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10. Creating
- The University of Tennessee Press
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10. Creating The relationship between psychoactive substances and creativity is an oftendiscussed topic, and one that has given rise to a number oftheories. Sociologist Charles Winick,for example, has speculatedthat theprogressive coolingofAmerican ja:zz from Dixieland to swing to bop was related to the musicians' changing preferences for drugs, which movedfrom alcohol to marijuana to heroin.! In the field ofAmerican literature, Julie Irwin has reinterpreted F. Scott Fitzgerald's fiction in the light ofhis deepening alcoholism during the 1920s and 1930s.2 Although there is no consensus on the extent to which drugs and alcohol shape an artistic work orperformance, the question is nevertheless an importantone, given the increasingly heavy use by artists andperformers duringthe last hundredyears. As early as the 1880s there were reports ofspreading opium and morphine use among actors and actresses. During the classic era, narcotic useflourished among both stage and screen stars. Almostfrom the beginning, Hollywood acquired a reputation as a drug mecca, with scandals marring the careers ofsuch popular entertainers as Wallace Reid, Mabel Normand, Juanita Hansen, Barbara La Ma", Alma Rubens, and, later, Bela Lugosi.3 1# did not set out to explore the conneaion between drugs and the performing or literary arts, but it happened that we encountered two individuals, a saxophonist and a dancer, who were professional entertainers ofsome note. 1# then spoke with a semiprofessional trumpeter who had played with ja:zz combos in Harlem in the late 1930s, before dropping out ofthe music scene to become a full-time hustler. 1# asked these three men ifand how the drugs they used 1. "The Use of Drugs byJazz Musicians," Social Problems 7 (1959-60), 252. 2. "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Little Drinking Problem," American Scholar 56 (1987), 415, 418-20,422-24,426-27. 3. Kenneth Anger, Holly1lJOod Babylon (San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1975), 9-12, 39-40, 49-54, 60, 63-68; Michael Starks, Cocaine Fiends and Reefer Madness: An Illustrated History ofDrugs in the Movies (New York: Cornwall Books, 1982), 137. 232 ADDICTS WHO SURVIVED affected their performances, and why they thought entertainers, especially black musicians, became so deeply involved with narcotics. 1#also metand interviewed a remarkable woman, ajrc:.z afficionada who had been married to a serious jrc:.z collector and later to a world-famous jrc:.z musician. She spoke about the role ofdrugs in the arts from a different perspective, that ofan individual listening to and interpreting a performance. Finally, we .asked William S. Burroughs, unquestionably the preeminent drug novelist ofthe classic era, ifhe would talk about his life and work. He agreed, and offered several insights, particularly in relation to hisfirst, autobiographical book, Junkie, published in 1953. RED Red was born into a middle-class blackfamily in Newark, NewJersey, in 1916. In 1939, after ayear ofcollege, he dropped out tojoin a band. My feature instrument was the tenor saxophone. I play all the saxophones and most reed instruments, but the tenor was my feature. I haven't had an extensive musical education. For instance, I never went to a university or to a musical college or had anything big like that in the way of musical education. But I was thoroughly tutored. I got this right around the corner from where I used to live in Newark, NewJersey. There was a gentleman there, a wonderful man. In fact, he was aJewish man. He was one of the best saxophonists that I've ever encountered. He was a virtuoso. For many years I had the instrument and was doing things by ear, until somebody said, "Gee, you're doing so much with that, why don't you really go and learn what you're doing?" So I went to him and he took me on for two dollars a lesson. Two dollars a lesson-it meant nothing to him: he just liked doing it. He passed it off to me, one of those kinds of things. He also taught me the rudiments of music. He taught me other instruments -the clarinet, and a little bit offlute-but mostly he acquainted me with the saxophone. It was his instrument, and he said I had a thing for it. I could just pick it up and run over it. I was fourteen when I started taking lessons. I didn't start when I was a kid. I didn't even know that I wanted to be a musician that early, when I was seven or eight. My parents didn't start me into music. My parents...