Transcript of interview with Adelaide Robbins by Lisa Gioia-Acres, April 18, 2008

i An Interview with Adelaide Robbins An Oral History Conducted by Lisa Gioia - Acres April 18, 2008 and April 29, 2008 All That Jazz Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©All That Jazz Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2008 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach, Melissa Robinson, Angela Ayers Transcribers: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Project Assistants: Lisa Gioia-Acres and Claytee D. White iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Harold L. Boyer Charitable Foundation. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the All That Jazz Oral History Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada Las Vegas iv Table of Contents Interview with Adelaide Robbins April 18, 2008 and April 29, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Lisa Gioia - Acres Preface………………………………………………………………………………………..…..v Adelaide talks about being born to a family of musicians. Adelaide recalls family entertainment. Adelaide remembers starting piano lessons at a young age. Adelaide discusses her father playing piano and her mother dancing on Broadway…………………………………………………1 – 5 Adelaide recalls how she got to music school. Adelaide remembers other famous people who went to the same music school……………………………………………………………….6 – 9 Adelaide talks about always being drawn to music. Adelaide recalls that she was a professional by the age of 12. Adelaide remembers learning the bass. Adelaide recalls winning awards in high school. Adelaide talks about working during high school and college…………………….10 – 12 Adelaide talks about transferring to the Manhattan School of Music where she received her degrees. Adelaide talks about a variety of musicians and abilities. Adelaide recalls the difficulties of being a woman in this profession……………………………………………………….13 – 16 Adelaide recalls traveling with a band for a time before coming to Las Vegas in 1967. Adelaide talks about her first jobs in Las Vegas……………………………………………………..16 – 21 Adelaide talks about being on albums and on television. Adelaide discusses what jobs she is doing now in Las Vegas. Adelaide talks about the future of young musicians. Adelaide talks more about being a woman in a mostly men’s field………………………………………..22 – 25 Adelaide recalls losing a job in Las Vegas. Adelaide remembers working with many famous artists………………………………………………………………………………………..26 – 29 Index………………………………………………………………………………………..31 – 34 v Preface Adelaide was born in Manhattan, New York to a father who was a pianist and arranger and a mother who was a dancer on Broadway. She grew up as an only child in the theater district where she was exposed to the arts from a young age. Her parents insisted she be well rounded. To that end, she began piano lessons at age six and was frequently taken to museums. Adelaide was always drawn to music and began working professionally by the age of 12. She attended the High School of Music and Art for four years along with others who went on to great fame. While in high school, she earned awards for composition. Her knowledge and abilities of the bass earned her a full scholarship to the Eastman School of Music. All of the jobs she had during high school and college were music related; playing gigs or teaching. While working towards a triple major at Eastman, she felt over-extended and eventually transferred to the Manhattan School of Music who was honored to have a transfer from Eastman. Also because of the extra credits from Eastman, she was able to obtain a master’s degree inside of a year. Adelaide went on the road with Buddy Rich’s band where they played in Chicago and Los Angeles before finding their way to Las Vegas. Adelaide was always the only woman in the band, and there were difficulties of being a woman in the field of mostly male musicians. The band found their way to Las Vegas in 1967. She never realized how well known she was until she arrived in Las Vegas. Adelaide came to Las Vegas on a trial run and ended up staying. The first job she had in Las Vegas was playing solo piano at Guys and Dolls before moving on to playing as a rehearsal pianist for a Broadway show. Over the years, Adelaide played many venues with many famous musicians. She is not hopeful for the future of musicians in Las Vegas, feeling the casino owners would rather replace live musicians with canned music. However, Adelaide’s career is not over as she is still performing for a variety of events. With her two degrees from very prominent music schools, Adelaide feels she may have gone further in career if she had stayed in New York, but she has no regrets about coming to Las Vegas. vi 1 This is Lisa Gioia-Acres. Today is Friday, April 18, 2008. I'm here conducting an interview with Adelaide Robbins for the All That Jazz oral history project for the University of Nevada. Hi, Adelaide. How are you? Hi. Just fine. Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to have me come and visit with you. We're going to talk to you about your career as a musician/singer in the music industry in Las Vegas. Before we do that, if we could just first -- you just tell me your full name. You mean middle name, as well? Your whole name if you could, yes. Adelaide. And I have a middle name that I never use called Ruth. My last name is Robbins, two Bs. And Robbins is -- two Bs, R-O-B-B-I-N-S. And Adelaide is A-D-E-L -- E-L-A-I-D-E. Perfect. Will you talk a little bit about your early life before you came to Vegas, before you became a musician? Where were you born and raised? Talk about mom and dad. Well, I always have been a musician. I can really not remember a time except, you know, maybe infancy or something like that, because I came from a musical family. My father was a professional musician, a pianist, and arranger. And what's his name? Andrew. Andy Robbins. My mother had been a dancer on Broadway. And her name? Edith. What was her maiden name? Adelson. All right. Talk about your home life. Well, coming from a pretty cultural family and people, you know, deeply interested in artistic things, naturally they were observing me and very soon thought that I was a gifted child, you know, that I had great musical ability or instinct. It was a fun family. I think you'll enjoy this part. When people don't have a lot of money and come from an artistic family usually broke, they're very inventive about having good times that don't cost any money, or hardly any. I mean we used to take a ferry ride around Manhattan -- 2 Because that's where you were born, in Manhattan? I was born in Manhattan. I was born in the theatrical neighborhood, the theater district, in that area around 48th Street or something like that. Actually, that's not where I was born. I was born at the Fifth Avenue Hospital. That was on 105th Street and Fifth Avenue or 104th Street, one of them. So, I mean my parents could see that -- I mean we could sing three-part harmony just at the top of our lungs taking our nice little ferry ride around Manhattan. Not all kids can sing -- you know, grab from the air and pick a harmony part, but I suppose when you have those kinds of influences in your household and maybe you have been given that gift. So my parents were observing all the time to see what do we have here and nurturing at the same time. So piano lessons were begun very early. Adelaide, did you have any brothers and sisters? No. I'm an only child. My father was a musician as I said. So he wasn't always on the scene. He often had to go where the work was. But anyway, they started piano lessons. And I think they very soon found that the teacher was not effective. Amongst my mother’s girlfriends who she grew up with was a woman who taught piano. So she became my teacher actually until it was time to go to college. Now, let me ask were mom and dad also born in New York City? My mother was born in Philadelphia. She was one of ten kids. And she was taken by her mother's sisters, who was childless, and brought to Brooklyn. I don't know if this is necessary, but I mean this is really part of the story. My mother was taken as kind of glue to patch up a bum marriage in a well-to-do household. Do you think that influenced her musical ability or was she also from a musical family? No. Her own mother she told me, whom I have never met to this day, used to sing in church in those early years in Philadelphia. She was taken to a very, very different home. And we won't dwell on that too much, but I don't think it was a home where children were developed, especially girls. I don't know how much you really need to know or would -- you know, you probably would enjoy this. You want to shut it off for just a moment? [BREAK] Go ahead. How mom became a dancer. My mom -- first of all, as I told you a little earlier, she was desperate for music and probably could sing because she was given that kind of ability, you know, gift, but it was not developed. The piano that they 3 had in the parlor was soon given away, although she would have given anything to have a chance to play that piano. She also wanted to take dancing lessons, which they didn't think was necessary for the time, the period. So my mother used to roller skate all the way out into another neighborhood. I think they must have seen, whoever had the dance school, that this kid was going to be talented and they gave her a scholarship. My mother developed so much that she became a dancer on her own. I mean she danced on Broadway and off Broadway. What were some of the shows? Do you remember? I don't. I don't. But this does go back. You got to see her perform? No. Only at home because she was a mother who was a home mother. She was the mother who was home when I came home from school, because my father was a traveling musician sometimes, so that there was always a parent. What did dad -- what was his musical instrument that he played? Piano. He was self-taught. His father was a dentist, although he had bum teeth, and, also, something we don't even have to go into because I don't think it was a healthy situation. So how he learned the piano is also completely self-taught. How he developed and actually could write arrangements and orchestrate is even more amazing because none of this was nurtured or developed by the family. We were talking about books and reading and all that, and he was a great reader. But, on the other hand, when you came along they paid attention. