DownBeat - The Great Jazz Interviews: A 75th Anniversary Anthology

Copyright © 2009 by DownBeat Magazine

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2009 by Hal Leonard Books

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DownBeat, the great jazz interviews: a 75th anniversary anthology / edited and compiled by Frank Alkyer ... [et al.].

p. cm.

9781476855035

1. Jazz musicians—Interviews. I. Alkyer, Frank. II. Down beat. III. Title: Great jazz interviews.

ML3506.D69 2009

781.65092’2—dc22

2009033018

Book design by Damien Castaneda

Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright holders and secure permissions.

Omissions can be remedied in future editions.

Owing to limitations of space, acknowledgments of permission to quote from previously published materials will be found on page 340.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-4234-6384-9

www.halleonard.com

Table of Contents

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

This book is a labor of love, one that spans 75 years of jazz journalism. It could never have come together so beautifully without the contributions of writers, photographers, editors, designers, sales professionals, circulation managers and the magazine’s ownership. Every one of these people have looked at DownBeat as something more important than just a magazine, or just a job. And then there are the artists who have given their time, energy, thoughts and even writing talents to DownBeat over the years. And finally, none of it matters without the readers. They cheer us when we do it right and set us straight when we do it wrong. Given the fact that we’re still around through 75 years and several generations of readers, we get a lot more cheers than canceled subscriptions.

Without all of these folks, DownBeat is nothing. This book is dedicated to all of them—the DownBeat family.

Preface

The history of DownBeat is the history of the last 75 years, just told through the lens of jazz and blues musicians as well as the journalists who cover them. Race relations, sexual equality, unionism, wars, recessions, birth, life, death, the triumph of the will, the battle of the soul: it spills across the pages of DownBeat.

But the aspect of this dense history that holds up best, that truly endures, is the voice of the artist. The editors of DownBeat get a lot of opportunities to go back and look through the archives for research. It’s one of the great privileges of working for the magazine, and one of the real occupational hazards. Plan for an hour of research, then lose the better part of the day reading through all of those terrific pages from bygone eras.

Whenever I have an opportunity to go into the archives, the items that really draw my attention are the articles written by musicians, or those heavily spiced with quotes from musicians. The music criticism in DownBeat is fantastic, second to none, an essential guide to music that is being made. Record and concert reviews provide a glimpse into how a piece of music is received at the time it’s presented. The critics may not always be right, but they do give you a sense of how that work fit into the critic’s personal tastes as well as into the realm of other music being created at that time.

But the opportunity to read about Ellington, Armstrong, Miles, Bird, Dizzy, Coltrane, Brubeck, Eldridge, Lester Young, Ella, Lady Day—all the greats—to hear them talk about their lives and their careers—in their voices—that’s what paints a lasting picture, and delivers a glimpse inside the artist’s world. That’s the essence of DownBeat.

So, when our editorial staff began researching in anticipation of this 75th anniversary anthology, we had to set up some ground rules, because there is so much great material. First, we decided to focus on articles that were either written by artists, or were chock-full of quotes from the artists. Second, we decided to focus on folks who are in the DownBeat Hall of Fame, which is voted on by the readers and the critics in our annual polls, or someone we felt should be in the Hall of Fame. And, of course, the writing had to be the best of the best.

The result is before you, 124 of the best interviews or artist-written articles that this magazine has ever produced. The writers serve as a Mount Rushmore of jazz journalism—Dave Dexter Jr., John S. Wilson, Bill Gottlieb, Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff, Ira Gitler, Ralph J. Gleason, Gene Lees, Stanley Dance, Don DeMicheal, Dan Morgenstern, John McDonough, Michael Bourne, Howard Mandel, and Paul de Barros, to name just a few.

But moreover, the list of musicians who have written for the magazine is nothing short of crazy. Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Jelly Roll Morton, W.C. Handy, Count Basie, Harry James Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Les Paul, Benny Goodman, Chet Baker, Jon Hendricks, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, Marian McPartland, Dizzy Gillespie, Rex Stewart, Joe Williams, Wayne Shorter, Jon Faddis, Greg Osby and Joe Lovano all have bylines in this anthology. Dizzy’s article on Charlie Parker is a rare, touching treat. Cannonball and Mingus each offer their surprising insights into the music and phenomenon of Ornette Coleman. Marian McPartland offers a glimpse into the life of Paul Desmond that only she, as a friend of Desmond’s, could deliver. Rex Stewart’s piece on the life and times of Art Tatum, again, could have only been written by a friend and fellow musician. And Jon Faddis’ interview with Milt Jackson, just weeks before Jackson passed on, is nothing short of a breathtaking passing of the torch from one generation of jazz to another.

I believe that’s why DownBeat has lasted and remains fresh after 75 years. It’s a magazine for jazz musicians, written by jazz musicians and the best jazz journalists in the world. Everyone who gets involved, from the musicians to the writers to the photographers, does so with an amazing dedication to the art form of jazz and the craft of making a great jazz magazine. It’s magic.

We hope you enjoy it.

Before you dive headlong into the real text, there are a few housekeeping details that must be highlighted. We worked to keep all articles as close to the originally published versions as possible, but we did create a style guide to stop the copy editors from quitting. Every editor who has ever worked for DownBeat has developed their own editing quirks and improvements to the style guide. You will notice how jargon, colloquialisms, language and writing tastes changed over the course of 75 years. You will also notice how words that were considered fine to use in the 1930s and 1940s make us cringe today. Case in point, the word Negro. You’ll first encounter the word in the Duke Ellington article from 1936, and in a few articles after that. We did not change it. The word was acceptable in that era.

Because we’re dealing with musicians and their colorful language, you may come across a swear word or two that make you uncomfortable. We’re sorry, but again, we wanted to stay true to the original text and did not change these, either.

