Babs Gonzales

Babs Gonzales (October 27, 1919 – January 23, 1980), born Lee Brown, was an American bebop vocalist, poet, and self-published author. "There are jazz people whose influence can be described as minor", wrote Val Wilmer, "yet who are well-known to musicians and listeners alike ... You'd have to be hard-pressed to ignore the wealth of legend that surrounds Babs Gonzales." Jazz writer Jack Cooke explained that Gonzales "assumed the role of spokesman for the whole hipster world ... [becoming] something more than just a good and original jazz entertainer: the incarnation of a whole social group."

Early life Gonzales was born Lee Brown in Newark, New Jersey, United States. Of his nickname, Gonzales explained, "my brothers are basketball players ... there was a basketball star in America named Big Babbiad, and so they were called Big Babs, Middle Babs, and I'm Little Babs." Using this identity, Gonzales worked at the Los Angeles Country Club until becoming a private chauffeur to movie star Errol Flynn. "I formed the Bips because I felt bebop needed a bridge to the people", said Gonzales, "The fire was there ... but it wasn't reaching the people." Gonzales himself rejected being labelled a "scat" singer, stating, "I am a jazz singer. Scat is a technical way of interpreting a melody by paraphrasing it by means of onomatopoeia. The scat singers do not improvise. I do not stop improvising, like an instrumentalist; I improvise on the harmonic frame and use chords of passage." "Babs was a very wonderful guy", Rollins reminisced in 2019, "he gave me an opportunity to make my first recordings, and a chance to work with the older, more prominent musicians than myself at the time ... Fats Navarro, Lucky Thompson, people of that stature ... I was just a kid coming into the business." Reflecting on Gonzales's personality and achievements, Rollins remarked, "Just thinking about him makes me laugh ... in a respectful way, not at him but with him. He needs to be recognized and praised for what he did. I never forgot him. We were great friends. I admired him tremendously and respected what he was doing."

1950s and 1960s Gonzales released a string of albums and singles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but became only a cult figure, ultimately self-publishing his own recordings. where he appeared alongside musicians such as Fats Navarro and Bud Powell.

Throughout this time, Gonzales remained a behind-the-scenes influence in the jazz world, linking musicians to one other and introducing them recording to companies.

Nightclub ownership From 1958, Gonzales operated a nightclub called Babs' Insane Asylum, located in Sugar Hill, New York, at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Place.

Gonzales attempted to open a similar club in Paris, named Le Maison Du Idiots, but lost access to his $10,000 investment after a general strike. He personally sold these books at jazz concerts. Jazz writer Nat Hentoff elaborated, "[Gonzales] is always among the first to use and introduce the newest shifts in the argot, and he may indeed have coined a few himself." An excerpt of Gonzales's writing was later included in the historical collection The Cool School: Writing from America's Hip Underground, whose editor, Glenn O'Brien, defined Gonzales's voice as one of many "outsider voices ignored or suppressed by the mainstream [that] would merge and recombine in unpredictable ways, and change American culture forever."

Personal life From 1951, Gonzales began to travel regularly to Europe and remained there for months at a time. however, he later stated that he was not married, explaining, "I love freedom too much ... there are too many girls on earth to choose just one." and claimed in his autobiographies that he had slept with hundreds of women.

Death Gonzales died of cancer at Newark's College Hospital in January 1980.

Compilation albums The Be-bop Story (Expubidence, unknown date) Weird Lullaby (Blue Note, 1992)