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An Improvised World: Jazz and Community in Milwaukee, 1950-1970 Benjamin Barbera University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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An Improvised World: Jazz and Community in Milwaukee, 1950-1970 Benjamin Barbera University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations August 2012 An Improvised World: Jazz and Community in Milwaukee, 1950-1970 Benjamin Barbera University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, History Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation Barbera, Benjamin, "An Improvised World: Jazz and Community in Milwaukee, 1950-1970" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. 5. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/5 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN IMPROVISED WORLD: JAZZ AND COMMUNITY IN MILWAUKEE, 1950 – 1970 by Benjamin A. Barbera A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee August 2012 ABSTRACT AN IMPROVISED WORLD: JAZZ AND COMMUNITY IN MILWAUKEE, 1950 – 1970 by Benjamin A. Barbera The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012 Under the Supervision of Professor Robert Smith This study looks at the history of jazz in Milwaukee between 1950 and 1970. During this period Milwaukee experienced a series of shifts that included a large migration of African Americans, urban renewal and expressway projects, and the early stages of deindustrialization. These changes had an impact on the jazz musicians, audience, and venues in Milwaukee such that the history of jazz during this period reflects the social, economic, and physical landscape of the city in transition. This thesis fills two gaps in the scholarship on Milwaukee. First, it describes the history of jazz in Milwaukee in a more comprehensive way than has been done before. Though the primary focus is 1950 to 1970, it touches on the roots of jazz in the city during the first half of the twentieth century as well as the trajectory of jazz over the last forty years. Second, this research builds on the scholarship on the African American experience in Milwaukee by looking at the interaction of culture and community in the twentieth century. Ultimately this thesis does two important things. First it details the impact of migration, physical movement, and community fluidity on Milwaukee’s jazz culture, especially its jazz clubs and musicians. Second it provides a framework to explain how the jazz community was impacted by African American migration, urban renewal, and deindustrialization. In this way this thesis provides a model that explains the movement of jazz out of the African American community in Milwaukee, a movement reflected in cities throughout the United States. This model demonstrates that in Milwaukee, the expansion of the African American residential district due to migration, the spatial dislocation created by urban renewal, the economic downturn beginning in the late 1950s, and changing tastes in entertainment, meant that the African American community and jazz community had to undergo a process of cultural renegotiation. In the end the economic, geographical, and social changes wrought by these shifts meant that the make up of the jazz community was forever altered. The jazz community survived, but it became smaller, middle class, and predominately populated by white musicians and audience members. Copyright by Benjamin A. Barbera, 2012 All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables……………………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….. vii Introduction: “From Moment to Moment”………………………………………... 1 Jazz Culture 4 Chapter One: “Till Times Get Better” The Beginning……………………………. 10 A Brief History of African Americans in Milwaukee: 1835-1950 15 Jazz: Definition, Description, and Early History 29 Jazz in Milwaukee: The Early Years 37 Chapter Two: “Get Out-A Town” The Second Great Migration………………….. 48 The First and Second Great Migrations 51 Black Milwaukee in the 1950s 64 Jazz in 1950s Milwaukee 78 Chapter Three: “Stormy” Transition – Urban Renewal…………………………… 96 Urban Renewal and Expressway Projects in Milwaukee 99 Black Milwaukee in the 1960s 114 Jazz in the 1960s 123 Conclusion: “Cramer Street Blues” The 1970s and Beyond……………………… 149 The African American Community, 1970 to Today 151 Jazz Post Urban Renewal 157 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………. 169 Appendix: Milwaukee Jazz Clubs.………………………………………………… 178 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: African American Population in Milwaukee…………………………….. 60 Table 2: African American Population of Select Northern Cities, 1940-1970……. 60 Table 3: Number of Persons Per Unit in Occupied Housing……………………… 66 Table 4: Characteristics of White and Nonwhite Occupied Housing……………... 