10. Tadd Dameron adley Ewing the Cleveland musician. Dameron was an With his book about to go r important , but to press, MacDonald asked under-recognized , me for help in checking contributor to the bebop out the rumor about revolution of the 1940s. Dameron being adopted. The Cleveland native was I called Cleveland City not a national celebrity but Hall's Bureau of Vital is still highly respected by Statistics and tracked jazz musicians as a down the birth certificates composer and arranger of both Caesar and Tadd who spanned the eras of Dameron. When I went to swing and bop. Perhaps City Hall and got copies of more than anyone else, he the documents, I added form to the discovered some surprises emerging new style ofjazz - some information that that was being pioneered had never been reported by Dizzy Gillespie and before. Charlie Parker. According to the birth Dameron biographer certificates, Caesar was Ian MacDonald wrote that born at 9:45 p.m., March 4, Dameron was ''the main 1914, at 2177 East 30th man when it came to Courtesy Riverside Records Street in Cleveland. The translating the language of Tadd Dameron official birth certificate bop from small combo to says Caesar was the son of a bigger band setting." 21- year-old Isaiah Peake, a porter, who had come to Dameron arranged for most of the important big Cleveland from Tennessee, and his 20-year-old wife, Ruth bands ofhis era, was instrumental in the introduction of Harris Peake, who was born in Mississippi. such all-time jazz greats as Clifford Brown and John Tadd' s birth certificate said he was born at 11 :15 a.m., Coltrane, and composed such jazz standards as "If You February 21 , 1917, at City Hospital (later Metro). Could See Me Now," "Good Bait" and "Hot House." According to Tadd's birth certificate, his parents were But the Cleveland native' s career was cut short by also Isaiah and Ruth Peake. By 1917, the couple had drugs and health problems and he never achieved great moved to 4500 Central Avenue. fame outside of the jazz world. The discovery of the birth certificates in Cleveland's Bureau of Vital Statistics proved that Tadd and Caesar Dameron' s fam iIy were brothers, both the sons of Isaiah and Ruth Peake. Dameron was born in Cleveland in 1917, but, like While Tadd never talked about it during his lifetime, many aspects of his life, there was a great deal of his widow and biographer MacDonald believed that Ruth confusion surrounding details of his birth and family. and Isaiah Peake split up sometime after Tadd was born MacDonald was completing his biography of and she married a man named Adolphus Dameron. He Dameron when he suddenly heard a rumor from a was a chef and had a restaurant in Cleveland called normally reliable source that Tadd and his brother, Dameron's Hut. With or without a formal adoption, Caesar, were not really brothers. The source told Ruth's sons, Caesar and Tadd, apparently took her new MacDonald that Tadd had been adopted. This was a husband's surname. fairly important bit of information for a writer who was Tadd's widow gave MacDonald a copy of a letter about to publish a biography. MacDonald called Tadd' s Ruth had written to President Franklin Roosevelt during widow, Mia, who said she did not believe that Tadd had War IT in an attempt to get "Caesar Dameron" excused been adopted, but she did say she was always amazed at from military service. That letter was signed, "Ruth how different Tadd and Caesar were physically and in Harris Dameron." just about every other respect. While all this may seem to be little more than an Mia had given MacDonald a copy ofthe first edition academic exercise, it does assume some historical of my Cleveland Jazz History book. MacDonald and I importance when you attempt to pinpoint the earliest had been corresponding and sharing information about musical influences of one of the most important jazz 106 Cleveland Jazz History musicians in Cleveland studying all the time history. ...... _ l'I'A.ft..wma. Of" ___ otIIO and I said to myself, In a 1952 interview, CII'RTIl'lCATS 01" BIRTH 'Gee whiz, with kids Tadd said he was born like that, who stay in ....._---- ....._-­ ---_ ... and study! You don't into a musical family. --_...._--- _ . !US He told interviewer expect to hear anything Harry Frost, that good! '" "Everybody in my At Central High family played music. School, Dameron My mother played ironically failed his piano. My father music exams. But he played piano and sang. became friendly with a My brother plays alto. young trumpeter named My cousins and my Freddie Webster. Tadd aunts, they all play." _,.,~-......_~0It_ later said he and He added, "My mother ..........1.............'........ " a..