Finally, the book title is DownBeat, The Great Jazz Interviews, A 75th Anniversary Anthology, but there are articles on Frank Zappa, Muddy Waters and Paul Butterfield, T-Bone Walker, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, Al Green, Ike and Tina Turner, Brian Eno, Van Morrison, James Brown, Elvis Costello and Alan Toussaint, and probably a few more folks you wouldn’t consider jazz. All we can say is we’re sorry. We cast a wide net at DownBeat. These folks either were seriously influenced by jazz or had a serious influence on jazz. For that, we’ll gladly take the heat because in our world they belong. In the end, as Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music—good and bad. Actually, we’ll add one more kind—great. Every artist in this book made great music.

Acknowledgments

Pulling this book together has been a Herculean task for our small, dedicated staff at DownBeat. First, Jason Koransky, our former editor, Aaron Cohen, our associate editor, and I went through every issue of DownBeat, divvying the work up by decade. We poured over pages, selected articles and Xeroxed those old, frail pages, being as careful as we possibly could—and feeling like criminals every time one would decay a little in our hands. Some older issues are so fragile. Even being very selective, we had about three times more content than space. So, I took the responsibility (which means I took the hit) of paring the book down to 120 or so of the best articles we have ever published. It was a painful process, like choosing favorite albums... like choosing favorite children.

From there, every article created before the digital era (which is the vast majority), had to be scanned using optical character recognition software, then seriously edited. The software comes up with some odd and unusual interpretations. So, Ed Enright, our new editor, and Jeff Cagle, a trusted freelancer, went through each article with a fine-tooth comb. It was great work to change every tHe to the, and the like. And then there are our amazing designers, Ara Tirado and Andy Williams. Both do yeoman’s work on our magazines and Web sites, and both helped tremendously by scanning photos and text without the slightest whimper, even though the task was well below their skill set.

Because we were pulling this together between issues of the magazine, Web site updates, newsletter deadlines and everything else involved in being a modern publishing company, someone had to crack the whip on me to make sure we didn’t flake out and forget the book. Enter Hal Leonard’s Marybeth Keating and John Cerullo. They were able to strike the perfect tone when they’d ask, When might we expect the copy? or When can you get us those photos. They hung with us and encouraged us through every missed deadline and slight hiccup. In short, gentle guilt is a powerful tool and they used it like professional carpenters. On their end, they did an important editing and cleaning job from a distance to ensure this reads like a book with some distinction. For that, thanks to the detailed Godwin Chu for his copy editing contributions. Also, the design of the book is incredible. Thanks to Damien Castaneda for the look of this project, and Ara Tirado for the cover design.

Finally, thanks to Kevin Maher, our president, for recognizing the opportunity we have in creating books like this and giving us an amazing amount of freedom to make DownBeat a great publishing brand. His management style gives our entire staff tremendous ownership in the work we do. And thanks to Keith Mardak, Larry Morton and Brad Smith at Hal Leonard for being terrific business partners who help us deliver these books to readers around the world.

—Frank Alkyer

Louis Armstrong publicity photo from the 1930s. (DownBeat Archive)

The 1930s

June 1935

My Chops Was Beat, Says Louis, but I’m Dyin’ to Swing Again

Armstrong to Open Series of One-Nighters

Louis Armstrong and his newly formed orchestra begin a tour of one-nighters, opening at Indianapolis the first week in July. Joe Glaser, Louis’ newly acquired personal manager, is handling the details of the bookings.

Louis Armstrong, king of the trumpet, whose freak lip and hot solos have amazed and delighted musicians for 10 years, will definitely resume his career the first week in July.

My chops was beat when I got back from Europe, said the leather-lipped, balloon-lunged Louis. My manager worked me too hard, and I was so tired when I got back that I didn’t even want to see the points of my horn. And ‘pops,’ he wouldn’t even let the ‘cats’ come backstage to visit me, and you know I’m always glad to see everybody.

All musicians are cats to Armstrong. He usually addresses his acquaintances as pops or gate.

Armstrong has been resting in the Chicago home of his mother-in-law waiting for his contract with manager Collins to expire.

His inactivity and seclusion has started a score of rumors that he had lost his lip, that he had a split lip, that his former wife [Lil Hardin Armstrong]—now leading her own band—had tied up his earnings to satisfy the demands of her suit for alimony, and so on. Musicians all over the world wondered what the real truth was in Louis’ solitude.

My chops is fine, now, Armstrong said, and I’m dyin’ to swing out again. They gave me a new trumpet over in Europe, and I’ve got a smaller mouthpiece than I had on my old horn. And my old first-trumpet man, Randolph, is making some swell arrangements. I’m all rested up and dyin’ to get going again.

Asked what he thought of American dance bands after his two-year absence from the States, Louis said, I think Benny Goodman and Casa Loma have mighty fine bands. His attention was called to Louis Prima, an Italian youth from his hometown of New Orleans, who is creating something of a sensation at the Famous Door in New York.

I don’t know Prima, Louis replied, but his voice on phonograph records tells you that he’s a mighty sweet boy. And say, Louis replied with a great deal of enthusiasm, my old drummer, Zutty Singleton, has a nice little band right here in Chicago. Zutty plays nightly at the famous Three Deuces.

July 1936

A Black Genius in a White Man’s World

Much Nonsense Has Been Written About the Duke

A Frank Interview Revealing Many Unheretofore Known Facts About Edward Kennedy Ellington

by Carl Cons

[Editor’s Note: May it be to the white man’s eternal credit that a black man’s genius is so universally recognized and acclaimed in a white man’s world. The color line that has built so many racial barriers in the social world and other lines of endeavor have not corralled or subdued the Duke’s great talent, although it of course has influenced him. The following remarks are an honest attempt to get THE MAN on paper. The sketch is the result of an interview from midnight to sun-up, and a search for the tangible in a brilliant talent. The key to understanding and appreciating fully his unusual compositions and his brilliant scoring is to UNDERSTAND THE MAN. Because of the short acquaintance and the limited time to probe his genius, necessarily this must be a portrait in miniature.]

The Duke is a Negro!

He is a black man fully conscious of the extraordinary talents of his race AND PROUD BECAUSE HE IS A BLACK MAN.

