- It's a great pleasure for me
to be here with Nick Spitzer today
and have a conversation about jazz in
World War II and beyond.
Let me just say a few things about Nick.
Nick is Professor of Anthropology
at Tulane University but I would
imagine many of you know him
for his role in hosting American Routes.
Really a pathbreaking program that's been
on public radio for 22
years now and has broadcast
to some 340 stations around the country.
If you haven't listened to Nick
in American Routes I'm not sure
what you're really doing with your time
because you're really missing
out on something special.
Nick has a list of publications that
is far too long for me to read out here
but he has a background in folklore
and community and culture,
those ties here in the Gulf south
and just many many other publications
that we could not mention here for time
but Nick it's great to
have you here so thanks for
taking out the time--
- Nice to be here.
- To talk with us this morning
on the topic of jazz in
World War II and beyond.
Before we start our discussion
I do want to acknowledge my colleague
in the Institute for the
Study of War and Democracy,
Rebecca Poole, it was actually her idea
to take this topic on and really got
the ball rolling in the institute
and she wrote a fantastic article about
Dave Bartholomew which a person
Nick and I will be
talking about here shortly
so, want to thank Rebecca
for the great idea
and then what's come about from it since.
So with that, Nick why
don't we get started.
You know and this is a huge topic,
there is so much to say about it
and we're in the perfect place.
You're uptown, I'm in mid city,
here in the great city of New Orleans
where so much of this history
really got started but before
we kind of open up the huge subject
of jazz in the Second World War,
maybe we should start out by just
talking about the issue of music
and war in a broader sense and I know
this is something that's interested you.
It has a long history prior to
World War II, prior to jazz
about the relationship
between music making and war.
- Well I mean I think at
least to the Middle Ages
you can look at things where people
are using music to you know
encourage the troops to charge
or make the enemy scared you know
putting up fireworks and having
performances in the
background behind troops
and I think most Americans think of
you know the William Tell Overture
which is itself kind of based
on the idea of the clarion call
of the bugle, you know Teddy Roosevelt's
Rough Riders gets us to beginning
of the 20th century so there's that
call to arms and intimidation factor.
But I think a lot of
what we're seeing here
from World War II and after
is music as something that gives comfort
and helps people celebrate their humanity,
addresses sorrow but also brings joy,
encourages people on the home front
to take care of the war effort
by rationing or fundraising.
You know and it gives people a break
but there's still all the martial things
that music does you know on the front
and behind it for you
know playing the anthem,
playing patriotic songs and those
kinds of things as well that kind of go
with the martial side of war.
But it is a huge topic and yet
at the same time in the middle
of this chaos and the discipline
required for war, some incredible
creativity is found in
musicians in World War II
especially around jazz so that's I guess
what got us together in the room today.
- It is, it's obviously a topic
that is of great interest to both of us
and there is so much really,
so much complexity to it
it operates on so many levels because
jazz for many people
outside the United States
jazz represented America for many people
it was something kind of fundamentally,
it's something fundamentally American
about it and obviously that music
you know in turn really I think
pushed Americans to think about
their society, about their democracy
especially during and after World War II
and I know some of that
we're gonna get into
today but I think where
I'd like to start, Nick
and just a couple of
questions about this issue
of jazz and Americanness
if we can say that right.
And that for a lot of Americans right
jazz was democratic, it was the embodiment
of democracy and could you say
something about that like how
a lot of the musicians
and a lot of the fans
of that music, they saw something
inherently democratic about it?
- Well in the Jazz Age, you know the 20s,
music that was beginning in New Orleans
and ends up in Chicago and New York
little by little spreads
to London, Paris, Shanghai
I mean there were jazz bands in Shanghai
and in fact there were black
American bands in Shanghai
during the war, during
the Japanese attacks.
And hiding out in the French sector
where they couldn't be bombed but
so there's the Jazz
Age and then by the 30s
during the Depression, what happens
is you get a music industry
that consolidates jazz and swing
sort becomes like the rock 'n roll
or pop music of the era
and swing has an undercurrent
of African American style but it goes
wide into white audiences and so
swing becomes a way that people dance
and socialize and they're
swingin' you know.
And it's made not as
much of an improvisation
kind of music, it's usually written
down arrangements but the dancers
get to improvise in their lives
with that music as a backdrop.
