On the Shoulders of Giants

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  Harlem became the place where any desire might be fulfilled, an adult Disneyland whose motto could have been “the hippest place on earth.” Within a few years of that first Original Dixieland Jass Band performance, Harlem developed a thriving nightlife of such legendary proportions that downtown Harlem became a must-see on the itinerary of nearly every white celebrity and well-to-do traveler visiting New York. In Harlem, jazz’s newly adopted home, the music took on its own international celebrity and notoriety. Naturally, anything that popular sends off alarm bells to the guardians of social standards, and the attacks on jazz came with a ferocity rarely seen in the music world. In part, the intensity of the attacks was because jazz was viewed as the smirking crony to intemperance and unbridled sexual behavior. The general tone of the attacks is reflected in the 1921 comments of Fenton T. Bott, head of the National Association of Masters of Dancing: “Those moaning saxophones and the rest of the instruments with their broken, jerky rhythm make a purely sensual appeal. They call out the low and rowdy instincts. All of us dancing teachers know this to be a fact…. Jazz is the very foundation and essence of salacious dancing.”

  Embedded within the criticism was a measured fear of sensuality, and a conventional attitude about anything associated with African roots. Harlem Renaissance intellect James Weldon Johnson argued that the only way to dispel white people’s preconceived notions about black people would be by dispelling their bias toward Africa itself: “Popular opinion has it that the Negro in Africa has been from time immemorial a savage. This is far from the truth. Such an opinion is possible only because there has been and still is an historical conspiracy against Africa which has successfully stripped the Negro race of all credit for what it contributed in past ages to the birth and growth of civilization.” Despite the barrage of condemnation, jazz continued to thrive and spread its influence. As usual, the forbidden fruit was winning out over the “healthy” diet.

  However, those feasting on jazz tended not to be the middle- and upper-class blacks, many of whom were deliberately distancing themselves from their African-American heritage because they saw it as a barrier to acceptance among whites. “The average Negro family did not allow the blues or even raggedly music played in their homes,” recalled Harlem jazz pianist Willie “the Lion” Smith (1897–1973). “Among those who disliked this form of entertainment the most were the Negroes who had recently come up from the South to seek a better life.” Their dislike wasn’t just a matter of musical taste, it was a matter of practical adaptation. As Smith observed, “Native or longtime Harlemites looked down on Southern blacks.” To gain acceptance from their fellow blacks, these transplanted Southerners discarded anything that identified them as such, including clothes, food, the way they talked, or the music. Harlem Renaissance intellectuals fought against this racial hierarchy as well as the jettisoning of their cultural past. W. E. B. Du Bois argued that the past had to be embraced if African-Americans were going to be accepted for who they were rather than how much they could become like whites: “In this merging, he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost.” While that was fine in theory, in reality, whether from the upper class, middle class, or Deep South, each group was trying to reinvent itself to be accepted by others, and to accomplish that, they disavowed jazz. Ironically, over the next few years, jazz would help them be accepted for who they really were—their “older selves.”

  While jazz changed the face of Harlem, Harlem reciprocated by changing the sound of jazz. Four factors contributed to this change: the size of the venues in Harlem; the popularity of Latin music; musicians commuting outside of Harlem; and the proliferation of rent parties. Because the ballrooms where musicians played in Harlem were larger, holding more people, the jazz bands became larger so they could produce louder music. More brass instruments and saxophones, recalling jazz’s origins from marching bands, produced the fuller sound that helped make it so popular. At this time, jazz wasn’t about sitting around swooning over the skill of the musicians, it was all about the dancing. Though times were tough for Harlemites, they adhered to the old saying “We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well just dance.” And jazz adapted to both the venues and the customer expectations. When Duke Ellington moved his band to the Cotton Club in Harlem, he had to nearly double his band size from six to eleven. Jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman’s dance bands were so popular that he had sixty-eight bands using his name, eleven of them in New York City.

