By Rod Arroyo and Jim Gallert
Dave Usher grew up in a Detroit home where classical music wasn’t just preferred—it was mandatory. His parents played the works of Beethoven, Bach, and other classical composers at home, and by age six, his mother was taking him to Detroit Symphony Orchestra concerts. With three siblings who were all musicians, the Usher household was filled with music culture.
Dave was not a musician like his other siblings, but he discovered his brother Bill’s recording stash – a collection of jazz records – and it would open his music world to a whole new sound.
“It grabbed me; it got under my skin,” Dave would later write in his book (with Berl Falbaum) Music is Forever: Dizzy Gillespie, the Jazz Legend, and Me. “It became an inseparable part of my being.”
The record that sealed his fate? Cab Calloway’s “Tarzan of Harlem,” featuring a young trumpet player named John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie as a soloist. Dave was hooked.
The Birth of Bebop
While Dave was falling in love with jazz in Detroit, Dizzy Gillespie was making history in Harlem and on 52nd Street in New York. In 1941 and 1942, the legendary after-hours sessions at Minton’s Playhouse – where Dizzy jammed with Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and more – became the laboratory where bebop was born. The new sound made its formal debut in November 1943 when Dizzy and Oscar Pettiford took the stage at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street, delivering a new style of jazz to the New York jazz scene and the press.
The Ride that Changed Everything (it was just one block long)
Fast forward one year to November 10, 1944. Dizzy was booked at Detroit’s Paradise Theater on Woodward Avenue with Billy Eckstine’s band. Dave, now a teenager, bought two tickets and drove his girlfriend to the show (driving regulations had been relaxed during wartime, and he could drive at 14).
But Dave had a plan beyond just watching the show. Armed with access to scarce gasoline -courtesy of his father’s oil industry connections during a truck driver’s strike – he stationed himself at the stage door after the performance. When Dizzy and his wife Lorraine emerged, Dave introduced himself and offered them a ride back to the Gotham Hotel, which was only about one block away.
That one-block drive was the start of a fifty-year friendship.
Ditching School Work for Jazz History
By 1945, Dizzy was conquering Detroit’s Shubert-Lafayette Theatre as a bandleader (his “first jazz concert anywhere,” according to promoter Bill Randle) and making bebop history with the “Big Bang of Bebop,” a several-month-long residency at New York’s Three Deuces Club with Charlie Parker. Dizzy first met Milt Jackson before the Shubert-Lafayette “Strictly Jive” show and was so impressed he asked him to be in his band for the Detroit show. Milt later joined Dizzy on his West coast tour.
During this same period, Dave was bombing out of Detroit Central High School. His parents’ solution? Private school. Dave chose Admiral Farragut Academy in New Jersey—ostensibly for naval studies, but really for its proximity to New York City’s jazz clubs.
On weekends, Dave went to the Spotlite Club on 52nd Street. When Dizzy spotted him, “he remembered our encounter at the Paradise Theatre, and embraced me,” Dave recalled. “I would see him as often as I could, and he would welcome me every time and, on occasion, invite me to his apartment at 116th Street and 7th Avenue in Harlem.”
The school experiment didn’t work- Dave’s grades were still dismal – and he returned to Detroit, but his jazz education was continuing to grow, as were his connections in the industry.
The Jazz Industry Evolves and Big Bands Diminish
By 1950, with World War II behind them and the United States returning to “normal,” Americans were already beginning to lose interest in two staples of the 1940s – big band jazz and bebop. The economy was depressed, and that, plus the sudden rise of television, hit nightclubs and other music venues hard. Across the country, big bands and large ballrooms where they played were folding. The cost of touring with a big band was no longer feasible; even the great Count Basie had to dissolve his orchestra for a while in favor of a small group.
The cultural sea change hit Dizzy Gillespie particularly hard. He was not only fronting a dauntingly hot big band, but that band was also playing bebop. Dizzy had two strikes against him.
“People wanted to hear the beat and the blues, but the bebop musicians didn’t like to play the blues,” he later recalled. “For commercial reasons, I had to abandon my big band, which all of us knew was a great artistic success.”
This was a time when major record labels really didn’t understand jazz. Capitol Records forced Dizzy to record a song called “You Stole My Wife, You Horse Thief.” That was the end of his time with that label. Dizzy needed a new label and a new approach to touring.
The Record Label Born from Frustration
Looking back a couple of years to 1948, an 18-year-old Dave Usher launched Emanon Records (that’s “no name” spelled backwards, also the title of a 1946 Gillespie recording). When an American Federation of Musicians recording ban sent Dizzy to Europe, Dave saw his opening. There was just one problem: Dizzy was under contract to RCA-Victor. The solution? Record under the pseudonym “Saint John.” Industry insiders knew the truth, but it wasn’t quite the same as having Dizzy Gillespie’s name on the label.