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It was a household where there was great struggle because we never knew when my father would be working or not working or whatever it was. But it was a household where you read the New York Times. It was a household where you listened to the New York Philharmonic every Sunday. It was a ritual. And then there was also a nice Sunday dinner. You know, there were certain things that were structures and, of course, things that were expected of me. Such as? Such as make sure that, you know, my homework was done, that my practicing was done. I always had to come in earlier than any other kid on the block from play because it was necessary for me to practice, but it was never anything I was ever forced to do. It was something I was supposed to do. What age were you when you first started playing? 4 I think I first started at six or seven. And you got lessons to do that. I had every kind of lessons you can image. I had not only piano lessons. I had dance lessons. I had castanet lessons because my people were show people. So they knew all these people in show business. I got harmonica lessons. They bought me my first harmonica -- I forgot what they call -- chromatic, the kind where you can make your -- you know, it's not just the white keys. It's the black keys as well. Everything really. You said that you came from a household that wasn't that well off. How did your parents manage to pay for this? Well, my mother probably. I can hear my mother now saying, "The kid has to have ice skates." So my father being an old rummager and thrift shopper, which is what I have become, he'd come home with a pair of ice skates. They might not be the Sonja Henie, who was the movie star and great ice skater of their day. They weren't the beautiful white ones; they were brown, but they were my size and I learned how to ice skate. This is a great little story. I want to hear all the stories. This is a great little story and it typifies my mother, who was very enterprising. We lived in the west Bronx. And my mother had her kitchen window overlooked the backyard of the house that was next to our apartment building. It was actually a house house. It was large and seemed like a rich kid was supposed to live there. You know, it was a larger house. I don't know. And for some reason, instead of a real backyard, it was cemented. But the teenage boys on this block hosed it down and turned it into an ice rink. So these boys were having a …**… of a time just having fun for themselves. Well, I already had these ice skates. My mother summoned the kid actually whose parents owned the house. He probably got more for an allowance than -- my mother offered him 50 cents to give her kid ice skating lessons. And these other boys would be holding me up so I wouldn't be falling, and she could observe it from her kitchen window. I'll tell you an example of my father's imagination, also, because most of the things -- I wasn't deprived, but I got things not necessarily from the stores. My mother says the kid has to have a two-wheel bicycle. She was always the instigator. I like how she said the kid. 5 Yes. She has to have that. My father never raised any objection. He thought it was swell. He thought it was great, but he had to go to his own sources. So here's the dramatic part about my father that's so great. I don't remember if it was a Christmas. Because we lived in the Bronx and it was kind of a melting pot of religions and people, which it still is today, we observed Christmas and we also observed Hanukkah. And we had kids up, but I don't remember if this was that kind of holiday or a birthday or whatever it was. All I know is my father had gotten a bicycle for me, which was a huge surprise. I didn't know anything about it, but he had to stage it because this was his style. So he put it in one corner of the living room and he put a floodlight at the bottom. Theatrical people, what can I say, you know? He was a vaudevillian besides playing piano and writing and stuff and he sang. He was only working with other people who were vaudevillians, people who were in the business. So when he planned the surprise for me, it was like you'd walk in and it was almost -- other than a drum roll -- it was like ta-da, which really made it even much more dramatic and much more exciting. Look at how many years later you're still remembering it. That's so wonderful. I am. I know. I have my mother to thank for remembering a lot of those kinds of things. Now, how old were mom and dad before they passed away? My mother died about 20 years ago, and she had lived her life. My father died when he was in his early 50s unexpectedly. And that's another really strange thing. He died of Guillain-Barre, which is something like polio except polio is a disease of the muscles and this is a disease of the nerves, which could have deteriorated for a lengthy time. In this case it was within eight days of the first sign of symptom. Of course, he could have been carrying it. Oh, I left something out really important about my father. During the war, WWII (World War II), he traveled with the USO (United Service Organizations). So he was all over the world. He was in Japan and he was in Germany and he was all over. How was it for you and mom to be without his presence during those times he was on the road? It was fine. It was good. She was an independent person. She ran the show. So at six you learned how to play the piano -- Six or seven. -- and you learned all these other things. When did you go on stage? Did you go on stage when you were a small child? 