This interview was conducted in the Digital Services Center of the ODU Perry Library on August 14, 2008 by Dr. Jean Major, University Librarian Emerita and Virginia Symphony League Archivist.

James Reeves

Interview with James Reeves

August 14, 2008
Perry Library, Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia

Interviewer: Dr. Jean Major

Listen to interview

Reeves:  I was from 64 till 83.  What’s that? I never even counted.

Major: That’s a long time, 64 to 83.  Before you began with the symphony, what was your professional experience?

Reeves:  I had graduated from Virginia State College.  It was then called Virginia State College for Negroes, and I never display that diploma for a certain reason because I don’t like that, and I played in the band, sang in the choir; I sang in the male chorus.  I was a music major, and I played in the orchestra. I played string bass in the orchestra.  I did not know how to play string bass when I got to Virginia State in 1937, but they had one there, and they needed someone to learn, so I volunteered to learn, and it intrigued me so that I stayed in the practice room with that bass for ages on top of ages during that time.  I just practiced all the time so I could learn it.  The band director happened to have been a tuba major when he graduated, and he was also a string bass player, and I think he went through the same exercises that I did, so he was my teacher for string bass, and he taught me for nothing because I never registered for string bass, but I was registered for tuba because that was my major instrument.  I had played that since junior high school, and I had taken piano.  So I was taking piano; I was taking tuba; I was playing in the band, I was singing in the choir, singing in the male chorus and plus those music courses that I was taking and those basic education courses, but I spent most of my time on that string bass.

Major:   So between college and the symphony, what were your other…?

Reeves:  Well, I went to graduate school at Columbia University.  I played in the orchestra there.  I played in—I got my master’s there, and I got a professional diploma there.  I was going to get the doctorate, but something happened then and cut off my money.  You see the State of Virginia at that time and before paid for anyone who had an undergraduate degree to go get a graduate degree in some northern state, and all you had to do was apply.  It was guaranteed, and I wondered after I got out, I wondered why many of the teachers who taught me didn’t go back and get doctorate degrees.  It wouldn’t have cost anything, but I used it until it was cut out in 19—I think it was about 19—1960, 1963 or

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something like that.  But I had gotten into the symphony then, but I had to stop that, and I got my doctorate by going to school piecemeal; going to Catholic University in Washington D. C., and I would take one day and take three classes to equal at least six hours.  I would take one day every semester and in the summer I would go up and take six hours in the summer, and I commuted like that, and Dr. Brooks gave me some help money-wise that helped me, too.  So I finally got the doctorate in 1979.  I’m an old fellow. [Laughter]

Major:   Well, I was old when I got my doctorate, too.

Reeves:  Oh, really?

Reeves:  Yes, uh-huh but I tried out about 1958.  I tried out.  I don’t know whether you heard that story or not.  It was published in the paper. [Laughter]

Reeves:Oh, okay.  I called Mr. Schenkman.  Mr. Schenkman was the conductor.

Reeves:  Edgar Schenkman, and I asked him if I could audition. They had announcements about auditions in the paper.  He said, “Yeah, come on over.” He asked me about my instrument, and I told him I played string bass.  He said, “Work up some excerpts from symphonies and a solo and come over and let me hear you.”  So, I did that and went over to his home, his studio was in his home, and I played for him, and he looked at me and he said, “Well, you know, before I can take a Colored man into the orchestra, he has to play heads and shoulders above everybody in the orchestra.”  I said, “Including the concertmistress?” and I knew her.  She was a whippersnapper.  I’m telling you, she could play—she could outplay anybody in that symphony.  I said, “Well, I’ll never make it then because I’ll never be able to play as well as she plays,” and I said, “But I play tuba much better than bass because I’ve been on it a longer time.  Maybe I could try out for that?”  He said, “Yeah, take two weeks and come back.”  So I called him and told him I was ready.  He told me to come on by to his studio.  I took my tuba and went by his studio, and I played some tuba solos and some excerpts from symphonies.  He said, “Yeah, yeah, that’s good, that’s good. I like that, but I have a tuba player, and I don’t need but one, and I’m not going to fire him.” [Laughter]  I was flabbergasted.

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Reeves:  Well, they fired him.

Reeves:  Edgar Schenkman – the board fired him.  He went to Richmond and became the conductor up there, and they brought in a young man—you know who it was.

