully grasp and utilize that complexity of rhythms and harmony. It happened in the middle of ‘Perdido’, during the bridge. It was an extension of all the influences I had known.
Further recalling the hall which guitarist Charlie Christian helped make hallow by delving beyond the realm of swing music.
Those walls have soul. It’s a little kind of out just to be there. It’s a feeling of reverence.
One night while I was playing there with a rhythm section, I heard a  beautiful guitar break. I turned to nod approval in the direction of the guitarist and found that he was taking a smoke. When I explained to the guitar man what had happened “Don’t worry, baby, I hear it all the time, all time

by Frank Drigs: Jazz Odyssey Vol. II The Sound of Harlem

Minton’s Playhouse: "This spot, located in a former dining room of the Hotel Cecil, was started by M. Henry Minton, once a saxist and later the first Negro delegate to New York Musicians Local 802.
Ex-band-leader-saxist Teddy Hill took over as manager in 1940 and catered to the musician trade.
Hill started Monday night jam sessions and it was at these get-togethers that new and experimental music, such as Bebop, began to be heard. Regular bands playing Minton’s included Happy Caldwell’s Happy Pals, Rudy Williams and band, Wilbur ‘Dud’ Bascomb’s band, Bill Johnson's trio, and Tony Scott’s band Jazz history, of course, will remember the house band led by Kenny Clarke and Joe Guy. Thelonious Monk was on piano, Guy on trumpet; Nick Fenton on bass; Clarke on drums. Regular Monday night guests included Dizzy Gillespie and legendary guitarist Charlie Christian …”

Minton's Playhouse: ...That's was Minton's, man. It was a place were everybody could come to be entertained because it was a place that was jumping with good time.'
Or some will tell you that it was here that Dizzy Gillespie found his own trumpet voice; that here Kenny Clark worked out the patterns of his drumming style; where Charlie Christian played out the last creative and truly satisfying moments of his brief life, his New York home; where Charlie Parker built the monument of his art; where Thelonious Monk formulated his contribution to the chordal prograssions and the hide-and-seek melodic methods of modern jazz. And they'll call such famous names as Lester Young and Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins; or Fats Waller, who came here in the after- hours stillness of the early morning to compose. they'll tell you that Benny Goodman, Art Tatum, Count Basie and Lena Horne would drop in to join in the fun; that it was here that George Shearing played on his first night in the U.S., or Tony Scott's great love of the place; and they 'll repeat all the stories of how, when and by whom the word 'Bebop' was coined here - but, withal, few actually remember, and these leave much unresolved.

by Ralph Ellison: the Golden Age/Time Past:

.......They wish to receive credit for what they created, and besides, it was easier to 'get rid of the trash' who crowded the bandstand with inept playing and thus make room for the real musicians, whether white or black. Neverless, white musicians like Tony Scott, Remo Palmieri and Al Haig who were part of the development at Minton's became so by passing a test of musicianship, sincerity and temperment.
Later, it was said, the boppers became engrossed in solving the musical problems which they set themselves. except for a few symphatetic older musicians it was they who best knew the promise of the Minton moment, and it was they, caught like the rest in all the complex forces of American life which come the focus in jazz, who made the most of it. Now the tall tales told as history must feed on the result of theit efforts."