140A nice touch here is the presentation of the famous obbligato line, originally a piccolo part, now rendered by saxophones, which are in the sonic foreground. That is appropriate given the importance of this line in jazz history, though it runs counter to the priority of the main melody, which can barely be heard in the trumpet. As conductor, Armstrong turns around and seems to indicate the prominence of the saxes when they begin the obbligato.
141Rogers 1968, 218. Garvin Bushell (1988, 55) reports that “there was always a jungle number in the Negro shows [during the 1920s].”
SOURCE NOTES
Introduction
1“He was just an ordinary-extraordinary man”: Cheatham IJS 1976.
2“Chicago was considered”: Barker 1986, 71.
8“Modernism will always rule”: Defender, Nov. 14, 1925, p. 7.
Chapter 1: “Welcome to Chicago”
13August 8, 1922: On the date, see Wright 1987, 14; Harker (1997, 65) argues that the date of arrival was actually July 8.
13basket of chicken: Armstrong 1954, 227–30; Armstrong 1966, 28.
13“Hey hey boll weevil”: Ma Rainey, Bo-Weevil Blues, recorded December 1923.
15“the tremendous shore”: Johnson quoted in Grossman 1989, 16.
15porters, janitors, and domestics: Peretti 1992, 45.
15some 50,000 African Americans: Drake and Cayton 1970, 58; Wang 1988, 102.
15never heard his mentor called “King”: Foster 2005, 40.
16never seen a city like this: Armstrong 1954, 235; Armstrong 1966, 36.
17when they start the cycle again: Spivey 1984, 40; Kenney 1993, 15.
17The drive takes Louis past the red-light district: Ramsey 1939, 95; Miller 1946; Chilton 1987, 31; Miller 1946, 9.
17the Creole Band from New Orleans: Gushee 2005, 118 and 119.
17“They were the first to record”: Armstrong 1966, 24.
18Maybe he isn’t good enough: Armstrong 1946, 40.
18a painted canvas sign: Armstrong 1954, 232; Jackson 2005, 70; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 99; Armstrong 1999, 49.
18shy ladies who lack escorts: Travis 1981, 66; Dodds 1992, 35; Defender, Sept. 1, 1923, p. 6, local edition; Freeman 1970, 15; Condon 1947, 111; Barbarin HJA 1957.
18in traditional New Orleans format: Dodds 1992, 37; Armstrong 1999, 52. For Bill Johnson’s biography, see Gushee 2005, 53–59 and 319, n. 67.
20small group of women pianists: Armstrong’s recollections of his entry into the Oliver band sometimes include reference to Lillian Hardin, but it seems clear that she did not join the band until months later. See Armstrong, Lillian 1963; Armstrong, Lillian HJA 1959; Anderson 1994, 296; Armstrong, Louis 1936, 71; Jones and Chilton, 66.
20keep track of the Chicago White Sox: Dodds HJA 1958; Armstrong 1999, 51; Dodds Jr. CJA 1969; Anderson 1990.
20“He had a way of standing”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 99.
21he scoots behind the bandstand: Armstrong 1999, 26, 51; Jackson 2005, 46; Jones 1989, 130–31; Armstrong, Lillian 1963.
21until Dodds got the message: Dodds 1992, 15 and 33.
21in the summer of 1918: Anderson 1994, 288, reviews some of the conflicting evidence for the date of Oliver’s departure from New Orleans for Chicago. Armstrong—who took Oliver’s place in Ory’s band—was consistent in dating this to 1918; see Armstrong 1954, 136; Armstrong IJS 1954, 60; Armstrong 1999, 33; Jackson WRC n.d. To those reports I can add the earliest and strongest evidence, which comes from Jimmy Noone (WRC 1938), who accompanied Oliver on the trip. Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 94.
22rarely plays with an open horn: Dodds 1992, 38.
22“With an ordinary mute”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 96; Barbarin WRC n.d.
22“I never saw anyone”: Bigard 1986, 29.
22men in the hall threw their hats: Barbarin HJA 1957; Barbarin WRC n.d.; Wright 1987, 15; Garland HJA 1957. Paul Barbarin and Barney Bigard both believed that Paddy Harmon, who patented the Harmon mute, got the idea from watching Oliver, and that some of Harmon’s millions should have gone to the creator himself. Bigard 1986, 29; Punch Miller HJA 1960a.
22In Los Angeles they worked: Garland, IJS; Anderson 1994.
22“Those are niggers!”: Dodds 1992, 34.
23easy to confuse the public: As late as 1927 a band from Chicago was named the Royal Creolians. “I always thought that name was funny,” said Milt Hinton, “because as far as I know no one in the band was from New Orleans.” Hinton 1988, 31; Ramsey 1939, 96.
