Ghosts of yesterday

At one of Boston's oldest jazz clubs, Wally's Cafe in the South End, it's the morning after.

Through the bay window to Massachusetts Avenue, the summer sun slants in to dance in corners better left dark and to mingle with the sour smell of stale beer to create a mood that is wistful and not unlike what Ella Fitzgerald probably had in mind when she sang about those downhearted blues.

The jukebox is turned off, and so there's no Bessie Smith moanin' about all the wrongs done by her Aggravatin' Papa. With the bandstand deserted, there's no clarinet's swing, none of the trumpet's silver sound, no song at all except the grind of an air conditioner and the echo of who knows how many minor keys that have bounced off the walls of Wally's over the decades.

So, when Mr. James Guilford, as he's called, walks into Wally's and settles at a table near the window to talk about the history of jazz in Boston, chances are that a lot of musical ghosts are pulling up their chairs to listen, too, for it's not often that anyone hears a man 93 years old recount his personal recollections over seven decades, including those nights he spent with the likes of Erroll Garner, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday.

Dressed in a black suit and a white shirt with an open collar, and with a patriotic pin inserted into his lapel for the occasion, Guilford takes the initiative to ask the first question: ''So, where do you want me to start?" he says. ''Some of the stories I can tell you, but you won't be able to print 'em."

Well, for openers, how is he feeling?

''I'm still livin', still breathin', and still workin', but I can't handle the women like I used to," he says, taking off his sunglasses. ''I've had to slow down on that."

As a barber from 1923 (age 12) until 1979 -- with three years off to fight in the Pacific during World War II -- and as proprietor of Jimmy Guilford's Men's Hairstyling Salon at 810 Tremont St., Guilford catered to the elite of Boston's black community. Sometimes he was called upon to drive to the Copley Square Hotel, where he would cut, style, or straighten the hair of jazz artists performing there at the fabled Storyville jazz club, among them Vaughan, Count Basie, orLouis Armstrong. Among his patrons were Nat King Cole, Sugar Ray Robinson, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, and Jackie Robinson, all of whom expressed gratitude in personal autographs on photos still encased in plastic in Guilford's scrapbook.

For any discussion about jazz, Wally's is the ideal venue. The club was opened in 1934 by Guilford's friend Joseph L. ''Wally" Walcott, who died in 1998 at age 101. Today, Wally's is a family gig managed by Walcott's daughter, Elynor, and his three grandsons, Paul, Frank, and Lloyd Poindexter. His great-grandchildren earn their allowance sorting beer bottles.

''I knew Wally before he went into the nightclub business," Guilford says. ''He lived at 610 Columbus Ave., and during Prohibition he had -- at that time, people had what they called buffet flats, because you could go in, sit down, and buy a pitcher of alcohol, moonshine -- and it would cost you 50 cents."

So, Wally was . . .

''Yes, a bootlegger, but that was common among a lot of people who had apartments, especially along Columbus Avenue. There was another buffet flat across the street, a woman named Ann. I don't know if I should tell you this, but if you had a companion and you wanted to rent a room, well, they'd take care of that, too."

Wally's Cafe Jazz Club is a relic of three generations back, a holdover from the heyday of jazz in Boston when artists like Basie, Ellington, Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller, or Stan Getz might be found playing or jamming at the Hi Hat, Storyville, Estelle's, or across the street and down an alley at the Pioneer Club, where last call might not come till sunrise.

''Coming from Barbados, my grandfather had a different train of thought," Frank Poindexter says. ''When he opened Wally's in 1934, he'd go to Harvard and hand out circulars, inviting students to Wally's for jazz, and that helped integrate the South End."

At last Sunday's jam session, the doors were open to Massachusetts Avenue, and drivers waiting at the traffic light at Columbus Avenue could hear lofty improvisations by a seven-piece band: bass, drum, piano, and four saxophones.

Between sips of his vodka and ginger ale, Donald Madrey, 61, of Cambridge, recalls his first visit to Wally's.