Reeves:  He put in a notice in the paper…

Reeves:  Yeah, Russell Stanger.  All seats are vacant.  Everyone has to audition. That meant everyone in the symphony had to audition, so I called and made an appointment because they were offering that to the community, and they held it in a hotel.  I think it was Radisson Hotel or was it?  It was one hotel, I know, but I went over, auditioned.  I played some excerpts from symphonies, and I played a couple of small solos.  He said, “Okay, you’re in.”  I said, “Huh?”  He said, “You’re in,” and told me when he wanted me to come to rehearsal and where.  It was right across the street over here, in this little elementary school.  It used to be over there.  I think Old Dominion took it over, didn’t they?

Reeves:  Yeah.

Reeves:  Yeah.

Reeves:  It couldn’t have been the new one.  It was the old one.

Reeves:  Mm-hmm.

Reeves:Well, John Lindberg came in the same time I did.  He got out of the Navy at that time, and I didn’t know he had auditioned, but I knew him because I had been playing with him down at Breezy Point in the Officers’ Club.  When I got

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there, I saw John and said, “John Lindberg, what are you doing here?” He said, “I’m the percussionist here.”  I said, “Well, so I know somebody.”  And then there was another fellow who came in at the same time. I can’t think of his name; he was a Filipino clarinet player.

Reeves:  Yes, long gone.

Reeves:  He died a few years ago.  Well, he and I used to be friendly, and we used to play some jazz together.  He didn’t do much jazz, but he did some, and so, I kind of hung out with those guys--those two guys during intermissions.  Intermissions nobody talked to me.

Reeves:  Not even the bass players. [Laughter]

Reeves: So, I struggled with that for a while, and I played and after three years
I… you know, tried to audition for a higher seat.  So I moved up to third chair, and then a few years later, I moved up to second chair, and a few years later the first chair who was–I can’t think of the man’s name now – he didn’t get along with me very well, and I didn’t talk to him much, and he drank a lot, so he came to a dress rehearsal, and we were getting ready for an Easter concert, and the symphony opened with a string bass solo, so Stanger—and he made the most God-awful sound you ever heard in your life.  He had been out playing at night—the night before, and he was drunk, and the drunkenness hadn’t worn off, and he couldn’t tell what he was doing.  Stanger let out some of the worst language. [Laughter]  He said, “Put that bass up. Reeves, get up here to the first chair and play that solo for me.”  Well, I came up and played the solo.  He said, “Okay, you’re first chair now.”  Just like that.

Reeves:Yeah, they found out that I could hire people at Norfolk State.

Reeves:  And everybody wanted to know Jimmy Reeves then, but I knew one lady in there very well, the first cellist, umm…

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Reeves:  Janet Kriner.  She had me on a chair—she put me on her board for Young Audiences, and we were very chummy, and she was one of the first ones I hired because we had a couple of cello players over there who needed teachers, and I don’t play cello.  I can a little bit, but not at that level.  So the first cellist that she taught, she carried him into the symphony, and he was about the fourth chair.  He was very good, and he died just as he finished—just about the time he finished college, he died with cancer.

Reeves:  I went to see him that last time, and he couldn’t talk.  He could recognize me.  I could see in his eyes he recognized me, but I used to pick him up every Saturday and take him to my orchestra rehearsal, and I picked up a lot students from over in Portsmouth.  He lived in Portsmouth, and there was another young lady who lived over there who played with…  See, I haven’t done my homework…  Foreign guy who comes on television with that beautiful orchestra that plays so well, and this black girl gets up there, and she plays the solo.  I know you’ve seen it.

Reeves:  It had to be on W—W…

Reeves:  WHRO.

Reeves:  Because that’s the only one that broadcasts them.

Reeves:  Social context?

Reeves:  You know who played timpani in the symphony before John Lindberg?

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Reeves:  He wouldn’t even speak to me.

Reeves:  He wouldn’t speak to me until he found out I could help him out.  He called me one day and said, “Jimmy, this is Sidney Berg.”  Well, I said, “Hey, hi Sid, how you doing?” He said, “I need—I need a teacher, and I’m wondering if you have someone who’s a substitute—who’s getting ready for student teaching next semester?”  I said, “Yeah, I have a young lady.”  “Young lady.  She can’t handle that.”  I said, “You haven’t met this young lady, yet.  You meet this young lady. I’m going to send her down there and let you meet her, and if you tell me after that that she can’t handle it, I’ll give up.”  He said, “Okay, send her down.”  I sent Mary Wilder down; I never will forget her.  She was an oboe player who played clarinet and saxophone, too, and she went down there, and she convinced him that she could handle it.  Of course, she convinced me she could almost handle me. [Laughter]  And my son was going to see her, too, and she treated him so badly; well he gave up. [Laughter]  He had to put her down.  She was a rough little girl.  And he hired her, and this—I’ll tell you what he told me.  He was, it was a white fellow teaching over at a school in Chesterfield Heights; teaching band, teaching beginning band in the elementary school, and he had a heart attack dealing with those students over there, so he had to let him go, and he wanted this young lady to come in as a substitute teacher and teach—and he was going to give her credit for her student teaching.  He was going to call her student teacher, but she was really being hired, and he was paying her.  That girl turned out the best Christmas concert you’ve ever seen and had no trouble with the boys, not a bit.  And he saw me later on, and he said, “Well, Jim I got to give it to you; you sure described that young lady.”  Well, later on she got married, and she became pregnant, and then when she wanted to come back – Sidney had promised she could come back, but he didn’t say how – he wanted to put her in the classroom as a classroom teacher.  She told him what he could do with that job and went to Hampton and took a job over there and did a wonderful job with the band.  Now she has retired, and she’s become a preacher and is an assistant pastor of a church-- one of the first—the first church that I had joined, it’s called Second Calvary, and now she is the assistant pastor of the Second Calvary Church.

