Cook's Blue Note

[Dr. Rat]

I DID search the forum, but didn't find anything to lead me to beleive that this had been talked about before. But I am fairly certain thisnis due to a quirk--mine or the search software's. But anyhow if anyone has read Cook's book on Blue Note and can say anything about it, I'd appreciate it. Or if you can refer me to where I might look for an old discussion of same . . .

--eric

[ghost of miles]

Eric,

I think there was quite a lengthy discussion about this on the old Blue Note Bulletin Board, but I didn't save the thread. Maybe somebody else can post it...

[ghost of miles]

Did find this old Organissimo discussion:

CookBlueNote

[Dr. Rat]

Thanks a lot, ghost.

I had a particular question that I might post as a new thread:

I am fascinated with the connections between some of the early independent labels (Blue Note, Commodore, American Music, etc.) and leftist politics. Cook mentions that the main money behind BN was a leftist, and then pretty much drops the issue. I was wondering if anyone has any information on leftists in the trad revival?

--eric

[ghost of miles]

Thanks a lot, ghost.

I had a particular question that I might post as a new thread:

I am fascinated with the connections between some of the early independent labels (Blue Note, Commodore, American Music, etc.) and leftist politics. Cook mentions that the main money behind BN was a leftist, and then pretty much drops the issue. I was wondering if anyone has any information on leftists in the trad revival?

--eric

OH!!! OH!!!!! MISTAH KOTT-AIR!!!!!!!!

I'll have to read that section, Eric, but I'm fascinated by that very topic. I haven't read John Hammond's autobiography ON RECORD (and Chris & others may have some valid criticisms to make of it), but certainly Hammond was heavily involved in that of which you speak. David Stowe's SWING CHANGES has some valuable insights to offer (and Stowe has written a wonderful essay about Cafe Society as a gathering point for artist-leftists in the late 30's/early 40's; unfortunately it's not on the web, but I have a copy of it and could mail it to you), and Michael Denning's THE CULTURAL FRONT talks extensively of the connections between jazz and left politics in the 1930s and early 1940s.

I don't have the Mosaic Commodore sets, but don't they contain lengthy interviews with Milt Gabler? Perhaps there he discusses the left/jazz alignment of that time... also, the From Spirituals to Swing 3-CD Vanguard box is a real treasure trove, if you don't already have it... It reproduces the original 1938 program, replete with ads for socialist bookstores, Spanish Civil War benefits, etc.

I realize I may be ranging farther afield here than the subject of your original inquiry... in any case, I'll try to post more books/essays as they come to me, but those are some of the sources that first come to mind.

[Dr. Rat]

OH!!! OH!!!!! MISTAH KOTT-AIR!!!!!!!!

I'll have to read that section, Eric, but I'm fascinated by that very topic. I haven't read John Hammond's autobiography ON RECORD (and Chris & others may have some valid criticisms to make of it), but certainly Hammond was heavily involved in that of which you speak. David Stowe's SWING CHANGES has some valuable insights to offer (and Stowe has written a wonderful essay about Cafe Society as a gathering point for artist-leftists in the late 30's/early 40's; unfortunately it's not on the web, but I have a copy of it and could mail it to you), and Michael Denning's THE CULTURAL FRONT talks extensively of the connections between jazz and left politics in the 1930s and early 1940s.

I don't have the Mosaic Commodore sets, but don't they contain lengthy interviews with Milt Gabler? Perhaps there he discusses the left/jazz alignment of that time... also, the From Spirituals to Swing 3-CD Vanguard box is a real treasure trove, if you don't already have it... It reproduces the original 1938 program, replete with ads for socialist bookstores, Spanish Civil War benefits, etc.

I realize I may be ranging farther afield here than the subject of your original inquiry... in any case, I'll try to post more books/essays as they come to me, but those are some of the sources that first come to mind.

Damn! Glad I asked.

I would give my left . . . front tire for a the Commodore set--it was gone before I got interested. stupid child I was.

I do have a set of fine snowtires I would trade--all 4.

I did pick up the Spirituals to Swing set, and had a chance to interview Josh White, Jr., which I think was what initially got me onto this.

Anyhow, thanks a lot, as a make my way forward with this (it'll be slowly) I'll post updates.

