Saturday morning. It was hot, then some! Take the 4 train way up into the Bronx to Woodlawn, the end of the line. Not a cloud in the sky, it was hotter than hot. Fortunately, several bottles of water would see us through - or would they? Woodlawn Cemetery is the final resting place of some of America's once rich and most certainly famous. At the entrance to the sprawling grounds a helpful gatekeeper handed us a map, a most useful aid, showing, as it does, the approximate location of several prominent graves.
Woodlawn is on a vast scale. Over the course of four hours and more we saw two other people - one tending a grave, the other on a mission. Some of the many famous names resting/residing here include: George M. Cohan, Damon Runyon, Herman Melville, Dorothy Parker, Otto Preminger and F.W. Woolworth. Our focus was on the jazz legends. Walking with map in hand, the jazz section was that-a-way...
Gravestones as far as the eye could see and beyond, who would we find first? An hour or so later we were down two bottles of water. The phrase, paraphrased, Mad dogs and jazz fans sprung to mind. Mausoleums were ten-a-dime, largely gaudy constructions. One such was being tended by an ageing woman. Perhaps she visits most days...
It was getting hotter, another bottle of water down. If it wasn't for the woodland this was Ice Cold in Alex. Two hours into our search...Hey! Look who I've found! Clark ''TC'' Terry (1920-2015). From there, it became a little easier. Standing at a crossroads, we nodded to the only other living person on the premises. A guitar teacher from Chicago, now living in NYC, in his first week in town, he was doing precisely what we were doing! What's the odds? Our American had done his research. Notes in hand, he pointed to various plots. We're looking for Ellington and Miles, we said. Pointing to the ground less than one metre from where we were standing, there it was, a simple stone, the inscription read: ''Duke'' Edward Kennedy Ellington 1899-1974. Our Chicagoan motioned to his left. No more than three metres away, there it was, in marked contrast to Ellington, a large, black, shiny slab: Sir Miles Davis 1926-1991. Wow! Duke and Miles within touching distance of one another. Quite a moment.
More revealed themselves...Illinois Jacquet 1922-2004; Lionel Hampton 1908-2002 and Hampton Flying Home. Thanks to our American friend we found the, as yet, unlisted grave of Tommy Flanagan March 16, 1930-November 16, 2001. The bottled water supply was running low. There's Jackie McLean, over here! Norma Miller 'Queen of Swing', trumpeter Joe Wilder, Charles ''Cootie'' Williams, at last we were making progress.
Three hours in, our water supply was fast dwindling. Our map indicated the next resident was some distance from the 'jazz' graves. Eventually we stumbled across it...Coleman Hawkins 1904-1969. Our mission was almost complete. One giant of the music eluded us. A half bottle of water would have to see us through. For the best part of an hour we looked here and there, it was akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Water exhausted, our quest came to an end. Joe 'King' Oliver had eluded us. Russell
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