BIG CITY BLUES January – February 2007 Issue ACE’S ALLEY TRAINS, BASEBALL, AND BLUES=LIFE By Johnny Ace My first memory in life, the first moment that my brain can remember me being on this planet, is when I was three years old, maybe four. It’s early night and I’m all alone in a completely dark room lying in a small bed or crib at 8722 78th Street in Woodhaven, Queens. It‘s my Grandma and Grandpa Senese’s place, where my Uncle Joe lived with his family and where my family was living too—it was a 3-story building. Of course I didn’t know all that back then in 1952. All I remember is me hearing the very faint, almost haunting sound of the old BMT J train rumbling through the night along the Jamaica Ave L. I wasn’t brought up down South where they say the blues was born, and I wasn’t hopping freight trains, and hoboing like so many of the old bluesmen used to do way back in the old days, going from town to town, living a romantic, nomadic life, like gypsies playing their blues in any town the freight train stopped. Yea, but I definitely hopped over many a subway train’s turnstile to get a free ride, and yes, subway trains growing up in New York City opened my eyes to whole new worlds…worlds that could and would change my life. I’ve done a lot of time on the subways in NYC going to gigs, jams, and baseball games. I can remember at the age of five of six visiting my Grandpa Acerno, who lived in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, and together we would ride the subway train to see the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebitts Field or the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds—way, way uptown in New York City. Grandpa Acerno was a bookie. He was very short, about 5’ 2”, handsome and dapper. He always wore a suit and tie. I never saw him dressed any other way. He had razor sharp blue eyes and a very neatly kept head of gorgeous, silver wavy hair. He was very serious about business, a real no nonsense guy, great with numbers. He loved to make money. He didn’t fool around. At that early age I didn’t know a thing about baseball. My Father hated baseball. But Grandpa loved it. He would teach me a very interesting thing—he’d never pay for the good box seats at the stadiums. Instead, he’d always buy a cheap bleacher seat and then we’d walk, it seemed like forever, through these damp, damp mazes of never ending, ancient, concrete tunnels and corridors. The ground was all dirt. It was like we were in the movie “Demetrius and The Gladiators” with Victor Mature where the Roman gladiators were killing peasants in the coliseum. For a kid it was a bit terrifying. I always thought that wild lions would attack us at any moment. Finally we’d get out of the darkness and walk to the entrance where the box seats were and it would hit me! The sight of the ballpark was just breath taking!. They were gigantic! The Polo Grounds seemed like it was a hundred miles long with those ads on the walls in the outfield—the scoreboards were huge—all the people screaming—the color of the grass—it was so green it hurt my eyes—the players’ uniforms looking so cool—the aroma of hot dogs, mustard, popcorn, beer, and cigars filling my little snozzola with ecstasy! Plus, Grandpa smoked cigars. When he’d pull out a fresh one to smoke, he’d always take off the little circular band around it and give it to me and tell me to wear it on my finger like a ring. At five, that was a lot of fun. But first we’d have to get seats. Grandpa would find an usher and whisper some words in his ear, then hand him a bill and we’d be right up front! Then Grandpa would slowly explain the game to me and tell me about the players. What I remember most was him telling me that when he was a kid, black baseball players weren't allowed to play with white baseball players—like with music—jazz and blues. I just didn’t understand how this could be. Then he would explain to me about Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play with the white players in the major leagues. Seeing Jackie and all the other great stars such as Duke Snyder, Pee Wee Reese, and Willie Mays really influenced me as they influenced thousands of other young boys. So naturally I wanted to become a baseball player. One of the best things that happened to me was when my father who trained racehorses came home from the racetrack in 1960 and gave me a 1955 World Championship Brooklyn Dodger signed baseball. He said one of his friends gave it to him. Then the next year coming home from the track he ran into Jackie Robinson! Jackie was enjoying his day at the races and eating a hotdog. My Father went over to him and asked him if he would sign a piece of paper for his son. Jackie didn’t want to. My father got real mad and yelled at him—“It’s for a kid, God Dammitt!” Jackie signed it. The buzz is that there’s still mustard on that paper from Jackie’s thumb. I still have both the baseball and the autograph to this day and treasure them The time 1965 came around and I was sixteen, and I figured I wasn’t good enough to be a baseball player. But a good friend of mine who had a little basement band talked me into taking the subway into Manny’s in the city to buy a bass. He said it was the easiest instrument to play. It was! One year later my friend, Matty Puluso, was teaching me blues. Back then I’d go anywhere, anytime, anyplace to play blues in New York. I had no fear! I just wanted to play, learn to play better, and to play with all my heroes, and the New York subway system would get me there, not fast and not always so safe, but that ”evil old iron snake” would get me there. One of the better buzz’s was in 1967, “The Summer of Hate.” I was coming home from the Bronx late at night and an older man who at that time to me looked real old was on the train. He kept staring at my case. Finally he asked if I played. I told him I played bass. He said that he sang and recorded blues, and that he used to be in a singing group a long time ago named “The Larks.” I asked him if that was “The Larks” on the Apollo label that recorded “My Reverie” and he smiled and said “Yea.” He said that he didn’t sing lead on that particular cut but that he did on “Eye Sight to the Blind.” Back then I had a pretty good false (fake tenor) and so I went into “My Reverie” and his eyes lit up. He dug it. He said his name was Alden Bunn and that he also went by the name Tarheel Slim and that he had recorded a song called “Number Nine Train.” I had that 45—paid 25 cents for it at Broadway Al’s. We rapped awhile, and then he got off the train. Later I realized that I didn’t think of taking his phone number down. I just figured musicians like him would always be around and that I’d run into him again. I didn’t know it then but the era of true masters was passing in both blues and baseball. The inventors of both the modern game and the modern blues sound were making their mark on history, but they were all about to get off at the next stop—forever—and like ghosts haunt the train stations and subways of time, their voices echoing down deserted platforms and tunnels. The End Johnny Ace is still living in San Francisco and playing blues regularly with singer Cathy Lemons. Their website is http://www.lemonace.com . Johnny’s email address is: aceonbass@earthlink.net