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“Apollo”. I went by to see him and when he dug my clothes, I had to take the whole trio down to get wardrobes. To show his appreciation, he found an open date in his schedule and told me to hire a hall and do the publicity and we’d split after expenses.
    I went to Mr. Buchanon and rented his other ballroom “The Golden Gate”. He laughed and said I’d lose my shirt using a Wednesday night. The place could hold seven thousand people. When I arrived at eight o’clock to open the box office, the complete block was filled. Traffic had to be re-routed. By eleven o’clock I had sold five thousand tickets, when a police captain told me to shut down. I explained the fire marshall had okayed seven thousand, but they made me close anyway. The other two thousand people had come out to go to a dance so they just walked down one block and by midnight, the “Savoy” was full (dig it)?
    “Nat and Nadine” were staying with “Andy Kirk” and that morning over breakfast we split twenty-eight hundred dollars. With all this bread I’m now really “Mr. New York”. I moved to “Sugar Hill” took a kitchenette on “Hamilton Terrace”. All the professional and good doing people were in that block. I invited “Dizzy” and “Web” by and reached under my bed and shocked them with a suitcase full of money.
    M Y NAME was going around. All the high powered broads were “shooting” on me. I’d let them think they were going to con me out of my bread until I had made it with them. I’d ran through about “ten” before the word got out that “Babs ain’t gonna spend nothing, but the evening”. “Lucky Thompson” left “Lionel Hampton” and moved in with me and two weeks later “Trummy Young” who was ducking the cops for non-support moved in. The old “West Indian” landlady triedto give me trouble for having two extra people, but with my money I just gave her an extra “ten”. Trummy got out to “Hawaii” in a couple of weeks and “Lucky” got a gig in “New Haven” and took me on it.
    We had a ball in “New Haven”. There were a lot of “Portugese” chicks and beautiful little untouched “colored” orchids. I had been watching “Billy Eckstine”, and I began to realize that to make long bread one needed to be a singer and look pretty for the girls. I started my singing career up there with “Lucky” and when we came back after three months, I was cool with about twenty tunes.
    In May of “46” I started rehearsing my first group. It was “Babs Three Bips and A Bop”. I had “Tad Dameron”, whod already made a name as a great arranger for “Basie” on piano and vocal. “Pee Wee Tinney” guitarist and vocal and “Art Phipps” bass and vocal. I had me a set of drums made so I could stand up and play them out front. We rehearsed at “Helen Humes” pad in the basement of the “Douglas Hotel” everyday for a month. I copped a gig at “Minton’s” and one night “Alfred Lions” came in to dig us. He said we gassed him, but we were too far out for the people. We closed at “Minton’s” and went back to rehearsing. Tad had to cut out and travel with “Basie” so I replaced him with “Bobby Tucker”, who was idle because “Lady Day” had gotten busted.
    “Nat” came in town and this time he gave me two open dates. I told my guys not to worry that I would send them fifteen dollars a week while I made this money with “Nat”. I booked two places. “The Convention Hall” in “Atlantic City” and the “Newark Armory”. Nat gave me three thousand for expense bread so for six weeks I was shuttling between “Newark” and “Atlantic City”. I was a big man. Chicks in both towns were mine for the asking if I promised to introduce them to “Nat”.
    “Convention Hall” could hold fifteen thousand people and at six o’clock the night of the dance, I got a call from “Nat” that they were “stormed in” in “Milwaukee” and no planes were leaving. I kept my