Caught between passion and pay A closer look at the integration of the jazz music industry from 1935 until 1970

Chofiet Roemersma 10003221 [email protected] Master American Studies G. Blaustein July 4, 2016

Contents

Introduction ...... 2 Chapter 1 – Benny Goodman ...... 6 Music and integration prodigy ...... 6 Introduction ...... 6 §1.1 Goodman’s myth… ...... 7 §1.2… and its relevance ...... 8 §1.3 Band troubles ...... 9 §1.4 Color creates cash ...... 12 Conclusion ...... 14 Chapter 2 - Louis Armstrong ...... 16 Uncle Tom did have something to say ...... 16 Introduction ...... 16 §2.1 Myth ...... 16 §2.2 Integration sells ...... 18 §2.3 Staying true to his ethnic background ...... 19 §2.4 Jazz music as a bridge between black and white ...... 21 Conclusion ...... 21 Chapter 3 - Charles Mingus ...... 23 Visions of a colorless island ...... 23 Introduction ...... 23 §3.1 Mingus’ Myths ...... 24 §3.2 Activism by provocation ...... 26 §3.3 An other side of Mingus ...... 29 §3.4 In the spotlight ...... 30 Conclusion ...... 33 Chapter 4 – Gabe Baltazar ...... 35 On the island, we don’t know color ...... 35 Introduction ...... 35 §4.1 Born in between the cracks ...... 36 §4.2 Interracial friendships or commercial relations? ...... 37 §4.3 A thin line between naïveté and marketing ...... 38 §4.4 Stan Kenton controversy ...... 39 Conclusion ...... 40 Conclusion ...... 42 List of sources ...... 45 Bibliography ...... 45 Media ...... 49

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Introduction

This thesis is not a celebratory narrative of integration in the history of the jazz music industry. It explores how musicians participated in crossing the color barrier in mid-twentieth century American society by integrating jazz and fighting for equal civil rights for both black and white citizens. Even though that appears heroic and celebratory, I will argue that jazz musicians were not the heroes their biographies and documentaries make them out to be. On the contrary, jazz musicians were often caught in a dichotomy between making music and making a living. Starting with Benny Goodman in 1935, jazz musicians found out that integrated bands, being a novelty at the time, was great for publicity. In this thesis, I will use four case studies to demonstrate how the involvement of jazz musicians in integrating the jazz industry from the 1930s through the 1960s can be placed in the larger narrative of American integration and civil rights history. Did these musicians integrate their bands for publicity? Were they making a sociopolitical point directed at Jim Crow and the white aristocratic society that prevailed in the United States? Each chapter, or case study, will focus on a jazz musician who worked with integrated bands. The first chapter will zoom in on Benny Goodman, who is seen as a pioneer in integrated jazz history. Chapter two revolves around Louis Armstrong, who spent his entire life caught between black and white. The third chapter’s protagonist is Charles Mingus, who was actually against integration, which he saw as compromising with whites. The final chapter includes the experiences of Asian American Gabe Baltazar, who was one of the very few Asian Americans playing in integrated jazz bands. The timeframe starts in 1935, because in 1935 Goodman first played with Teddy Wilson. 1970 as the final year of the timeframe is more an approximation, but I chose 1970, because the peak of the Civil Rights movement had passed by the late 1960s, with the most positive highlight of that decade being the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the bleakest movement being the assassination of Martin Luther King, jr., in 1968.

I deliberately chose a white, a black, a mixed race, and an Asian American musician, since jazz is not specifically black or white music. It would be misleading to speak about integration in the jazz industry from only a white or only a black perspective. As Gene Lees, author or Cats of any color: Jazz, black and white wrote: “Any statement that jazz is “black music” and only back music is racist on the face of it. In the first place, the description of jazz

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as something invented in a cultural vacuum solely by blacks is simplistic at least. New Orleans, where jazz emerged, was a complex society of many peoples.”1 At first sight, these four jazz musicians appear to have nothing in common. But, throughout my research, I found out that their stories and involvement in integrated jazz bands are very similar. First, each of them has a certain image, which roots stem from an almost mythical childhood story. How are these myths connected to integration in jazz? Second, Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar each had a lot of multiethnic experiences; from personal friendships to business relations. How colorblind were these partnerships? Third, each of them had a passion for making music professionally, but as with any other job, jazz musicians also needed a paycheck. Was money the only reason jazz got integrated? So far, jazz musicians in the mid-twentieth century have been described as actively fighting for civil rights. In Ingrid Monson’s book Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights call out to Jazz and Africa she stated that jazz music and the Civil Rights Movement are inseparable, as jazz and the Civil Rights movement itself shared a mutual ideological history.2 Musician and musical historian Ted Gioia also argued in his book The history of jazz that jazz did incorporated socio-politically awareness.3 Musician and professor of Psychology Mark Gridley argued in his article Misconceptions in linking free jazz with the Civil Rights Movement that the jazz should not be linked to musicians speaking out in favor of the Civil Rights Movement or integration. He argued that jazz musicians did not strive to transfer their personal desire for freedom to their professional sphere.4 Musicologist Mario Dunkel claimed in his work Aesthetics of Resistance: Charles Mingus and the Civil Rights Movement that Charles Mingus’ music and his political ideas are inseparable.5 This would mean that him working together with white musicians was purely an active political statement. Mingus might have been trying to speak his mind, but was that truly the only reason he worked with white people? Monson wrote in Freedom Sounds that Louis Armstrong speaking out on racial matters was an oddity, and that he continued to

1 G. Lees, Cats of any color. Jazz, Black and White (Da Capo Press; Boston 1995) 198. 2 I. Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford University Press; Oxford and New York 2007). 3 T. Gioia, The history of jazz (Oxford University Press; New York 1997). 4 M. Gridley, Misconceptions in Linking Free Jazz with the Civil Rights Movement’, College Music Symposium 47 (2007) 139–155. 5 M. Dunkel, Aesthetics of Resistance: Charles Mingus and the Civil Rights Movement (Lit Verlag; London, Berlin, and Vienna 2012) 5.

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perform in the segregated South. 6 Does that mean that Armstrong had no thoughts on racial matters? These are just two examples of how scholars tend to treat jazz musicians as two dimensional characters within the larger narrative of jazz’s integration history. The part jazz musicians played in integrating the industry was not simply either making a deliberate political statement or setting an accidental happenstance in motion, which the four chapters will support.

It must be noted that certain terminology in this thesis might come across as offensive. For example, Monson’s Freedom Sounds raised an important issue concerning the term colorblind.7 She clarified that the term colorblindness is actually demeaning to African American jazz musicians, since it diminishes their esthetic contributions to the genre, and the cultural exchange that music in general demonstrates. This is important to keep in mind throughout the thesis, since I will use the term colorblind due to lack of a better term, even though I am aware of the weight it carries. Also, the terms ‘black’ and ‘yellow’ are used throughout the thesis. These can be considered as being derogatory, but since the sources I use, both primary and secondary, also use these terms, I decided to follow their lead. Of course, on the one hand, the terms fit with the time period of the thesis’ topic, but on the other hand, I am aware of the negative connotations. After all, during the mid-twentieth century race and skin color did still matter. After all, during this time, race still mattered. Racial segregation laws and discrimination against black people, like unequal pay or blacks not being allowed to stay at ‘white’ hotels, were still thriving.8

The sources I will mainly use to research what role jazz musicians played in the larger narrative of the integration of the jazz industry are scholarly biographies, autobiographical works, newspaper articles and the music Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar made. Of course, using biographies can be tricky, as the stories presented in biographical works cannot always be taken as a given. Biographies as well as documentaries and interviews, involve an oral dimension, which relies on memories. Biographers can, deliberately or not, embellish a person’s story, making the truth just a bit more interesting than it really was.

6 Monson, Freedom Sounds 3. 7 Ibidem 315. 8 J. Gennari, Blowin’ hot and cool. Jazz and the critics (University of Chicago Press; Chicago 2006) 242.

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However, this does not mean that nothing written in a biography is true. After all, if a biographer would flat out lie about his subject, he could get into legal trouble, for example.9 Autobiographies have the same problems as biographies, but autobiographies have an extra weak spot: the subject itself has written the work. Thus, the reader should look out for stories that are too good to be true, and take into account when the autobiography was written. For example, Gabe Baltazar’s autobiographical work If it swings, it’s music contains stories that happened seventy years ago. We could wonder if, after such a long period, he remembers everything exactly as it happened. When an (auto-) biographical work is quoted in one of the four case studies, the story is not to be taken as a perfect fact, but as a story that is part of a larger narrative – that of the integration of the jazz industry – or as a way to gain a broader perspective of the musicians’ contribution to jazz’s integration.

9 H. Lee, Biography, a very short introduction (Oxford University Press; Oxford 2009) 1-18.

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Chapter 1 – Benny Goodman Music and integration prodigy

‘If a guy's got it, let him give it. I'm selling music, not prejudice.’10

Introduction Any researcher that attempts to narrate the history of integration in jazz must mention the name Benny Goodman. On the one hand, I agree with the scholars who refer to Goodman as the first white band leader to work with an integrated band. In the other hand, I do not agree with making Goodman come across as the saint of jazz integration. Popular works like Lesa Cline-Ransome’s 2014 book Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson: Taking the Stage as the first Black-and-White Jazz Band in History, Joanne Mattern’s 2013 biography of Benny Goodman or the reflection on Teddy Wilson’s musical legacy that Jon Pareles wrote after Wilson’s death in 1986 paint a too positive, if not celebratory, image of Goodman breaking the color barrier.11 After all, the collaboration between Benny Goodman and pianist Teddy Wilson did not stem from an ideal to fight segregation. Goodman had needed some convincing by his manager and brother-in-law in order to agree to work together with Wilson and to show his integrated, at that time, trio in public.12 Of course, apart from collaborating with Wilson, Goodman had also accompanied black singers, like Ella Fitzgerald in 1937. Unfortunately, their song Goodnight my love was only recorded, and never performed on stage.13 Even though Goodman was hesitant to perform with an integrated band in public, he eventually did go on stage with his mixed race band members, paving the way for other black and white musicians to do the same. Goodman’s orchestra had the honor of being the first band to play jazz at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1938. They played integrated, their audience was integrated and that evening was even recorded.14

10 H. Galewitz, ed., Music. A book of quotations (Dover Publications; Mineola 2001) 20. 11 L. Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome, Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson: Taking the Stage as the first Black-and-White Jazz Band in History (New York 2013). J. Mattern, American Jazz. Benny Goodman (Hockessin 2013) 27-28. J. Pareles, ‘Critic’s Notebook; The Legacy of Teddy Wilson’s Subtle Approach’ in: The New York Times (August 7, 1986). 12 E. Bush, ‘Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson: Taking the Stage as the first Black-and-White Jazz Band in History by Lesa Cline-Ransome (review)’ in: Bulletin for the Center of Children’s books 8 (2014) 400. 13 Goodman, B. and E. Fitzgerald, ‘Goodnight, my love’ on: Various Artists, Jazz in the Charts, Vol. 30 (Membran Records 1937). 14 B. Klauber, ‘Where’s Benny? The story of the infamous, aborted, Benny Goodman/Louis Armstrong tour of 1953’ in: Jazz Times (September 1, 2009). ‘Hot Music at Carnegie’ in: New York Times (January 18, 1938) 22.