6 Yes. What was your very first stage experience? I can't tell you that, but I can tell you I played club dates with my father before I was even in high school. I was teaching piano when I was 12 to kids who weren't much younger than me. I played a New Year's Eve gig with my father in somebody's house. There was snow. I remember we had a huge blizzard that particular winter because I remember -- I don't remember. I don't know how we got there. We didn't have a car. My father didn't drive. He didn't have to. It was New York. But you had huge piles of snow. I just remember that we had to go through really memorable snowdrifts and piles of snow, which New York can get like that. When you say gig, did your father play the piano and you sang? I probably played. We probably took turns. The singing was just -- I have to explain to you that there was a big band era that I caught the tail end of it. Oh, I have to tell you this. When we lived in the Bronx we used to go to Poe Park, Edgar Allan Poe, which they named for him, which had, as part of the it, the Poe cottage, the original Edgar Allan Poe's cottage. It was a place of interest. In the park itself they had a shell -- I don't know if you call it a shell -- a big circular thing, you know, a stage out of doors. And when I was a teenager I was going to the High School of Music and Art. I got way ahead of myself. But anyway, my girlfriend, my best girlfriend and I -- she was a dancer and she's still my best girlfriend. I'll show you her picture. Sure. Do you understand it's very impossible to compress like this when you started school and then high school and all that because it's a lot of living and a lot of the stuff is very vivid to me to this day. And a lot of it is not so vivid that I have long forgotten. Sometimes I run into people who remind me of things that I've done that I had forgotten that they've kept in their minds. So you stayed in New York City through high school. But we won't go to college yet. Oh god, no. I know. We won't go to college yet. So talk about how you got into that music school. I want to tell you first, because I didn't mention Poe Park for nothing, I used to go there with this girlfriend of mine when we were like early teenagers to go and dance. Maybe boys would ask us to dance. 7 But that was only part of it because it was outdoors in the summertime. But big name bands played in that -- I forgot what we call that. It's not a shell because it was open. Well, I think it was circular. I played on many of these kinds of things since then. But it's really funny. So I mean I got to hear a lot of bands in person. And we'd dance and it was a lot of fun. Years later I came back and I was playing on that thing with big name "orchs." And it was really funny. I remember somebody commenting to me. I said I used to live around here. I used to live much further west off Kingsbridge Road. They said you couldn't live there anymore. The neighborhood has changed so radically, and in the negative. So it was interesting how you said "big name orchs." Orchs means orchestra, doesn't it? Big name orchestras. I have a reason why I'm mentioning all of this because by this time it was -- by the time I got a crack at it, it was kind of the teetering end of the big band era. It was kind of limping along, although I did get a little taste of it and I played on some awfully good bands. But, okay, High School of Music and Art. You had to get recommended by your music teacher in public school. I played better than -- I far surpassed this woman because by this time I could play. And I was already playing jazz. I mean at 13 I already could play. I was playing for gym class and I was playing Glenn Miller's "Little Brown Jug" and whatever was popular. [playing piano] We were listening to the Hit Parade and we were listening to the singers who were the hits and what were the pop tunes and this, that and the other thing. So, okay, this music teacher, you had to have a recommendation even to try to be admitted to the High School of Music and Art, which today is called LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts because it merged with the other high school that came much later and that was Performing Arts. It's called LaGuardia because the High School of Music and Art was founded by the mayor that preceded my coming to the school. But we knew about it. Mayor LaGuardia, who was called "The Little Flower," founded that high school to develop kids who were astute, gifted, talented in music and art, meaning drawing, painting, sculpture, whatever, whatever. It has expanded today. Now it's in Lincoln Center. Did you go there from freshman all the way through? Yes. I didn't know anything about junior high. I had four years there. I became a bass player at the High School of Music and Art. Did you go to high school with anybody that became also well-known? 