He thinks and acts in Negroid ways. He is not a black edition of a white man, and he is not trying to imitate a white man as is the case with many Negroes who prostitute their own fine talents trying to copy or emulate those of the white.

His inspiration comes from within. He and his music is written in what he calls the Negro idiom. Every race has its own characteristic feelings and ways of expressing them. For instance, the colored man makes love, dresses with different ideas, sings and pouts, etc., quite differently than his white brother.

All these the Duke has grown up with and been a part of, and his genius is the first to translate in music all the rich color and personality of the American Negro. Their feelings are of a racial minority, their hopes and ideals, their tremendous vitality and good humor, their possibilities and their limitations.

Remember then that when a colored man is full of jive, he isn’t always that way because he wants to be, but because when he is sincere he usually isn’t taken seriously. Remember when he is sad that he still isn’t completely free. Remember that he lives in a world that has boundary lines that he cannot cross. That when he gets out of line he may be trampled by the cruel feet of race hatred. Yes, there are many overtones in Negro music.

His Early Life—How He Got His Start

Duke was born in Washington, D.C., as Edward Kennedy Ellington on the 29th day of April, 1899. He was a talented child, and like many composers before him, it was a toss-up whether he would distinguish himself as a musician or as a painter. Duke majored in art in school, and won a scholarship in fine art to the Pratt Institute. At 14 he played piano by ear for his own amusement, and for house-rent parties. His first money was 75 cents from 8 [p.m.] to 1 [a.m.], and he was so elated that the moment the job was over he broke for home with it.

His first real chance in fast company was at the Abbott House as relief pianist for Doc Perry, and it brought an awakening to his first need for study. Duke comments jovially that now I was recognized as a musician I had to live up to it—and protect that reputation! So he studied harmony with Henry Grant.

Married at 19

At 19, Duke got married. The world against two gave him more of the fighting spirit. So he went into business for himself, took a big sized ad in the telephone directory and waited for the phone to ring. There were many parties in Washington then during the war, and betwee n them and these Virginia gigs Edward Kennedy did well. Well, well enough to buy a home. It was a four-piece band that got so good the horse-shows in that part of the country stopped hiring those 30-piece bands and hired Edward Kennedy. Bill Miller played banjo; Lloyd Stewart, drums; Duke on the piano; and a fellow by the name of Tobin played C melody sax.

Deserted the Barnyard Blues for the Rosary

In 1923, Duke went to New York with Sonny and Tobie and Otto Hardwick to join Wilbur Sweatman, a terrific clarinet player and the source of the many of Ted Lewis’ licks at the time. But they found they had just deserted the Barnyard Blues for three clarinets on the Rosary. So they Sunday-concerted until the Biscuits called them back to Washington. Duke said, It was all right to be ragged, but it’s bad to have your feet on the ground.

After they got fat, Elmer Snowden, banjo; Sonny Greer, drums; Art Whetsel on trumpet; and Hardwick on sax and clarinet joined Fats Waller in New York. Sometime later they sent word to Duke to join them to take Fats’ place on a vaudeville tour, and that everything was ducky. Well, when the Duke arrived, they met him with a Well, lend me a quarter, pal, and a story that bookings had been temporarily cancelled. We starved for five weeks, Duke said, and once we split a hot dog five ways.

Wins on a 6-Ball Game

Then we got a break, playing in Montmarte, France, and after that worked three months in Barrens, Duke went on. "Then five years in the Kentucky Club. Sonny and I—we lived on the street. We wouldn’t eat those hot dogs anymore, so we would shoot up a ‘6-ball’—win $2 on a deuce, spend 75 cents each on dinner, tip the waiter 25 cents and keep a quarter to start another game.

In 1927, on December 4th we opened the Cotton Club, and on February 3rd in 1931 we closed it. And we have been on the road ever since. Friday, June the 3rd, we sailed for Europe and the Blue Mills Rhythm Band came down and played ‘Stormy Weather.’ Yes, the world is full of jive, but we have never been bored.

His Philosophy

Duke is a Baptist and a Methodist. And believes in a hereafter. Definitely so. He is kind and forgiving, and believes that there is a leniency in the afterworld. And, believe it or not, Duke said, I read the Bible every night before retiring whether I’m ‘tight’ or not, I got a lotta things to answer for! He also returns thanks before each meal.

There is a lot of the passive resignation of his race in the Duke and an engaging modest charm that amazes when you consider the amount of attention that has been showered upon him. He is a perfect gentleman, and leans backward in his efforts to be courteous and considerate. He will not even talk to a white woman without his manager. He knows too well the inflammatory moods of a dominant race.

Refused to Study Composition

It is significant to know that Duke refused to study composition because he felt he had something essentially Negro to express in his music, an intangible something he felt academic training would stifle rather than encourage. He does not like mathematical problems and avoids the mechanical in music.

Duke is highly imaginative and extremely sensitive to close and weirdly beautiful harmonies. He has a mirror type of mind that catches all the brilliant, colorful and vivid images of living and reflects them in tonal pictures. He is reflective rather than interpretive in that he is interested principally in reproducing all of his experiences rather than accounting for them. He is a tone painter who tries to catch all the warmth and color of a setting sun on his canvas keyboard, translating sight into sound, and using chords as his pigments.

His Musical Ideas

Many critics read a great deal of their own personalities into Duke’s music when they start interpreting it for us—and usually miss the central idea. This is regrettable, but a simple mistake that would not be made over and over again if they understood one fundamental characteristic of the Duke. He is a narrator, and a describer. Lightnin’ is the description of a train journey with all the excitement and variety of scenes and sounds. Mood Indigo is an innocent little girl longing—soliloquizing. Toodleo, the picture of an old Negro man broken down with hard work in the field coming up a road at sunset, his broken walk in rhythm.

One critic described his composition Monkey as an experimental exercise in whole tone scales, and a weaving of rhythmic and melodic patterns. Duke said, It’s just a bunch of monkeys, that’s all! It sounds like a jungle because it doesn’t sound like anything else. And he received his inspiration one day at the zoo!