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To understand the rising of later integrated jazz bands during the 1950s and 1960s, the heyday of the Civil Rights era, we must take a step back and explore the first steps taken into this undiscovered country. Whether he was a hero or not, Goodman did undeniably play his part in getting black and white musicians to combine their strengths for the good of music. Thus, in this chapter I will explore how Goodman fits into the narrative of integrated jazz music’s history.

§1.1 Goodman’s myth… Benny Goodman’s professional colorblind image is rooted in his life story. His rags to riches life story gives the illusion that Goodman never cared about color or politics, but did care about music. Whether or not that is true, does not matter. The story is nonetheless a myth that Goodman and his biographers relied on to give him a certain, noble image and status. The film The Benny Goodman Story, a biopic made in 1956, plays a large part in creating that myth around Goodman, his talent and his image. The story of how Goodman was introduced to the clarinet seems a little too perfect. In the movie it is shown that Goodman’s father wanted to take his two oldest sons to get music lessons, stating that they need to read good books, listen to good music and get a good education or they would end up like him, working in a factory. Young Benny Goodman begged his father to come along, but once they got to the music teacher, only his big brothers get instruments picked out for them. Again, young Goodman begged his father if he please could get an instrument too. The music teacher gave in and immediately, young Benny Goodman and the clarinet are depicted as a match made in heaven. From that point on, Goodman excelled as a clarinet player, and already played his first gig at sixteen.15. It must be noted, that Benny Goodman himself played all of the solos in the movie. Thus, it seems as though teenage Goodman played as well and professionally as 47-year old Goodman could after playing for almost thirty years. The story the movie depicted would always be retold as how Goodman miraculously started playing clarinet, how he was a natural, and how from the age of ten he dedicated his life to music. Journalist and author James L. Collier published a biography of Goodman in 1989, three years after Goodman passed away. He also used this origin story of Goodman as a brilliant and immediately successful musician.16

15 V. Davies, The Benny Goodman Story (Universal International Pictures 1956) 3:04 – 3:44 + 7:10 – 7:32. 16 J. L. Collier, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era (Oxford University Press; Oxford 1989) 16.

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Otis Ferguson, film and jazz critic critic for the magazine The New Republic in the 1930s, wrote in 1936 about Benny Goodman as though he were a musical messiah. He praised Goodman for his success as a young boy, and as a grown up man. “The band as a whole gets its lift from the rhythm men and the soloists as they take off; it is built from the ground rather than tailored – thanks to the talent, ideas, and leadership of one man.”17 That one man was of course Goodman.

§1.2… and its relevance Does it actually matter whether or not Goodman was the mythical prodigy as described in his biopic, his posthumous biography, and a 1936 article, written when Goodman was only 27 years old? Maybe Goodman truly was a unique, talented boy, who could play in bands and get paid for gigs after only a few years of studying the clarinet. What should one read into this myth – or maybe, a stretched truth? It is not the myth itself that is fascinating. The timing of the three sources that mention the myth is what is fascinating. First, the oldest source, the article written by Otis Ferguson, was written in 1936. At this time, Goodman was up and coming, but by no means at the peak of his career. The 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall put Goodman and his orchestra on the map, as it was the first performance of an integrated band, and later its album became the first recording of an integrated band that was not studio based.18 In 1936, this big break had not yet happened, making the story of how Goodman was a uniquely talented and successful young player come across like a sharp marketing pitch instead of a review. Second, the biographical movie The Benny Goodman Story came out in 1956. By the 1950s, Goodman’s swing music had had to make room for bebop music. Goodman’s career suffered from this renovation in the jazz industry. That does not mean he could hardly make rent, but he would never be as popular as during the swing era of the 1930s and 1940s. As jazz reviewer, historian and author Scott Yanow put it in his book Jazz: A Regional Exploration, Goodman had a ‘flirtation’ with bebop, but bebop and Goodman were not meant for each other like swing and Goodman had been. Until his death in 1986, Goodman would continue to play swing in smaller orchestras than during the 1930s and 1940s.19 He would

17 O. Ferguson, ‘The Spirit of Jazz’ in: R. Gottlieb, ed., Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to now (Vintage Books; New York 1996) 481. 18 D. R. Connor, Benny Goodman: Listen to His Legacy (Scarecrow Press and the Institute of Jazz Studies, Metuchen 1988) 80. 19 S. Yanow, Jazz: A Regional Exploration (Greenwood Press; Westport and London 2005) 61.

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even go on to record albums of classical music instead of jazz music, playing Mozart, for example. 20 Thus, it is not odd that the movie’s writer and director Valentine Davies and the movie’s producer Aaron Rosenberg chose to portray Goodman as a man with a talent that should not go to waste. The movie works its way towards the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, which was famous for being the first integrated concert and thus shows the audience once again how important and magnificent Benny Goodman was. Not just as a musician, but also as a fighter for civil rights. At a time when bebop had overtaken Goodman who was firmly holding on to playing swing, and when the Civil Rights movement was growing larger thanks to the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, the movie comes across as a propaganda feature film for Goodman. The fact that Collier in his 1989 biography of Goodman also relied on the rags to riches myth, is maybe the least surprising. After all, Goodman had passed away a few years earlier. Until his death, and even to this day, Goodman is known as the King of Swing, so the name ‘Benny Goodman’ has a positive connotation. Also, as the proverb says: don’t speak ill of the dead. In the next paragraph, I will not speak ill of the dead, but I will step back from the story and research Goodman’s real steps of the way to integrated jazz bands.

§1.3 Band troubles Jazz critic Dan Morgenstern asked himself in his book Living with jazz. A reader ‘is it a coincidence that Jewish-American bandleaders were in the vanguard of the integration of jazz?’.21 This rhetorical question is rather difficult to answer, since Morgenstern gives the illusion that any bandleader during the 1930s integrated deliberately with a sociopolitical agenda. Unfortunately, the integration of the jazz industry is not as black and white as Morgenstern’s question makes it seem. Placing Goodman’s career next to the integration of jazz indicates that it was neither a coincidence nor a plan It must not be overlooked that the music industry was, and still is, a business world. Musicians have to sell, otherwise they cannot pay rent or other vital needs. Thus, as a musician one has to prove themselves, since repeating old tricks means fewer fans and lower

20 B. Goodman and American Art Quartet Mozart Quintet in A major, K. 581 for clarinet and (Columbia Masterworks 1952). Clarinet Quintet Benny Goodman, Charles Munch Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Boston Symphony String Quartet, Mozart: Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (K.622) (RCA Victor Red Seal 1957). 21 D. Morgenstern, ‘The Conover Controversy’ in: D. Morgenstern and S. Meyer, ed., Living with Jazz: A reader (Random House; New York 2006).

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sells. Goodman witnessed this round 1950, when he was overtaken by bebop, as discussed earlier. However, in the 1930s Goodman had yet to peak, and proving himself meant playing with the best musicians supporting him, whether they were black or white. Thus, Benny Goodman’s band was already integrated in the broadest sense of the word by the mid-1930’s. In 1933 Benny’s band existed of only white musicians, but they did record a song with the black singer Billie Holiday, Riffin’ The Scotch.22 This song was recorded when Holiday was only 18 years old. She only sang that one song with Goodman's band, but Holiday would later on perform on stage with Artie Shaw and his band, being the first woman to break the color barrier on stage. She became the first black female performer to sing on stage with a white band, something that was still unheard of in the 1930s. But, performing with his white band did come at a price. For example, Shaw would not let Holiday sit on stage with the band when she did not have to sing a number. Instead, she was taken to the back, cast aside like a prop. She also was forced to use the back entrance, because she was white. All of this were not uncommon practices in the 1930s, and Holiday did not really mind this treatment. However, she did mind that she had to use the freight elevator up and down, like she was nothing more than a piece of singing meat, and Shaw making her stay put in her hotel room with not even as much as a radio in her room. To top it all off, Shaw could not stand Holiday getting a bigger round of applause than he did, even though Holiday only came on once or twice per show!23 Ultimately, Holiday left Shaw’s band. These experiences with Shaw’s Not just Holiday had difficulties being a black performer with a white band. Goodman had not broken the carrier alone, but he was joined by pianist Teddy Wilson. Wilson later recalled his days as part of Goodman’s first integrated jazz band in a 1959 DownBeat Magazine interview. In the North and in the South people were still far from used to seeing an integrated band performing live. Being black, Wilson had to stay at different sleeping accommodations and eat at different parts in hotel restaurants than the white Goodman and Krupa. Furthermore, in 1936 Benny Goodman and his band were participating in a movie, The Big Broadcast of 1937. The producers wanted Wilson to play the piano, but under no means was he to be seen on screen. This infuriated Wilson, causing a disagreement and ultimately his absence in the movie.24

22 Benny Goodman and his Orchestra and B. Holiday, Riffin’ the Scotch (Columbia Records 1933). 23 D. Dexter Jr., ‘ I’ll Never Sing With A Dance Band Again’ in: DownBeat Magazine (November 11, 1939). 24 T. Scanlan, ‘The impeccable Teddy Wilson’ in: DownBeat Magazine (January 22, 1959).

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In an interview from 2009, Al Stewart, who joined Benny Goodman’s orchestra in 1948, spoke to music journalist, historian and author Marc Myers about his time with Goodman. Stewart recalled how their only black musician at the time, Wardell Gray, also suffered from being black. For example, Gray could not stay in the same hotel as the rest of the band, or go through the kitchen to enter a club. Goodman’s orchestra also toured with two black dancers. The three of them caused quite a stir when they played in Columbia, South Carolina: the audience were so distraught that a riot almost broke out.25 Just like Shaw, Goodman, too, sometimes had difficulties accepting that he was not always the most popular. Stewart also spoke about the rift between Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong in 1953. This tour, with these two great names, was bound to be a hit and maybe even a boost for Goodman’s career. They had planned a tour together, but before they could go on the road, Goodman quit. Different versions of the story are known. Stewart described it as follows: before the tour, the men got into a fight. Armstrong’s band would join Goodman’s early one morning to rehearse together for the first time. Goodman was very strict towards his band, that had already been practicing quite some time that morning, and he was bashing at his band and rehearsing one specific song endlessly. Armstrong’s band was exhausted, since they had come straight from a late night gig. They just wanted to practice real and then get some sleep. However, Goodman refused, making them wait until he was finished. Armstrong could not accept that, so he and his band walked away aggravated.26 A few weeks later, the two orchestras had a try out concert in Boston, and Benny Goodman could not handle the fact that Armstrong was more popular with the audience than Goodman. He left the tour, citing health problems, and left drummer Gene Krupa in charge.27 Since Krupa was a more relaxed bandleader than Goodman, since Krupa did not have the same absurd high demands of himself nor of his band that Goodman had. Another version is that Goodman disliked the vaudeville act Armstrong and his band put up, which happened to upstage Goodman and his band. Goodman, being strict and being used to always being the big star, could not handle someone else getting a bigger round of

25 M. Myers, ‘Interview: Al Stewart (part 3)’ on: Jazz Wax (September 29, 2009) via: http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/09/interview-al-stewart-part-3.html (May 15, 2016). 26 Ibidem. 27 Klauber, ‘Where’s Benny?’.