''It was 1961, and I was a teenager," he says above the music. ''From one of my brothers, I borrowed a Chesterfield coat and from the other, military papers so I could buy a drink. I invited a girl named Juanita. I ordered a Ward Eight, showed them my brother's military papers, and they went for it."

His laughter is drowned out by a solo played by John Radosta, 19, a Northeastern student who's a regular at Wally's jam sessions with the alto sax he refers to as his girlfriend.

''You see these young kids jamming, and they don't get paid," Poindexter says. ''It's just a way for them to become expert at what they love, serious jazz."

In 1979, Wally's Paradise, as it was known, was lost to eminent domain, and Wally moved across Massachusetts Avenue, to the present location, a long, narrow room with a capacity of only 99.

Madrey's only complaint about Wally's is that it's cramped, to which Poindexter has an answer. ''Later this year, we plan to expand through this brick wall, which will double capacity and enable us to begin serving food. But we care about our neighbors, so it will be low-key."

Elynor Walcott still lives in Rutland Square, in the house where she grew up and saw her mother die on Oct. 29, 1964, and her father die on March 20, 1998. ''Do I expect to die there?" she says. ''Yeah, I think about that."

As a little girl, she recalls answering the telephone to discover it was someone named Erroll Garner. She remembers nights at Wally's with Illinois Jacquet or Quincy Jones or Ahmad Jamal, and she cherishes the memory of a visit with her father to Storyville to hear Dinah Washington, who wore white mink.

She bristles when a guest refers to Wally's -- during the day and without music -- as a bar.

''People can think of Wally's as they choose," she says, frostily, ''but I prefer to think of Wally's as an institution.

''Myself and my three sons, we share responsibility for Wally's. We are the gatekeepers of my father's legacy. But if you're looking for stories about Wally's," she says, ''talk to Mr. Guilford. He's a 30-year-old man trapped in a 93-year-old body."

About Guilford, she's right, for the stories tumble along like Art Tatum notes.

''I knew Joe Louis, and I went to Harlem once to see him fight, and at a party," Guilford recalls, ''someone said, 'Hey, who are all the girls around Joe Louis?' Well, the girls around Joe Louis all wanted to be Joe Louis's girlfriend. The ones with the mink coats -- they were already Joe Louis's girlfriend."

And what about that night with Billie Holiday?

''It was 1959," he recalls. ''She was performing at Storyville, and Erroll Garner came to my shop that Monday. I said, 'What are you doing in Boston? You're supposed to be on the way to your next gig.' He said he'd stayed over to help Lady Day -- that's what they called Billie -- because she was sick. He maybe helped her get drugs or dope or whatever. I didn't ask him, but he got her fixed up, and she performed the whole week and gave beautiful performances. I was there every night.

''They gave her a party Saturday at the Businessmen's Club, where I was a member, so I drove her from Storyville in my Cadillac. None of the pimps would get in the car with us, because she was a convicted drug addict, and they were worried about the cops.

''She was wearing all black. Her lips were black, and her nails were black. We were sitting at a table with about 10 people having cheese and crackers, and they wanted her to sing, and she says to me, 'Jimmy, what do you want to hear?' I said, well, 'Lover Man,' and she got up, took the mike and sang it right next to where she'd been sitting.

''After another song, she said she didn't feel well and wanted to go. It was around 3 in the morning and daybreak'd be comin' on soon. She said she wanted more cheese and crackers to take to her hotel, so I took her to an all-night deli at Grove Hall, bought her cheese and crackers, and drove her to her hotel. She said, 'Do you want to come upstairs?'

''I said no, because the thing of it was, when I said I didn't want to go up to her apartment, she knew why and I knew why. Because she was a convicted drug addict, and I was just getting over alcoholism and didn't want to be tempted by no damn drugs or alcohol or sex or anything else. So, she went back to New York, and a few weeks later, she died."

Jack Thomas can be reached at thomas@globe.com.