  The influence of Latin music became more pronounced in Harlem. In 1910, jazz bandleader James Reese Europe (1881–1919) founded the Clef Club, part fraternal organization and part union for African-Americans in the music industry. More than half of the Clef Club’s roster of 180 musicians were listed as Puerto Ricans. In part, this was because they had a higher level of musical training and were able to sight-read as well as play in different styles. This Latin influence was manifested in both the music and the Harlem lifestyle. W. C. Handy’s “Saint Louis Blues” and “Memphis Blues” revealed a Cuban influence. Puerto Rican valve trombonist Juan Tizol joined Duke Ellington’s band in 1929; together they penned the jazz classic “Caravan.” “Tango teas,” which featured dancing to both ragtime and tangos, became popular in Harlem. In fact, the ritzier of the nightclubs often hosted three bands: one for dancing, one for shows, and one to play Latin music, especially tangos.

  Many prominent musicians who lived in Harlem commuted to their work in downtown recording studios, shows, and clubs. By the time they returned home late at night, most clubs would have been closed. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s famous “Take the ‘A’ Train” (“the quickest way to get to Harlem”) reveals this pattern of travel. In their honor, the “after-hours” clubs arose. In these clubs, musicians gathered to play their music, not just for patrons, but for each other. And here, learning from each other, they developed their individual styles that would be incorporated into the body of jazz. These clubs weren’t in it to promote musical history—they made money. In his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress, Duke Ellington recounted how he would earn $100 to $200 in tips from playing downtown, only to spend it all the same night at after-hours clubs. These clubs provided an alcohol-soaked petri dish for the jazz culture to thrive. Because part of the jazz musician ethos was combat by instrument, jazz musicians honed their skills by playing against each other in musical showdowns. This tradition is still plain in the infamous “duels” among rap and hip-hop artists today, including Kool Moe Dee vs. LL Cool J, KRS-One vs. MC Shan, Jay-Z vs. Nas, Tupac vs. Biggie, Ja Rule vs. 50 Cent, and Eminem vs. Benzino.

  Nowhere was this combat more pronounced than among the pianists in Harlem. “Anybody who had a reputation as a piano player,” said Duke Ellington, “had to prove it right there and then by sitting down to the piano and displaying his artistic wares.” These jam sessions in which jazz musicians tried to outplay each other were called “cutting” contests, because each player tried to “cut” the other with his talent. This trial by musical fire became the rite of passage for the ambitious jazz musician wanting to make it in Harlem. Willie “the Lion” Smith, whom Ellington referred to as “a gladiator at heart,” crushed many a newbie player in these cutting contests. Count Basie himself lost a cutting contest to pianist Seminole, who “had a left hand like everybody else has a right hand…. And he dethroned me. Took my crown!”

  Here in Harlem, in this intensely competitive atmosphere, a new style of piano playing was born: the “Harlem stride.” In this style, the left hand played a bass note on the downbeat, then a higher-octave chord on the offbeat. Meanwhile, the right hand pounded out syncopated melodies. The Harlem stride was perfected at the usual clubs as well as at the many rent parties that occurred almost nightly throughout Harlem. Because the rents were high ($12 to $30 a month more than in the rest of Manhattan) and the incomes low, rent parties became something of a necessity for people struggling to make their monthly rents. Harlem residents spent 40 percent of their income on rent, and because more migrants were
always arriving daily, failure to pay rent on time meant your possessions were on the street the following day. Although such parties offered booze, food, dancing—and sometimes even more illicit amusements—the most compelling attractions were the musicians who came to play into the small hours of the morning. Jazz greats such as Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and Willie “the Lion” Smith entertained at many rent parties. In fact, Fats Waller’s music “video” of him playing his jazz hit “Ain’t Misbehavin’” is set at such a rent party.

  When Giants Roamed the Earth: Three Jazz Greats

  The number of Harlem Renaissance jazz giants who stood as models for future generations is too large to cover here. Any list that tries to reduce the number to the most important names does an injustice to those not mentioned. But three names stand out because their influence was unique in defining and promoting jazz, and for embodying the qualities of the New Negro that the Harlem Renaissance cultivated: Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong.

  Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904–43) was born in Harlem to a Baptist minister father. Though Waller became famous for his boisterous improvisational style of piano playing that he learned from stride master James P. Johnson, he was also classically trained in music at Juilliard. These two sometimes conflicting sides of his personality defined him as both a man and a musician. On one hand, he refined his roguish persona, seeming to embody the carefree, hard-drinking party lifestyle, a lifestyle that bloated his weight to nearly three hundred pounds and may have hastened his death. Yet, he was also an ambitious, well-trained musician who wrote many popular jazz standards such as “Squeeze Me” (1919), “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (1929), “Honeysuckle Rose” (1929), “Blue Turning Grey Over You” (1930), and “Jitterbug Waltz” (1942). During a twenty-year period, Waller released six hundred recordings.

  Never satisfied to just thump a piano, he conducted a successful tour of Europe in 1938, wrote the music for the stage show Early to Bed in 1943, and later that year costarred with Lena Horne and Cab Calloway in the landmark film Stormy Weather. So popular was Waller that when he was performing in Chicago in 1926, he was kidnapped by four men and driven to a party. He was forced to a piano at gunpoint and ordered to play. He quickly discovered that he was the “surprise guest” at a birthday party for gangster Al Capone. Waller allegedly continued playing for the three-day duration of the party, finally being released with thousands of dollars he’d earned in tips from Capone and the other guests. Waller died of pneumonia at the height of his popularity at age thirty-nine.

  “Music is my mistress,” Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974) once said, “and she plays second fiddle to no one.” The unbending determination in that statement is why, in terms of sheer range of influence, Duke Ellington towers over most other jazz artists of his, or any other, age. His father, the son of a slave, was a butler in a wealthy Washington, D.C., physician’s household; from him, Ellington learned the niceties of proper dress and society manners that he adopted as a performer. His mother, the daughter of a police captain, taught him the moral and social values that guided his private life. Though raised in the servants’ quarters, Ellington had access to two pianos in the main home. Both his parents could play passably well, and so their son was given lessons from the time he was six years old. As a musician, he was less than dedicated and soon abandoned playing. But a few years later he saw a young boy play the piano and was inspired to try again. He described the epiphany in his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress: “I hadn’t been able to get off the ground before, but after hearing him, I said to myself, ‘Man, you’re just going to have to do it.’” As a result of that encounter, he composed his first song, “Soda Fountain Rag,” recalling his teenage job as a soda jerk. His parents were pleased that he was playing again, though not so pleased with his music of choice: ragtime and blues.

  Despite his renewed commitment, Ellington’s career as a musician did not suddenly rocket him to fame and fortune. Instead, he married when he was eighteen and became a father the next year. His new responsibilities as husband and father set him on a more cautious road. He still played the piano for money, but he also pursued a career as a commercial artist, even opening a sign-painting business. Finally, he got up his nerve to give being a full-time musician another shot and, together with drummer Sonny Greer and saxophonist Otto Hardwick, moved to New York to join a band. The move was far from successful, and Ellington and his pals were forced to return to D.C., where Ellington resumed his old job of painting signs. Despite the setback, he was determined to become a professional musician. So, after a few months, back to New York he went, this time burrowing himself into the jazz community with more tenacity and business savvy than he had shown the first time. The hard work paid off: he and his band, the Washingtonians, finally got a steady job playing at the Club Kentucky.

  In 1924, Ellington recorded his first song, “Choo Choo.” From that year forward, the recordings continued at a tremendous pace; in 1927 alone he made over thirty recordings. That same year, Ellington’s biggest break came when his band was selected as the house orchestra for Harlem’s premier nightclub, the whites-only Cotton Club (see the chapter “ ‘Some Technicolor Bazaar’: How Harlem Became the Center of the Universe”). The Cotton Club, owned by mobster and convicted murderer Owney Madden, catered to celebrities and high society. The illegal booze flowed freely while the scantily dressed young black girls danced seductively. Ellington was well aware of the bitter irony that his music was attracting many patrons to the club, yet he would not be welcome as a patron himself. Nevertheless, for the next four years he used the Cotton Club as a launching pad for his own career, performing six nights a week while continuing to record prodigiously. He became so popular that his music was regularly broadcast live on the radio. In 1930, Ellington had his first national introduction to white audiences when he and his orchestra appeared as themselves in the Amos ’n’ Andy movie Check and Double Check. The following year he was invited to the White House to meet President Herbert Hoover.