24clinging to their ethnically defining ways: Brothers 2006, 164–96.
24Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band was back in Chicago: Wright 1987, 12.
24“You can stick your stinkin’ feet”: Hodes 1988, 30.
24“If he ever gets here”: Ramsey 1939, 94.
24“It’s my band”: Dodds 1992, 35.
25“Have a seat, son”: Armstrong 1954, 232.
25combs his hair in bangs: Travis 1981, 65; Collier 1983, 94.
25canvas sign at the front entrance: Wright 1987, 28.
26A reviewer from 1912: Gushee 1985, 402.
26At the center of the Creole Band’s act: This summary of the band’s routine is drawn from different parts of Gushee 2005.
27“It is an act that shows very clearly”: Gushee 2005, 216.
28“Louis is the plantation character”: Down Beat, July 1, 1949, p. 13.
28King Jones, master of ceremonies: On Jones, see Dodds 1992, 42; Armstrong 1999, 49; Kenney 1993, 20; Cheatham IJS 1976; Wright 1987, 28; Barker IJS; Dorsey, Thomas CJA n.d.
29so has Ethel Waters: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 98; Wright 1987, 23.
29“That fellow is just as big”: Dodds 1992, 33 and 48.
29“was in my estimation the whole worth”: Armstrong 1999, 52.
29a piece known as Eccentric: This was most likely a version of That Eccentric Rag by J. Russell Robinson (pub. 1912); see also Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 42; Armstrong 1999, 52; Jackson 1994, 72.
30“You would swear he was a white boy”: Armstrong 1999, 52.
31“The people came to dance”: Dodds 1992, 35.
31“a picture of rhythm”: Freeman 1970, 15.
31Oliver directs the music: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 115; Armstrong 1966, 28; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 95; Russell 1994, 72; Jackson, Quentin IJS 1976.
31blues played at an extremely slow tempo: Dodds WRC n.d.; Bechet WRC ca. 1938; Russell 1994, 72 and 209; Sayles HJA 1959.
31“The fastest numbers played by old New Orleans bands:” Kenney 1993, 45.
31“play hot and at the same time”: Chamberlain 2000, 10.
32“We are making ourselves lithe and slim and healthy”: Leonard 1987, 166.
32“rear end like an alligator crawling up a bank”: Stearns 1994, 24.
32“correct dancing is insisted upon”: Wright 1987, 28.
32white reform organizations like the Juvenile Protective Association: Kenney 1993, 19, 71, and 79; CJA John Steiner Collection, box 84, copy of Toddle New, June 15, 1923.
32“Get off that dime, man”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 99; Travis 1981, 66; Kenney 1993, 70.
33“One more chorus, King!”: Condon 1947, 111. Freeman (1970, 15) says that Oliver’s band at Lincoln Gardens would play a single number for up to 20 minutes; see also Freeman 1994, 119–20. Souchon 1964, 28, describes how, in his experience, High Society entered the dance-band repertory in New Orleans. Moore HJA 1959.
33“Hotter than a 45”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 99; Meyer, Sig CJA n.d.
33the area forms a sort of barrier: Miller 1946, 27.
33By the time of Armstrong’s arrival … stops by now and then: Armstrong 1999, 63, 50, and 33. Preston Jackson (2005, 56; see also Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 97) said that Oliver was giving lessons to Panico around this time. Muggsy Spanier was still using a mute that Oliver gave to him during these years as late as 1961; Spanier HJA 1961; Peretti 1992, 92; Hodes 1977, 179. Armstrong WRC 1953. Dodds 1992, 37; Armstrong, Lillian 1963; Mares WRC ca. 1938.
34“Well it looks like the little white
boys is here to get their music lessons”: Freeman 1970, 15; Freeman 1994, 119.
34“A nod or a wave”: Condon 1947, 111.
34in front of Baby Dodds: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 117.
34Spanier and a few others: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 116; Hodes 1977, 178; Miller 1946, 27; Armstrong, Lillian 1963; Banks 1980, 222.
34“because New Orleans was so disgustingly segregated”: Armstrong 1999, 33.
34Lincoln Gardens is thriving: On the clientele at Lincoln Gardens, see Garland HJA 1957.
35“They were always happy”: Kenney 1993, 104 and 108.
35“I never saw any white people”: Wright 1987, 41, 45; Russell 1999, 312; Barbarin WRC; Kenney 1993, 20; Collier 1983, 94; Freeman CJA 1980.
35Everyone knows … they call them “alligators”: Carmichael 1999a, 123. Paul Mares in Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 123: “We [the New Orleans Rhythm Kings] did our best to copy the colored music we’d heard at home. We did the best we could, but naturally we couldn’t play real colored style.” Dodds 1992, 61 and 25.