Duke Ellington. (DownBeat Archive)

What He Strives For

I like to work alone, and to reach for intricate figures, he said. "I always figure cluster: never any of that single jive! And I always try to get a lift in my music—that part of rhythm that causes a bouncing, buoyant, terpsichorean urge. My idea of real Negro music is getting the different Negro idioms in cluster forms, and the distribution of those idioms in arrangement and still retain their Negroid quality.

"I don’t like to trifle with another man’s idea, unless I can finish it in the same manner and style that it was conceived. It’s bad to interfere with another man because you interrupt his inspiration and spoil the flow of his thoughts.

I stop writing when I stop feeling, because if you continue after that you become an observer rather than the participator. Many of the boys in the band get good ideas, and I always try to let them finish them out themselves, unless I, too, can feel it, and can help them by suggesting.

His Ambitions

I never have caught a vine swinging in a forest, but I think that would be a real moment in musical literature when the gentle swaying to and fro of that vine, and the rhythmic swish of the leaves as they were caressed by it, could be captured in orchestral sound!

Duke is living for the day when he can write an opera. He has already planned a suite of numbers depicting the history and accomplishments of his race from their origin in Africa to their present day status, catching all the violence, misery, torture and the yearning of their trials and tribulations.

It is a gigantic task but one that challenges and inspires him, and the type of thing that should interest and intrigue our more commercial white maestros into some genuine creative musical enterprise.

Aug. 1937

Musicians Killed Bix Beiderbecke!

Bix Died of a Broken Heart, Says Famous Leader of Five Pennies

by Carl Cons

Between sets at the College Inn, CHICAGO—Sober as a grim-pussed judge on election day, carrot-topped, world-famous Red Nichols fortified himself behind a glass of beer. He didn’t touch it. But six cigarette butts and two dance sets later he exploded.

"Gin and weed? Hell! They didn’t kill him. MUSICIANS KILLED BIX BEIDERBECKE!

"Some of those same musicians living today know what I mean. Bix died of a broken heart. And it was broken by the professional jealousy of musicians who couldn’t stand to be outplayed by him so easily.

"Bix was a wonderful and sensitive musician and wanted to be friends with everyone. He could do more on one note than any group of 100 cornet players and you can put me at the last.

"After he died, and jealous musicians had nothing to fear, they began to realize what a great artist he was.

Yes, Bix was appreciated after he was dead. But when he needed a lift, they wouldn’t give it. Many a night they got him drunk and if he slipped or didn’t play up to his best, they would pan the hell out of him.

Red shrugged his shoulders resignedly. He has a sense of sportsmanship, and a keen admiration for the great Beiderbecke. It’s a dirty shame, isn’t it, he went on, that a man’s own kind can be so bitter toward him? The very guys that should have been the first to appreciate his talent and encourage him were the ones who were most eager to discredit him.

Nichols, who plays in the Bix tradition and who has recorded some of the most polished classics of jazz with his famous Five Pennies, has been the unhappy recipient of much severe and unintelligent criticism by the great unwashed or the not-dry-behind-the-ears tribe of critics who swarm over the country today mouthing authoritative nonsense about everything.

Hardened by Criticism

Their unknowing bull-in-the-china-shop remarks have had their effect and though they come from outsiders, they have unwittingly handicapped another great musician. Red is hardened by a life full of criticism and attacks but it has made him, nevertheless, reticent and word-shy.

The man is one of the few remaining great musicians of the so-called golden era of swing, and it is a damn dirty shame if the same blind jealousy of fellow musicians and the inane remarks of trigger-mouth critics should parallel Bix’s tragedy by making Red so self-conscious and discouraged as to affect and spoil his own artistry and inspiration for playing.

Feb. 1938

Carnegie Hall Gets First Taste of Swing

Benny’s Clarinet Sounds Good to Lorgnettes—Band a Bit Shaky

by Annemarie Ewing

The boys were nervous.

After all, it was Carnegie Hall and the pile of the red plush seats was still ruffled from contact with the devotees who had listened to the Beethoven Fourth Symphony, the Mozart Haffner Symphony and the violin of Georges Enesco playing the Saint Saens concerto that afternoon. Even the New York Philharmonic Symphony microphone still hung in austere silence 20 feet above the first rows of the orchestra.

And supposing you were Harry James or Gene Krupa or Babe Russin, with a nervous grin on your face and the knowledge of a vast concert hall filled with 3,900 people, more than 100 of them sitting on the stage (at $2.20 a chair), and the space in the rear crowded with the dim shadows of people who had waited in line since 2 p.m. that afternoon for standing room to go on sale.

It isn’t the same as playing for the crowd at the Manhattan Room, or even the hysterical audiences in the CBS Playhouse.

Sure, I’m nervous, Harry James said. You know, Carnegie Hall, after all.

Later he went out to take the first big hand of the evening!

And Sure, I’m nervous, Gene said. But gee! I always get nervous. Every time we change hotels I get nervous!

Then he went out to take the second big hand of the evening.

Babe Russin said he’d prepared himself with a half gallon of blackberry wine. And Gordon Griffin with lobster and whiskey.

Only the inscrutable Teddy Wilson, with a face like an East Indian deity, and Lionel Hampton, last arrival, shrugged as if to say, It’s only another performance after all.

Then all of them lost themselves, discussing degrees of nervousness with Ivy Anderson, who came down in a Persian lamb coat and her customary breezy camaraderie to cheer the boys on.

I guess this is the top, Ivy said. Say, I was so nervous when I made my first movie, my knees knocked together!

She demonstrated how her knees behaved in Hollywood.

And on our first European tour—boy, was I nervous!

At this point, Sam, the major domo of backstage Philharmonic Symphony proceedings, warmed up to the whole business. Out of the vest pocket of his tuxedo, he produced the key to that holy of holies, the door marked with a plaque For Members of the Philharmonic Symphony Society Only. Sam conducted a personal tour through the big club room where the Philharmonic Symphony musicians play chess, smoke or gossip during intermissions. Gene and Teddy and Ivy and one of the Philharmonic violinists who had come over to see what all the shouting was for, looked around in awe, stretching their necks at the pictures on the wall.