So by the time we get to World War II
you know you have
somebody like Glenn Miller
who spent time with both army side of life
and also the Air Force and he becomes
quite famous for basically volunteering
to go in and be involved in creating
all kinds of swing dance occasions
in the media and on base and
near the front and all that
so right there you're
seeing the popular music
of the day really overwhelmingly
associated with that scene
the jazz swing movement.
- You know that's interesting what
you're pointing to is that
for many people especially
from its early days
that kind of chaotic
or kind of semi chaotic
improvisational character of jazz
is what drew many people to it,
that it was very creative, it required
you to kind of think on your feet really
you know musically, and that ability
to kind of innovate on the spot
was exciting but you're pointing
out that the reality was by the 30s
is that there was a lot
of commercialization
had set in, there was a
lot of standardization
three four minute kind
of pop kind of tunes
that were coming out yet
at the level of dance, there still
was a side of it that still had
some of that improvisational character
preserved in it and that
would be interesting
to see in the war, you
know how World War II
really the issue about what
to do with the swing era
and how to relate to that
music and the commercialization
that had come out of that decade
and I hope we can get into some of that
when we talk about some
individual musicians
but what I'd like to sort of ask
the next because the flip side of that,
like if many Americans took pride
in jazz as something democratic,
even as you noted, it
came out of the roots
of African American culture in the south,
a deeply segregated south
that still had this kind of aura of
democracy and freedom and creativity to it
and in fact those aspects
are some of the main reasons
why Hitler and the Nazi regime absolutely
despised jazz, right.
Did you say something, Nick about the
kind of fervent anti jazz propaganda
you see in the Nazi regime
in the 30s and 40s?
- Yeah well I mean Goebbels said
jazz was subhuman you know by the time
you know the landings of Italy,
apparently the word jazz
was actually banned.
There was a minority of German youth
that were into the swing thing
you know because they were into a
global context and some of them
were having underground
swing dance parties
but generally speaking yeah
certainly the Nazi regime was
you know white supremacist regime
and jazz was all about black people
and later Jewish people commingling
with you know good old
white American Protestants
mixing and mingling,
creating this new music
in a democratic society
so it was antithetical
to an authoritarian vision
of white nationalism
and culture and some of the music
made by the Nazis as a kind of a
I guess a counter offensive you could say
was overtly anti semitic I mean
and attacked Jews with popular tunes
that you know jazz musicians had made.
So they went that far, that means
they were taking that seriously,
that they knew that music was giving
comfort to a lot of people and they
were trying to you know rally the side
you know towards authoritarianism
and of course it was an
abysmal artistic failure,
and you can't stop jazz
the way it spread around the world
and the way it goes into the military.
I mean whether you, you know
bring in recruits for Glenn Miller's band
or you just have guys joining the service
like Dave Bartholomew,
John Coltrane or others.
You know there's this
enormous well of talent
among the American soldiers
that little by little
become performers for their fellow troops
and ultimately have incredible careers
after the war based on what they learned
while they were there going global
'cause the war was a democratic effort.
Everybody participated and while
there was segregation there
still was also a lot of
you know country people met city people,
people from the south met
people form the north,
different ethnicities mixed and mingled
you know in many cases
and as far as you know
the African American sources,
no question you know jazz
doesn't begin in Africa,
it begins in America but it's dominantly
African Americans essentially taking some
of the post civil war march material
in New Orleans and turning it in,
they're jazzing up marches,
they're jazzing up hymns,
they're jazzing up pop music
so it moves forward in that and
at the height of Jim Crow jazz develops
as a counter point to white
nationalism in America.
So there's that power behind it.
I'll just say one other thing,
Ralph Ellison once when asked
about the lack of protection
for African American rights
ultimately and how the
Constitution Bill of Rights
was implemented, he said but oh
we have a Constitution and
a Bill of Rights, it's called jazz.
And he was basically saying,
with our intelligence and our creativity
we've made this new music
that Americans and the world love
and it speaks to
individualism, improvisation
but also sharing, sharing in the dance,
sharing in the familiarity.
And I think in World
War II both those things
are going on, you're having fabulous
improvisers who are you know working
off something and creating something new
but you also have people playing
familiar tunes and things
that everyone shares
and calling it all jazz.