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applause than he got.28 Goodman’s image as the King of Swing had taken a blow and after an ego clash Goodman stated he had health issues and left the tour.29

§1.4 Color creates cash As mentioned earlier, Goodman’s career was not as blooming in the early fifties as it was in the 1930s and 1940s. The tour with Louis Armstrong should have taken place in 1953, exactly during that period of thaw in Goodman’s career. Was Goodman’s departure based on racist motives? Did he leave because he could not handle Armstrong, a black musician, being more popular than himself? I think that is a too easy assumption. After all, Goodman had had black musicians in his own bands, and he did agree to do the tour knowing very well that Armstrong himself and many of his band members were black. After all, that was part of the appeal of the tour: two great orchestras playing united and crossing the color barrier since one was predominantly black and the other white. The Armstrong-Goodman tour was the victim of egos, not of racism. After all, Goodman had owed a lot of his success to his integrated band. In 1934 John Hammond, Benny’s manager and brother-in-law, worked his hardest to integrate black and white in commercial music by trying to persuade Goodman to lead a mixed big band. Goodman refused at first, fearing it would break his career.30 That same year, John Hammond, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson coincidentally attended the same party, where Hammond enjoyed Wilson and Goodman playing together impromptu. He liked what he heard and saw a record in the making. All he needed was a drummer, and with Gene Krupa on drums the original and integrated Benny Goodman Trio was born. In 1936 Wilson even joined Goodman on stage, marking the first integrated jazz band’s performance in public, and not just on a record.31 John Hammond foresaw that this trio, and later quartet, would be good for Goodman’s career. Thanks to the 1936 live performance and a lot of widespread publicity of the event indeed led to Goodman becoming a household name and a pioneer in integrating the jazz industry.32 The creation and integration of the Benny Goodman Trio may have been a creation

28 Ibidem. 29 J.L. Collier, Louis Armstrong: An American Genius (Oxford University Press, New York 1983) 317. 30 P. D. Lopes, The Rise of a Jazz Art World (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge 2002) 130. 31 T. Wilson, A. Lighthart and H. Van Loo, Teddy Wilson Talks Jazz: The Autobiography of Teddy Wilson (Continuum; New York and London 2001) 39-40. 32 H. Martin and K. Waters, Jazz: The First 100 Years (Schirmer, Cengage Learning; Boston 2012) 150.

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of his manager, John Hammond, but Goodman did go along with his marketing scheme. After all, for Hammond, this Trio was a way to make money for himself and his client (Goodman). Is it odd that a white, male musical prodigy agrees to integrate his band? Not when that white man was Benny Goodman. Goodman may have been known for his strict attitude, but he was not discriminatory towards people of color. For Goodman, making his music was all that mattered, as: “…he didn’t talk much about racism. His whole concentration was on music, but it galled him that something as petty as race prejudice could mess up the music he wanted to hear and play.”33 Going through interviews with Goodman himself or members of his band, it struck me that they never mention race, unless they are asked specifically about it. For example, the way Goodman spoke about his guitarist Charlie Christian. Forty years after Christian’s death, Goodman spoke about him in an interview. In 1939, guitarist Charlie Christian had joined the Goodman orchestra, a year after the legendary concert at Carnegie Hall that put Goodman’s integrated band on the worldwide map. Christian did not stay with the band for very long, since he died in 1942. Even though he had only played with Goodman for a few years, the extremely strict Goodman was surprisingly positive about his former black guitarist. First, Goodman said Christian was an immediate success. When he hired Christian, it was not important to Benny that Charlie was or maybe was not a schooled musician or that he could or could not read music. Second, Goodman was immediately sure that he wanted Christian to join his orchestra. Not just Benny, but al the band members were delighted with him. In Benny’s opinion, Charlie had everything musically speaking. Third, when the interviewer asked Goodman what Charlie contributed to jazz, Goodman answered: “A great deal. A lot of people influenced by him, including me.”34 Goodman may have been a a hard driving perfectionist, but he also did his last name justice, being a good man who was indifferent to race and who just wanted to play with the finest musicians.35 Al Stewart was also asked about racial issues in the band. He never experienced any racial struggles among the black and white band members. They were musicians, not politicians. They did not think anything of color barriers. For example, if Wardell Gray had to sleep in another hotel, that was simply what happened. Stewart said:

33 L. Hampton, ‘Lionel Hampton’ in: R. Gottlieb, ed., Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to now (Vintage Books; New York 1996) 129. 34 J. Obrecht, ‘Benny Goodman: The Complete 1982 Interview About Charlie Christian’ originally published in: Guitar Player Magazine Special Tribute to Charlie Christian (March 1982). 35 J. Edmondson, ed., Music in American Life. An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture (Greenwood; Santa Barbara, Denver and Oxford 2013) 500-501.

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“As musicians, we didn’t think anything of race. Nor did Benny. Musicians always played together no matter what color. Benny had broken the barrier before and just assumed the race thing wouldn't exist. But these were still tough times down South. I can’t imagine Wardell felt too good about that. Doug Mettome used to stay with Wardell sometimes in the rooming houses so he didn’t feel completely like an outcast.”36

Not just the white Goodman or Stewart spoke about their colleagues in this fashion. Also Teddy Wilson, who was black, spoke this way about his fellow musicians. He had a great respect for Goodman, who was the main reason the band had such a good sound, and kept up with the contemporary dance traditions.37 All of these musicians referred to their colleagues as artists rather than as colors. Even though musicians knew of and faced segregation laws, there were two kinds of normal in those days. On the one hand, it was seen as perfectly normal that the black members of the band had to sleep in different hotels than the whites, or that the black musicians had to go through different entrances. On the other hand, all of them saw each other as colleagues, coming together to make the best jazz they could and enjoy the time they spent together.

Conclusion Apart from the one incident with Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman barely had any conflict with black musicians. He played with them, he toured with them and he was simply indifferent to them. However, he did not decide to play with a mixed band or perform with black singers like Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday to become a heroic pioneer of integration. As a matter of fact, it was not even his own idea to join forces with Teddy Wilson in 1935. Goodman’s manager John Hammond came up with that idea and Goodman went along with it. After all, Goodman, who is seen as a child prodigy, was used to being the best, and being the best required the best musicians, who sometimes happened to be black. Goodman’s desire to aim for the best comes across as noble and heroic, but that does not mean that Goodman was truly, actively fighting for racial equality. In this chapter I showed a more realistic side to Goodman’s integrated band and its coming together: Goodman’s status, ego and making money in the process were the foundation for his

M. Myers, ‘Interview: Al Stewart (part 1)’ on: Jazz Wax (September 29, 2009) via: http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/09/interview-al-stewart-part-1.html (May 15, 2016). 37 T. Scanlan, ‘The impeccable Teddy Wilson’.

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integrated band. One could say that Goodman’s band was an accidentally integrated band, since neither Goodman, nor his manager John Hammond, nor any of his band members actively planned to become an integrated band. Everyone of them simply had one ideal: to play jazz, to gain publicity and to earn some money. So, maybe we should stop referring to Goodman’s orchestra as the first integrated band. Maybe, we should refer to it as the musicians themselves saw the band: as a jazz orchestra. On the one hand, the King of Swing may have fallen off his pedestal, because he did not actively care about integrated his band. On the other hand, Goodman could be very well seen as the King of Swing and Integration, because by valuing music and quality above color, he still became one of the first white musicians to not discriminate against color. Does the knowledge that Goodman did not actively fight for civil rights diminish the fact that he did help integration in the music industry? Probably not, because at the end of the day Benny Goodman got what he wanted, the title King of Swing and a legendary story of how he started the integration of jazz music, and both Goodman and his audience got what they desired, great Benny Goodman songs. Like the quote at the beginning of this chapter indicates, Goodman wanted to sell good music, not focus on racial matters.

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Chapter 2 - Louis Armstrong Uncle Tom did have something to say

“Louis, forget all the goddam critics, the musicians. Play for the public. Sing and play and smile. Smile, goddamit, smile. Give it to them.”38

Introduction The terms ‘integrated jazz bands’ or ‘civil rights’ might not immediately trigger an image of Louis Armstrong. Armstrong barely ever spoke about politics in public, and most of his songs did not have any political statements embedded in their lyrics. When he was not singing or playing the trumpet, Louis Armstrong was always smiling, like he did not have a care in the world. However, Armstrong had been caught between two worlds throughout his life. Just like Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus and Gabe Baltazar, Louis Armstrong’s success is rooted in a childhood story that taken on the form of a myth, or a heavily stretched truth, throughout the years. In Armstrong’s case, this myth helps explain how he had conflicting loyalties. Since he stood between African Americans and white people, blacks distrusted him and whites saw him as a nice and friendly Uncle Tom-like persona. But, how did Armstrong’s career attribute to integration within the jazz industry? In this chapter, I will delve into the myth that is the foundation of Armstrong’s racially ambiguous career. Furthermore, Armstrong’s relationship with both blacks and whites will be researched. Of course, Armstrong was not a two dimensional character that was completely pro-white or anti-black or vice versa, so I will refrain from using the terms ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ in combination with skin color.

§2.1 Myth When Louis Armstrong was at the end of his life and career, he was in the hospital where he wrote the long essay Louis Armstrong + the Jewish family in New Orleans, LA., the year of 1907. In this essay, he wrote about his own experiences living with a Jewish family in New Orleans as a young boy. They took great care of him, nurtured him and he saw what a normal, loving family was like. He worked on writing it in 1969, when he was lying in a

38 Collier, Louis Armstrong 201.

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hospital bed. Even though the chronology in this essay is not always consistent with Armstrong’s earlier written autobiographies, his time with the Karnofsky family did have a large impact on him and his ideas on racial hostility towards minorities.39 Louis was very bitter towards blacks, or at least Southern blacks. He wrote: “Many kids suffered with hunger because their Fathers could have done some honest work for a change.” In this quote, he was referring to all those black children who grew up without a father, such as himself. Armstrong was often referred to as an Uncle Tom due to his big smile, his always apparent white kerchief, his low education, the fact that he often worked with whites, and because he frequently toured through the segregated and racist South. To many blacks during the 1950s and 1960s, it felt as though Armstrong did not care about segregation or civil rights. The merrier Armstrong appeared, the more he annoyed African Americans who were trying to fight for equality. In the 1950s, young African Americans were so disgusted by Armstrong’s vaudeville act, that they actually burned his records.40 Unbeknownst to his critics, Armstrong was more than a smiling fool. He certainly did keep track of politics and also of the changes modern music made. For instance, Pops liked the Beatles. He tried to keep up with the younger generation and its music, bought their albums and put them on tape at home.41 From 1967 until 1971, the white Joe Morani was the regular clarinetist in the Armstrong band. He described Armstrong as a ‘comforting’ person. According to Morani, that comforting nature was what turned many blacks against him during the Civil Rights Era. Not the older black people, but actually the younger generation saw him as a traitor to his people.42 Thus, Armstrong suffered from a negative image among his fellow African Americans due to two myths. The first myth being the Karnofsky story, in which the young Armstrong was saved by nice white people, making Armstrong realize at an early age that blacks and whites can coexist. The second is Armstrong’s mythical Uncle Tom persona. I call this mythhical, since it is not necessarily true that every black person looked down on Armstrong

39 L., Armstrong, ‘Louis Armstrong + the Jewish family in New Orleans, LA., the year of 1907’ in: L. Armstrong and T. Brothers, Louis Armstrong, in his own words. Selected writings. (Oxford University Press; New York 1999). 40 T. Brothers, Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism (W. W. Norton and Company; New York and London 2014) 28. 41 L. Tomkins, ‘Meeting Louis’ (1965) for: Jazz Professional via: http://www.nationaljazzarchive.co.uk/stories?id=38 (May 25 2016). 42 Chideya, F., ‘Revisiting Louis Armstrong in the Context of Civil Rights’ for: National Public Radio (November 22, 2006) via: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6524506 (May 8, 2016).

