So I’m yelling back at him, which he likes because he didn’t like when people backed down. I tried to tell him that C half-diminished is E-flat minor with C in the bass. I thought it was E-flat minor because Monk played it that way, but he says it’s C half-diminished. He says, “Get out of the way,” and pushes me out of the way to show me. So one night I was playing “’Round Midnight,” and in the middle of the fucking tune-not at the end-Mingus gets up from his table and says, “You’re playing the wrong changes.” He’s yelling in my fucking face, and I’m scared. You got educated.īEIRACH: Charles Mingus would come in and eat dinner-like enough for three people-and sit at the table right across from the piano. I was getting schooled … and that was Bradley’s. Now keep in mind that Bradley’s had a hip audience, so everybody knew what was going down. He started playing the melody on the bass, looking at me the whole time he’s playing. Ray Drummond, who’s a big imposing figure of a man, looked at me and shot me the dirtiest look. I didn’t know it-that bridge is tricky, so I didn’t know the melody-so I started improvising over the changes. So John played the A section and then he motioned for me to play the bridge. John started playing “Sophisticated Lady.” I didn’t really know the tune at the time. RUSSELL MALONE (guitarist): One night I was playing there with John Hicks and Ray Drummond. There was a sense of respect for the composer and for the tradition. I would go in there and listen to certain people play and think, “You’re not playing the bridge right.” But I didn’t have enough gravitas to call them on it. If you’re going to play the tune, know the bridge. HERSCH: There were certain guys that were tough, but they were right. I saw all these pianists sitting there listening to me play, and it was terrifying but oddly validating in the same way. And I remember looking up and seeing Cedar Walton and Ray Bryant and Junior Mance and Harold Mabern. Cecil Taylor occupied his regular position in the corner, at the end of the bar near the piano. set, and I’m looking at the bar and seeing literally a dozen or so pianists that I grew up studying on record as a kid in Wisconsin. GEOFFREY KEEZER (pianist): I remember sitting there, maybe on my first night at the 2 a.m. It was before Paul Desmond had willed his Baldwin to Bradley on the condition that he put it in the club, not in his apartment. And this was back when there was an upright piano. I knew about Bradley’s from The New Yorker-even out in Cincinnati my parents subscribed. I was living in Boston and I knew I wanted to move to New York, so I made a trip down to just look around. HERSCH: The first time I came to Bradley’s was when I came down to New York on a scouting trip. That would’ve been a couple years after the place opened … and there was a definite shift after that came in. It was six nights a week, usually four or five sets a night.ĬUNNINGHAM: It was a Yamaha upright. A Duo ParadiseīEIRACH: I started to play there in 1972 or 1973, and my first gigs were on an upright piano they had-playing duo. From left: Wallace Roney, Mulgrew Miller, Vincent Herring, and Ira Coleman at Bradley’s in New York City, June 26, 1990. In fact, one of The New Yorker listings in the “Night Life” section said, “If it’s electric, you can find it here.” I always thought that was amusing, considering what it eventually became. He had an old electric Wurlitzer so he said, “I’ll give it to you if you want to throw it in there and see if you can get anyone to play it.” That was the first keyboard in there … and the place would really be jumping. Bradley and Roy Kral were good friends, and Roy had a lot of pianos at his house. There was a lot of electric keyboard and guitar. KIRK LIGHTSEY (pianist): Bradley’s was our home.ĬUNNINGHAM: During the first few years of Bradley’s, it wasn’t the piano-and-bass room that it became. In the following oral history, those who knew Bradley’s will attest to its being a sine qua non of the scene for more than a quarter-century. Blessed with one of the city’s best pianos (courtesy of Paul Desmond), Bradley’s was, in the words of the New York Times’ Peter Watrous-written just after the club closed its doors for the last time-“part jazz headquarters, part jazz college, part exhibition hall.” And all this despite the fact that, for most of its existence, drums were strictly prohibited. There, from 1969 to 1996, stood Bradley Cunningham’s eponymous saloon-a spot that served as an enclave for artists of all stripes, a pole star for pianists and bassists, and the last port of call for the jazz community on a nightly basis. For jazz musicians and fans in the know, however, it’s a landmark. To the average passerby, the street-level space at 70 University Place in Manhattan, just a few blocks south of Union Square, holds little significance it currently houses a garden-variety sports bar.
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