[Tradjazz] Tradjazz Digest, Vol 7, Issue 4

[Steve Barbone]

GeoHunt1 at aol.com wrote:

> To Steve Barbone:
 
> I don't believe any jazz musician ever got rich.  Buddy Bolden went into an
> asylum just when his band was getting popular.  Bunk Johnson quit music when
> someone stomped on his horn during a bar fight.  Joe "King" Oliver died
> penniless while working as a janitor in Savannah.
> 
> But, Steve, how about Louis Armstrong?  He was in movies and his All Stars
> played all the big auditoriums.  Was he rich?  Maybe not, he never moved from
> his modest home in Queens.

Hi George:

True, though Louis left an estate of over a half million dollars when he
passed. That would be about 2 million today. If not rich, close. To him,
that house in Queens was a palace. BTW, other jazz musicians lived in Queens
for a while including Basie, Gillespie, Milt Hinton, Lena Horne, Clarence
Williams, Eva Taylor, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Kenny
Davern, Hank D'Amico, Jimmy Durante, and many others. Jackie Robinson also
moved to Queens while playing with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Scott Joplin is
buried in Elmhurst Queens and Louis Armstrong in Flushing Cemetary. And
though no where near any of them in musical stature, I too lived in Flushing
Queens for 28 years.

I believe Condon was referring to his experiences in the 20s & 30s where
most "real" (his term) jazz musicians did not have many gigs. In effect, at
the height of what was supposed to be the jazz age, they were not working.

By the 30s, Louis was also having a bit of a hard time. He damn near went
broke (which is why 3rd wife Alma left him) because he could not get a lot
of gigs. He ending up fronting a dismal bunch of "jazz" bands that were no
where near as creative as his earlier efforts. The "jazz" he played in
Movies pales by comparison to that which he played in the 1920s. Same with
Oliver's work in the 1930s. King O was also having lip trouble by then.

Louis's greatest popularity came after 1947 when he shifted to the All Star
format from those stultifying big dance bands. Also due, perhaps to radio
and TV exposure etc., but this popularity came at a time when trad jazz was
no longer "America's Popular Music" as so many describe the 20s and 30s.

Basically, Condon's book chips away at the myth that Jazz was America's
Popular Music back then. His opinion was that Whiteman, Goodman, Gershwin et
al, were like the Kenny G of today. Not Jazz.

And that he, Davison, Bechet, Wettling, Gowans, Schroeder, et al were jazz
musicians but not at all popular. His foray into his own club after WW 2
changed that somewhat, but that was well after the Jazz Age ended.

Yes, we play the music because we love it. But then we don't play the music
if there is no audience.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone