As a jazz fan, I was excited to dig into Carmen Fields’ new book about her father Ernie Fields, a Tulsa band leader who performed in Oklahoma and around the country from the 1920s to 60s. He was friends with big names like Count Basie and Bob Wills and played with musicians like Roy Milton and—very briefly—Miles Davis. (Ernie let Davis go after two weeks, saying, “The little cat plays nice, but you can’t find him, can’t hear him back there.”)
“Going Back to T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band” details a musician’s life of gigs, bursts of success and misses. Meanwhile, Ernie was helping create opportunities for other Black musicians. His group was the first Black band to perform at the Tulsa Club and Cain’s Ballroom. And he founded Tulsa’s first union local for Black musicians when membership was a requirement to be booked at many clubs.
I spoke with Carmen, host and producer of Higher Ground on Boston’s WHDH, about touring before desegregation, Ernie’s friendship with Wills and the business side of running a jazz band. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Mollie Bryant: A lot of your book is set in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, and one place you mentioned was the Small Hotel. It was a hotel where some of Ernie’s band members would stay. You also mentioned the Small Hotel was demolished to build Interstate 244. How did the highway change the Greenwood neighborhood and affect jazz culture in Tulsa?
Carmen Fields: In addition to some of the musicians living or staying at the Small Hotel from the Tulsa bandstands, it was also the place where musicians from other organizations—Count Basie, Duke Ellington’s (bands)—would stay. When they came to town, that’s where Black musicians were housed, so it was quite a buzz of activity during that era.
When the highway came, it cut … a whole swath of Greenwood—not just the Small Hotel, but The Oklahoma Eagle had to move its location. … It destroyed the vibrancy that had been experienced during the heyday of jazz and swing.
Bryant: Your book goes into the role of music unions in jazz. You needed to be a part of the union to book certain shows, but it also seemed like a way that clubs could discriminate against Black musicians.
Fields: When my father started out, he was not a member of the union, but from time to time, when he would attempt to book in a particular venue, … sometimes the proprietor would ask, “Are you a member of the union?” And if he said no, they said, “We only book union people,” and my father suspected that that was sometimes used as an excuse not to hire Black musicians, that they probably didn’t have Black musicians in the venue at all, but that was a handy excuse that was used.
Being the entrepreneur fellow that he was, he determined he wanted as many opportunities as possible, so he determined to affiliate with the union, and the book describes at the time there was only one union in Tulsa, and it was closed, meaning it was only available to white musicians. The closest Black local was in Dallas, so he and all of his musicians affiliated with the Dallas local.
Sometime later, it may have been Count Basie or some other acquaintance or colleague suggested to him that as large as his organization was he could probably establish a local in Tulsa, and so that’s what he did. … That made it possible to remove excuses from some venues. It also set minimums for pay, which was important, and it offered the protection of (life) insurance policies, although the benefits of a Black musician were half of what they paid for a white musician.
Bryant: One challenge of being a traveling musician is literally getting from place to place, and that was especially the case for Black musicians traveling before the Green Book and before desegregation. What was traveling like for Ernie and his band?
Fields: Many of the long hours on the road were spent with card games and those with transistor radios listening to music and/or baseball games on the radio and stopping where they could to find food, in the event they located someone who would serve African Americans. One of the stories I tell in the book was the bus had two 40-gallon gasoline tanks, one on each side, and my father always kept one tank full, and when the other became low, he would pull into a service station.
He would ask, if he filled up the bus, could they use the restroom, and if the attendant said no, he would say, ‘We’ll drive on,’ and he would use that as a tool for business, figuring that the love of money would outweigh any prejudice that the attendant may have.
Bryant: Ernie wanted to have crossover appeal and just play what people wanted, and if he was playing for a white audience, that might be country music, so he had a fiddle player in the band. I wondered if you could talk about that strategy a bit?
Fields: Well, his principal maxim was to play what the audience liked, not just what he liked to play, and of course, his program was his program. He had a standard list of songs, but he liked to be versatile, and if he was in a venue that seemed to lean toward country and western or if he got requests for certain numbers, he was happy to accommodate.
He had at different times musicians that doubled on the fiddle, as he called it, or were violin players. It was also at the same time that Claude Williams, another famous Oklahoma musician, was rising up through the Count Basie organization. He got his start and switched from guitar to fiddle, and they called him Claude “Fiddler” Williams because he staked out a claim as a virtuoso and jazz violinist. Daddy wanted to have someone who could play jazz violin, but also, if need be, could do the popular country and western songs of the day.
Bryant: Part of Ernie’s success as a band leader was his business savvy, and he learned from a lot of people along the way. Can you talk about his relationship with country musician Bob Wills?
Fields: First of all, he was very entrepreneurial and would use every wit and determination to assure success or secure bookings and keep the orchestra working. He was an entrepreneur, but he also had a strong sense of integrity. This was in a day when people could make deals with a handshake. He took pride that he was a person of his word. He also considered himself and welcomed being a bit of a father figure to many of the musicians, so his advice was often sought and used to settle disputes or what have you.
I’m not sure how he and Bob Wills met, but by both of them being based in Tulsa, for whatever reason, their paths crossed, and they had this deep and long-term friendship. As my father described it, Bob Wills apparently had respect for my father’s organization and his performance skills and would give clues on booking strategies, what to ask for for guarantees and what percentage of the gate to pursue. He would always say, “Don’t play yourself cheap.”
In addition to that, Bob Wills also recommended previous all-white, … small-town venues where he had enjoyed success, and probably the largest of those recommendations was the historic Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. At his recommendation, Dad’s was the first Black organization to perform there, and Bob Wills threatened that he would not perform there anymore unless they allowed Ernie Fields access there.
Go deeper:
- Read more about “Going Back to T-Town”
- Hear one of Ernie’s biggest songs, “T-Town Blues,” with vocals by Melvin Moore and Amos Woodruff playing the trumpet
- Read The Oklahoma Eagle
Contact Streetlight editor Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@streetlightnews.org. Follow her reporting by joining our newsletter.
Streetlight, previously BigIfTrue.org, is a nonprofit news site based in Oklahoma City. Our mission is to report stories that envision a more equitable world and energize our readers to improve their communities. Donate to support our work here.