  After that, Duke Ellington ascended to the heights of popularity that few entertainers—white or black—have ever achieved. And he achieved it during the depths of the Great Depression, when many other entertainers were scratching to make a living. Critics were comparing his music with that of Mozart, Schubert, and Bach. Some of his finest works were written during this time, including “Mood Indigo,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Solitude,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” and “Echoes of Harlem.” Just as Scott Joplin pushed the boundaries of ragtime, Ellington tried to prove that jazz could be much more than what was accepted. Toward that end, he composed ever-longer works that defied the limitations of the typical three-to-four minute 78 rpm recordings: “Creole Rhapsody” (1931) was eight minutes; “Symphony in Black” (1934) was nine minutes; “Reminiscing Tempo” (1935) was thirteen minutes. Also like Joplin, Ellington was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music long after his death (in 1999).

  The Harlem Renaissance preached that talent would lead the way out of the bondage of racism. Duke Ellington’s talent and intelligence provided a model for those who would try. In Ellington’s achievements, white America was exposed to just what a black man was capable of. In this case, he was capable of winning many Grammy Awards; of being nominated for an Academy Award for Paris Blues (1961); of receiving top awards from DownBeat, Esquire, and Playboy magazines as well as the highest ranking from the Jazz Critics Polls; of appearing in and writing music for many films, including the Marx Brothers classic A Day at the Races; of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Legion of Honor from France in 1973, each country’s highest civilian honor; of receiving honorary degrees from sixteen colleges and universities; of having postage stamps issued with his image in the African nations of Togo and Chad, as well as in the United States (1986); of receiving a special papal blessing from Pope Paul VI in 1969. Those are mighty shoulders from which great vistas of possibili
ties could be seen—and have since been achieved.

  Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (1901–71) was as popular for his exuberant personality as he was for his magnificent music. His generous and kind persona earned him the unofficial title of Ambassador of Jazz, while his energetic and innovative trumpet playing earned him the accolade of Mr. Jazz. “If anybody was Mr. Jazz, it was Louis Armstrong,” said Duke Ellington. “He was the epitome of jazz and always will be.” Jazz musician Miles Davis marveled, “You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis hasn’t played.” And Jazz documentary producer Ken Burns noted, “Armstrong is to music what Einstein is to physics and the Wright brothers are to travel.” Hard to believe they are talking about the same boy whose high jinks resulted in his being continually sent to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, the final time for a year when he was twelve or thirteen after firing his stepfather’s gun into the air to celebrate the New Year.

  Armstrong’s birthplace of New Orleans gave him exposure to jazz, the means to choose his lifestyle, while his birth into a poor family gave him the motivation to want more from his own life. He wasted no time in combining the two. He formed his own six-man orchestra when he was seventeen, quickly coming to the attention of Joe “King” Oliver, one of the most prominent jazz bandleaders of the time. In 1922, at the age of twenty-one, Armstrong moved to Chicago as a cornet player in Oliver’s band. The following year, he made some of his first recordings while playing with Oliver. Oliver was a surrogate father to Armstrong, and it is a measure of Armstrong’s ambition that he left Oliver to move to New York to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the time. For Armstrong to fit in better with the rest of the band, Henderson suggested he play the trumpet. Armstrong did so, becoming, some critics say, the best trumpet player ever. In addition, his unusual singing voice and performing style earned him a dedicated following. The voice—half-growl, half-laugh—was only part of the formula; he also popularized (some say invented) the “scat” style of singing, in which words are replaced by nonsensical syllables that can be lengthened or shortened to sound just like a musical instrument. This was full circle in the evolution of jazz: the instruments followed the African tradition of trying to emulate the human voice; now the human voice emulated the musical instruments. Despite his increasing influence as the Ambassador of Jazz, Armstrong was less concerned about defining jazz than just playing it. When asked to define jazz, he responded with a smile, “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”