Local #814 - the Black Musicians Union
Cincinnati’s Black Local #814 of the American Federation of Musicians existed until the late-1968 or 69 as yet another manifestation of the segregated state of the city and music scene in Cincinnati in the past. It was the musical rights organization that existed primarily for the benefit of African-American musicians. AFM Local #1 (yes, Cincinnati hosts Local #1 nationally) represented all other musicians, especially members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, those musicians playing on TV and radio programs, and various jobbing bands. Some white musicians, many of the jazz variety, chose to belong to Local #814. Notables were saxophonist Jimmy McGary and pianists Ed Moss and Frank Payne.
According to Cincinnati jazz bassist and attorney Louis Lausche, who joined Local #1 when in law school in 1962, it was mandated by law that the 2 locals combine as Local #1 after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, during the Lyndon Johnson administration. The order was given in 1968 or 1969. Members of Local #814 were offered full rights immediately in Local #1, with no new fees due. There could no longer be 2 separate locals in one jurisdiction.
The idea of merging was not to the liking of many members of the former Local #814. Lausche states that Local #1 was much stricter in enforcing music contracts and collecting work dues from musicians. This resulted in a lower take home pay for them and also put more strain of the venues, which would be responsible for withholding taxes to be sent to the IRS and other municipalities. Ostensibly, the Union would provide retirement and medical benefits to its members, but this only really came to fruition for those with full-time musical employment (CSO, TV show musicians, and members of supper club orchestras).
Cincinnati-native, bassist James Anderson, was a young member of 814 as a college student. He recalls that the end of Local #814 occurred sometime around the time that he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston around 1970. He says that the membership of 814 resisted the merger for a long time, at least partially due to the fact that many of the Black musicians were distrustful that they would get a fair shake in Local #1. He recalls that the meetings became very heated. A lot of the jobbing in Cincinnati was segregated. For instance, it would be a rare thing that a local Black band would be hired to play at Coney Island’s Moonlight Gardens, according to saxophonist Joe Gaudio who joined Local #1 in 1954. Most of the jobs played by members of 814 were in smaller clubs, although some players were part of the stable of musicians who played sessions at King Records. Gaudio says a lot of the jazz then was played in Black clubs, those with either Black or mixed audiences. The membership of 814 finally voted to dissolve rather than to merge. Some members chose to join Local #1.
Wilhelm Smythe, known as “Smyttie”, had been the Secretary in Local #814 and took the job in Local #1 as “Traveling Agent” after the dissolution. This job was to police the clubs and collect work dues from musicians and check contracts. According to Lausche he was a very nice man, who lived until around 1980. But Anderson and drummer Philip Paul remember that he was much harsher than Lausche recalled and that he enforced union rules strictly. Lausche remembers Smyttie coming to Herbie’s, then a very active club at Hackberry and William Howard Taft, where Melvin Maddox, Glenn “Champ” Childress, John Wright, Jim Anderson, Bobby Scott and Sam Jackson, among others, frequently played.
Philip Paul, a 94 year-old veteran drummer who arrived in Cincinnati in 1951 as a member of NYC Local #802 and who is still active, says that Smyttie would approach the musicians on breaks and threaten to shut down the gig if they did not pay their dues then and there. He also recalls that many 814 members did not approve of Paul's own joining of Local #1 at the time. (He had not been a member of 814 but ran his work dues through it, as he had maintained his membership in #802). Other notable Cincinnati musicians who had belonged to 814 were Freddie Jordan, O'Dell Jackson, Billy Brown, Hickey Kelly, Curtis Peagler, Ed Connelly, Nelson Burton and Elwood Evans.
Smyttie was succeeded as Traveling Agent by Oscar Gamby, a music teacher at Taft High School and leader of the Pavilion Music Co. big band. Lausche says Gamby also came down very hard on musicians in the clubs. Membership in the Union dwindled among former members of 814. A later Traveling Agent, also a former member of 814, was Marcus Ware.
Today, in 2019, very few jazz musicians are represented by the Cincinnati Musicians' Association of the AFM, other than those who may happen to be members of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra or those musicians playing the Broadway Series at the Aronoff Center. There are no longer supper clubs with big or small bands and there is no live music on local TV and radio, as there once was in abundance. Some older musicians have hung on to their memberships but others have no relationship with Local #1.
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