Babs Gonzales born Lee Brown, was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vocalist of the bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

 era most notable for penning the song "Oop-Pop-A-Da", which was originally recorded and performed by his own band (Three Bips and a Bop) and was later made famous by Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

 . Babs was also once the chauffeur

Chauffeur

A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...

 for Errol Flynn

Errol Flynn

Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...

. In 1967, Babs published an autobiography entitled: "I Paid My Dues: Good Times... No Bread - A Story of Jazz" (Lancer Books

Lancer Books

Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...

).

Gonzales was born in Newark, NJ. He was known to be an exponent of vocalese

Vocalese

Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...

, an example of this would be his version of the Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....

 bop standard "Ornithology". From 1950 to 1953, Gonzales was road manager and vocalist for the James Moody

James Moody (saxophonist)

James Moody was an American jazz saxophone and flute player. He was best known for his hit "Moody's Mood for Love," an improvisation based on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; in performance, he often improvised vocals for the tune.-Biography:James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia...

 band and later gigged and recorded with musicians such as Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith (musician)

Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...

, Bennie Green

Bennie Green

Bennie Green was an American jazz trombonist.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Green worked in the orchestras of Earl Hines and Charlie Ventura, and recorded as bandleader through the 1950s and 1960s.-As leader:...

, Lenny Hambro

Lenny Hambro

Leonard William Hambro was a journeyman jazz musician who played woodwinds, primarily alto saxophone, with a host of bands, orchestras, and jazz notables from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, and continued as a session musician, music producer, booking agent, and entertainment coordinator...

 and Johnny Griffin

Johnny Griffin

John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...

. Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...

 also made his recording debut with Gonzales. He was also a Beat poet.

Further Reading

• Gonzales, Babs. 1967. I Paid My Dues: Good Times... No Bread: A story of Jazz. East Orange, NJ: Expubidence Publishing Corporation.