L.A. HISTORY BOOK Volume#3
On 1950s Girls, Gangsters and Great Musicians
by Jimmie Maddin with Joel Easton

 

   Virginia Bell. Go ahead, put the magazine down and look her up on the internet. Back so soon? Maddin dated her: "I thought she was a great girl...and gorgeous too. She'd come to see me after she finished working at the Burbank Theater downtown - she was making $3500 a week in 1951. She'd bring her girlfriends with her and it sort of got around. But I never dated any of those girls, only Virginia...."

   1950s L.A. was quite a scene - actually a lot like the lore, surprisingly. After hours parties were where the stars really relaxed and played - sometimes for a week at a time. Maddin made the rounds. The Hollywood parties in the hills above Franklin Street were the "inside" culture. Maddin played with Carmen Miranda's band (she was deceased but the crack band of players continued to work) and with many Latin band leaders like Eddie Cano.

   This was while Maddin was performing at the Mural Room (later to become Jazz City) - a two year stand from which he built a renowned cliqueof personalities that would follow him around from club to club. The Screen Actors Guild was upstairs and the dance choreographers started following him around. Sidney Omar, Bob Ferris and other radio men, along with many producers, directors, politicians, actors and actresses - personalities of Hollywood's 1950s. "Every night there were ten strippers sitting at the bar - They liked the way I played 'Night Train'." You can imagine the popularity. Guys like Johnny "Stomp" Stompanato liked the women, but the women just wanted to hear Maddin play.

   Johnny Stomp's boss Mickey Cohen liked Maddin too. When young Jimmie arrived in Los Angeles - fresh from MacArthur's band in Japan - he met by chance Larry Harmell, Cohen's associate. That meeting led to Maddin's first radio show, hosted by Carl Bailey and broadcast from Walsh's restaurant out in Pasadena. Cohen's friends liked Maddin's scene and his saxophone honking. Maddin liked Cohen's spending habits both as a club customer and as entertainment client. He built a business around this growing clique of strippers, entertainers and "scenesters." I asked Maddin if he minded Cohen always being around with his ever-present "associates." "What do you mean? I used to pray Mickey would come in because he's spend a grand every night!...and then at closing time he'd buy the entire club breakfast down the street at the Round-Up."

   One night, Dizzy Gillespie was booked into the Peacock Lane on Hollywood Boulevard - fresh from New York's 52nd Street - with his 20 piece band. Maddin was headlining across the street at the Mural Room, so after work he walked over, sat at the bar and found himself in ecstasy from the tremendous performance and musicianship. He bought the entire band a drink. Dizzy came over after the set and the two met for the first time. Dizzy said "A friend of mine is sitting over there, his name is Marlon Brando, why don't you join us?" Brando was in town filming his first movie "On The Waterfront". Dizzy walked Maddin over from the bar to join them at their table. They became fast friends and then the band came over. Then Brando said "Why don't you sit in with Dizzy?" and Dizzy said "Come on up!" So they played a set - Maddin reading the charts with the band. From that meeting Gillespie and Maddin became life-long friends.

   Later, some of the men from the Screen Actors Guild asked Jimmie to help them open an after hours club - The Midnight Club. Hangouts like the Midnight Club (where Jimmie first met Ray Bolger in 1953) were the proving grounds for ideas that would later make it to record. Maddin impressed Bolger with his honking and solid horn playing combination, TV looks and wild performance gyrations. Bolger invited Maddin to appear on his television show. When the moment came, Jimmie broke with his planned performance and began following Bolger in his dance around the soundstage. Honking as he went and high-fiveing Bolger in mid stride, Maddin in that moment broke into the sun.

   Maddin's cavalcade of characters continued to grow throughout the 1950s, frequenting his clubs. The west coast jazz scene's musically ground breaking Sanbah ('53). The motto was
Where Hollywood and Sunset meet, you get that Maddin beat." The Sundown ('59), later called the Summit - a legendary jazz club from which the great Terry Gibbs recorded his "Dream Band." Located at Sunset and Wilcox on the strip, Maddin used the club as a platform for many musical experiments. Ornette Coleman played his plastic sax there. John Coltrane made his first L.A. appearance there. It pissed off Miles Davis so much he sat at the bar drinking, ran up a $500 tab with guests, called Maddin over and started to explain why he wasn't going to pay. Maddin countered with "You're going to pay and I'll tell you why..." The common sense that ensued related to the realities of the business of music, and Davis paid the bill.

   Quincy Jones would call up Maddin in the middle of the night and ask to showcase his latest find. Maddin always agreed, and many unknowns got their start on his bandstand. But when Terry Gibbs called, Jimmie helped him build the greatest ensemble ever. Right away, people called it "a dream" because you'd never see these guys all in one place. Maddin showcased the band, and as history has shown, it was a huge success. So they decided to record the ensemble surreptitiously from the club office. They set up a board and tape machine and ran the cables under the door. No one except Maddin, Gibbs and the band really knew what was going on. The crowd went crazy and Gibbs' classic album "Terry Gibbs Dream Band Live At The Summit" was born. Go get it on vinyl. You won't believe the performance or the musicianship.

  Later, in 1968, Maddin's older brother called him up one night at the club. "The Democratic National Convention is letting out and the politicians are thirsty and they all want girls..." Of course, Jimmie had every beautiful person in town following him around from club to club. The men from Washington D.C. mobbed the place. Today Maddin says "I never had anything to do with the private business of those people (the politicians and women). I was playing music and selling booze"......but that's another story altogether.
READ Volume #4