- I think that's very important really
for our audience to think about
about how jazz, it was so much more
than just music for people at that time
and you noted obviously this kind of
hatred that Hitler, Goebbels, Himler
and others had for jazz because you know
Louis Armstrong, and Duke
Ellington, and Benny Goodman right
black and Jewish musicians
who were out front,
who were representative
of this type of music
which they saw as a simple race mixing
which they despised, they
hated as this kind of
this fanatical kind of
racist vision of purity
they saw jazz as absolutely antithetical
and in many ways it
really was antithetical
you know to that but
you're also pointing out
that jazz had a critical
place in American life too
it will kind of shine the
light back on the U.S.
about living up to promises of democracy,
promises of freedom and equality
and the Second World War will certainly
bring those you know to the forefront.
You know if this is a
struggle against fascism,
as viciously racist a movement as you're
ever going to see, then what's that
going to mean for a society
where Jim Crow is still around
or other forms where
patriarchy, et cetera?
There's all kinds of forms of
anti democratic you know perspectives,
institutions, ideas are still there.
I think that's a good place maybe, Nick,
to talk about some of the musicians
who are serving in World War II
in American armed forces and how
that really does affect their music
and what better place to
start than in the city
of New Orleans right, with
the great Dave Bartholomew?
Why don't we start with him and
talk about you know his kind of arc really
through World War II and the
immediate post war years?
- Well Dave Bartholomew
grew up in a small town
upriver, Edgard, Louisiana,
Creole speaking town.
Came to New Orleans as
a youth with his father
who was a barber, there were
musicians in his family.
I've interviewed Dave three times,
he passed away at a little over 100 years.
Not too long ago and he certainly
in some ways he's a jazz architect,
but also an architect of rhythm
and blues and rock 'n roll.
And in 1942 he is drafted
into the 196 Ground Force
and you know he goes into the Army and is
essentially you know
not somebody who knows
how to do arrangements, to score music
and those kinds of things but now
he's interacting with people
from New York City and Los
Angeles and everywhere else
and he had been playing on riverboats,
playing New Orleans traditional jazz
you know with a lot of the
great jazz band leaders
in the city, the parade bands and you know
he really was very much an adherent
of classic New Orleans traditional jazz
but now he's hearing
swing, there's elements
believe it or not by the late
30s and into the early 40s
of bebop where there's all
this improvisation starting
and a new generation of
people that have been
a bit more schooled and trying out
new things and so the
army gives him that chance
to become a serious band leader
over a group of people who are not
New Orleans riverboat jazz
players but are coming
from all these backgrounds.
So by the time he gets
back to New Orleans,
he becomes a band leader, an arranger,
ultimately a record producer,
and really in some ways gets us
to the New Orleans R&B sound and it's
an interesting and complicated reality.
He never was known as a great
popular performer himself even though
he was a brilliant trumpet player
but he had a couple songs
and there's one we could play
if you'd like to give a hear to what
he was doing, from you
know after he gets back
from the war that'd be a
good one to listen to maybe.
That's on our, let me
see where'd we put that
I think that's on our PowerPoint list.
Oh it's on Spotify,
Country Boy that's right.
Let's hear Country Boy, a little of Dave
mixing bebop and R&B.
(light New Orleans jazz music)
♪ I'm a little country boy ♪
♪ Running wild in the big old town ♪
♪ I'm a little country boy ♪
♪ Running wild in the big old town ♪
♪ Yes all the girls love me ♪
♪ 'Cause they know what I'm puttin' down ♪
♪ Yes they call me country ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm from a country town ♪
♪ But when I'm with my baby ♪
♪ I don't want a soul around ♪
♪ Yeah I'm from the country ♪
Yeah we kinda got it there I think
that Dave in the 1952 and so
you know he's, this is a classic theme
in blues and jazz you know somebody
comes off from the plantation world
comes to the big city, learns how to be
cool, learns new things
and in a way I mean
there's a little tongue in cheek
here 'cause this is '52.
The arrangement's great,
it's got the basic
sort of jump jazz blues background.
There's a little later
he's a big solo he's got
but the point is that he comes back
with this sense of assurance and ability
to make a song like that among others
but really it was a couple years earlier
and maybe we can take a look at the
photograph on PowerPoint where we see
Dave with Fats I think.
