Johnnie Garry (October 31, 1924 – March 13, 2018) was an American entertainment director, producer, historian, nightclub manager, and road manager for

Sarah Vaughan Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed "Sassy" and "Jazz royalty, The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine ...

and

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...

. He was the stage manager at the New York jazz club Birdland in the 1960s. He also worked as a stagehand, and as production coordinator and historian for

Jazzmobile Jazzmobile, Inc. is based in New York City, and was founded in 1964 by Daphne Arnstein, an arts patron and founder of the Harlem Cultural Council and Dr. William "Billy" Taylor. It is a multifaceted, outreach organization committed to bringing "A ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Early life

Garry was born in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

, United States. He was an only child. In 1928, his family moved to

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

, where they lived near the

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a not ...

on 127th Street. Garry saw his first jazz show at the Apollo; it featured Don Redman and his orchestra. He was unable to finish high school because he needed to support his family, so he took a job in the Garment District.

Career

Garry's career as a stagehand began at

Cafe Society A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

. Garry's neighbor,

Josh White Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the Sout ...

, recommended him to

Barney Josephson Barney Josephson (1902–1988) was the founder of Café Society in Greenwich Village, New York's first integrated nightclub. Opening artists in 1938 included Billie Holiday, who first performed the song "Strange Fruit" there. Background Bar ...

, Cafe Society's founder and owner. Josephson employed him as a stagehand, and soon promoted him into the management side of the business, giving him the opportunity to learn about running a night club. This opened new doors for Garry. He met the road manager for pianist

, worked as a stagehand for artists including

Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

, and

Eddie Heywood Edward Heywood Jr. (December 4, 1915 – January 3, 1989) was an American jazz pianist particularly active in the 1940s and 1950s. Biography Heywood was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His father, Eddie Heywood Sr., was also a jazz m ...

, and worked on Sarah Vaughan's management team for fifteen years, from 1945 to 1960. In 1960, Garry began working at the jazz club Birdland and rose to the position of club manager. He was the first African-American manager of a major downtown New York City night club. During the 1960s, Garry also worked at Club Sahara, another New York City jazz club. He remained at Birdland until 1977. In 1977, Garry was hired to work for

Billy Taylor Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the ...

. He stayed at Jazzmobile until 2012, working as production coordinator, technical director, and historian. While at Jazzmobile, Garry's credits included production of the Philip Morris Super (Jazz) Band on Tour, an international touring festival, and Jazzmobile's free outdoor summer mobile concert series, held throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Garry worked as booking agent and road manager for the Bill Lockett Music Festivals and Jazz Cruises, and as stage manager for the Jazz Foundation of America's gala concerts. During his career, Garry worked with many jazz artists, including

, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson,

B.B. King Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimm ...

Jimmy Heath James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually co ...

Clark Terry Clark Virgil Terry Jr. (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator. He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke ...

Wycliffe Gordon Wycliffe A. Gordon (born May 29, 1967) is an American jazz trombonist, arranger, composer, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. Gordon also sings and plays didgeridoo, trumpet, soprano trombone, tuba, and piano. ...

Carmen McRae Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer. She is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century and is remembered for her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpre ...

Wynton Marsalis Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awar ...

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

Houston Person Houston Person (born November 10, 1934) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer. Although he has performed in the hard bop and swing genres, he is most experienced in and best known for his work in soul jazz. He received the ...

Lou Donaldson Lou Donaldson (born November 1, 1926) is an American retired jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop ...

Roy Hargrove Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles ...

Dianne Reeves Dianne Elizabeth Reeves (born October 23, 1956) is an American jazz singer. Biography Dianne Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a musical family. Her father sang, her mother played trumpet, her uncle is bassist Charles Burrell, and h ...

Solomon Hicks "King" Solomon Hicks (born February 8, 1995) is an American guitarist, blues, jazz singer, and composer. His style of music ranges from jazz, blues, classical, gospel, R&B, funk, Afro-Cuban, and classic rock. Hicks has been a blues guitarist s ...

Randy Weston Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston (April 6, 1926 – September 1, 2018) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection. Weston's piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious M ...

Christian Sands Christian Sylvester Sands (born May 22, 1989) is an American jazz pianist and composer. His third album for Mack Avenue Records, ''Be Water'', was released in 2020 and received a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Instrumental Composition catego ...

, Frank Foster,

Charenee Wade Charenee Wade is an American jazz, soul and R&B singer, composer, arranger, improvisor, and educator. Early life Charenee Wade was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, United States and began singing at the age of 12. She participated in the ...

Bobby Sanabria Bobby Sanabria (born June 2, 1957) is an American drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, producer, educator, activist, radio show host of Puerto Rican descent who specializes in jazz and Latin jazz. Biography Sanabria was born in the South ...

, Antoinette Montague,

Monty Alexander Montgomery Bernard "Monty" Alexander (born 6 June 1944) is a Jamaican jazz pianist. His playing has a Caribbean influence and bright swinging feeling, with a strong vocabulary of bebop jazz and blues rooted melodies. He was influenced by Louis ...

T. K. Blue T. K. Blue (also known as Talib Kibwe, born Eugene Rhynie, February 7, 1953)TK Blue Artist Profile
Motéma Mu ...

, and

Cedar Walton Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakey's band, The Jazz Messengers, before establishing a long career as a bandleader and com ...

Awards

2018: Jazzmobile's Jazzy Award (posthumously).

References

External links

Johnnie "They Call Me Ziegfeld" Garry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garry, Johnnie 1924 births 2018 deaths People from Charlotte, North Carolina Music promoters Nightclub managers Historians of jazz American music historians