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for pleasing white audiences, and not every white person liked Louis Armstrong for his vaudeville act on stage. But, was Armstrong truly pleasing his white audiences?

§2.2 Integration sells In the 1950s and 1960s, white audiences loved Armstrong. Throughout his career, he had multiple white band members, and his integrated band often played with other white musicians. The most successful of those collaborations was the song Hello Dolly, which the band recorded for the Barbra Streisand movie by the same name.43 The song was such a big hit, that in 1964, Armstrong actually managed to take over the Beatles’ number 1 spot in the Top 100 music chart. From February 1st until May 9th 1964, The Beatles had three consecutive number 1 hits in the United States. On May 9th, Louis Armstrong’s Hello Dolly took over that coveted number 1 spot.44 Armstrong and his band were also given small cameo appearances in ‘white’ Hollywood movies, such as High Society and Hello Dolly. These parts were often true to life, with Armstrong and his band playing, simply, themselves.45 Working together with white people in these films, did not make Armstrong popular among young black critics, like Amiri Baraka, who said: “Overt segregation. And we thought that Louis was submitting to that. You know, Louis’ expression was musical and artistic and transcended that.” Baraka referred to an interview Armstrong gave in the 1960s, during which he explained his success as follows: “See, you got to find yourself some white man and make yourself that white man’s nigger.”46 For Armstrong, that white man was his manager Joe Glaser. In his 2009 book Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music, Baraka corrected his younger self, as he only focused on Armstrong’s contribution to American, twentieth century music history, calling him was the greatest instrumental influence for the genre.47

43 L. Armstrong, Hello Dolly (Kapp Records 1964) track A1. 44 R. Paul, ‘Louis Armstrong Knocks Out The Beatles’ for: Voice of America (May 09, 2014). Available online via: http://www.voanews.com/content/louis-armstrong-knocks-out-the-beatles/1911617 (May 8th 2016). 45 D. H. Oswald and New York Times New Service, ‘Louis Armstrong was black hero, too’ in: The Deseret News (August 6, 1991). 46 Ibidem. 47 A. Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (University of California Press; Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 2009) 43.

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As he got older, Armstrong resented that his audience was white, not because the people were white, but because they were not black. “The Negroes always wanted pity.”48 In his’ point of view, negroes should have stuck together like the Jews, who did enjoy success unlike the Negroes. If Negroes would have stuck together and stood up for each other, they would not have dragged each other down to the level of poverty like Armstrong and many other black children grew up in. And, according to Armstrong, if a Negro did try to become successful, other Negroes would be jealous.49 Thus, Armstrong was disillusioned by his own people, and he knew he could not rely on other blacks to gain success; he needed white representation and approval. The man who helped him with that was his manager, Joe Glaser. Without him he would have missed out on a lot of gigs, because record companies, studios and TV companies were all owned by white people. Louis wrote in a letter to jazz journalist and author Max Jones the advice he got before he moved to the North: “When you go up north, Dipper, be sure and get yourself a white man that will put his hand on your shoulder and say ‘This is my nigger’.”50 By that, Armstrong meant that he knew very well that he depended on Glaser to get around and get paid. But, was that smart business or was Louis Armstrong truly against working African Americans?

§2.3 Staying true to his ethnic background Of course, Louis Armstrong was not against working with African Americans. It would appear he was merely pleasing white people, but in reality, Armstrong never stopped caring about his fellow African Americans. The rant in his 1969 memoirs was probably just a wakeup call for the younger generation; stick together like the Jews did, or you will be diminished. Armstrong was politically opinionated off stage, and he did take the arts, politics and life in general seriously, unlike his Uncle Tom act. Armstrong may not have been an active fighter for equal rights, but as trumpet player Lester Bowie told Armstrong’s biographer, author and the maker of the Satchmo documentary Gary Giddins:

48 L., Armstrong, ‘Louis Armstrong + the Jewish family in New Orleans, LA., the year of 1907’ in: L. Armstrong and T. Brothers, Louis Armstrong, in his own words. Selected writings. (Oxford University Press; New York 1999) 9. 49 Ibidem 5. 50 This line has been quoted many times, for instance: Collier, Louis Armstrong. An American genius 220. R. Riccardi, What a wonderful world. The magic of Louis Armstrong’s later years (New York 2011) 12. D. Stein, Music is my life. Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz (Michigan 2012) 145.

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“The true revolutionary is one that’s not apparent. The revolutionary that’s waving a gun out in the streets is never effective. The police just arrest him. But the police don’t ever know about the guy that smiles and drops a little poison in their coffee. Louis… was that sort of revolutionary.”51

Then, in the mid-1950s, Armstrong did take a public stand. First, in 1956 the city New Orleans, Satchmo’s place of birth, banned integrated band. This ban would last until 1964. Armstrong, who travelled with both black and white musicians, was infuriated. Thus, taking a stand against this injustice, he publically boycotted his home town.52 It was not until October 31, 1965 that Louis gave a performance in New Orleans since the boycott was banned.53 Second, in 1957 Armstrong could not bite his tongue any longer. On February 18, 1957, his integrated band was playing in the Knoxville, Tennessee for a segregated audience, when somebody threw a stick of dynamite into the auditorium. Fortunately, the attack did not cause too much damage, and the show could go on, but off stage, Armstrong was infuriated.54 What had he done to deserve that? In his eyes, he was just a simple Southern boy from New Orleans, who just wanted to play his music.55. A few months later, the now infamous events in Little Rock took place. The way governor Faubus and the city of Little Rock treated the black school children, was unacceptable in Armstrong’s eyes. For the first and last time in his career, he spoke out on a political matter by writing a telegram to the president.56 Armstrong was furious, calling Eisenhower “two-faced” and saying the president had no guts. He also canceled his tour to the Soviet Union, where he would have gone to as an ambassador for jazz music.57 Armstrong was shocked how offended people were by him speaking up about a political matter. On the one hand, they were not used to him speaking up about matters of civil rights.58 On the other hand, blacks did not like that Armstrong tried to step up for the

51 G. Giddins, Satchmo: Louis Armstrong (Toby Byron/Multiprises and CBS Records Inc. 1989) 28:28. 52 D. Dachs, ‘Daddy, how the country has changed. Satchmo notes vast improvement of U.S. Negro musicians’ lot during his career’ in: Ebony 5 (1961) 84. 53 B. Schwartz, ‘What Louis Armstrong really thinks’ for: New York Times (February 25, 2014) available online via: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-louis-armstrong-really-thinks (May 8, 2016). 54 Giddins, Satchmo: Louis Armstrong (Toby Byron/Multiprises and CBS Records Inc. 1989) 49:44. 55 B. Schwartz, ‘What Louis Armstrong really thinks’. 56 D. H. Oswald, ‘Louis Armstrong was black hero, too’. 57 ‘Satchmo Tells Off Ike, US! Armstrong blasts bias in America’ in: Pittsburgh Courier (September 28, 1957) 3. 58 Monson, Freedom Sounds 3.

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black children in Little Rock, when he, in their opinion, had always tried appeasing the whites. He was even told by a boy who had read what he had said about Eisenhower: “Nigger—you better stop talking about them White People like you did."59

§2.4 Jazz music as a bridge between black and white In the two previous paragraphs Armstrong’s ambiguous relationship with black and white came to light. I showed that Armstrong was working for and with white people, but also that he had his fellow African American’s best interest at heart. He was not ‘anti’ or ‘pro’ a certain skin color. After all, he was African American himself and he had always worked with musicians of color, but also with white musicians, because integrated jazz bands made money, and also Louis Armstrong needed money to live. In unique footage that resurfaced on April 20, 2016, Armstrong and his clearly integrated band can be seen in a recording studio in 1959. They were most likely recording the 1959 album Satchmo plays King Oliver.60 Armstrong’s clarinetist at the time was Peanuts Hucko, who was from Czech/Slovak descent and his bass player was Mort Herbert, who was Caucasian as well. His drummer, Danny Barcelona, was Filipino, but born and raised in Hawaii, and Armstrong’s trombonist was James ‘Trummy’ Young, who played with the band until 1964 when he moved to Hawaii, where Danny Barcelona coincidentally grew up. This footage shows how Armstrong stood amidst all colors of the rainbow, making music, and hopefully some money once the record would be on sale. Armstrong stood in between whites and blacks. In the words of Charles Hersch, author of Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans: “ (…) his concerts created utopian moments that united black and white listeners in the enjoyment of music.61

Conclusion In this chapter’s introduction, I asked the question how Armstrong contributed to the integration of the jazz industry. The short answer is that he functioned as a bridge between black and white. The long answer is a bit more nuanced, as was Armstrong. After all, he did

59 L., Armstrong, ‘Louis Armstrong + the Jewish family 9. 60 S. Frey, Satchmo Plays King Oliver (Audio Fidelity Records, New York 1959) partial footage made available online via: Louis Armstrong House Museum, ‘Newly Discovered Footage of Louis Armstrong Recording "I Ain't Got Nobody" in 1959!’ on: https://youtu.be/RuiC3yaaDuk (April 30, 2016) (accessed May 8, 2016). 61 C. Hersch. “Poisoning Their Coffee: Louis Armstrong and Civil Rights.” Polity 34 (2002) 371.

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not gather integrated bands, because he was a political activist, but because he wanted to do one thing: play good music for his audience, whether they were black, white, yellow or red. Louis Armstrong had a rough start in life, leading to a lot of resentment towards other negroes, who did not help him. However, one family did help him, but they were the Jewish Karnofsky family, where he learned about homely love and about music. Later on, his manager Joe Glaser was also white. He helped him and his band get filled dance halls and thus, a decent paycheck. These elements formed the foundation of Armstrong’s conflicting loyalties. He needed white people, but he was still black. Yes, he was disappointed that his fellow negroes did not follow the example of the Jews and stuck together. In my opinion, when Armstrong wrote that in the hospital in 1969, that was more of a cautious warning from an old man, than a hateful rant against black people. Was it impossible to work together with whites, but be true to his heritage? I think not. Mostly, because Armstrong just wanted one thing: to entertain people with his music. He often worked with Caucasian musicians, he often worked with African American musicians, and he even worked with Asian American musicians: if they loved playing jazz and had a real talent for it, they were welcome in Louis Armstrong’s band. Of course, making music and entertaining an audience sounds altruistic, but musicians need to eat and pay rent just like anybody else. So, working together with a white manager, playing in white Hollywood movies, or singing with white stars like Bing Crosby or Barbra Streisand was part entertaining, part marketing. The quote at the beginning of this chapter indicates exactly what Armstrong did: smile, perform and sell. It is a cliché, but it is called show business for a reason.