Everybody was impressed with the Toscanini pictures—a photograph of him with the orchestra on its European tour, a portrait, and a drawing by a Philharmonic flutist, very moderne.

I guess he’s about the biggest musician of all, Ivy said.

He’s even considered greater than Stokowski, Teddy said with amiable deference. He seemed surprised to learn that Stokowski is at least 55 years old.

Sam showed them the old lithograph of Wagner’s dream of Tannhauser. They all recognized it—but Ivy called him Vogner to Philharmonic Sam’s Waggonner.

When the sacred door was again locked, we heard music seeping through the dressing room section of Carnegie Hall—rhythmic, pulsating music, not much like the kind that comes from a concert meister’s bow.

It came from the sanctum sanctorum of Philharmonic conductors, the chamber with ante room just to the right of the backstage stairway. And it was your swing man’s cure for all evils—a jam session!

As I live and breathe, Jess Stacy started playing the piano back there. And it wasn’t long before Benny himself—complete with that blue carnation, and not nervous (oh, no! except that those papers in his hands were trembling like the Lullaby of the Leaves!)—Benny who immediately got the point and set in with the clarinet. Pretty soon there was a trumpet or two. And a sax. And the feet of the artists of the evening, tapping with as many rhythms as there were feet.

By the time Martha Tilton skipped up the steps looking like a blushing version of Snow White in pale pink tulle, full and fresh as a little girl’s first party dress, with pink roses in her blonde hair, the jam session was going full tilt. Martha trucked into the same room in which Enesco, five hours earlier, had tuned the famous violin which the Frenchman, Coll, made specially for him.

Martha! Honey! everybody shouted—showing that everybody was set.

They just start playing, said the violinist who had come over the see what all the shouting was for, a little wistfully, and it all synchronizes!

Then, all of a sudden, it was 8:45 and Benny, pale as a ghost, was instructing everybody to go on together, and the boys pushing each other around in the wing space—about four square feet, filled with photographers, musicians, ticket holders with seats on the stage, a curly headed usher, trying to be dignified, and the press. And all the boys refusing to be the first one out. And Gene asking if there was anybody in the house, and grinning. And Benny instructing his man Godfrey (Benny calls me Godfrey, but mah name’s Jimmie, he said later at the Savoy) to call the boys from Ellington’s band and the boys from Basie’s band as soon as he finished with Sometimes I’m Happy. And Gordon Griffin finally being pushed out first. And the applause welling up. And nobody being able to forget the way Godfrey (or Jimmie, as you will) leaned down and polished off the tips of Benny’s shoes before he went on!

Benny Goodman. (DownBeat Archive)

Much of what followed is by now, as the man says, history.

The unassuming way that American swing took the platform, plain and unadorned and panicking them. The way Bobby Hackett dreamed through the Beiderbecke chorus of I’m Comin’ Virginia. The way Benny took off Ted Lewis, even to the angle of the clarinet, with a nuance that said, louder than words, that he was playing a caricature. The way Harry Carney, Cootie [Williams] and Johnny Hodges made Blue Reverie everything that Duke Ellington had in mind when he created it.

The way Teddy grinned with appreciation when his audience lifted him on the palms of its applause after Body and Soul. The way dignified, gray-haired gentlemen in the orchestra seats laughed as they have not laughed this side of a smoking car to hear Lionel Hampton’s Yeah, yeahs in Nobody’s Baby Now and I Got Rhythm. The way the hush fell, more poignant than any of the Gershwin eulogies, as Benny, unaccompanied, set into the opening phrase of The Man I Love.

Well, by the time they had polished off the program’s jam session—with Benny sitting happily in the back row like one of the boys, and such artists as Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Johnny Hodges, Bobby Hackett, Harry Carney, Cootie Williams, and Count Basie himself giving performances that surely would have been approved by the master improvisers of 100 years ago, by the man Beethoven himself—it was time to see what was going on out in front.

And don’t get the idea that the audience was all jitterbug. There were lots of collegians or their equivalent, naturally. But there were also gray-haired gentlewomen in the Dress Circle whose white gloves clapped in time to the rhythm during Bei Mir Bist du Schoen like any debutante, of whom there were also plenty.

Not to mention the lady with the lorgnette who sat in the Dress Circle, right, and put down the lorgnette to clap as hard as the little crippled boy whose father helped him up the steep steps to the balcony.

It was that lorgnette that made Whiteman’s wire to Benny seem almost prophetic. The wire said simply, Congratulations on your coronation! And remember, son, a clarinet sounds just as good to a lorgnette.

And don’t forget Yella Pessl, the Viennese harpsichordist who has not yet got over the way Teddy Wilson plays Bach on her harpsichord, as well as swing. And who tells you, in a delightful Viennese accent, impossible to reproduce on paper, how Teddy comes to her house Friday nights and swings on her delicately classical instrument.

Such a clarity of tone, Miss Pessl says. So much nicer to hear swing music well played than classical music played badly!

And Rose Bampton, Metropolitan singing star, who is so glad that these swing musicians can reach out to a new audience, the concert hall audience, and considers it a fine idea to preach swing to a brand-new public.

Of course, there is Deems Taylor’s opinion that jam sessions are only one long cadenza—and cadenzas bore him. But he will still admit that anything is worth trying once—and that a swing concert in Carnegie Hall may turn out to be more worthwhile than it seems on the surface to the Philharmonic broadcasting commentator.

One of the most interesting listeners was Shiraly, drummer with Shan-Kar, the Hindu dancer. Shiraly attracted some attention in the audience with his delicate brown profile and long, curling hair, as well as with his absorption in Krupa’s playing.

