Our billing was “Jack Donovan and His Orchestra of Note,” which somebody over at the MCA booking agency had thought was cute when they’d coined it. We may not have been as popular as the half dozen or so biggest name bands in the country, but we weren’t bush league either, and the bookings were steady. Most important for all of us in the swing bands, the music we wanted to play was, miraculously, the music the public wanted to hear. It was one great time for a jazz musician to be alive. Unless, of course, you were me.

Musically, I couldn’t have been in better company. Dave Wooster, baritone sax, fifth chair, was just okay, but the three reed players on my left were as good as any I’d ever worked with. Frankie Pompano, Jerry Garden, and lead alto Billy French. It was jazz writer John Hammond who’d first started calling our sax section the “French Foreign Legion.” He’d caught us at the White Willow Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Looking up from his planter’s punch, he realized that four fifths of the sax section were not where they should be, meaning that based on our talent we should have been ensconced in New York or Los Angeles, or at least touring with a major ensemble like Goodman’s or Woody Herman’s. John Hammond decided that there must be some hidden explanation for this phenomenon, and began to ask around. The answers he got proved to him the adage that when anything is too good to be true, there is always, but always, a reason.

Frankie Pompano. He’d had a huge run-in with the law some years ago regarding an overdue library book that was in the glove compartment of a car he’d stolen. As thieves go, he’d been as measured and meticulous as his artfully trim solos. When he was first struggling in the business, he’d accepted a few gigs in cities that could be reached only by automobile. He’d had no money. So he would steal the car of someone with whom he was slightly acquainted and, upon his arrival, play the gig and receive his pay in cash, at which time he would put the car in a parking lot and send a special-delivery letter to the vehicle’s owner, informing them of the location of their automobile and enclosing one-way bus fare to the city where it was parked.

He’d done this on four occasions, and three of his victims had pressed charges. These warrants for his arrest weren’t important enough to justify his extradition, but Frankie knew that if he so much as got stopped for speeding or spitting on the sidewalk in New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, he’d be facing prison. So he signed on with Jack Donovan, with the understanding that he’d be excused from any bookings in states where he might get booked.