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Chapter 3 - Charles Mingus Visions of a colorless island

'You know, on the pure side, your music is what is is: it's pure. And on the other hand, you have to fight... You have to, unfortunately, pat of you has to be a businessman.’62

Introduction The angry man of jazz, a man with a big mouth, someone who was always fighting, the underdog, just to name a few descriptions that come to mind when bassist and composer Charles Mingus is mentioned. I am not going to try to convince anyone that Mingus was not volatile, outspoken and aggressive, nor will I celebrate his temper. In this chapter, I will take a closer look at Mingus integrated career and try to look further than the average Mingus biography. Most Mingus biographies, like Gene Santoro’s 2001 Myself when I am real. The life and music of Charles Mingus or Brian Priestley’s 1982 Mingus, a Critical Biography simply give an overview of Mingus fascinating life and career. How Mingus can or cannot be placed in the broader narrative of jazz history, specifically the integration of jazz in history, gets neglected. Nonetheless, those biographies and his autobiography Beneath the Underdog have served as a starting point for my own Mingus research. I will also sporadically use interviews. Not just interviews with Mingus himself, but also with people who were close to him. Fortunately, his last wife Sue continues to spread Mingus’ music and story, by giving interviews and publishing a memoir about her life with Mingus in 2002, Tonight at Noon: a love story. Of course, these biographies and interviews should be read with caution, as I also mentioned in the Louis Armstrong chapter. Mingus was a very honest man, but he was also known to liven up a story. Also, oral histories should be taken with a grain of salt, because the interviewee might remember things differently years after the fact. Why is Mingus worthwhile? Mingus’ relationship with white people was paradoxical. On the one hand, he had white forefathers, and he needed white people for his music. On the other hand, he was seen as of lesser value than whites, because of his dark skin. His multiethnic family background caused Mingus to be conflicted and misunderstood. His solution was simple: at a young age he decided he simply had no color.63 Mingus did not truly

62 M. Laver, Jazz Sells: Music, Marketing, and Meaning (Routledge; New York 2015). 79. Quote by Sue Mingus. 63 C. Mingus, Beneath the Underdog (Pinguin Books; Harmondsworth 1971) 51.

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belong in any other ethnic group in his neighborhood. He was seen as too light to be black, but too dark to pass as white: Mingus tried to fit in, but he ultimately failed. As a teenager, he tried to straighten his hair, in an attempt to be considered Mexican or a ‘white’ black; those who’s skins were light enough to pass as white. At a certain point in his youth, he thought to himself ‘what am I’ and subsequently decided he did not care any longer about inside and out. He no longer cared about race, color or sex and he hoped he could one day “find refuge on some ‘colorless island’“.64 This ideal of a colorless island is a recurring theme throughout his life and career, and will be referred to throughout this chapter.

§3.1 Mingus’ Myths His ambivalence towards color developed at an early age. As a young boy, he had already come into contact with other ethnicities than his own. He was teased a lot, but he was never able to fight back. Just like Louis Armstrong was taken in by the Karnofskys, Mingus, too, had a special bond with another family growing up: the Japanese family of his friend Noba, who taught him how to defend himself against bullies and attackers, and who’s mother often invited young Mingus to supper.65 Mingus had taken a liking to the warm, family atmosphere at his friend Noba’s house, something he lacked at home. Another myth revolving Mingus is his connection with Louis Armstrong. In a 1961 interview with the producer of Atlantic Records Nesuhi Ertegun, Mingus told the story of how he got his first big job with Armstrong’s band. Armstrong had come by to see a performance of some friends, and a young Mingus happened to play with them, and Armstrong liked Mingus’ playing. Quickly, he asked the young bassist to join his orchestra. However, as soon as the band was going to play in the South, Mingus left the band. The band members had warned him about life with Jim Crow, and Mingus understood that he could get killed for his loud mouth and outspokenness.66

64 Mingus, Beneath the Underdog 50-51. Schatz, A.., ‘An Argument with Instruments: On Charles Mingus. How a jazz artist’s relationship to black identity gave his music its stormy weather’ for: The Nation (September 17, 2013) available online via: http://www.thenation.com/article/argument-instruments-charles-mingus/ (May 25, 2016). 65 M. Reiff, ‘Unexpected Activism: A Study of Louis Armstrong and Charles Mingus as Activists Using James Scott’s theory of Public Versus Hidden Transcripts’ in: Summer Research 55 (2010) 13 + 27. 66 N. Ertegun and C. Mingus, ‘Charles Mingus interviewed by Nesuhi Ertegun (previously unreleased) (CD bonus track)’ on: Passions of a Man. The complete Atlantic recordings (1944-1961) (Rhino Entertainment, 1997) 12:58 – 14:22. The part of the interview where Mingus spoke about his time with Louis Armstrong can also be heard online via: Charles Mingus Interviewd by Nesuhi Ertegun (2 of 9) via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0uv9Gshveo 3:18- 4:43 (May 10, 2016).

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This story gives the illusion that Mingus was a very lucky young man, who out of principles refused to play in the segregated South, but the story is most likely nothing more than a myth. The timeline Mingus gave, does not match with other accounts of the same story. Ertegun asked Mingus when his first big job was, to which Mingus answered that that was in in 1939, with Louis Armstrong, when he was playing with Lee Young.67 The exact dates are unknown, but Mingus presumably stayed in the band and went on tour until somewhere in 1943. Gene Santoro, music critic and author of Myself when I am real. The life and music of Charles Mingus, states that Louis Armstrong came to Los Angeles to film the movie Cabin in the Sky when he hired Mingus. By late 1943, Mingus would have started playing bass in his friend Lee Young’s sextet.68 This indicates that Mingus would have joined Armstrong’s band in late 1942 until somewhere in 1943. That means Mingus would have stayed with Armstrong for approximately a year. That does not match with Mingus’ own account of him joining the band in 1939, and touring in 1943. The mystery of when Mingus would have played with Louis Armstrong’s band does not end with these two colliding stories. On the one hand we have Mingus himself, who claimed Armstrong saw him in 1939, when he was playing with Lee Young, and on the other hand we have Santoro’s 1942-1943 timeframe. The Belgian discographer Jos Willems wrote in his book All of me. The complete discography of Louis Armstrong that Mingus indeed did not play with Armstrong until Armstrong came to LA to film the movie Cabin in the Sky, and that Mingus did not play with him for very long. Mingus, according to Willems, only stayed with Armstrong’s band for a few months in late 1942. That is even a shorter period of time than Santoro claimed.69 Unfortunately, there are no records, no pictures, no set lists of concerts or anything else to prove that Mingus really played with Armstrong’s band. Thus, these two stories, and the many variations that exist concerning the second, show us how Mingus’ relied on myths to prove how exceptional and colorblind he was. This way, an image is created of Mingus as the special black boy with a Japanese friend and surrogate family. He was the young musician who had an amazing opportunity- to play with Louis Armstrong on tour- but who quit when he found out they were heading to Jim Crow South; which was the opposite of his ideal colorless island.

67 Ibidem 12:58. 68 G. Santoro, Myself when I am real. The life and music of Charles Mingus (Oxford University Press; Oxford 2001). 69 J. Willems, All of me. The complete discography of Louis Armstrong (The Scarecrow Press; Lanham 2006) 134.

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However, Mingus’ story of his Japanese family and decision to leave Armstrong’s band cannot be as heroic as Mingus himself, Santoro or Willems or any other biographer claims it to be. The fact that the timeline retelling the Armstrong story does not add up, could be due to Mingus’ memory playing tricks on him. But, in combination with the lack of evidence that he ever played with Armstrong’s band in the first place, makes the story of his noble departure void. The story of his Japanese surrogate family feels like a story from a movie. When young Mingus’ just so happened to be in trouble with the bigger neighborhood children, he was saved by his Japanese friend who also happened to be very good at martial arts.

§3.2 Activism by provocation By the time the Civil Rights movement was taking flight and Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, Charles Mingus had had his fair share of multiracial experiences and famous names. Apart from his short period of time with Louis Armstrong’s band, he got to play in the band of his biggest hero, Duke Ellington, only to be let go after a fight with Puerto Rican Juan Tizol.70 He also performed with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach.71 In 1952, Mingus set up his own record label, Debut Records. He wanted to be free in what music he made, and place making music above making money.72 Clayborne Carson, a professor of History at Stanford University, explained in an interview alongside Sue Mingus how integration was not the way to beat Jim Crow according to Mingus and others: “(…) the way in which the movement for integration was coming to the point that people were saying ‘are we sure we wanna be integrated into that?’ And there were people who were expressing those kind of doubts.”73 Carson referred to Mingus, whose record label became like his soapbox, a platform that allowed him to preach his ideal of a colorless island. Mingus did not want blacks integrated into white society, because that would mean that blacks gave into whites.

70 C. Mingus, Beneath the Underdog 36. 71 Santoro, Myself when I am real 104. 72 Dunkel, Aesthetics of Resistance11. 73 Mingus, S., C. Carson with M. Gonnerman, Mingus, Music and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Stanford University; February 1, 2011) via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3_4ScPrP6s (April 1, 2011) 19:00 – 20:30. 20:39 (May 24 2016).

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Mingus’ intentions setting up his own label were noble. Mingus became an independent musician, who could now be as active and verbal concerning his view on civil rights as he wanted to. Unfortunately, the record label did not last very long. Was it truly impossible for Mingus to vent his opinion in his recorded music? After all, Mingus did record several provocative songs under different labels. Eclipse, under Mercury Records, and Fables of Faubus, under Columbia Records, stand out the most. Mingus was not known for his catchy lyrics, since he barely ever wrote any, and that makes Eclipse and Fables of Faubus so interesting. His 1959 song Fables of Faubus was a provocative response to the events in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. The ‘Faubus’ in the title is a direct reference to Orval E. Faubus, the segregationist Arkansas governor in Little Rock in 1957, who did not want nine black children integrating in local white schools. Mingus mockingly named him a great American hero; what hero would refuse children schooling? The provocative lyrics are:

“Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us! Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us! Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us! Oh, Lord, no more swastikas! Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who's ridiculous, Dannie. Governor Faubus! Why is he so sick and ridiculous? He won't permit integrated schools. Then he's a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists!

Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan) Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Dannie Richmond. Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower. Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight: They brainwash and teach you hate. H-E-L-L-O, Hello.”74

The lyrics do not leave anything to the imagination of the listener. Mingus referred to the abuse black people had had to endure during slavery and under Jim Crow laws: shooting, stabbing, tar and feathering, Ku Klux Klan, and Jim Crow himself. It is interesting to notice that he not just referred to white supremacy towards blacks in the United States, but also to the holocaust by mentioning ‘swastikas’ and ‘nazi fascist supremists’. This allusion to the

74 Mingus, C., ‘Original Faubus Fables’ on: C. Mingus, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (Candid Productions 1960).