The man has a genius for rhythm, Shiraly said. It’s quite different from our Indian way of drumming, of course. He beats in multiples of two, whereas we think of rhythm in multiples of three. But I am amazed to find he makes an almost melodic instrument out of the drums. His variations are so intricate that they seem to have an absolute melodic line.

Shiraly’s comment didn’t differ very much from that of Sol Goodman, tympanist with the Philharmonic, who was among the many Philharmonic musicians who dropped in backstage near the end.

Sol Goodman is the man who took the pictures of Toscanini that appeared in Life a month or so ago. He made a special enlargement of one of his shots as a present to Benny, whose admiration for the great symphonic conductor Sol appreciates.

There isn’t a drummer I know that has the feeling for rhythm that Gene has, Sol said. Even when he sets into a chorus cold, he seems to have some subconscious idea of a pattern that is perfect for what he’s playing.

And perhaps some of the highest praise came from Nicholas Moldavan, viola player with the Coolidge String Quartet, who were Benny’s guests on his broadcast the Tuesday following the Carnegie Hall concert.

Benny played the Mozart Quintet for Clarinet and Strings with the Collidge group and Mr. Moldavan.

I consider Benny Goodman one of the great musicians of our time, Moldavan said.

With string music generally conceded to be the highest form of musical art because of its abstract purity—it’s pretty hard to get higher praise than that!

But nobody is trying to insist that we make an honest woman of swing. It’s enough for the moment that 3,900 people were made ostensibly joyous while a swing band made music in the nation’s number one concert hall, and still left the hall intact for the enjoyment of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, et al.

There was a little holy roller enthusiasm, certainly. There were intermittent shouts, screams, and reckless hoopla, of course. There was even sporadic trucking going on up in the Dress Circle as the boys got their teeth into Sing, Sing, Sing.

But for the most part, the audience did just what the music indicated. When it was noisy, they were noisy. In fact, at one point, during Bei Mir Bist du Schoen, they all began clapping in time to the music—even the woman with the long white gloves and the woman with the lorgnette. And because of the size of the hall, they were inevitably a little off the beat—a circumstance which filled the boys with momentary consternation, until Gene set in on all the drums he had to drown them out and keep the rhythm intact.

And when the music lowered to a quiet passage, folks sat rapt and quiet, too. Sometimes it seemed almost as if Benny were directing the audience.

But the payoff came when somebody asked Jimmy Mundy if he felt anything like George Gershwin, having his music played in Carnegie Hall. It might have been Whiteman’s press agent, sitting on the stage, and remembering the famous Rhapsody in Blue concert.

But Mr. Mundy said, No, I just feel like tapping mah feet!

If that be musical treason, can anybody be blamed for wanting to make the most of it?

May 1938

No Squawks on Criticism Before—Why Start Now?

by Gene Krupa

CHICAGO—The stories about my split-up with Benny Goodman have been exaggerated, declared Gene Krupa in a long-distance call from New York.

John Hammond and the other critics have made too much out of our differences, he went on. "It’s not dramatic at all, but simply a case of ragged nerves, the strain of 40 shows a week, riding trains, etc.—which can happen to any musician.

I’ve always wanted a band, and my new venture has been more successful than I ever dreamed, and I’m very grateful to everyone.

Krupa then very sportingly added, I’ve never squawked about a criticism before, so why start now? Everyone is entitled to say what he thinks.

Willet and Mundy Arrange Chappie Willett and Jimmy Mundy are making special arrangements for me, and I have five arrangers in the band. We have about 70 arrangements now, and we’re planning to organize a little jam session group with Leo Watson beating it out on a suitcase.

Gene then informed, Promoters seem tickled with the band, and we’ve been getting $1,100 to $1,400 per date on one-nighters.

Interesting to cats is the unusual fact that Helen Ward, Benny’s former vocalist, came out of retirement to make some Brunswick records with Gene’s new band. Krupa opens Philadelphia’s Arcadia International on May 7 for three weeks.

June 1938

Ah’m Mahty Glad to See Gene, Says Goodman as They Make Up

PHILADELPHIA—The break between Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa has finally been healed and sealed.

There will be no more fights with fists or words in public or in private between the two rival swing band leaders, because they have shaken hands, patted each other on the back, set up drinks for each other and offered mutual wishes for the best of luck.

Benny played a job at Convention Hall Wednesday night and afterward dropped in at the Arcadia International Restaurant with his band to hear Gene’s new orchestra. Goodman sat in the background until the emcee spotted him with a light, whereupon he came bashfully up to the mike and made a little speech:

Ah’m mighty glad to be heah. It’s the first time Ah’ve seen Gene since he left, and the first time Ah’ve heard his band. It really sounds fine. And he shook hands with Gene, who was grinning from ear to ear.

Gene Krupa behind the drums and Benny Goodman from an all-star band engagement.

When Gene finished the set, the two bands and the two leaders went back to the bar to exchange the latest news and renew old friendships. Gene and Benny put their arms around each other’s shoulders, and there was no doubt in the minds of observers that the two men were really glad to be together again.

Later on Gene commented on Benny’s unexpected visit. See, I told you, he laughed. No bad blood at all. You see how everything went between us the first time we met since I left the band. If Benny was still hot about it, he certainly wouldn’t come down to see us after playing a hard job. I got a terrific kick out of seeing Benny and all the guys. It was just like old home week.

Today the two bands got together with true English sporting spirit for a fast game of softball. Goodman’s team, functioning smoothly, left the Krupa boys in the dust with a final score of 19–7. Unfortunately, Benny had been called to New York and couldn’t lead his band for that performance.

Krupa sprained an ankle badly while doing a sandlot slide to third, and Harry Goodman is sporting a black eye caused by a foul tip. Chris Griffin slugged two homers, Bud Freeman got one and did some brilliant fielding, and Bruce Squires starred with a homer and two hits for Gene’s team. Goodman’s gang beat out 21 hits to Krupa’s 15.