-4£ erl~_ ....... Webster, who was the ..- ~. 4 Ib"'" fL ....h ......... taught me piano, but same age, ''were raised ~.} "" c , l.>:~ft,.=ty+ she did not read." together." They both ..- .....-'........... "..t -~--~~'IIIIJ_..._---­ While it is clear that were fascinated with the Dameron considered his -----,-- ;:ZsiijiJ :::J1:~~ ..... music being played in -'?M. » mother his first musical the 1930s by the big influence, we do not Tadd Dameron's birth certificate bands, particularly the know who he was Jimmie Lunceford talking about when he said, "My father played piano and Orchestra. They often went to the Palace Theatre sang." Was it Isaiah Peake or Adolphus Dameron? downtown to hear the bands including Duke Ellington. There was another mystery uncovered in the discovery While still at Central, Webster began making a name of-the birth certificates. On Tadd's certificate, there is a for himself playing gigs around Cleveland. After high notation that he was the third living child of Isaiah and school, he formed his own 14-piece band which toured Ruth Peake. Tadd's widow said she never heard about Northern Ohio in 1938 and 1939. WebsterpersuadedTadd another sibling. · She said that during many detailed to play piano in his band and Dameron later said Webster conversations with Tadd's mother, she never mentioned was the person responsible for starting him on a career in any children other than Tadd and Caesar. jazz. Dameron also later claimed he had taught Webster how to breathe when he was playing the trumpet. Dameron's early life Caesar Dameron, three years older than Tadd, was Oberlin College? apparently the person who got Tadd interested in jazz. At one point in his youth, Dameron later told friends Tadd later said he spent a great deal of time listening to that he had originally hoped to become a doctor. There his older brother's records. In the 1952 interview, Tadd were published accounts that he went to Oberlin College as said, "I was listening to Fletcher Henderson, Duke a pre-med student but dropped out after seeing a man with Ellington and the Casa Lorna band that was playing his arm severed. According to the story, Dameron said, unique arrangements at the time." "There is enough ugliness in the world; I'm interested in Tadd attended old Central High School on East 55th beauty." Street, a school with a rich musical tradition and where While Dameron was, no doubt, more interested in many future outstanding jazz musicians learned the beauty than ugliness, biographer MacDonald wrote, "The mechanics ofthe art. famous and much perpetuated' severed arm' story appears Veteran Cleveland jazz musician Andy Anderson to be pure fantasy." After his death, Dameron's widow all told me he first heard Tadd play piano in the 1930s but admitted the story was apoctyphal. MacDonald and when Caesar brought his kid brother to the Columbus Caesar Dameron's wife, Dorothy, made "extensive Nightclub at East 46th and Carnegie and asked if the inquiries" at Oberlin, but could find no record ofTadd ever teenager could sit in with the Snake White Band. attending any classes there. Anderson said he was amazed when Tadd started The stories about enrolling at Oberlin and seeing a man playing. "He's got ten fmgers and all of them went with a severed arm may have been Dameron's way of down just like this (on the piano keys) and all of them trying to justify his decision to give up his hopes of were on different notes," said Anderson. "He had been becoming a doctor and turning to jazz. Tadd Dameron 107 Dameron's first arrangements of Charles Mingus' While Dameron was probably at least partially monumental work Epitaph, responsible for some arrangements for the early Freddie tried to [md Dameron' s Webster band, he later said, "My first big band early scores for the Leonard arrangement was for the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra," a band band. Homzy called that had been formed in Cleveland in 1934 and was Leonard in Los Angeles in touring the Midwest. In 1938, at the age of21, Dameron the early 1970s and asked, arranged "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" for the "Are you the Harlan Jeter-Pillars band. He later said, "Everything was wrong Leonard who had a band in with it, but there were some good ideas." the 1940s?" The music Also in 1938, Dameron replaced the ill Clyde Hart as Harlan Leonard professor was shocked and the pianist on the Blanche Calloway band and toured surprised when Leonard with the band for a brief period. He returned to said, "Who are you to call me up and ask me that Cleveland and began arranging for Webster who was question? I've been trying to forget about it for the past leading his own 14-piece local band in Cleveland.