Milt Hinton introduces the Cab Calloway band to Oscar Pettiford. He later convinced Pettiford to go to New York City where Pettiford made his name.
"I went back to the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis, and I'm ravin' about Oscar Pettiford, and I'd invited Oscar to come over, backstage, 'cause in the rehearsal hall I wanted the guys to hear him. So Oscar came over for all of us to hear, and I called all the guys up includin' Cab up to hear him, and he was so amazed. Cab wanted to fire me right on the spot and hire Oscar, and he would have fired me 'cept that Oscar wasn't ready to leave, and he was havin' too much fun. And Cab seein' the potential and hearing everybody ravin'--and his only criteria was if the guys rave, he must be good. And so Chu and Doc Cheatham and Keg Johnson were all ravin', includin' me--I brought him over. So there goes my gig right out the window! [laughter]. Course, it didn't happen that way, and later Oscar went with Barnet."
Milt Hinton from Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s
Come see my tribute to Oscar Pettiford:
photo by rachel stern. Michael Sarin, Trevor Dunn, Erik Friedlander, Michael Blake
October 15 - 8p
The LilyPad in Carmbridge, MA
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October 28 - 830p
Rockwood Music Hall in NYC, NY
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Twitter: @RockwoodNYC