Harry James, Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa cut up in a photo from 1951. (DownBeat Archive)

July 1938

Raymond Scott Explains His Compositions

Descriptive Jazz Composer Tells Ideas Behind Each Tune

by Raymond Scott

The Toy Trumpet

A very modern little boy, brought up in a metropolitan city, hears swing trumpeters on the radio, blues trumpeters on recordings, the hunter’s trumpet in news reels, and one Christmas is given a toy trumpet as a gift. This composition is an impression in music of the youngster’s antics as he attempts to emulate the examples he has heard—with the addition of a few of the to-be-expected wrong notes.

Twilight in Turkey

The Orient... adventure... mystery... combine to form the background for this Oriental adventure in jazz with a setting of the most exotic time of day in the most exotic part of the world. What happens between the setting of the sun and the coming of complete darkness? Dusk settles over the Orient... Dancing girls make their appearance... An Englishman gets lost... A camel takes a drink. All combine to suggest a visual representation of Twilight in Turkey.

Power House

Did you ever poke your head into a power house? Here is a jazz impression of a person who pokes his head into a power house... the smooth, electric hum of dynamos... the droning rise and fall of surging power... the rhythmical noise of levers and machines... the imposing sight of gigantic generators.

Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner

Pleasure cruise... an overnight trip on an ocean liner... to nowhere. The crowd-murmur of anticipated pleasure is heard as the ship swishes away from the dock. Acquaintances are made quickly among the holiday-bound passengers, and the inevitable cocktail party with its growing hilarity takes place. Excitement reaches its peak... only to be halted by the sobering dawn, as the liner quietly heads for home.

Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals

Dinner music... dinner jackets and décol-leté dresses... dinner music... odd dinners, odd music... wonder what kind cannibals have? It was this sort of mental fantasy that gave me a starting point for this composition... and provided musically inclined cannibals with a dinner-time tune.

Aug./Sept. 1938

I Created Jazz in 1902, Not W.C. Handy

by Jelly Roll Morton

Dear Mr. Ripley:

For many years I have a been a constant reader of your Believe It or Not cartoon. I have listened to your broadcast with keen interest. I frankly believe your work is a great contribution to natural science.

In your broadcast of March 26, 1938, you introduced W.C. Handy as the originator of jazz, stomps and blues. By this announcement you have done me a great injustice, and you have also misled many of your fans.

It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, and I myself happened to be the creator in the year 1902, many years before the Dixieland Band organized. Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in jazz, if one has the knowledge. The first stomp was written in 1906, namely, King Porter Stomp. Georgia Swing was the first to be named swing, in 1907. You may be informed by leading record companies. New Orleans Blues was written in 1905, the same year Jelly Roll Blues was mapped out, but not published at that time. New Orleans was the headquarters for the greatest ragtime musicians on earth. There was more work than musicians, everyone had their individual style. My style seemed to be the attraction. I decided to travel and tried Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and many other states during 1903-’04, and was accepted as sensational.

Whoever Heard of a Professor Advocating Ragtime?

In the year of 1908, I was brought to Memphis by a small theater owner, Fred Barasso, as a feature attraction and to be with his number one company for his circuit, which consisted of four houses, namely Memphis, Tenn., Greenville, Vicksburg and Jackson, Miss. That was the birth of the Negro theatrical circuit in the USA. It was that year I met Handy in Memphis. I learned that he had just arrived from his hometown, Henderson, Ky. He was introduced to me as Prof. Handy. Whoever heard of anyone wearing the name of Professor advocate ragtime, jazz, stomps, blues, etc.? Of course, Handy could not play either of these types, and I can assure you he has never learned them as yet (meaning freak tunes, plenty of finger work in the groove of harmonies, great improvisations, accurate, exciting tempos with a kick). I know Mr. Handy’s ability, and it is the type of folk songs, hymns, anthems, etc. If you believe I am wrong, challenge his ability.

Williams Wrote Original Tune of St. Louis Blues

Prof. Handy as his band played several days a week at a colored amusement park in Memphis, namely, Dixie Park. Guy Williams, a guitarist, worked in the band in 1911. He had a blues tune he wrote, called Jogo Blues. This tune was published by Pace and Handy under the same title, and later changed to St. Louis Blues. Williams had no copyright as yet. In 1912 I happened to be in Texas, and one of my fellow musicians brought me a number to play—Memphis Blues. The minute I started playing it, I recognized it. I said to James Miles, the one who presented it to me (trombonist, still in Houston, playing with me at that time), The first strain is a Black Butts strain all dressed up. Butts was strictly blues (or what they called a boogie-woogie player), with no knowledge of music. I said the second strain was mine. I practically assembled the tune. The last strain was Tony Jackson’s strain, Whoa B- Whoa. At that time no one knew the meaning of the word jazz or stomps but me. This also added a new word to the dictionary, which they gave the wrong definition. The word blues was known to everyone. For instance, when I was eight or nine years of age, I heard blues tunes entitled Alice Fields, Isn’t It Hard to Love, Make Me a Palate on the Floor—the latter which I played myself on my guitar. Handy also retitled his catalogue Atlanta Blues. Mr. Handy cannot prove anything is music that he has created. He has possibly taken advantage of some unprotected material that sometimes floats around. I would like to know how a person could be an originator of anything without being able to do at least some of what he created.

Jelly Roll Morton. (DownBeat Archive)

I still claim that jazz hasn’t gotten to its peak as yet. I may be the only perfect specimen in jazz today that’s living. It may be because of my contributions that gives me authority to know what is correct or incorrect. I guess I am 100 years ahead of my time. Jazz is a style, not a type of composition. Jazz may be transformed to any type of tune; if the transformer has doubt, measure arms with any of my dispensers, on any instrument (of course I’ll take the piano). If a contest is necessary, I am ready.