--eric

[jazzbo]

There is a now out of print book called "The Jazz Reader" that includes the very same long interview with Milt Gabler that was the non-session by session description portion of the three Commodore set booklets. It's a fascinating read, but I don't think you'll find anything in there about politics at all.

[ghost of miles]

There is a now out of print book called "The Jazz Reader" that includes the very same long interview with Milt Gabler that was the non-session by session description portion of the three Commodore set booklets.  It's a fascinating read, but I don't think you'll find anything in there about politics at all.

That's right, Lon, I have that book, and I forgot that Gabler's interview is in there.

Returning to the issues of Cafe Society and money, one of the reasons Barney Josephson had to shut it down in 1947 was the FBI's hounding of him... He was accused of getting money from CPUSA (the American Communist party) to finance it.

Again, Chris may have some interesting insights/corrections/edifications to offer here.

Edited February 25, 2004 by ghost of miles

[Dr. Rat]

There is a now out of print book called "The Jazz Reader" that includes the very same long interview with Milt Gabler that was the non-session by session description portion of the three Commodore set booklets.  It's a fascinating read, but I don't think you'll find anything in there about politics at all.

That's right, Lon, I have that book, and I forgot that Gabler's interview is in there.

Returning to the issues of Cafe Society and money, one of the reasons Barney Josephson had to shut it down in 1947 was the FBI's hounding of him... He was accused of getting money from CPUSA (the American Communist party) to finance it.

Again, Chris may have some interesting insights/corrections/edifications to offer here.

According to what I read in (I think) the Encyclopedia of New York City, it was Barney's brother, Leon, who was in real trouble with the McCarthy-ites, though if you can do guilt-by-association, guilt-by-blood-relation is easy, and Barney would be doubly damned.

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

A few things I found in a quick search:

Journal article of Cafe Society

Josephson is Bob Brozman's uncle!

Red-baiting (?) article from National Review

--eric

[ghost of miles]

Eric,

That Journal article is the David Stowe one to which I was referring earlier. Too bad they don't have a link to it; again, if you'd like to read it, I could mail you a copy. (That magazine is actually published right here in Bloomington.)

Thought I should also mention a good anthology edited by Krin Gabbard: JAZZ AMONG THE DISCOURSES. In that book you might enjoy, in particular, Bernard Gendron's "'Moldy Figs' and Modernists: Jazz at War 1942-1946" and Eric Lott's "Double V, Double Time: Bebop's Politics of Style."

[Dr. Rat]

That Journal article is the David Stowe one to which I was referring earlier. Too bad they don't have a link to it; again, if you'd like to read it, I could mail you a copy. (That magazine is actually published right here in Bloomington.)

I managed to find a .pdf of it. Will read tonight.

How's Firehouse Radio doing?

Thought I should also mention a good anthology edited by Krin Gabbard: JAZZ AMONG THE DISCOURSES. In that book you might enjoy, in particular, Bernard Gendron's "'Moldy Figs' and Modernists: Jazz at War 1942-1946" and Eric Lott's "Double V, Double Time: Bebop's Politics of Style."

I will definitely have a look for this.

Thanks,

--eric

Edited February 26, 2004 by WNMC

[ghost of miles]

How's Firehouse Radio doing?

Pretty good. I don't do as much over there, now that I'm at WFIU so much, but WFHB has added the BBC in the morning and local news in the evening. Ryan Bruce, the GM, is a real dynamo and has brought the station a long ways.

Let me know what you think of that Stowe piece.

[Larry Kart]

Related to this, very good, and worth tracking down is R. Serge Denisoff's (love that name) "Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left" (U. of Illinois Press, 1971).

[ghost of miles]

Related to this, very good, and worth tracking down is R. Serge Denisoff's (love that name) "Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left" (U. of Illinois Press, 1971).

Following on Larry's suggestion, I'd also recommend Robbie Lieberman's MY SONG IS MY WEAPON (more info here) and the Bear Family box SONGS FOR POLITICAL ACTION, although it costs a pretty penny. The hardbound book that comes with it deals extensively with the folk/left alliance from 1930-1950 (the box-set also has some of the music Josh White recorded around the time of his Cafe Society stay, as well as the complete recordings of the Almanac Singers, the Guthrie/Seeger folkie "supergroup", as it were).

This biography of Folkways founder Moe Asch, Making People's Music, also contains interesting stories & background on the subject. Asch did have some involvement with recording jazz artists in the 1940s.

