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0: Right. How come you had made the shift, I mean you were playing

with a bigger group--had the style changed? Are there other groupsstil l playing what you'd been playing in 1922, or had that passed

out?

P: Oh, yeah. No, i t hadn't passed out. It was still there. But in

these big bands 1 ke that, well, you just got away from i t . Not

completely 'cause sometimes we'd feature just maybe five or six

boys out in thefront

of the band, playing the old dixieland type(music.

D: Uh-huh. But you're really playi.ng  for an older audience, and these

would be better e n g a g e m e n t s ~. in terms of prestige, and probably 

money. .

P: That's right. The people we were playing for, especially out at

Bagdad, were people that were spending money.

D: Yeah.

P: I can recall .that on Saturday nights--that place seated 900 people.

And at that time, this is just before the crash of 1929, on Saturday

nights by ten o'clock they'd have to shut the door, 'cause the place

was full, and they were getting three-and-a-half per person just to

get in and get a table.

D: This is a "bring your own bottle ll type of place?

P: Right. (Laughs.)  Bring your own bottle.

0: Now, wait a minute. Prohibition was in. Did you IIbring your own

bottle l l then?

P: Yeah. Bootleg.

0: But it was pretty open, that you could bring it in .

P: Oh, sure, they had drinks. They could put i t under the table.

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Parrino 19

0: That was quite a big place.

P: It was a beautiful night club; i t was just thirty years too soon,

I would think. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

D: It was really elegantly done.

P: You bet.

D: Lot of tapestries even?

P: Right. Had a balcony and rooms upstairs, private rooms, you know,

for private parties. A tremendous kitchen.We

sat up on the stageand played; then we did two shows a night. Had some terrific floor J• •

shows. Had a line of girls. A lot of them were before or after

with the IlRockets." They called themselves the "Rockets. 1I I

don't know if •.. Ruth Laird was the leader of the line of girls.

D: And they danced?

P: Yeah . . . they danced. In f a c t ~ three of them live here right now,

right here in Dallas. -

D: Oh, is that right. Did you have a vocalist with your band at this

time?

P: No. Not with this band at Bagdad. We didn't have a female vocalist.

D: Had you ever had a vocalist up to this time in any of the groups?

P: No, except a trio out of the band. But we had no female vocalist.

D: Uh-huh. It just wasn't fashionable at that time to have featured

vocalists?

P: Well, some bands had them. We just didn't have them, that's all.

D: Okay. How long did you play at Bagdad?

P: Well, in 1929 we were in there three different times, four differ-

ent times I think i t was. We went in the first time for I donlt

know how many weeks; then weld go out 'cause didn't wanta get

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Parrino 20

stale. See, the manager of this club is a good friend of mine, and

he liked our band, and so we'd go out and come back, go out and

come back. After the first engagement we went back to California

and played a bunch of those dates that we'd played before in 1928.

Then we came back . . . to Bagdad.

D: About this time the Kansas City jazz would have been pretty impor

tant. Were you aware of it? Did you . .• .

P: Yeah, I began to hear about it . Benny Moten and some of those

bands back there.

D: Count Basie went out for a while, didn't he? He played with Moten.

P: Yeah. Basie was playing piano with Benny Moten.

D: Uh-huh. Did you try to imitate their style, or did you have your

own style pretty.

P: No, we, we hadn't heard too much of Moten's music to try to, you

know, play their style yet.

D: Uh-huh. You were more of the Whiteman .•. style.

P: Right. That's right.

D: Kansas City jazz was a l i t t le hotter, wasn't it?

P: Yes, i t was. Especially Moteri's band, after we began to hear i t

a lot.

D: Were radio broadcasts becoming pretty big? Of course you were

playing most of the time, you probably didn't hear the radio broad

casts. But wasn't there quite a bit of broadcasting from the

Hotel Muehlebach in•. . .

P: Dh, yes. Coon-Sanders' band came out of there.

D: Uh-huh.

P: There was a lot of radio pickups out of the hotels and some of the