35“They were guys”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 96.
35stories about ringside musicians: Jackson 1994, 73; Dodds 1992, 37.
35“The white man can write down”: Travis 1981, 71.
36“It got so I knew every phrase”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 116–17; Wright 1987, 262.
36“We gave those fellows”: Dodds 1992, 63.
36“Should have been Freddie’s”: Armstrong LAHM Tape 495.
36“We never went back”: Bud Freeman IJS; Kenney 1993, 89–116.
36up pops African-American jazz: Peretti 1992, chap. 5; Leonard 1962.
37“The statistics of illegitimacy in this country”: Leonard 1962, 34–36; Erenberg 1981, esp. chap. 3.
37“Jazz brought about the downfall”: Leonard 1962, 13.
37“falling prey to the collective soul of the Negro”: Leonard 1962, 12, 13, and 38.
37a pattern that would become a twentieth-century archetype: Leonard 1962, 56.
38feisty rejection of parental control: Peretti 1992, 98.
38“this freedom of spirit that we whites didn’t have”: Freeman IJS; Kenney 1993, 107.
38“I was not only hearing”: Freeman 1974, 8.
Chapter 2: Oliver’s Band and the “Blues Age”
40“had come up to Chicago”: Russell 1999, 312, and Paul Barbarin WRC MSS 519 n.d.; Dress and pricing at Lincoln Gardens from Dorsey, Thomas CJA n.d.
40“In Chicago an opportunity”: Hansen 1960, 495.
40Hinton eventually established a career: Hinton was interviewed many times: Hinton IJS 1974; Hinton IJS 1976; Hinton 1988; Hinton IJS n.d.
42Booker T. Washington wrote: Washington 1907, 113.
42“In 1910 a black man”: Hinton IJS 1974. This kind of harassment does not seem to have existed in New Orleans, where, according to Preston Jackson (2005, 20), “on Rampart Street there were people there recruiting to come up to Chicago and work in the stockyards and the steel mills and they really were loading them in the box cars just like you would with horses or cows and they were leaving every day.”
42they shared with novelist Richard Wright: Wright 1998, 261.
43Men worked in meatpacking and steel industries: Grossman 1989, 183–88; Hinton IJS 1974; Drake and Cayton 1970, 80 and 303.
43Life on the South Side … capitalization of the word “Negro”: Grossman 1989, 179; Lord 1976, 9; Drake and Cayton 1970, 65–73.
43On the South Side it was possible: Drake and Cayton 1970, 80; Grossman 1989, 263; Kenney 1993, 5.
43“Anybody I saw was black”: Hinton IJS 1976. Hinton’s first violin teacher was a white man who owned a store, and Hinton had a very positive relationship with him.
43“sounded a little soft and pleasing”: Hinton IJS 1976; Grossman 1989, 75; Hughes 1986, 103.
44The Defender’s claim: Grossman 1989, 19.
45“to better my position”: Grossman 1989, 35; Hinton IJS 1976.
45“A thousand percent better than we had in Mississippi”: Hinton IJS 1976.
45“lay down his burden of being a colored person”: Jackson 1967, 46.
45The word “freedom” … everywhere you turned: Grossman 1989, 259; Morton LC ca. 1938.
45“They were a happy family”: Armstrong 1954, 233.
45“Is this my home boy?”: Armstrong 1954, 233; Armstrong 1936, 70.
45A guy from New Orleans … in town around this time: Armstrong IJS 1954, 120; Armstrong 1999, 48; Armstrong IJS 1954, 120; Russell 1999, 382; Elgar WRC 1970; Jackson 2005, 76; Jackson, Preston WRC n.d. Gushee (2005, 256) estimates that there were “perhaps 20 to 30 [New Orleans] players in various combinations rotating between the handful of cabarets that welcomed their music … in the first few years during and just after the war.” Preston Jackson (2005, 27) said that the local union complained about the use of so many musicians from New Orleans, and that Oliver was brought up to face charges, which were eventually dropped for lack of evidence. See also Steiner 1959; Wang 1988; Kenney 1993, 12; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 79.
46caste distinction between downtown Creoles of color and uptown Negroes: Integration between downtown and uptown musicians had already begun in New Orleans. See Brothers 2006, 9–30, and chap. 8; Armstrong 1999, 42.
46a gesture of exclusion: Chilton 1987, 30.
46a cliquish society that excluded musicians from other places: Bushell 1988, 35; Hinton IJS 1976; Wang 1988, 101; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 138; Chilton 1987, 28 and 32; Russell 1999, 383.