Reeves:  The tour that we took throughout the western part of Virginia.  None of the bass players could get off to go, but I could, so I think I was third chair then, and I went on that tour.  I had just bought a brand new bass that I had always

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wanted.  I had never had a brand new bass. I had just bought it, and I was proud of it, and the concertmistress—I can’t think of her name and another girl were playing on the bus, and I was taking my bass on my shoulder just across the steering wheel of the car when she goosed the girl with her violin--violin case and she jumped forward, and that hit me and knocked the bass right on the steering wheel and punched a hole it.  I had to play the rest of that tour – I guess it was about 17, 18 days that we went on that tour because we went from—we started in Suffolk, then Emporia, Franklin and on west until we got out to Bristol, Whitfield, and those places out west, and we played I guess about 18 or 20, I can’t remember how many there were… concerts, and some of them were student concerts in the daytime.  Some were, you know, regular concerts at night, but that was one high point.  Another high point was playing in Washington D. C. in this concert hall that’s named for President…

Reeves:  The Kennedy Center, yeah.

Reeves:  Yeah, playing there was one of the high points.

Reeves:  Mm-hmm.

Reeves:  They only carried three basses up there, and I was one of them.

Reeves:  There was one low point.  They—the symphony had a big showcase for trying to get members to, you know, to buy season tickets, and they had… after we played, they had a little reception, and they had some—some ladies from the board who were helping and serving.  So I went up to get a drink, and I asked for a Coke, and a lady over here said, “Young man, young man, come over here, I know you’re like this one,” so she handed me a drink in a cup—I mean in a glass. I tasted it – whiskey – so I put it back down and said, “I don’t want that.”  I walked on away.  Then I told Stanger about it, and I said, “Maestro some of these people have some strange ideas about Black folks.  They think Black folks only drink whiskey or something.”  He said, “Who did that?” I said, “That woman right there,” and he raised a ruckus; he raised the devil.  She never tried that again.

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Reeves:  I don’t deny drinking. I drink in moderation but to have somebody to tell me, “You’ll like this one better than that one.” That was an insult to me.

Reeves:Georgia Ryder was a member of the board, you know.

Reeves:  Her husband hired me at Norfolk State, and this is the way he hired me.

Reeves:He was the chairman before Georgia.

Reeves:  I was with this group called Bobby Robinson’s Orchestra.  Bobby
Robinson was a friend of mine, and there were three of us that put the orchestra together.  Two of us could arrange. I could arrange, and this other young man could arrange, and Bobby, he could get the equipment together, so the three of us hooked together just like that, and I would arrange some, and this other guy would arrange, and I would be in charge of rehearsals for my music, and he was in charge for his music.  And we rehearsed at the Excelsior Lodge on Church Street, right there where the Post Office is now, and Noah Ryder was an alcoholic really.  He would come up to look at the rehearsal and listen to the rehearsal and watch us and, and enjoy it while he was drinking.  So one Sunday he asked me, “Jimmy, come here, so you want to work at Norfolk State?”  I was working at the Post Office then.  I said, “No, I’m not going to work at Norfolk State and work at the Post Office, too.”  He said, “What I want you to do is work part time.  What you can do—what you can do, you can do it in an hour and a half or two hours before you go to work.” “What time you go to work?”  I said, “Eleven o’clock.”  He said, “You can do it.”  I said, “What do you want me to do?”  “Teach the string class.  We are adding the string classes to the—to the music department.”  String classes include beginning violin, beginning viola, beginning cello, and beginning basses.  Well, I know enough about that to teach it because I took those same courses myself at Columbia and also at Virginia State, so I said—he said, “If you don’t believe me, come on over, and I’ll introduce you to Dr. Brooks tomorrow morning.”  I said, “Okay, I’ll be over.”  So I went over.  It was