Let's see what we find there.
Well there he is with his trumpet.
- There it is.
- Yeah, and then to the right
you see him, that's at
Cosimo Matassa's studio
where he's working with Fats
and Fats Domino who also comes from
that same area up river
and was Creole speaking,
I got to interview him once
and hung out a little with him
and his Creole was pretty fluent actually
into his 80s but basically
they were a good pair
and that Dave had picked
up all this discipline
in the army of arranging and scoring
and Fats was sort of much more of a
you know smile, play beautifully,
sing in the great New Orleans accent
and he was the entertainer where Dave
was the sort of, the man
who managed everything
and together they end up selling arguably
75 million or more records between
in 1949 and 1963 and
the first one would be
worth listening to I think.
Going back down to the Spotify list
would be The Fat Man which
is a New Orleans beat tune
called the Junker's Blues that turns
into a song about Fats
Domino, The Fat Man,
a name given to him by Dave.
(light New Orleans jazz music)
Classic New Orleans piano, Fats Domino.
(upbeat New Orleans jazz piano music)
♪ They call, they call me the fat man ♪
♪ 'Cause I weigh 200 pounds ♪
♪ All the girls they love me ♪
♪ 'Cause I know my way around ♪
♪ I was standin', I was
standin' on the corner ♪
♪ Of Rampart and Canal ♪
♪ I was watchin', watchin' ♪
♪ Watchin' those people gather ♪
That's produced by Dave
and that last line's
about how he'd literally in New Orleans
standing on the corner
of Rampart and Canal
looking at the Creole girls
and notice that both of these songs
go back to love, romantic love
which of course is
something in the military
is always the question is you know
where is my significant other,
will I see her or him again,
how is it gonna go and so you know
any of this kind of music
fits the general interest in love,
loves found and lost which is all over
our popular music but to really
get a feeling for what Dave is able to do
I think we oughta go
back up to the PowerPoint
if we could and that audio clip
I think we've got with his picture.
This is Cosimo Matassa
talking about Dave's
great abilities in the studio.
- [Cosimo] If there hadn't
been a Dave Bartholomew
there may not have been a Fats Domino.
Everything was precise,
everything was rehearsed,
everybody better damn sure wear the same
shirt, tie, and suit.
Dave was the disciplinarian,
Dave kept everybody knowing
we're here to make a record.
And I know we all having
a good time you know
but we're here to make records
and Dave was great about that.
- And I should point out that I mean
in that studio on Rampart Street,
J&M Music which is now
I think a washateria
with a historic plaque in it.
You know made all those records with Fats
and then Little Richard is arguably,
who just passed away Little Richard
really got the New Orleans backbeat put in
and Dave really helped Little Richard
really get a sound that they thought
he needed to succeed.
Lloyd Price you know Lawdy Miss Clawdy
and many others so on his passing
I think Bartholomew is known
as kind of an architect of rock 'n roll
but you know where does this ability
to transform music to play both bebop
which we don't have a
lot of recordings of him
but make all these
records and arrange them,
manage the bands, it does seem to come
from his military experience
and so that's really a
happy story it seems to me
of somebody gaining something
a great town, sharing
it during World War II
but also bringing it
home to the home front
and building on it.
- I want to just sort of
throw in a couple of things.
Nick, that was fantastic I mean
just these images are
great and just hearing
Dave Bartholomew and
hearing The Fat Man again
those are just all time classics.
My father who that's how I first
learned about Fats
Domino, he was a huge fan,
still is a huge fan and he talked about
how that when he was a
kid and he would go to a
you know they would go out
to have a few beers and put some money
in the jukebox and there would always
be a new Fats Domino single out
from the last time they were there.
Like he and Dave Bartholomew were just
cranking them out like you know
and so there was just this stream
of incredible work and so you were never
really kind of ahead of the curve
with Fats and Dave Bartholomew.
They were always putting out
new music in the mid, late 50s
you know early 60s and that body of work
just stands on its own.
And the other thing I
thought I would just mention
too is this speaking of
the New Orleans connection,
what I read about Dave Bartholomew
including from Rebecca's,
my colleague Rebecca again
mentioning her article on him,
is the way he looked up to Louis Armstrong
and what Louis meant to
him as a young trumpeter.
