Some Special Moments with My Friend “Chopper” George D. Williams
There is so much to say about Ezra Cummings. He was a very good friend of mine. I met him at Smother's Elementary School around 1947. He was a domineering guy with immense energy. He thought he was a gigantic basketball player because he could jump so high. We attended Kelly Miller Jr. High and Spingarn Senior High Schools. I ran into Chopper at Central State University while I was playing basketball at West Virginia State University and we had a ball. He loved jazz and he thought he could sing. Moody’s Mo od for Love was one of his favorite songs. I left W.S.U. and went to Howard University and was asked to leave HU and ended up in the U.S. Army. Ezra was an officer and I was a field soldier.
Ezra and I got together in Massachusetts. We visited some of the finest Jazz clubs. As a matter of fact we visited Lennie's on the Turnpike a really hip jazz club and ran into Ben Dixon a classmate of Chopper and friend of mine, who was playing drums with Roland Kirk and Bobbie Timmons. When they had a break, Ben and I went outside to smoke a cigarette; we had plenty of fun. Next, we went over to Hanover, New Hampshire, 30 miles north of Boston and met Lionel Hampton. We were parking chopper's Volkswagen and Lionel who was outside smoking a cigarette, spoke to us. We were the only Blacks there
BEN DIXON
ROLAND KIRK
and Lionel Hampton took us inside the club and sat us up
front by the band and got us free drinks. We also visited another jazz club, Big M Club and saw Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw Davis" We caught Carmen McRae at Basie Street East Club in Boston, MA. We went to the Jazz Work Shop in Back Bay Boston and Caught Art Blakey Quintet. Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan got to fighting on stage, so the owner gave us our money back. We enjoyed our whiskey and I do not know how we made it back to our different Military bases which were 60 miles apart from each other; he at Fort Devens and me at Fort Banks, Massachusetts.
“Chopper” got to enjoy all of these artists and more.
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