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“Meet me in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel…”

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That was the gist of my phone conversation with Memphis musician, Phineas Newborn, Jr. It seemed that the famed Jazz pianist’s contract was up for renewal, and it was my job to get him re-signed. There was just one problem…

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Memphis, in the 1960’s was no haven for a black man. There were only few places in town where ‘negros’ were ‘allowed’ and a public restaurant (my usual out-of-town office), was not one of them. Given such boundaries, there was only one alternative; a hotel lobby. And the renowned Peabody had one of the best in town.

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Tall, thin and stylishly dressed, Phineas walked through the lobby doors looking every bit the picture of a Mississippi musician. As we shook hands he seemed a little skittish, but I chalked it up to the usual let’s-get-this-business-meeting –over-with jitters.

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After a little small talk, I spread out the BMI contract on the lobby’s coffee table and started going over the usual fine points. But just as I was hitting my stride, we were interrupted by an extremely loud, rude voice.

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“Nigger! What are you doing in here!? You know better!” Turning my head towards the blast, I saw that the angry words were not coming from some uneducated cave-dweller, but from a clean-cut gentleman with a lapel insignia reading, MANAGER.

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I quickly spoke up. “I’m sorry it’s my fault. We’re signing a contract and we’ll be out of here.”

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The red-faced man squinted at me and sternly shook his finger at Phineas. “This nigger knows better than to come in here. And you,” he turned his finger in my direction, “you should know better than to be in here with him!”

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I just stared up at the fuming man in absolute awe. It looked as if all the hate in the world was steaming out of his pink, vibrating ears.

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“Are you staying here in the hotel?”

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“Yes, yes I am.” It was hard to hold my tongue.

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“Well, get your bags and get out. We don’t want your kind in here!” And he waved me off, like a cowboy shooing cattle.

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Looking over at Phineas, I could tell he was rattled, cowering. The man looked as if all dignity had been stripped from him. It was as if the manager had torn off all Newborn’s clothes and left him naked and helpless in that beautiful lobby.

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As for me, I was rattled, too. But also aggravated, angry and shocked that one human being could treat another with such blatant disregard.

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As we crossed the lobby for the front doors, passing through a gauntlet of stares, the jazz pianist’s hands were shaking. And in his teary eyes were a world of questions neither of us could answer.

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When I got back to Nashville, I immediately called both the mayor and the governor and told them, in great detail, about the hospitality of the Peabody Hotel. And it wasn’t long before that Memphis manager was stripped of his insignia and told to pack his bags.

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Yes, the man was fired. But it didn’t erase the injustice, the pain, the public humiliation of a man that many considered gifted. Even Jazz critic Leonard Feather said that Newborn, ”…in his prime, was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum.”

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Sadly, after we parted that day, I never heard from Phineas again. But his fans got to hear him, in such far away concert halls as Stockholm and Rome.

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But eventually, back in America, Phineas walked into one too many Peabody hotels. The results were emotional problems so devastating that, ironically, he had to check into a mental hospital for a time.

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When he died, in Memphis, Phineas was only 57.

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It’s a shame that a man with a name like ‘Newborn’ was forced to live his life dying a little, every day.