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setting over there where the Post Office is, too, back off of--on Fenchurch Street.  So I went over there and went to Noah’s office, and he took me over to talk to Dr Brooks. Dr. Brooks didn’t miss a beat.  He looked up and said, “How are you doing Mr. Reeves? Noah tells me he wants to hire you.  If it’s all right with you, it’s all right with me.”  I said, “What?” [Laughter]  And that’s the way I was hired. One hour a day—I mean, one hour for two periods; that’s for two days.  So…Monday and Wednesday or was it Wednesday and Friday? I can’t remember which it was now, but it was two hours two days a week, and I taught the string class, and then Belew, who was the band director, said, “Hey, since you’re over here, why don’t you help me with the band?”  Well, I love music in any way, so I started helping him with the band.  I arranged some music for the band and helped them with the brass because I can play all the brass instruments because I was a student assistant to my band director at Virginia State, and I learned how to play all the brass instruments, so I could sit in—I could sit in and fit in on any brass instrument when somebody was absent or when we didn’t recruit that instrument-- I played French horn on tour for the band at Norfolk State while I was—while I was a teacher.  I wasn’t teaching those instruments. I wasn’t teaching those instruments, but I went with them.

Reeves: I don’t how it worked.  She never told me, but I knew—well I—the first violinist that came – what’s his name?  He ruined my orchestra; that’s the reason I can’t remember his name. [Laughter]  When I retired I turned the orchestra over to him, and I had built up a budget.  I was on the—I was on the homecoming committee, and I noticed how they built up budgets for the homecoming committee, so when I founded my orchestra, I finally got through to Brooks and the administration that I needed some money for scholarships, so they allowed me to build up the budget.  Each year I’d get a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, so I kept doing that until I built up the budget so I could give out some decent scholarships that people would want, and they would come in and play in the orchestra for that, just like the band.  The band had been doing that for years.

Reeves:  So I built mine up.  So I had quite a bit of money in there, but when Zaret—Peter Zaret…

Reeves:  Place—he built that thing--he rents instruments, and he sells instruments.

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Reeves:  Well, he was the principal violinist after the lady left, and I think that’s when it began, when Georgia needed…needed a violinist to teach the violin students, and the symphony needed a principal, so they worked it out together.  That’s what I surmise; she never told me.  She just did things.

Reeves:  Well, she liked me, and when her husband died, she asked me to assist her in running the department, but they never gave me a title except she got me promoted.  I was an assistant professor at first; then I moved up to associate professor…

Reeves: …and I didn’t get to be a professor until 1979 when I got the doctorate.  Wilson gave me a doctorate as the head of the department—I mean he made me heir apparent because he said he was going to give it to me, but I had to get the doctorate, but I had it already in my hip pocket because I took the—I took the oral examination in December, but there’s no graduation—no graduation then until the next semester.

Reeves:  So I couldn’t graduate until June, so… and he had promised somebody else the job…

Reeves: …and that caused me heartbreak, too, because he was the jazz ensemble director, and he was a good one, and the jazz ensemble was sounding good.  August—that following August when I came to work from the summer vacation, I went to my office, and I’m getting ready to get prepared, and a student walked in and said, “Dr. Reeves, did you know Gardner had quit?”  I said, “Huh?”  I said, “Do you know this for a fact?”  And I trusted the student because he was one of my students.  He said, “Yes, sir.”  So I took off; I went—I didn’t drive; I just took off walking, and I went up to Dr.—to the president’s office.  I didn’t ask the secretary, “May I go in?”  I just went in.  He looked up, and he saw me and called me “Brother Reeves.”  You know why he called me Brother Reeves -- because he’s my fraternity brother – Kappa Alpha Psi-- and that made me almost regurgitate, and I said, “Did Gardner quit?” He used a little profanity and told me, “Yeah, he quit, he came in here and called me all kinds of names, threw his resignation on the desk, and walked out.”  I said, “When was I supposed to know?”  Now this was about four days before the opening of school.  He said, “I thought you’d find out sooner or later.”  Now you know what I think of him.  The reason I—and I don’t know whether I should say this on the tape or not, but

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he can’t hurt me.  The reason I know this is because Georgia made me her assistant, you know that—I had keys to everything in the building.  Georgia was on the search committee, and she was in charge of archives studying the records.  I knew where she put the records, and I heard that Wilson wasn’t such a good scholar, so I was going to find out.  I went in there when this school was not opened. I would go in the building and go in where she locked these things up, and I read Wilson’s.  It wasn’t a good one.  It wasn’t a good one.  He did me so many dirty deals.

