Benny Goodman

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 1 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 2 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.

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