The real breakthrough came in 1950. Dizzy had signed with Capitol Records in 1949 and it was not going well. They forced their hand with Dizzy without appreciation for his individual style, and they ended up parting ways in 1950. Dave Usher recalled, “That’s when we decided to start our own record label,” Enter Detroit-based Dee Gee Records, with Dizzy and Dave as 50-50 partners.
Making History at United Sound
By February 1951, Dizzy had abandoned his costly big band format and formed a legendary sextet featuring Percy Heath, “Kansas” Fields, Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane, and Milt Jackson. They played a 10-day gig at Detroit’s Club Juana on Woodward Avenue. A few days after that gig, Dave got them into United Sound Systems Studios to record.
On March 1, 1951, they recorded “We Love to Boogie,” “Birk’s Works,” and “Tin Tin Deo” in Detroit. That session was monumental: it marked one of 24-year-old John Coltrane’s first recording sessions and his first known bebop session. It was also 19-year-old Wayne State student Kenny Burrell’s first recorded release (an earlier recording session with Otis “Bu Bu” Turner was not released until 1954).
Over the next two years, Dee Gee Records became a Detroit jazz powerhouse, recording trombonist Frank Rosolino with Barry Harris, the Billy Mitchell Quintet with Thad and Elvin Jones, and launching vocalist Jackie “Sonny Boy” Wilson (later just Jackie Wilson) and Kenny Burrell’s recording careers.
The South American Adventure
The Dee Gee story ended badly—Dave leased the catalog to Savoy Records in a deal that left him and Dizzy with nothing. But their friendship only deepened. By 1956, when the U.S. State Department sponsored Dizzy’s South American tour, Dave came along as “Public Information Officer” (and unofficial documentarian), recording 13 hours of performances across five countries with a 17-member band that included a 23-year-old Quincy Jones.
Those tapes became a three-volume CD set, “Dizzy in South America,” released in 1993 after Dizzy’s death. Ten hours of recordings are still unreleased. Dizzy’s touring band included Quincy Jones, Bama Warwick, E.V. Perry (trumpet), Phil Woods and Jimmy Powell (alto sax), Benny Golson and Billy Mitchell (tenor sax), Marty Flax (baritone sax), Melba Liston, Frank Rehak, and Rod Levitt (trombone), Walter Davis, Jr. (piano), Nelson Boyd (bass), Austin Cromer (vocals), and Charlie Persip (drums).
Encounters with Two Presidents
While the many adventures of Dave and Dizzy are far too extensive to include in one article, the stories of Dizzy and Dave and the White House are important to mention.
The first visit came on June 18, 1978 when President Jimmy Carter invited 38 internationally acclaimed jazz musicians to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival. Dizzy asked Dave to join him for the celebration. Dizzy performed for the President and Mrs. Carter and was going to leave, but Dave suggested he stay for a while longer. Later, President Carter asked Dizzy to do one final song, “Salt Peanuts.” Dizzy agreed on one condition: the President had to join on stage to sing the lyrics, which is simply, “Salt Peanuts.” He agreed, and with Max Roach backing on drums, Dizzy performed, and President Carter added the signature vocals.
The second visit came in November 1989, when he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President George H.W. Bush. Once again, Dizzy asked Dave to accompany him to the event. In a classic moment, when Dizzy reached the stage and stood beside President and Barbara Bush, and was bestowed the U.S. government’s highest award for artists and art patrons. Dave Usher noted that Dizzy was correcting a zipper situation at the moment. Classic Dizzy.
From Jazz to Oil Spills and More Adventures
Dave’s jazz journey continued through Argo Records (Chess Records’ jazz division), where he produced Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis, Barry Harris, and others. He created the Birmingham, Michigan’s jazz festival in 1960, which ran at Shain Park for nearly 50 years, and he recorded sessions during the first two years of the festival.
Then, in 1967, Dave shocked everyone by leaving music to form Marine Pollution Control Company. His new venture included success in facing extreme challenges, including cleaning up the Exxon Valdez disaster and leading the Persian Gulf cleanup after Desert Storm at the request of President George H.W. Bush. Dave made Dizzy an honorary member of the Marine Pollution Control Board of Directors, and he attended one of the Board meetings in Detroit.
But through it all—through oil spills and boardrooms and decades away from the music business—Dave and Dizzy remained brothers. Dave continued to travel with Dizzy on international trips including Cuba (1985), Nigeria (1989) Brazil (1989), and Namibia (1990).
That one-block ride in 1944 had become a lifetime of adventures, a record label that changed jazz history, and a friendship that proved sometimes the shortest distances create the longest legacies.
Special thanks to Charles “Charlie” Usher, Dave Usher’s son and current President of Marine Pollution Control, for providing access to many of the photos shown above that come from the Dave Usher Collection. In addition to record producer, promoter, A&R rep, and pollution remediation expert, Dave was an avid photographer and captured many moments with Dizzy over the years.