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holocaust amplifies Mingus’ colorless utopia: he raised his voice for blacks, but also for another, often attacked minority, the Jews. By doing so, he looked beyond skin color. What mattered to him, was that people should treat each other decently no matter race, skin color or religion. But, was Mingus truly this provocative, loud mouthed civil rights activist? These lyrics certainly portray Mingus as a hero, and as someone who was not afraid to take a stand against white politicians, and even the president. However, the origin of the song changes that heroic image. First of all, the song was written in 1959 and recorded on the album Mingus Ah Um, two years after the events in Little Rock took place. By then, it was old news. Second, Mingus originally recorded it without any lyrics. The story goes that Mingus was not allowed to record the lyrics by Columbia. Whether this is true is to be debated. Gene Santoro, a biographer of Charles Mingus, and Ingrid Monson, author of the 2007 book Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa, agree that Columbia forbade Mingus from recording the bold lyrics, attacking the president.75 Brian Priestley, jazz writer and Mingus biographer, wrote the liner notes for the 1998 reissue of the album Mingus Ah Um, in which he stated that the story that Columbia refused to produce the song with its lyrics is false. According to Priestley, the song was originally written without lyrics, and it was not until Mingus got a chance to record it a second time in 1960 under the label of Nat Hentoff, Candid Records, that he added the lyrics.76 The name of the song also changed, from Fables of Faubus to Original Faubus Fables. Since he named the second version ‘original’, and since the most recent sources hold on to the first version, it is most likely that Mingus indeed was forbidden to record the original lyrics in 1959. This does not explain why he did get to record the Original Faubus Fables; this is due to Mingus’ friendship with Hentoff. Nat Hentoff, jazz critic and historian, was a good friend of Mingus. He is also a white man, coming from a Jewish family. Mingus may have been against integration and pro a colorless island, but also to him race and skin color mattered. After all, if he would not have been friends with Hentoff, he would not have been able to record his Original Faubus Fables. On the surface this might look as integration: white and black working together. Taking a closer look, Mingus did not do what he preached. He had to give in to white people’s demands, and use another white man to get his political message across.

75 Santoro, Myself when I am real 154. Monson, Freedom 183. 76 B. Priestley, Liner notes to Mingus Ah Um (reissue) (Columbia Records 1998).

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§3.3 An other side of Mingus It is easy to point fingers and to say that Mingus was nothing more than a fraud who claimed race did not matter, but who did collaborate with whites to get protest song recorded. Mingus was not a flat character in a novel, so he was not black and white. Apart from Fables of Faubus, Mingus recorded another song in 1960 that contained lyrics. Eclipse is another example of lyrical song, expressing his view on racial integration.

“Eclipse, when the moon meets the sun, Eclipse, these bodies become as one. People go around, Eyes look up and frown, For it’s a sight they seldom see.”77

Eclipse was written years earlier than Fables of Faubus, and the lyrics are obviously far less aggressive. However, that does not mean that the message was not controversial. In this song, the sun and the moon are used to symbolize interracial love and the public resistance such relationships still experienced during the 1950s and 1960s. The moon and the sun mean black and white, ‘these bodies become as one’ means black and white are involved with each other in a romantic way, and ‘eyes look up and frown/for it’s a sight they seldom see’ clearly refers to the taboo that was an interracial relationship. The message of Eclipse was very personal for Mingus, considering he himself had had personal experiences with interracial relationships. After all, his father was the product of an interracial affair, his mother had been half black and half Chinese, and thus Mingus himself was white, black and yellow. Also, Mingus had been married on several occasion to two white women: Celia and Sue Mingus both were a white women with good educations, and both women were actively involved in producing his music, setting up his own record companies and so on.78 Apart from Eclipse, another Mingus song that has a sociopolitical statement was Haitian Fight Song. However, Haitian Fight Song does not have any lyrics, unlike Fables of Faubus and Eclipse. Nat Hentoff, Mingus’ good friend, had the honor of writing the liner notes for Mingus’ 1957 album The Clown, which featured the Haitian Fight Song. In the liner notes, Hentoff mentioned that Mingus had told him half jokingly that the title could easily

77 Mingus, C., ‘Eclipse’ on: C. Mingus, Pre-Bird (Mercury / Universal Music 1960) 78 Dunkel, Aesthetics of Resistance 11.

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have been changed to Afro American Fight Song.79 This alternative title would have hinted at the sit ins and freedom riders Martin Luther King started in Alabama in the early sixties.80 The song itself was written by Mingus when the Civil Rights Movement was rapidly growing, and when the battle for social change was at its peak. The story behind the song is, that Mingus wrote the Haitian Fight Song when he was contemplating the injustices in the world. But, why did he name the song ‘Haitian’? Mingus knew of the success of the Haitian Revolution, putting in motion the beginning of the end of slavery and white people oppressing blacks. Thus, Mingus used Haiti as a symbol of resistance to racism, colonialism, and every kind of injustice one could think of.81

§3.4 In the spotlight Fables of Faubus, Eclipse, and Haitian Fight Song were three examples of Mingus’ speaking up for the rights of his people, but he also used his outspokenness to gain attention. Making borderline racist album covers, setting up the Rebels Festival, or being followed around by a film crew are a few examples of Charles Mingus doing what he did best: provoking. The 1959 Columbia Records released the album Mingus Dynasty. The cover photo of that album can be interpreted as a symbol of Mingus’ own internal struggle reflecting America’s internal, racial struggle in 1959. The picture consisted of Mingus in Chinese robes with a Chinese dragon in the background. Also, the name of the title is a small play on words regarding the Chinese historical Ming Dynasty. Looking at the album cover and title, they appear to ask the rhetorical question ‘if multiple ethnicities can exist peacefully within one man, or one album, why can’t multiple ethnicities exist peacefully in America?’. Unfortunately, Mingus never got a response to that question. In 1960, Mingus caused some real trouble in Newport, Rhode Island. That year, he would participate in George Wein’s fourth jazz festival, the Newport Jazz Festival. After a fight between the festival’s organization, Mingus decided he was not going to perform at the festival. Instead, he created his own festival together with Max Roach on the lawn of a hotel.82 Mingus’ friend Hentoff made it seem in his 1961 book The jazz life as though Mingus

79 N. Hentoff, Liner notes to The Clown (Atlantic Records 1957). 80 M. de Ruyter, NOS Jazzgeschiedenis 487. Tijdvak 1953-1958, hoofdstuk 4: Charles Mingus, deel 10 (May 31, 1990) transcript available via: http://mdr.jazzarchief.nl/jazzgeschiedenis/typoscripten/487.pdf (May 25, 2016). 81 Tracing the Evolution of the Haitian Fight Song (August 23, 2011) via: http://ryfigueroa.blogspot.nl/2011/08/tracing-evolution-of-haitian-fight-song.html (May 25, 2016). 82 J. S. Wilson, ‘2 jazz festivals open in Newport. Original series in part is rivaled by new one on the lawn of Near-by hotel’ in: The New York Times (June 30, 1960).

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quit Wein’s festival over a racial dispute. When Mingus got to the motel he had made reservations for, the receptionist denied him entrance. Mingus had called to make the reservations, and the receptionist had assumed he was white, but when he actually entered the motel, they saw he was not.83 Also, Hentoff claimed that Wein’s festival was nothing more than a money stealing, commercial trick.84 However, Hentoff’s account of the events leading up to the musical schism had nothing to do with the commercial nature of the festival. In May 2001, Hentoff wrote in his column for the magazine JazzTimes that he took back what his younger self had said fifty years earlier: “That was more than a little hyperbolic. George was still giving work to a lot of musicians, as he has for so long, and that should count.”85 In short, Hentoff knew it was not fair to criticize Wein’s jazz festival, when in return so many jazz musicians got paid for their gigs. Getting paid was actually the reason Mingus decided to set up shop elsewhere. He was not angry about an incident with a motel receptionist, but he was angry that he got, in his point of view, a too low salary. Mingus had heard Benny Goodman got paid $7500 at the 1958 festival, when he only got $700 in 1960. To make an anti-commercial statement against Wein, he put up tents on the lawn of a nearby hotel.86 In his eyes, Mingus was being discriminated against. Of course, he overlooked the fact that Goodman had his entire orchestra to pay as well. In the end, Mingus’ festival was a success. Many music aficionados came to listen and experience Mingus’ and his colleagues’ adventurous and intellectually challenging music.87 Wein’s festival did not end as peaceful Riots broke out when intoxicated students wanted to enter the already immensely crowded festival, but were refused admittance.88 This victory overt Wein did not cause relationship between Mingus and Wein to wither. In the 1970s, author John F. Goodman held interviews with Mingus, but also with Sue Mingus, Nat Hentoff and George Wein. The interviews were published as one book in 2013. In his interview,

83 N. Hentoff, The jazz life (Da Capo Press, Boston 1961) 105. 84 Ibidem 101. 85 N. Hentoff, ‘George Wein. A life in and for, jazz’ in: Jazz Times (May 2001). The column is also made available online via: http://jazztimes.com/articles/20201-george-wein-a-life-in-and-for- jazz (June 24, 2016). 86 J. Gennari, Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006) 242. 87 J. Gennari, ‘Hipsters, bluebloods, rebels, and hooligans. The cultural politics of the Newport Jazz Festival’ in: R. O'Meally, B. H. Edwards, F. J. Griffin, ed., Uptown conversation. The New Jazz studies (Columbia University Press, New York and Chichester 2004) 146. 88 ‘Riot in Newport puts end to Jazz Festival’ in: Chicago Tribune (July 3, 1960) 1 & 12. ‘Riot by 12000 ends Newport Jazz Festival’ in: Los Angeles Times (July 4, 1960) 1, 3 & 7.

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George Wein spoke highly of Mingus, holding no grudge against him, and praising his talent.89 In 1968, Charles Mingus put himself in the spotlight again. That year, he was followed around by a film crew that filmed how he got evicted from his New York apartment. The film was originally meant as a graduation project for producer Thomas Reichman, who passed away in 1975. Reichman was an acquaintance of Mingus, and when he heard about Mingus’ eviction, he decided to record it. In the documentary, which is more of a visual log, Reichman filmed how Mingus took his young daughter to his loft. Mingus let his daughter drink wine, and he even fired a rifle at the wall. But, that odd behavior is actually not what stands out. For Mingus, a man who was known for his drug and alcohol use, and his violent outbursts, this was probably just another night having some fun with a bottle of wine and grown up toys. What did stand out, was how he mocked the United States. He gave his own version of My country, ‘tis of thee, adding sweet land of slavery’ instead of ‘sweet land of liberty’ and he came up with his own interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance:

‘I pledge allegiance to the flag–the white flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of America. When they say “black” or “negro,” it means you’re not an American. I pledge allegiance to your flag. Not that I have to, but just for the hell of it I pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. The white flag, with no stripes, no stars. It is a prestige badge worn by a profitable minority.’

In his own version of the Pledge of Allegiance, Mingus distances himself from the United States and white supremacy (the ‘profitable minority’). Does that mean that Mingus was anti- white? No, it is not as simple as that. Mingus did have friendships with white people, like Hentoff and Timothy Leary, his wives were white and his children were mixed. However, he was against the notion that a white minority were seen as superior to him, just for his skin color. Unfortunately for Mingus, he, just like anybody else, needed money to live. The 1968 documentary shows what the consequences are if you do not have money to pay rent. He knew that making money with his music meant marketing your music, and cooperating with white people. On Mingus’ ideal colorless island, he could make the music he wanted and not

89 J. F. Goodman, Mingus Speaks (University of California Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles 2013) 158-168.

