Conrad’s reputation was building and he now had a real following. "I’m playing with all these guys and I call up Sharpsteen and Smith and say, ‘Come to New York. There’s plenty of work here.’ My idea is to have them in the front line with a rhythm section of mostly veterans. We had Danny Barker on guitar and banjo; Pops Foster on bass; Freddy Moore on drums, and a variety of pianists, Elmer Schoebel, Bob Greene, and Ralph Sutton." The recordings they made for Circle as the Tailgate Jazz Band have been reissued on CD by George Buck, still under the Circle label.

"We started at the Stuyvesant Casino," Conrad says, "but worked all over town -- and on the out-of town ‘circuit.’ That ‘circuit’ included the Tip Toe Club in Hartford -- I was called back there regularly over the years -- the Savoy in Boston, and the Rendezvous Room of the Hotel Senator in Philadelphia.

"I remember the first time I went to the Rendezvous Room. That was before Sharpsteen and Smith arrived. It was my first ‘steady’ job; that is, all week, not just a one-nighter or weekend. I had Henry Goodwin on trumpet, Dick Wellstood on piano, and Baby Dodds on drums. Henry kept asking, ‘Why are you sweating so much?’ Of course, I was nervous.

"They paid you comparatively little money, but they put you up in the hotel. I wondered why the doors were opening and closing all night long. It turned out that it was a brothel. The girls would pick up their ‘dates’ in the clubs — maybe in our club and bring them upstairs.

"Eventually, we (Sharpsteen and Smith) worked ourselves up to 13 weeks at Jimmy Ryan’s with absolutely sold-out business before taking two weeks off to play at the Savoy in Boston. I had noticed Wilbur DeParis, who was known as a big-band musician, sitting down front night after night.

"That instantly established my place at the Stuyvesant Casino," Conrad says. "Bob Maltz, who was in charge of the sessions, grabbed the microphone and announced, ‘This is our next regular trombone player!’ He hired me on the spot."

The following week, he was asked to play in a band led by Red Allen. "Edmond Hall was on clarinet and, I think, Willie the Lion Smith on piano and Big Sid Catlett on drums. Again, I was petrified. Red Allen called for ‘Tiger Rag.’ What key? I turned to Edmond Hall hopefully. ‘B-flat, E-flat, A-flat?’ He snapped, ‘I know that.’ And we were off! Breakkneck tempo — with me desperately trying to keep up. Red was merciless, absolutely merciless."

Now working regularly, he had to join the union.

"I had never studied trombone. I hardly knew the name of one note to the next, though I could play them. "I went to where they were giving the test. The audition tune to get into the union was ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ The guy ahead of me — my age — read it off perfectly, very clear, very legitimate. So I went in and said, ‘Well, I don’t read.’ (I do now.) They said, ‘Play something.’ I played some blues just to show that I could at least get a sound out of the instrument. I was told: ‘Hit an F in the sixth position.’ I made a stab at it. ‘That’s not it, try again. . . .Yea, that’s the right position, but that’s a C’ So I had to go up to get the F. Playing with a band, I would just stick the slide out and feel my way into the note."

Conrad was told, "Well, you’re not really a musician." He made an impassioned speech: "My father was a good union man, and I belong to the Screen Actors’ Guild, to Actors’ Equity, the radio union, four unions altogether and I want to belong to this union!"

The guy looked at me. "Now, you’re going to study, aren’t you?"

"Oh, yes, of course, I am going to study."

He did. He took some lessons from Jimmy Archey, Tyree Glenn, and from Herb Nichols, who had been with Cab Calloway’s band and with Benny Moten in Kansas City. Mention of Nichols reminds Conrad: "It’s too bad guys like Herb aren’t around. There is a missing page in jazz history where guys like Herb used to travel all around the country, playing in hot regional Swing bands, entertaining locally with great musicians who never really got their due."

So he got into the union. He started playing as a sideman -- not just at Stuyvesant Casino, but at Jimmy Ryan’s, Condon’s, Nicks.

"I played with Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland, Cab Calloway, Rex Stewart, Coleman Hawkins,. And later I not only played with but was lucky enough to include in my bands such musical giants as Red Allen, Charlie Shavers, Harry (Sweets) Edison, Hot Lips Page, Sonny Greer, Bud Freeman, Ralph Sutton, George Wettling, Yank Lawson, Kenny Davern, Panama Francis, Marty Napoleon,Sol Yaged, Dick Wellstood, Cecil Scott, Buster Bailey -- everybody you could think of -- Jo Jones and Roy Eldridge ....

"When we returned from Boston, the guys insisted I ask for more money, if only for $10 to be split among us all. I was reluctant to do it, since Jimmy was notoriously tight-fisted. I was right. We were fired. The DeParises offered to play for below scale and they were hired, playing much of our book and using our style and our arrangements. They were there for years with Wilbur on trombone, his brother Sidney on trumpet and Omer Simeon on clarinet.I knew then how Kid Ory had felt when he heard us doing his stuff."

Conrad figures they did him a favor. "We went into Child’s Paramount Restaurant, a cavernous room beneath the Paramount Theater at 43d and Broadway. For several years, we played for dinner from 6:30 to 8:30 — quietly — and then we blew the roof off from 9:30 to 2:30. We got good money -- top scale, not Jimmy Ryan scale. On a Saturday night, they would get 1300 people in there. There was a $1 minimum. One night, the manager called me over as he counted the receipts. There was $1300 in the till. Everybody would buy maybe a cup of coffee and a piece of cake and nurse it through the evening.

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