Public Wants the Truth

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not claim any of the creation of the blues, although I have written many of them even before Mr. Handy had any blues published. I had heard them when I was knee-high to a duck. For instance, when I first started going to school, at different times I would visit some of my relatives per permission in the Garden District. I used to hear a few of the following blues players, who could play nothing else—Buddie Canter, Josky Adams, Game Kid, Frank Richards, Sam Henry, and many more too numerous to mention—they were what we call ragmen in New Orleans. They can take a 10-cent Xmas horn, take the wooden mouthpiece off, having only the metal for a mouthpiece, and play more blues with that instrument than any trumpeter I have ever met through the country imitating the New Orleans trumpeters. Of course, Handy played mostly violin when I first arrived in Memphis. Violinists weren’t known to play anything illegitimate even in New Orleans.

Chris Smith Wrote First Tune Titled Blues

I hope this letter will familiarize you more with real facts. You may display this in the most conspicuous places, it matters not to me. I played all Berlin’s tunes in jazz, which helped their possibilities greatly. I am enclosing you one of my many write-ups, hoping this may help you in the authenticity of my statements. I am able to hold up any of my statements against any that may contradict. I barnstormed from coast to coast before Art Hickman made his first trip from San Francisco to New York. That was long before Handy’s name was in the picture. The first publication with a title blues as far as I can remember was a tune written by Chris Smith, who still resides in New York and may be located through Shapiro-Bernstein, publishers, located one flight above the Capitol Theater Building.

Tony Jackson used to play the blues in 1905, entitled Michigan Water Tastes Like Sherry Wine. He never sang anything on the stage but blues, such as Elgin Movements in My Hips, with 20 Years’ Guarantee. Blues just wasn’t considered music—there were hundreds, maybe thousands, who could play blues and not another single tune.

Music is such a tremendous proposition that it probably needs government supervision. There does not seem to be any proper protection for anything in this line. I think one should have conclusive proof before being able to claim a title. I also advocate much more rigid laws so thieves may get their just deserts. There are many who enjoy glory plus financial gain’s abundance, even in the millions, who should be digging ditches or sweeping the streets. Lack of proper protection causes this.

Thief Got the Cash

I could dig up many tunes that were published, and benefits reaped accredited to one who never wrote the first note, no arranger who got paid for his work, and the cash went to the one who was the actual thief. The original writer is then afraid to open his mouth for fear that he may be made to do a jail term (negligence of the law excuses no one). These are words of many would-be writers. (What is the use in worrying yourself to death, when you can steal a little bit here and a little bit there?) I laid the foundation of jazz and am still the flowing fountain. Now everyone wants to claim it. They take different names for it in order to baffle their public and gain a false reputation, but they all must serve the same foundations to give satisfaction. As with religion, there are many denominations, but only one God.

Speaking of jazz music, anytime it is mentioned musicians usually hate to give credit but they will say, I heard Jelly Roll play it first. I also refer you to Clarence Jones. I’m sure he remembers when different musicians would say, There’s something peculiar, referring to my playing and arranging, but all who heard me play would immediately become copycats, regardless of what instrument they played. My figurations—well—I guess, were impossible at that time, and arguments would arise, stating that no one could put this idea on a sheet. It really proved to be the fact for years. Even Will Rossiter’s crack arranger, Henri Klickman, was baffled. But I myself figured out the peculiar form of mathematics and harmonics that was strange to all the world but me.

New York’s Just Getting Wise to Jazz

My dear Mr. Ripley, I also ask you for conclusive proof, which I am sure that you will never be able to offer, due to the fact that the one who inveigled you into this announcement cannot give you any. He doesn’t know anything about the foundation. New York itself is just beginning to get wise to jazz, and all the decent dispensers came from parts that I have educated or from tutors of the good New York musicians. Not until 1926 did they get a faint idea of real jazz, when I decided to live in New York. In spite of the fact that there were a few great dispensers—such as Sidney Bechet, clarinet, and William Brand, bass—New York’s idea of jazz was taken from the dictionary’s definition—loud, blaring, noise, discordant tones, etc., which really doesn’t spell jazz music. Music is supposed to be soothing, not unbearable—which was a specialty with most of them.

It is great to have ability from extreme to extreme, but it is terrible to have this kind of ability without the correct knowledge of how to use it. Very often you could hear the New York (supposed-to-be) jazz bands with 12 to 15 men. They would blaze away with all the volume that they had. Sometimes customers would have to hold their ears to protect their eardrums from a forced collision with their brains. Later in the same tune, without notification, you could hear only drums and trumpet. Piano and guitar would be going but not heard. The others would be holding their instruments leisurely, talking, smoking reefers, chatting scandals, etc.

Musicians of all nationalities watched the way I played; then soon I would hear my material everywhere I trod, but in an incorrect way, using figures behind a conglomeration of variations sometimes discordant, instead of hot swing melodies.

My contributions were many: First clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies; first glee club in orchestra; the first washboard was recorded by me; bass fiddle, drums—which was supposed to be impossible to record. I produced the fly swatter (they now call them brushes). Of course many imitators arose after my being fired or quitting. I do not hold you responsible for this. I only give you facts that you may use for ammunition to force your pal to his rightful position in fair life. Lord protect us from more Hitlers and Mussolinis.

Very truly yours,

Jelly Roll Morton

Originator of Jazz and Stomps

Victor Artist

World’s Greatest Hot Tune Writer

Sept. 1938

I Would Not Play Jazz If I Could

W.C. Handy Says Jelly Roll’s Attack Is the Act of a Crazy Man

Gentlemen:

In looking over DownBeat I came across an article by Jelly Roll Morton captioned: W.C. Handy Is a Liar!

For your information: Ripley had me on his program, Believe It or Not, and Mr. Jelly Roll Morton wrote a similar article in the Baltimore Afro-American—a Negro journal. In order to refute such statements by Jelly Roll Morton in the future, we obtained letters and statistics, etc., to make available to any newspaper that would carry such a scurrilous article. We have nothing much to fear from the Negro newspaper, but when a paper like yours circulates lies of Jelly Roll’s concoction to musicians and other professional people, it is doing me not only an injustice but an injury that is irreparable.

If you want to be fair, I am giving you material in this letter which you can assemble and use as a denial. I feel perfectly sure of my position in the musical world and of my ability as a pioneer, creative musician and composer.

I brought the