Reeves:  You said what?

Reeves:  Oh, yeah.  [Laughter]

Reeves:I can think of a fellow named Williams.

Reeves:He could conduct like my six-year old grandson. [Laughter]  I was—I was at a rehearsal when a meeting took place, and it made me so mad, I was almost ready to quit because I got up and spoke against him and the person who was the head person of the board was there conducting the meeting and asking people what they thought of him, and I told them what I thought of him.  I didn’t use those words about my grandson, but I said, “He’s a poor conductor.  He doesn’t look good, and he doesn’t give good signals.”  I said, “I wouldn’t hire him, and I recommend that,” and our organist at Norfolk State…

Reeves: Huh?

Reeves:Now, it’s Carl Haywood but then there was…

Reeves:It’s that fellow at Christ and St. Luke.

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Reeves:  Allen…

Reeves:  Allen Shaffer.  Allen Shaffer got up and spoke just about what I did, and he walked out, and I think for awhile he refused to even play because he was infuriated that they were going to hire that guy.

Reeves:  Getting our input.

Reeves:  But they didn’t pay any attention to him because they hired the guy anyway.

Reeves:  He should have been a no-timer.  [Laughter]

Reeves:  He wasn’t musical. He wasn’t musical; he wasn’t a good conductor.

Reeves:  I didn’t play any after Williams.

Reeves:  After Williams left, I said, “This is it.”

Reeves:  Mm-hmm.

Reeves: Not that I know of. [Laughter]  He was a conductor at two symphonies, one was in Iowa, and I don’t know where the other one was, but I just couldn’t see how he got as high as they were considering him.

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Reeves:  Well, Russell did very well, but I think his temperament got next to some people.

Reeves:  If you didn’t play it right, he would embarrass you.

Reeves:  That’s what it was.

Reeves:  I don’t know what caused his tenure to end.  It wouldn’t have ended as far as I was concerned.  I don’t what know was going on in the back room so…

Reeves:  Well, I played with the Peninsula Symphony, too, whenever they needed me.  He was not a good conductor.  He knew music; he could talk about it; he could—he could tell you how he would like it to go, but he couldn’t show you.  I played many, many concerts over there, and I just-- his tempi weren’t quite right.  I never will forget--what’s the name of that piece that’s named after a river? 

Reeves:  Moldau, yes.  He conducted that thing too slowly, too slowly, and he was counting one…two…three.  Mondau doesn’t go like that, but we played it like that because that’s the way he told us, especially that part that’s in three/four.

Reeves:  And then there’s the Virginia Beach Symphony.  I think they were freezing him out.

Reeves:  What’s the conductor’s name down there?

[14]

Reeves:  Yes.

Reeves:  Yeah, I think they were freezing him out, and they didn’t want the man in Newport News, so…I don’t know why they got Williams in the first place.  Walter Noona could conduct.  He was a very good conductor, but I don’t think he had the experience that some of these people had, conducting some of these big orchestras.  They were looking for a name, I think.

Reeves: Who?

Reeves:  No, it wasn’t.  I don’t know much about it, but I know it wasn’t quiet. [Laughter]

Reeves:‘M’m.

Reeves:  I had a youth orchestra at Norfolk State.

Reeves:  Of my own.

Reeves:  And it was a community orchestra, it had old folks in it…

Reeves: …it had one lady who graduated with me at Virginia State; she was a violinist, but she was teaching…  I don’t remember what she was teaching.  It wasn’t music, but she was a teacher and became an administrator in Norfolk, but she still played the violin.  She played it beautifully.

[15]

Reeves:  No.

Reeves:  Board?

Reeves:  No.

Reeves:  No, I didn’t know much about what they were doing except what Georgia told me.  She didn’t discuss anything.

Reeves:  Mm-hmm.  She was always in it, but she didn’t discuss it with me.

Reeves:  Are you talking about the board people?

Reeves:  What was that name?

Reeves:  I don’t know anything about that.

Reeves:  No.

Reeves:  Without the notice of me. [Laughter]

[16]

Reeves:  How did it become a nationally…

Reeves:  When they brought this lady in – what’s her name?

Reeves:  Yeah, when they brought her in, it became a…

Reeves:  I don’t know. I wasn’t in it.  I was retired from Norfolk State and everything.

Reeves:  No, I think I brought in the things that I wanted to get _____ _______. [Laughs]

Major:   Okay.  This has really been interesting, really been enjoyable.  Thank you very much.

Reeves:  You’re very welcome.

END OF INTERVIEW

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