Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians

Introduction

I am frequently asked how I, the owner of a housewares business, began writing about jazz. I am neither a professional musician nor a fulltime journalist and thus lack the training one might expect a jazz writer to possess. So how did I break into the field? The answer begins with an exchange of correspondence between me and the late Sinclair Traill, a noted English jazz journalist who co-edited the regular “Collector’s Corner” feature in the London publication Melody Maker. At Traill’s request, I wrote my initial essay, a piece about Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band. It appeared in the February 5, 1949, edition of Melody Maker. A few months later Traill established his own magazine, Jazz Journal, and asked me to submit a monthly column, which I called “The American Jazz Scene.” My byline still appears in that fine magazine, currently in its fifty-third year of publication. As my writing career began to take shape, I benefited from quite a bit of on-the-job training, taking every opportunity to hear jazz performances and educating myself about the music through conversations with the musicians. While listening and learning, I became increasingly aware that much of the information I was getting had significant historical value. Jazz had developed during the lifetimes of the musicians I was fortunate to know. Their tales of triumph and travail constituted fragments of an intricate puzzle; when properly assembled, they created a vivid depiction of jazz history—an important segment of America ’s cultural development. I felt a strong impulse to share this informaINTRODUCTION tion and help illuminate an era previously cloaked in the darkness of neglect or indifference. Before I realized it, I had become a jazz writer. Since this activity offered meager income potential, I kept my day job, running my business for profit and writing for passion. As I traveled around the country, selling aprons, oven mitts, and pot holders, I visited nightclubs and bars, soaking up as much jazz and conversation as I could get. These contacts with jazzmen in various cities added to my knowledge of the music; it also provided the grist from which I put together my monthly “American Jazz Scene” column and feature articles for various magazines . And it helped me build up a reservoir of potential guests for Jazz on Parade, the radio program I hosted for many years. Jazz on Parade did not reach a very large audience in those early days of FM radio, but it was the first American jazz program broadcast by the BBC in England. My old friend and mentor Sinclair Traill requested transcriptions of the show, and I put together special broadcasts that were aired throughout the United Kingdom. My small factory office became a storage area for my voluminous jazz files. Each day my attention was divided between business affairs and literary efforts. When I retired from the housewares business several years ago, I had to confess that my resources for the golden years would have been more extensive had I devoted more time to my business and less to jazz journalism. Yet I have gained immeasurably from the latter and have gleefully continued to pursue it. And without the frequent interruptions of a daily business routine, I can finally do it full-time. My material currently appears in several additional prominent periodicals in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Far East. The same overfilled file cabinets that once resided at my business address now stand in my home office, and the typewriter table on which I have written hundreds of articles over the years is now occupied by a computer monitor and keyboard. The floor is usually cluttered with photos, clippings, and reference material. Tread carefully, a jazz writer is at work. How It Began It began when I was eight years old; the memory is still very vivid. On a blustery winter afternoon in Chicago’s Loop, I watched a man blow a 2 Introduction trumpet in a Salvation Army band. The musicians and their small group of listeners were chilled by icy gusts wafting from Lake Michigan. My mother tugged at my arm and insisted I follow her into the warmth of an adjacent store. I stood inside and looked through the frosty window, my gaze still fixed on the trumpet player. I fell in love with his beautiful shining horn and admired the gracefully twisted brass and...