[montg]

David Margolick's small book "Strange Fruit" covers the Cafe Society scene pretty well.

[Dr. Rat]

Have read through the Stowe piece and feel enlightened! A well-researched little piece.

I think the theoretical aparatus (public transcript/secret transcript, etc.) might well have been jettisoned, but I guess that's just a sign of the times.

He's very fair-minded on the leftist connection, I think: it seems probable, but we just don't know.

I have to say I am still capable of being horrified by J. Edgar Hoover stories like:

He had run afoul of some of the most powerful figures of that period, men solidly grounded in the realm of ortho-dox politics. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had opened a file on Hammond in 1941, and two years later the FBI began a dossier on Josephson that would eventually com-prise 2,100 pages. By 1944, Josephson was placed on the Security Index, a list of people to be rounded up in case of national emergency, where he remained until 1965. During these twenty-odd years, Josephson and his businesses were kept under surveillance, and records and typewriting samples were obtained, presumably through a break-in. Josephson's official records from New Jersey and New York, in-cluding birth and marriage certificates, were scoured in search of grounds for legal action. The bureau hoped to trigger an investigation for income tax evasion and thus gain access to the cafe's records.

In 1950 his passport was confiscated.

This hidden transcript, however, does provide an additional dimension to Hoover's long-standing suspicion of Josephson. From the first year of its investiga-tion, the FBI pursued the possibility that Josephson might be an alien and therefore subject to deportation. Hoover had used this strategy at the beginning of his career in helping plan and execute the raids on foreign-born American radicals in 1919, during the previous postwar Red Scare. In December 1944, Josephson was placed on the Security Index. A March 1947 memo to Hoover from the Justice Department again raised the prospect that Josephson was a Russian national who had arrived in the United States at the age of one, prompting Hoover to pen a cranky note: "Why hasn't our supervision spotted this? It seems to me we should be alert to such possibilities and not have to wait for Dept. to give us a nudge and outline inves-tigative leads for us." After revisiting the records, the New York office conceded that all public records supported Josephson's native-born status. But six years later, in response to yet another request by Hoover, the New York office reported that the New Jersey's Bureau of Vital Statistics failed to include a record of Josephson's birth and that "Barney" was an Americanization of "Barasch." In November 1953, Josephson's Security Index card finally was changed to reflect the belief that he was not "Native Born," and he was occasionally identified in subsequent files as Barasch.

Now, I don't beleive the government has no right/duty to protect the democratic process, but this is Kafka-esque, in both the black-humorous and horrifying senses.

Imagine Josephson really is playing from a Soviet script and that he really did use money raised by the Communist Party (no doubt domestically). This is reason to have him deported? This is reason to erase his real name from your records?

Unbeleivable. Immediately starting casting Ashcroft in the role of Hoover. Not hard to do with all the Joe McCarthy apologias coming out from the right of late.

--eric

Edited February 28, 2004 by WNMC

[ghost of miles]

Dr. Rat,

Just remembered another book that might interest you: SWINGIN' THE DREAM: BIG BAND JAZZ AND THE REBIRTH OF AMERICAN CULTURE, by Lewis Erenberg. Here's Booklist's description of it:

In many ways, the swing era of the 1930s and 1940s ignited a cultural revolution more significant than the celebrated transformations of the 1960s. Erenberg concentrates on the social and political forces that the great swing bands and much of their audience embodied. Instead of practicing musical analysis (fine sources of that are cited in his notes), he considers how such bandleaders as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Artie Shaw were crucial in breaking down racial stereotypes, heralding integration, and championing American folk culture. Erenberg also spiritedly surveys how a cross section of the American population responded to these musicians. The fans' enthusiasm for popular music helped build the youth culture still active today, and radio stations and publications arose at this time to nurture that culture, a development Erenberg treats humorously as well as informatively. Today's fans and jazz writers may find themselves longing for the days when, Erenberg says, Down Beat critics displayed "a nonsectarian leftist populism that fit with the magazine's screwball democratic ethos." Aaron Cohen

I picked this up used awhile ago and am just getting around to starting it--will let you know what I think.

[jazzbo]

It's "otay." In my opinion.

[Dr. Rat]

Cool. Thanks. Haven't been working on this particualr project much of late, but I'm bound to get back to it soon enough.

Thanks for all the reccomendations on this topic, btw.

--eric