66 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my interview subjects for their willingness to participate in this project. Special thanks go to Dr. Jasmine Alinder and Dr. Michael Gordon, members of my thesis committee, for their excellent suggestions and their flexibility as the process dragged on longer than it was supposed to. Finally, my thesis advisor Dr. Robert Smith deserves extra special thanks and praise for his undying faith in this project. His help and guidance improved this work a hundredfold and his steadiness helped make sure the project was completed. I dedicate this thesis to my wife Dr. Jessica Hoff and to our lovely daughter Katherine Claire Barbera who offered welcome distraction in the last year of the project. Introduction “From Moment to Moment”1 James ‘Jimmy’ Mack was born in Hayti, Missouri in 1929. As a teenager he moved with his family to California and then moved to Milwaukee in the late 1950s or early 1960s. In the early or mid-1960s he opened the Main Event in the African American district of the city and it quickly became an important part of the jazz scene.2 Adekola Adedapo a vocalist and keeper of local jazz lore said, “That was where the Black Jazz, the Black musicians, and the Black audience hung out.”3 In 1966 Mack moved the club to 1332 West Fond du Lac where it stood for several years. By 1979, due to the last installment of the I-43 interstate, Mack had again relocated, this time farther north to 3418 North Green Bay Avenue. The club remained there until it became financially untenable and Mack closed it in 2002.4 In many ways Mack and the Main Event are a microcosm of the events that took place in jazz and the African American community in the last half of the twentieth century. Mack was a migrant to Milwaukee who had to move his club due to urban renewal and expressway projects and eventually had to shut it down due to financial difficulties brought on by the loss of industry in the city and the city’s efforts at urban renewal. Mack’s story shows the perseverance that Milwaukee’s jazz community has demonstrated over the decades as well as the connection, however tenuous, between jazz and the larger community. This study examines those connections as it looks at jazz in Milwaukee between 1950 and 1970. During this period Milwaukee experienced a series of shifts that included a large influx of African Americans, urban renewal and expressway projects, and the early stages of deindustrialization. These changes had an impact on the jazz musicians, audience, and venues in Milwaukee such that the history of jazz during this period reflects the social, economic, and physical landscape of the city in transition. This thesis will fill two gaps in the scholarship on Milwaukee. First, there have been no attempts to describe the history of jazz in the city in any comprehensive way. Though this project will primarily focus on the period between 1950 and 1970, it will also touch on the roots of jazz in the city during the first half of the twentieth century and the trajectory of jazz over the last forty years. Second, this research will help build on the scholarship on the African American experience in Milwaukee by looking at the interaction of culture and community in the twentieth century. The goal here is to determine how jazz, especially the musicians and audience, was affected by large scale African American migration and urban renewal projects in the middle part of the twentieth century and whether jazz offered, or perhaps could have offered, a means for the community to offset some of the negative outcomes of this period. Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the United States and this thesis will examine whether jazz was a potentially unifying force for communities within the city, and if so to what level this was realized. In examining these processes this thesis will develop a framework, or model, that can be generalized to examine changes over time in jazz communities and other urban art forms in cities throughout the United States. A topic of this nature raises a number of questions on a variety of themes. First, did post-World War II African American migration to Milwaukee have an impact on the jazz scene? What were the ramifications of this large influx of newcomers on Milwaukee culture and especially the black community? Within this context how did jazz fit into the larger political and social structure of Milwaukee during the post war boom? Next the thesis examines the impact of urban renewal on jazz culture, especially due to the resultant forced movement of people and venues. If these projects did indeed create a rupture, or at least a disruption, what were the after effects on the community and the interactions of blacks and whites? Some scholars argue that from a racial standpoint jazz is a potentially unifying force.5 Was this the case in Milwaukee? If not, was this a missed opportunity? In other words did the effects of urban renewal contribute to greater segregation in Milwaukee, thus disrupting jazz culture as a potential source to mitigate that separation? Finally, as industry slowed in Milwaukee in the late 1960s and 1970s, what were the ramifications of deindustrialization, its effects on the black community, and the effects on the budding Milwaukee jazz scene? __________________________________ Jazz is a powerful force.
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