Institute for Studies in American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York NEWSLETTER Volume XXXV, No
Institute for Studies In American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York NEWSLETTER Volume XXXV, No. 1 Fall 2005 “White “The music I’ve been singing, so traditional, it was Woman” as new once. And I’ve been learning to make it mine. But Jazz Collector this! This music is mine in New already!”1 So gushes Miralee Smith, the white Orleans opera singing, jazz-smitten (1947) ingénue played by Dorothy Patrick in the 1947 film New by Orleans, set in 1917. Despite Sherrie Tucker having spent a good deal of the scene talking over the collective improvisation of Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Zutty Singleton and other musicians, Miralee finds her attraction to “authentic New Orleans jazz” rising to a Dorothy Patrick, Arturo de Cordova, Louis Armstrong, Billie crescendo. Especially moved Holiday, and other musicians in New Orleans (1947) by the film’s theme song, “Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans,” as sung by Endie, her black maid (played with palpable unhappiness by Billie Holiday in her only role in a feature motion picture), Miralee rises, eyes glowing, cheeks flushed; and declares, “I’m going to sing that New Orleans song!” For this act of white lady impropriety, Miralee is bounced from the Basin Street club. Such a rebuff would crush many a die-hard jazz fan, but not Miralee, whose desire now burns hotter than Buddy Bolden’s trumpet calling the children back home. This music is hers! She simply must feel the song of her black maid moving Inside through her own white lady body, as indeed, she will, before this musical romance is over.
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