[Dixielandjazz] Don Jones relates about his father's teaching Paul Breitenfeld ( Desmond)

[Norman Vickers]

To:  DJML and Musicians and Jazzfans list

From:  Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Don Jones, editor of traditional jazz monthly, American Rag, had mentioned
that his father gave lessons to Paul Breitenfeld ( later he renamed himself
Paul Desmond).

Don said that his father would never give him, Don, music lessons but that
Don would listen in on some of Dad's lessons.  So, I asked Don if it were OK
to post to the list and got an affirmative answer.  I'm passing this on in
hopes it will flesh out the Paul Desmond story a bit.  Don mentioned it in
the July issue of AR.  See my note at the bottom which prompted the response
from Don.

Thanks, Don.

 

 

From: Don Jones [mailto:pubdonj at verizon.net] 
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 3:43 PM
To: 'Norman Vickers'
Subject: RE: congrats on the story about your dad's teaching Paul
Breitenfeld ( Desmond)

 

Thanks, Norman. 

    About ten years ago I was telling this story to the late Nan Bostick,
Ragtime pianist//teacher//historian, who knew the Breitenfeld's personally,
and recalled having heard from them at the time that someone was giving
lessons to Breitenfeld's son, Paul, but of course didn't know it was my
father at the time. 

    Paul would come to my grandmother's laundry to get his lessons from my
father, and I had to be like a little mouse in the corner. 

    She hated the constant sound of clarinet and sax students' noises
squawking above her laundry rooms downstairs. 

    Dad would teach his students from her New Central French Laundry on 12th
St., in Oakland, CA because it had a large dining room on the second floor
where he could set-up a music stand and use the dining room table to open
instrument cases. 

    I'll never forget, shortly after the Japanesee had bombed Pearl Harbor,
my dad was teaching a nearby Japanese boy (older than me) who's parents
operated their grocery story down the street from my grandmother's laundry.
As the mouse in the corner, I heard him tell dad this would be his last
lesson because his family would be closing their store and would be forced
to move into one of the concentration camps the U.S. government established
to get them away from the Calif. coastline. I never saw him again. 

    The real benefit was that the location had an electric (Key System - the
"A" line) commuter train service that traveled throughout the Oakland east
bay and Berkeley areas connecting directly with San Francisco traveling over
the S.F./Oakland Bay bridge; he used her laundry without having to pay her. 

    Here's a great YouTube I just found this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXbicSxD0_g showing all this in living color!
WOW!

    At about 5-minutes into the video it begins to show the 1939 & 1940
World's Fair at which my father played and which I visited every weekend for
two years. 

d.j.

 

From: Norman Vickers [mailto:nvickers1 at cox.net] 
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 2:05 PM
To: Don Jones
Subject: congrats on the story about your dad's teaching Paul Breitenfeld (
Desmond)

 

Interesting.  My  home copy of AR came today but the copies to the Jazz
Society came last week!  

I didn't congratulate you on that nice story about your growing up years and
your father's instruction of young Desmond.

I'd heard you tell that but not in the detail  as in the AR.

 

Hope you get good feed-back on that.

 

Norman