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worry about money. But, in the real world, he had to become a savvy businessman as well as a musician.

Conclusion So, how can we place Charles Mingus’ turbulent career in the larger narrative of integration within jazz? After all, Mingus did not publically take a stand against segregation by marching to Washington or by boycotting buses. Mingus did play in integrated bands and worked alongside white and yellow musicians, but not because he wanted to make a political statement. His childhood stories, whether they are a myth or not, help explain this: ever since he was a young boy, he had a dream for himself. His vision of a colorless island he wanted to live on, was a way of escaping his own reality as a black person who was not black enough to be black, and not light enough to be white. Mingus had several passions: music, money and women. I did not discuss Mingus’ relationship with and love for women, since I did not find it necessary for the overall thesis that deals with crossing the color barrier, not a gender barrier. Mingus understood that music and money were dependent on each other. In Mingus’ case, one could not exist without the other. He needed money to live and to afford recording and instrument, but he needed music to make money, and so on. He may not have been pro-commercializing his music, but in the end, he knew very well he had no other choice but to market himself and his music. He put himself and his music out there by setting up his own record label, writing an autobiography, Beneath the underdog, working together with white people- good musicians or white people with independent record labels-, recording songs like Original Faubus Fables or Eclipse, or wreaking havoc at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. In conclusion, Mingus accidentally integrated for the benefit of his music. He did not want to, but he had to. Black musicians had no choice: do what white people say, get help from the right white people, all in order to get something done like record your own, pure music and also be able to pay rent. The dichotomy of wanting to stay true to himself, but also being able to pay the bills is what Sue Mingus’ quote at the beginning of the chapter summarizes. After all, integration seemed to mean giving in to how black people were allowed to live within a white people’s hegemony. This does not mean that Mingus did not want a better environment for his fellow black people: he just did not want to have to compromise with the whites. Finally, Mingus always spoke his mind. He had no political agenda. Yes, sometimes Mingus acted for his own good. Yes, sometimes Mingus acted

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because he was truly appalled by what happened in American society and he felt he needed to take a stance. But, mostly Charles Mingus did what he felt was right at the time.

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Chapter 4 – Gabe Baltazar On the island, we don’t know color

‘My name is Gabe Baltazar. It's a Spanish name, but I'm not Spanish, so I can't get in with the Latin cats. I'm Filipino but not pure Filipino. I'm Japanese, but not pure Japanese. I'm half-and-half. In between the cracks.’.90

Introduction Jazz music as we know it today knows no color barriers. Both white and black musicians are celebrated for their contribution to jazz history and the integration of jazz bands; the Benny Goodmans and the Charlies Minguses alike. However, we must not forget another ethnic group, black nor white, that meandered through the history of integrated jazz bands: Asian Americans. They might not immediately fit into the perfect image of an integrated jazz band, but they integrated into such bands just as much as African Americans, so that image is actually nonsensical and latently racist. Why couldn’t an Asian American play in a jazz band with other jazz musicians? For the same reason as African Americans: because they could and because they were good enough to make the band they played in money. This chapter will focus on the first Asian Americans in integrated jazz bands. I will mainly use the experiences of saxophonist Gabe Balthazar, who might not be as well known as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman or Charles Mingus, but who during his career did cross paths with big names, such as white band leader Stan Kenton, Louis Armstrong or Lionel Hampton. Baltazar’s memoirs were published in 2012, and through the years he has spoken about his past as a young musician in interviews as well. For example, radio host Jake Feinberg interviewed Gabe in honor of his memoirs being published in 2012, and in that interview he called him “one of the best kept secrets in music history.”91 Since there are not a lot of sources, Baltazar’s autobiography and interviews will be my main reference throughout this chapter. This could mean that the truth behind certain events or memories might be twisted or stretched, but what matters most is the narrative of integrated jazz bands, and not whether Baltazar met Stan Kenton in 1956 or 1957, for example.

90 G. Baltazar and T. Garneau, If it swings, it’s music. The Autobiography of Hawai’i’s Gabe Baltazar (University of Hawai’i Press; Honolulu 2012) 117. 91 J. Feinberg, The Gabe Baltazar interview (March 31, 2012) via: http://www.jakefeinbergshow.com/2012/03/jfs-65-the-gabe-baltazar-interview/ 1:35 + 2:22 (June 11, 2016).

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The latter was a very important figure in Baltazar’s life, and one whose attitude towards racial issues will also be addressed. Baltazar played for Kenton’s famous, and also integrated, band in the early sixties, but he was not the civil rights activist or jazz integration pioneer he has sometimes been made out to be.

§4.1 Born in between the cracks Considering Gabe Baltazar is not as well known as Armstrong, Goodman or Mingus, a quick outline of Baltazar’s background might come in handy in order to place him in the broader historical context of this thesis. Baltazar was born in Hawaii in 1929. He was mainly raised by his Japanese maternal grandparents, since his mother worked and his Filipino father traveled playing jazz. His parents’ marriage was controversial in the 1920’s, because mixing of Filipinos and the Japanese was a taboo in Hawaii.92 As a young boy, Baltazar listened to Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington on the radio. Both his parents were musical, so it was only natural that with so much music at home, he also got stung with the music bug.93 He listened to and played a lot of gigs, jammed a lot with fellow musicians, and listened to more and more jazz. But, he did not want to be a professional musician until he he won the Interlochen, Michigan, scholarship. Before this scholarship, he wanted to be a cartoonist, working for Disney.94 Then, at the age of sixteen, a young Gabe met one of his idols, Charlie Parker, who took the time to listen and talk to the young jazz musician. 95 But, he quickly understood that his musical career had a limited future on the Hawaiian islands, so Baltazar left Hawaii and went to the mainland. There, he would eventually become the lead saxophonist in the Stan Kenton Big Band. So, listening to both black and white musicians, and being the child of an interracial marriage, Baltazar already knew of racial differences and discrimination as a young boy.

92 Baltazar and Garneau, If it swings 4. 93 Feinberg, The Gabe Baltazar interview 13:21. 94 J. Harber, Gabe Baltazar interview (May 3, 2011) via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnYhCyeaJQ. 0:27 (June 11, 2016). 95 Baltazar and Garneau, If it swings 24 + 53.

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§4.2 Interracial friendships or commercial relations? Not just during his time in Kenton’s band did Gabe Baltazar encounter a lot of musicians with a lot of different ethnic backgrounds. When Baltazar was still living in Hawaii, he played with drummer Danny Barcelona, who was the same age. Barcelona often played the drums at gigs, like parties in local dance halls with Baltazar’s father’s bands. 96 Barcelona also became professional jazz musician, playing in Louis Armstrong’s band from 1956 until Louis’ death in 1971. Armstrong would always affectionately call Barcelona ‘the little Hawaiian boy’ or ‘the young boy from Hawaii’, even though Barcelona was already around the age of thirty by the time he joined Armstrong’s band. Whenever Baltazar would visit his old friend after a concert with Armstrong’s band, he would also have a chat with Armstrong himself.97 Baltazar was friendly with many multiethnic musicians. For example, he became good friends with Charlie Mariano. They first met in 1956, but it was not until they both played in Kenton’s band that they actually got close. Mariano himself was white, but married to an Asian jazz pianist, none other than Toshiko Akiyoshi- the pianist whose fingers were almost crushed by Charles Mingus. Gabe also befriended Porkie Britto, a black Portuguese bass player, whose family was originally from Cape Verde. Gabe also befriended the Japanese American Paul Togawa, who had even been interned in a camp in Arizona during the Second World War.98I n 1957 Baltazar joined the Paul Togawa Quartet to record an album together. The quartet was the epitome of multi ethnicity, consisting of a Japanese American, a white musician, an African American and Gabe, who was of course Hawaiian, Japanese and Filipino. 99 In July 1957, the two men performed at a benefit concert called Jazz comes to L’il Tokyo for orphaned Japanese children in Los Angeles. Buddy Collette and Art Pepper were also there, Baltazar and Togawa coincidentally ran into Lionel Hampton, whom Togawa had worked with, and Togawa introduced them to each other. So, here we have a Japanese- American, a Hawaiian/Filipino/Japanese American and an African American all coming together, and talking about their passion for music.100

96 Ibidem 30. 97 Baltazar and Garneau, If it swings 89. 98 Togawa, P., Paul Togawa Quartet Featuring Gabe Baltazar (Mode Records 1957). 99 Paul Togawa Quartet Featuring Gabe Baltazar via: http://www.allmusic.com/album/paul-togawa-quartet- featuring-gabe-baltazar-mw0000083452 (June 10, 2016). 100 Baltazar and Garneau, If it swings 74.

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§4.3 A thin line between naïveté and marketing According to Baltazar, all of the connections he made, stemmed from a joined passion for music instead of skin color. Growing up in Hawaii, he had maybe heard of Jim Crow and segregation, but he did not live in a Jim Crow society. Throughout his life, Gabe never understood the existence of the color barrier. Gabe was multiethnic himself, he married interracially, much to the disdain of his fully Japanese family in law, and he had white friends, Asian friends, and black friends. In his own words: “Being from Hawaii, we didn't have that kind of stuff. We were very naïve of Jim Crow and all.”101 Baltazar called it ‘naiveté’, but I have doubts whether or not the claims he made in his memoirs are exaggerated. After all, he lived in a society where his parents’ interracial marriage was a taboo, he listened to black musicians on the radio, and he met Charlie Parker when he was a teenager. Baltazar lived in a world where race did matter. But, apart from race, a musician’s talent was just as important. Did one supersede the other? A musician’s skin color did matter, but also his ability to play jazz, or music in general, was important. But, above race and talent stood a passion for the music. As Baltazar said in 2012 at the annual Hawaii Book and Music Festival: “It was an addiction. I want to play. I want to be a musician.” How Baltazar got to join the Stan Kenton Orchestra supports the idea that passion and talent superseded skin color. In both this talk and his book, Baltazar spoke about how he was asked personally by Stan Kenton to join his band after Kenton had heard Gabe play the sax, and liked it. In 1960, Gabe got a phone call while cooking, which was Kenton himself asking him to join the band. Kenton had been an idol of his, so he was flabbergasted and did not know what to say. The next day the two spoke on the phone again and he joined the band.102 Baltazar praised his former band leader Stan Kenton in his autobiography. For example, it is mentioned that Baltazar always wanted to play in Kenton’s orchestra, and Baltazar wrote that he felt Kenton’s contribution to jazz education was so significant, Kenton should be regarded as the “father of modern jazz education”.103 Not just Baltazar was highly positive about Kenton’s colorblind acts of kindness. Michael Sparke wrote in his 2010 biography Stan Kenton: This is an orchestra! that Kenton was not afraid to play dangerous games trying to keep his black and white players together on the road. For example, Bill Russo, a former trombonist in Kenton’s band, told Sparke that while on the road in the South,

101 Ibidem 79 & 44. 102 J. Harber, Gabe Baltazar interview 103 Baltazar and Garneau, If it swings 77 & 129.

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Kenton would personally get a double room for himself and Ernie Royal, who was black, and share that double room with him. Both men could have gotten into serious trouble with the law due to this conduct.104 It would appear Kenton truly was fighting for integration in jazz.

§4.4 Stan Kenton controversy However, it must also be noted that Kenton was a more complex figure, and he was not the ideal colorblind hero Russo’s quote makes him out to be. Also in Kenton’s view, race superseded passion and talent. A good example is the 1956 Downbeat magazine controversy. On September 5, 1956 the magazine published an alarming telegram Kenton had written to Downbeat Magazine, in which he disgruntledly accused the magazine and its readers of reverse racism, when a jazz critics’ poll ranked black musicians higher than him. To Kenton, it was obvious “that there’s a new minority group, white jazz musicians.”105 Even though Kenton did not specifically use the term reverse racism in his telegram, that was the term he described. According to Kenton, favoring black musicians over white musicians meant that there was a new minority in jazz, the whites. Kenton’s telegram makes it clear that a black minority group was fine, but a white minority group was racist. In my opinion, Kenton was the one being racist as his telegram proved itself to be nothing more than just a way of petty jealousy. Jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote an open letter in response to Kenton’s jealous telegram. This open letter attacks Kenton’s racist statements and the possibility that Kenton was merely frustrated by the fact that he lost: “Nobody heard you complain about polls when you were winning”.106 A feud between Feather and people who vowed for Kenton would last for several years to come. In his book Stan Kenton: This is an Orchestra!, Sparke mentioned not just Bill Russo’s story about Ernie Royal sharing a hotel room with Kenton, but he also mentioned how Bill Coss from the magazine Metronome and Michael Levin from Downbeat pointed out how Feather’s comments were unjustified. He also wrote that Nat Hentoff said about Kenton regarding this incident: “…Stan is as free from prejudice as any man I know.”107

104 L. Feather, ‘Is Stan Kenton a Racist?’ in: The Washington Afro-American (September 25, 1956) 17. S. Kenton, Telegram to DownBeat Magazine in: DownBeat Magazine (September 5, 1956). 105 S. Kenton, Telegram to DownBeat Magazine. 106 Feather, ‘Is Stan Kenton a Racist?’ 17. 107 M. Sparke, Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra! (University of North Texas Press; Denton 2010) 141.

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Unfortunately, Hentoff’s remark could not have been a comment in response to the emerging feud between Kenton and Feather, since Hentoff’s quote was published in the December 16, 1953 issue of Downbeat Magazine, three years before the telegram was written. In 1965, Jack McKinney referred to Kenton’s colorblindness in the liner notes to Boyd Raeburn’s album Jewells, stating that Kenton wrote the telegram in the presence of two black musicians, and that Kenton had a lot of black musicians in his orchestra.108 Hentoff’s and McKinney’s (last) statement may not be direct responses to the telegram Keton wrote, but they do show how whites covered for whites. After all, the presence of two, twenty or two hundred black musicians when he wrote his telegram, does not change the fact that Kenton wrote white musicians were being deliberately overseen in the poll. Thus, I do not agree that Kenton was a selfless supporter of integration, who was just disappointed by ending last in the poll. His telegram contradicted his colorblind attitude towards the musicians in his orchestra. After all, race did matter: Kenton strategically failed to mention that other, more popular, white musicians were mentioned in the poll, like Benny Goodman.109 The fact that he did have black band members throughout the years, or the story that there were two black musicians with him when he wrote the telegram to Downbeat does not undermine the fact that Kenton could not deal with being seen as lesser than a black musician. I agree with Feather, not with the people who are trying to protect Kenton’s colorblindness, because he simply was not. This critique was not about losing to other musicians; it was about losing specifically to black musicians, otherwise he would have mentioned the white musicians in the telegram.

Conclusion They may not have been as visible as the white and black jazz musicians, but Asian Americans also experienced the emerging of integrated jazz bands during the mid-twentieth century. They were easily accepted into the jazz world by both the black and white musicians. After all, as this chapter points out, to jazz musicians, it did not matter if a musician was yellow, black, white or maybe purple: on a professional level all that mattered was the talent someone possessed. Paul Togawa, Danny Barcelona and Gabe Baltazar all had incredible talent, and yes, they happened to have been of Asian heritage. But, thanks to their immense talent, they got the opportunity to play with great white as well as with great black jazz

108 J. McKinney, Liner notes to Boyd Raeburn’s Jewells (Savoy SJL 2250) 1965. 109 DownBeat magazine Critic’s poll 1956 (August 8, 1956).

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musicians. Once again, jazz is not black. Jazz is not white. It is also not yellow. It is American. Of course, claiming that Baltazar, Togawa and Barcelona lived in an ideal world where music was all that mattered, is a little too far from the truth. The naïve Hawaiian boy, who was multi ethnic himself and saw the integration as an outsider, was most likely not that naïve at all. Even if Baltazar had grown up blind to racism and segregation, he could not have stayed on the mainland for long without hearing stories of Jim Crow from his many black colleagues. Whether or not Stan Kenton was racist in his personal life is a question that the DownBeat Magazine controversy raises. However, it is not relevant to answer the question how we should place both Baltazar and Kenton within the larger narrative of jazz music’s integration history. After all, what he personally thought about racial matters does not mean his professional life, his band, was not integrated. What is important, is how Kenton dealt with integration, which, unfortunately, is not easy to pinpoint. On the one hand, he did everything in his power to keep his integrated band together on the road, but on the other hand, he got extremely jealous when he was deemed less popular than black musicians. Based on these stories, it becomes clear that the integration of jazz bands and jazz musicians being an integration hero was rooted more in conducting smart show business, than in actually fighting for equal civil rights.

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Conclusion

In the introduction of this thesis I wrote that I would demonstrate what jazz musicians’ place in the larger narrative of integration in the jazz music industry during the mid-twentieth century. By using four musicians’ stories, I have demonstrated that the integration of jazz is not a straight forward narrative. Before I started any thorough research, I had expected, and maybe even hoped, that this thesis would have a simple and pure conclusion, like ‘jazz musicians started to integrate their bands to make a political statement’ or ‘jazz musicians’ role in the jazz’s integration history is non-existent, since they only cared about music and not about race’. Four case studies, four musicians, and far more than four unique stories later, I can conclude that the integration of jazz took place as a reaction by jazz musicians to events as they arose. Benny Goodman’s band may not have become one of the earliest integrated bands, if Goodman’s manager, John Hammond jr., had not come up with the idea to combine the talents of Goodman and Teddy Wilson when he saw them coincidentally playing together at a house party. Louis Armstrong might not have made music with so many white musicians if he did not have the positive experience with the Karnofsky family as a young boy. Charles Mingus’ Original Faubus Fables would not have been a famous protest song if his friend Nat Hentoff did not offer him to record the song at his independent record label. Gabe Baltazar might never have played in Stan Kenton’s integrated orchestra if the white Kenton had not personally picked up the phone to call the Asian American Baltazar. Apart from the haphazard fashion in which jazz got integrated from the 1930s until the 1960s, it can also be concluded that the musicians’ role in the integration of jazz music is not as noble as the documentaries shot and the biographies written about them suggest. We are led to believe that Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar each had a mythical experience in their youth that opened their minds to music and colorblindness. Music, of course, was very important to them, since they were professional musicians, but was it enough to decide to integrate the jazz industry? The word ‘decide’ must be taken with a grain of salt, since in neither one of the four stories did a musician deliberately make the decision to make any statement by crossing the color barrier. However, their passion for music was not enough to integrate. We must not forget that musicians are professionals, who need to pay their bills. With that practicality in mind, it might not be surprising that the word show business did itself justice in my four case studies. When in the early 1950s, Goodman’s career was not going as

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well in the two decades before, he worked together with other people to give his career, and his wallet, the boost it needed. On one occasion this worked out splendidly, but on another it could not have gone worse. The 1953 tour with Louis Armstrong became a disaster due to two colliding egos, but the biographical movie The Benny Goodman Story became a financial hit for Goodman. Armstrong’s white manager, Joe Glaser, always made very good deals for him. Armstrong’s largest audience was white, so Armstrong often performed with white musicians or even had cameos with his band in Hollywood movies. Even Charles Mingus, who opposed integration and wanted to live on a colorless island instead of in a colorblind world, had to integrate his band and collaborate with white colleagues from time to time. The consequence was that he would not make any music, which would lead to no new merchandise to sell, leaving Mingus, ultimately, without money. Mingus knew very well what the risks of having no money were as seen in the 1968 documentary. Gabe Baltazar did not have a choice but to integrate in the jazz business, since he was the odd one out. There were barely any Asian Americans in the jazz industry when he started out, so the chances of him playing in a white, a black or an integrated band were very high. But, Baltazar, too, knew that no band to play with, meant no money. After all, when he could not find work as a musician, he held other jobs to still be able to pay the bills. Were these musicians so superficial that they only integrated for money? I think not. Of course, what mattered most to them was getting paid, like it does to anyone else with a job. But, Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar did all have one goal in life, making the best jazz music. Was this of lesser value than making money? I do not believe money was more important than the music or vice versa. Making music cost money, and making money required them to play music. Playing music was the most rewarding in front of an audience during concerts, but concerts needed publicity, which need money. Thus, jazz musicians were caught in a dichotomy between money and music. How do we reconnect that dichotomy to integration? First, integration sold well, as Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, and Armstrong’s performances with white singers like Bing Crosby or Barbra Streisand showed. Second, a black musician need to work together with whites, because without a white connection he would not be able to get the same publicity or dance halls, as Mingus’ friendship with Hentoff, Armstrong’s relationship with Glaser and Baltazar’s success touring with Stan Kenton illustrated. Third, their desire to play the best music with the best musicians often led them to cross the color barrier. If Goodman needed a good, new pianist and he found someone who happened to be black, but played marvelously, he was hired. Was this person

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white, but untalented, he would not have been hired. Of course, playing with the best musicians did positively affect the chances of a band on the music market. In short, the conclusion of this thesis is that jazz musicians’ place in the history of the integration of the jazz industry is ambivalent and self-indulgent. Does it matter that Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar were not as altruistic as their (auto-) biographies make them out to be? Does that diminish their place in jazz and integration history? To both questions, I would like answer with a firm ‘no’. After all, Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus and Baltazar reached their goals. They wanted to play the best music, for which they needed the best musicians, who could be of any color of the rainbow. The reasoning was part passion, part paycheck, but that desire did pave the way for other bands to integrate without it being seen as ‘not done’. Thus, Goodman, Armstrong, Mingus, and Baltazar each played a part in the integration of the jazz industry. Some were more outspoken, like Mingus, and some had a smaller part, like Baltazar. No matter what, Goodman still was the first band leader to put an integrated band on the stage of Carnegie Hall, Armstrong is still loved by both black and white audiences (even Amiri Baraka took back his younger self’s harsh verdict about Armstrong), Mingus played his pure music with people of all colors, and Baltazar has the honor of being part of Stan Kenton’s integrated orchestra and of being one of the few Asian Americans to witness the integration of the jazz industry. So, what was exact part of jazz musicians in the integration of jazz? To make a long narrative short, jazz musicians continued to make jazz music excel by working with the best musicians, whether they were black, white or yellow, while still making sure they earned enough money to pay the bills.

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