Venue tied to jazz legends through the camera lens
By Ray Schweibert
Walt Gregory's appreciation for all facets of jazz has been a gradual work-in-progress, but his willingness to become involved in the Cape Savings Bank Jazz @ The Point festival was immediate. Gregory's Restaurant and Bar, which Walt Gregory's family has owned since 1946, was one of the original venues to host jazz performances since the festival began as a single-day event 10 years ago. Now a four-day, five-venue event that's gained immense popularity, Gregory's has become the spot where performers and enthusiasts alike kind of gather to kick back at the end of each day.
"Nicky (event producer Nick Regine) has been kind enough to oblige my request to be the late-night place," says Gregory. "As a smaller venue that has music until 1am (the others end at 10pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday), we've kind of developed the reputation as a place where other members and performers can drift into late at night."
Another compelling connection between Gregory's and the local jazz scene stems from Walt Gregory's befriending Mike Randolph when the two were college classmates at the University of Miami. Randolph's father, William "PoPsie" Randolph, was the preeminent photographer of the New York City music scene from the 1940s until his death in 1978. He was for a time the personal attaché to jazz legend Benny Goodman, who is Mike Randolph's godfather. Several of the photographs PoPsie Randolph took are on the walls of Gregory's Restaurant, and thousands more are in a book called PoPsie N.Y. - Through the Camera Lens of William "PoPsie" Randolph that Mike Randolph, a Northfield resident, assembled. The book has a forward by Quincy Jones.
"PoPsie Randolph was a freelance photographer who worked out of a studio at 52nd and Broadway, and followed the big jazz names like Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie," says Gregory. "He has a photo of Jimi Hendrix in a tuxedo when he was a jazz guitarist for Miles Davis, and before he went to England and returned to the U.S. as a rock star."
All forms of music from the '40s through the '70s are represented in the book's photos, says Gregory, and many wound up on the walls of his restaurant through his friendship with Mike.
"If Barbra Streisand was in town to shoot an album cover for Columbia Records, PoPsie would get a call to do the shoot, take a few dozen photos, get paid for the ones they wanted and keep the rest," says Gregory. -- RS
The Mulgrew Miller Trio and Jimmy Cobb's Mob headline this year's 15th annual Cape Bank Jazz @ The Point Festival in March.
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