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Diamonds Pinned to My Underwear
, . . She left Frisco one night and went to Seattle without telling me that she was leaving. Then she wired me to come on and join her or she would go on to Alaska without me. That scared me. I was afraid 1 could never find her in Alaska, so 1 left The Jupiter fust as it was and caught the next train for the state of Washington. Anita met me with a smile, "I didn't want to go to Alaska, baby5 just wanted you here."
On the streets of Seattle I ran into Ed Montgomery, an old New Orleans sporting-life friend. Ed was now a big-time gambling man and he brought me into those circles and I started losing money. About the time I got down to my last dime Will Bowman asked me to bring a band into his cabaret in Vancouver, Canada. I sent for Radio, my trombone-playing friend who lived in Oakland. (Poor Radio, he's dead now, never got East so none of the critics ever heard him, but that boy, if he heard a tune, would just start making all kind of snakes around it nobody ever heard before.) i also brought in Oscar Holden, who was no hot man, but played plenty straight clarinet. I had good men, but somehow that cabaret didn't do so good. Folks there didn't understand American-style cabarets. So I took a trio into The Regent Hotel—Doc Hutchinson out of Baltimore on drums and Horace Eubanks,* a beautiful hot clarinet from East St. Louis, who had learned from New Orleans men. It cost my boss $5000 to get Horace across the border, but he was worth it. The Regent did a hell of a business and the other places started ringing hot men in.
Patty Sullivan, The Regent owner, was a big-time gambler.
* Jelly Roll later used him in a recording session. See Appendix II.
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