when heroin hit jazz

[Hardbopjazz]

https://www.city-journal.org/article/when-heroin-hit-jazz

An interesting read. 

[JSngry]

How come nobody talks about cocaine?

[sonnymax]

"When heroin hit, jazz’s day was already beginning to fade."

"Jazz aficionados constitute a left-leaning community and always have. Thus, the literature tends to treat the jazz-heroin epidemic mainly as a story of racism..."

"The 1950s were when jazz truly lost its black audience."

City Journal is published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

[JSngry]

Ok, then that makes sense.

Not in terms of reality, in terms of inaccuracy presented as fact.

[Gheorghe]

Very interesting to read, maybe not everything when it is no more about musicians, but anyway: 

Since I hear jazz I had known that some of my heroes where heroin addicts, mostly Charlie Parker, and Fats Navarro and of course Billie Holiday. During that time I didn´t know there was so much more of them, since other users had more quiet or lesser glamourous lives and was no books written about them: So I was completly astonished, that persones I had thought that look like sober people, like J.J.Johnson and Tadd Dameron was junkies. 
 

I heard about so many others much later, mostly also whitey that I was astonished they became users. Bill Evans always looked like a literature professor and more like one, who goes home and has a quiet home with a lot of books, having tea and stuff...., and........he was a junkey ?!!!!!! 

About Chet Baker I had not heard until 1978, but then I liked his then actual music (never the Westcoast times). 

And the greatest shock was, when I learned that even in the recent past there were some of the "young lions" who did drugs. 
Did not say Art Blakey as early as 1971 that heroin became out of fashion, his youngsters in the Messengers Edition all are sober ? 

I was shocked that Woody Shaw was a junkey and almost blind. He always looked like a model citizen with all them cover fotos with him, his baby, his dad, but some of the hottest and most fascinating trumpet I ever had heard..... but a tragedy and a shock for me because I didn´t have no idea.....I even didn´t know that he was almost blind, I had thought well he wears eyeglasses like most intelectuals..... and so on....

Now I would not be surprised to read, that even musicians I avoided to listen to (Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck) were junkey.....

[gvopedz]

Take a look at Anita O'Day's autobiography, High Times Hard Times.

[Ken Dryden]

Count Basie regularly used cocaine.

Woody Shaw was also diabetic, which can lead to blindness.

Dave Brubeck was straight as they come, though Paul Desmond evidently did some drug experimentation late in his life.

Gerry Mulligan had some drug and alcohol abuse issues but was eventually clean.

Emily Remler was addicted to heroin and likely died from an overdose at 31.

Edited 17 hours ago by Ken Dryden

[jlhoots]

Woody Shaw had retinitis  pigmentosa, probably unrelated to diabetes.

[Teasing the Korean]

19 hours ago, sonnymax said:

City Journal is published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

...whose senior fellow is Christopher Rufo.  Avoid.

[tranemonk]

On 9/18/2024 at 7:40 AM, gvopedz said:

Take a look at Anita O'Day's autobiography, High Times Hard Times.

I have it somewhere and never got around to reading it. Is it worth it? Hopefully it's less depressing than Art Pepper's book.

Edited 47 minutes ago by tranemonk

[mikeweil]

45 minutes ago, tranemonk said:

I have it somewhere and never got around to reading it. Is it worth it? Hopefully it's less depressing than Art Pepper's book.

It is, IMO.