8 Everybody. Can you give us some names? Sure. Diahann Carroll. Sue Coleman. I mean everybody. We weren't always there at the same time. I just read in this last Sunday's New York Times -- I found out this guy died. But I still get the Times after all these years. Now, this guy might not be a household name to you, but I know because we follow up. They did a whole page on this guy. And did you go to high school with him? Oh, Yes. What's his name? Alan Capra. Here's his picture. The whole page is devoted to him. I remember I think when I was still living there, although I didn't see him, although something really interesting happened where we had a reunion with some of the guys that we used to hang out with. I know how it happened. My best friend was married to a guy who was a theatrical producer and they put a lot of money into a show that had some names in it, but bit the dust. They took a bath over it. So they had this beautiful Tudor house in Jersey and they had to put it up for sale. It even had a brook running through it and a little, mini forest and all that. That pretty girl that I showed you, she was no longer dancing. She raised her kid, you know. I guess through their real estate agent somebody came to the door to look at the house. Eve's husband answered the door, not she. They hadn't even brought the couple in. Well, the husband was talking with the guy and he said somehow or another -- I don't know how it came out that this guy said I was an art student at the High School of Music and Art. Then Fred said, well, my wife graduate from the High School of Music and Art. And, of course, instant memory. They all came in. And that was the guy that took me to my prom. Oh, you're kidding. He took me to the prom at Tavern on the Green. And he and this guy -- amongst the crowd that we hung out, we knew these guys were going to become prominent. Who else graduated from our school? Well, you probably know about who Charles Van Doren is because he got into all that trouble. He was a teacher at Columbia University -- I think it was Columbia University. I think it was. Anyway, and he was on the quiz show and they made a movie about it. Okay. Well, not he, but another Van Doren from that family. Yes, a lot of very prominent people, people who 9 wound up -- and not everybody wound up in the arts. We had to all maintain a very high academic average just to stay in school. And did you succeed in that? Yes. You said you played the bass. Okay. I'll explain how I got -- is this running? First of all, I have to tell you this. I started to. The music teacher wouldn't recommend me. But the art teacher recommended me for art because I was gifted in art, too. And I think my parents had to raise …**… and just go over that music teacher to make sure their kid would have a shot at the High School of Music and Art and I was accepted. And then my girlfriend was a dancer and they didn't even teach dancing at that time. She was accepted on piano, which stunned me. I shouldn't put this on. This won't get part of it. I couldn't imagine because she played so badly. Her mother was a stage mother. So she was doing everything in school. She was up way earlier than we were. She learned a second instrument, but she kind of goofed off on that one. But as soon as school was over she had to go down to 57th Street where the dance studio was and do classes and then come home and do her homework. And the girl was ready to drop. So I couldn't image how she even was accepted on piano because I mean I could play and she wasn't that good. But she's very -- I don't know. Whatever it was, it was a great thing that she was accepted because the two great girlfriends had a chance to go on for a great experience and a lifetime experience of being girlfriends. Oh, that's wonderful. Did you have any experience in that high school of a mentor? Did somebody teach you something that you might not have known before? I can't answer that yet. I can't answer it yet. I have to take my own story first. There probably will be -- everything. I soaked up everything. A kid with ears like this, you're going to pick on everything. And there were experiences that maybe I wasn't even a participant in, but I was lucky enough to even see what else was going on. I mean we were invited -- like, in other words, if the senior chorus was going to give a concert in Carnegie Hall, then there was going to be a rehearsal in Carnegie Hall that afternoon. So other kids would go there and observe that. I mean I had way passed this when I went to the Eastman School of Music. The Eastman School of Music is connected to the Eastman Theater. We not only could go in -- and we weren't sneaking in; you were encouraged to go into that theater while some world famous conductors were conducting that Rochester Symphony. I mean you'd see Leonard Bernstein and Eric 10 Leinsdorf doing it and great solo artists. So when you talk about experiences, one thing opens up other opportunities that sometimes become your opportunity where you're personally involved or just the fact that you're allowed to even observe it, you know. And first of all, this is New York. This is New York where if you're a jazz kid and you already love jazz, you can walk in front -- you can't go inside the Metropol. But all that music with Woody Herman playing up there on the stage is piped out and you can just stand there as long as you want to and listen. Adelaide, were you so enmeshed in music on your own -- I know your parents influenced you. But was it something you were very drawn to? Of course. It sounds like it. Absolutely. But my parents were also the kind of people that would see to it I was taken to museums. We would go to the Museum of Natural History. I didn't really care much about natural history, but they thought that I should be well-rounded. When I went to Music and Art, either you can go in -- you're accepted if you play the piano, but then you maintain your piano lessons privately on your own. Once in the school you can either take voice or you can take a second instrument. Well, I had always sung and I didn't think at all about taking voice. I'm a jazz kid. If I want to play a second instrument -- are you okay for time? We'll talk again if you can spare more time. I'm going to be here again. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? It's like I cannot compact -- A lifetime into an hour and a half. And it's just how things happened. And, yet, there are things that are vivid I think that you would want to have on your tape recorder. Absolutely. Please don't rush because I will come back. It's not a problem. Because it's all really great and it's also things that form. I think what we'll do during this time that we have together is just continue to stay in your early life. And when I come back the next time, we'll talk about Las Vegas. It will be more I'll tell you about because by the time I got to Las Vegas, I had already been a pro for a lot 11 of years. I mean I started being a pro when I was 12 years old, not necessarily a polished one. I was playing gigs when I was already in high school and not only playing gigs on piano already by that time, but I have to tell you about the bass. I have to. My father said to ask if you can take clarinet. Well, the summer before -- I already knew I was going to Music and Art that fall -- they sent me to camp. I don't remember why. But one of the counselors had just graduated from the High School of Music and Art where I was going to be going and she played the flute. So I said to her give me a few flute lessons and give me an edge. At least I'll have another second instrument that I can ask and show that I have a little start in. Well, that didn't work out. Then my father said to ask for clarinet. That's a good substantial instrument for an orchestra. And they weren't going to let me have that. So they usher me into a room that has both cellos and basses. Well, I knew being a jazz kid I was not going to be playing the cello. It would have to be bass. I already knew what the bass lines were. I'm playing them. You know, I have the ear. I know what chords are and the structures of tunes. And I know that's what you see on a band, a bass player. So if it wasn't going to be piano, it could be either/or. So I got good at it, good enough to get a full scholarship to the Eastman School of Music. Is the Eastman School of Music a college? It's the University of Rochester. You're not on campus. You're actually in the city. As I said you've got the symphony hall that's part of the school. It's so impressive. Boy, did I get my eyes opened when I came there. I still think about it. I knew when I went to the Eastman School of Music, although I already got an inkling of it -- I'm a New York girl and I know about Carnegie Hall, and I know that going to even the High School of Music and Art we would have guests that I knew were famous people because Music and Art was well thought of. It was such a new thing. But at Eastman I knew, kid, this is growing up and this is the big time. This really is the most serious music world that you are entering. And I was very conscious of the scholarship and how desperately I needed to keep it. I went in there with a triple major -- piano, string bass and composition -- because I left that out when we were talking about the High School of Music and Art because I was already writing and orchestrating. And I had written a lot of original things. So I had already won awards. When I graduated from high school, I think I got a composition award. There are just things I hadn't even really thought about until now, but it comes back. 12 So since Howard Hanson, who was a very famous American composer, was the director of the Eastman School of Music, there are a couple of reasons why -- I mean they didn't just really need another piano player. They had brilliant piano students. I was good, but they had kids in classical music who probably played better than I did. Can I ask, did you work for pay at all during your high school and then your time at Eastman College? Where did you work? Yes. I worked gigs at DeWitt Clinton High School. I remember I playing dances there. I played dances there on bass because there was a boy who liked me and the only way he could date me was he would have to carry my bass. By that time I was good enough -- or maybe playing with kids good enough -- to play. Actually, I remember playing club dates. I played at Music and Art in the jazz swing band. I was one of the piano players. Did you ever work a job that was not musically inclined? No. Once I worked at the convention center and I demonstrated the Japanese keyboards. Other than teaching, I don't think so. I never had to. Very interesting. So anyway, I went to the Eastman School of Music. I s