46“The only time a New Orleans leader”: Jackson 2005, 59.
46The neighborhood was full … without leaving the building”: Armstrong 1999, 53; Travis 1981, 55; Hinton 1988, 20; Armstrong IJS 1954, 120; Jackson 2005, 222–23; Jackson WRC n.d.
47“You got to do a lot of blowing”: Armstrong 1999, 49.
47“let the youngster blow”: Armstrong 1999, 53.
47“nothing more clearly affirms one’s ‘class’”: Bourdieu 1984, 18.
48“Blues come out of the fields”: Barlow 1989, 18.
48“They were singing the blues in Mississippi and Louisiana”: Barlow 1989, 27.
49“Louis swings more telling a joke”: Morgenstern 2004, 73.
50Because of its associations … not shared by everyone: Smith 1964, 101; Grossman 1989, 150; Grossman 1989, 154. James Baldwin wrote about avoiding Bessie Smith’s recordings “in the same way that, for years, I would not touch watermelon”; Baldwin 1961, 5; Harris 1992, 123.
50W. C. Handy: This discussion of early sheet-music publications of blues relies heavily on the excellent study by Abbott and Seroff 1996.
50publication of St. Louis Blues: Giddins 1998, 29.
50Handy’s success depended on his ability to highlight a few salient gestures from the vernacular: Several observers have insisted that Handy stole the entire composition of St. Louis Blues; see, for example, Foster 2005, 105; Abbott and Seroff 1996, 412. The same accusation has been made regarding a number of other songs by Handy; Morton 1994, 101; Russell 1999, 228. A good study of Handy is needed, for he is an important figure whose own remarks can be misleading. When he says, for example, that blue notes were the product of “a deep-rooted racial groping for instinctive harmonies,” he speaks as an outsider to the vernacular blues tradition, not as one of the “ordinary” people Sunnyland Slim knew in Louisiana and Mississippi who sang the blues. (Abbott and Seroff 1996, 404, have thus been misled and their conclusion that “improvising close harmonies was integral to the crystallization of the famous ‘blue note’” reverses the historical dynamic; quotation from Handy taken from their discussion.) Handy’s comment is similar to assertions by outsiders in New Orleans that blue notes in early jazz were the product of faulty instruments that could not be tuned. Both take African-American culture during this period as primitive, as a desperate imitation of European culture. The important point is that blues and blues melodic style evolved first as a melodic idiom; harmony was adapted to it. For more on Handy from this perspective, see Brothers 1997.
51“organizer of the blues”: Courier, Dec. 13, 1924, p. 9. In an analysis of Handy’s borrowings, James Weldon Johnson wrote that “strictly speaking, it [Memphis Blues] is not a composition.” Quoted in Abbott and Seroff 1996, 412.
51blues songs as “colored folks’ opera”: Abbott and Seroff 1996, 419 and passim.
51“Some time ago … lower classes of Race folks”: Defender, June 26, 1926, p. 6.
51Ma Rainey was one of the first: Information on Rainey from Bernhardt 1986, 24–26; see also Lieb 1981.
51“She possessed her listeners”: Dorsey quoted in Harris 1992, 89.
52TOBA theaters eliminated the humiliation: Bushell 1988, 36.
52three theaters catering to blacks: Travis 1981, 30.
52“She, in a sense”: Albertson 2003, 131.
52tingling the spine of the enraptured patron: Travis 1981, 385.
52“It [blues] gets down”: Harris 1992, 96.
52“digging, picking, pricking”: Harris 1992, 98.
53the aura of a life lived under special conditions: Peretti 1992, 123; Bernhardt 1986, 97.
53In 1920, OKeh Records … marketed explicitly to African Americans: Bradford 1965, 114–29; Smith 1964, 103–5; Foreman 1968, 158; Albertson 2003, 24. The source for 18,000 is Perry Bradford (1965, 28), who should be regarded cautiously. My searches turn up no article in the Norfolk Journal and Guide, which Bradford claimed as his source. There is an advertisement in that newspaper on Jan. 22, 1921, referencing an article from the Norfolk Ledger Dispatch, but I have not been able to see the complete article.
53“rough, coarse shouter”: Foreman 1968, 61.
53“she didn’t get in between the notes”: Bushell quoted in Williams 1962, 78.
53Bessie Smith was initially rejected: Michael Harris citing Albertson 2003, 37–39 and 43.
53Again, the white businessmen … build their careers: Albertson 2003, 46; Kenney 1999, 106, 119–20; Foreman 1968, 70; Kenney 1999, 129; Bushell 1988, 1.
56Around age ten … from the plantations: Brothers 2006, 55–73; Lomax 1993, 77.
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