- Right.
- Right and that Louis was somebody
who came from obviously not exactly
an affluent background and what
he accomplished and so for someone
like Dave Bartholomew, Louis
was this towering figure,
a real inspiration for
musicians in New Orleans.
Even though he obviously went
in his own direction right
Dave did as one of the kind of founders
of rock n' roll, Louis and
the kind of New Orleans
jazz history was still very
much there for him all along.
- Yeah New Orleans we've
continually had the current
of New Orleans traditional
jazz with popularization
moving towards rhythm and
blues and rock 'n roll
and they're out there now today.
And you know Bartholomew comes
more out of the Afro Creole world
and Armstrong African American and the way
raised partly by the Karnoffskys,
the Jewish folks that ran junk dealership
and other things but ultimately
a lot of this African American music
kind of unites Creoles
with African Americans
and becomes larger scene together
and again back to the
globalism of the military
allows people to kind of mix and mingle
and learn new things.
- Well that's great I think
maybe we should think about a contrast
to Dave Bartholomew, a very different
figure who served in the U.S. military
and went in his own direction too
after the war and that's Marshall Allen
and I have to say, Nick you were a person
who made me more aware of him
than I had been before but
what should we know about Marshall Allen
kind of as a very different figure
from Dave Bartholomew?
- Well we can see the image of him there
and he's on his saxophone and it looks
like a jam session at a festival
from the 60s at some point.
Marshall Allen is 95 now, he served
for I believe four years in World War II.
He purposefully joined
the Buffalo Soldiers
because of that whole association
with black federal troops and
the honor involved in that.
After the war he stayed in Paris
for a while and took a
training at the conservatory
and then came back and forth a few times.
But Marshall Allen is sort of best known
to the people in the
jazz world as the sort of
second in command of Sun
Ra's Intergalactic Arkestra.
Now Sun Ra's not exactly a household word
but in the jazz circles he really is
the leader of the free jazz movement
from the 50s 60s on.
He's from Birmingham, Alabama,
he was so alienated in his childhood
despite the ministrations
of a religious family
that he took to calling himself
Sun Ra from Saturn
rather than Sony Blount,
which was his real name
and by the time he gets to Chicago
he just becomes Sun Ra
and Sun Ra is very much
an avant garde modernist
and so here's Marshall
Allen in the military
playing you know on site on base
and what have you and here by the time
he comes back he meets Sun Ra
in the late 50s and Sun Ra died
gosh it's I guess Sun Ra
died in about 72 or three now
and so basically Marshall Allen took over
and they moved to
Germantown, Philadelphia.
Away from New York and Chicago
to a small suburban community,
African American community
where they became
these Afro futurists with all the
sense of history and literature
but projecting a future
and to them free jazz
was a future statement
about freedom, about improvisation,
and the key theme song which
we should listen to now I suppose
is on Spotify, is Space is the Place.
(laughter)
(futuristic jazz music)
♪ Space is the place ♪
♪ Space is the place ♪
♪ Space is the place ♪
♪ Yeah space is the place ♪
I think you get the idea.
This is music that determines place
will be what you make of it
and you create that space.
But, in his army discipline,
he ends up being the chief cook,
the manager of the house, the guy
that handles who rooms and
lives where in the house
which is still active in Philadelphia
and you know he handles
an eccentric personality
who was kind of you know demanding
quite a bit of people to be
no drinking, no women, play the music,
12 hours a day practice, and everyone's
gonna eat moon stew.
And a funny way Space is the Place
and when it started it almost
does sound like some
kind of a medieval band,
being led down the road.
- Right, I mean it does have that,
there's a sense on the one hand
it looks like it's really free and open
and yet, this whole band project
as you point out is very disciplined,
it's very regimented there's clearly
an order to it and a commitment to it
that's really required
and maybe that really
does have some roots in the
military service from the war
and I guess I wondered Nick
if there's a sense here with
Sun Ra and Marshall Allen
of reclaiming something
about the improvisational
character or maybe the more
maybe that's not the right word
but the more kind of free spirited side
of jazz prior to this commercialization,
you see that really happening with them
after the war this kind of, I mean it is
it's very futuristic, it's very you know
very imaginative.
- It's 1950s 60s
futuristic which makes it even more fun.
Well I mean I think New Orleans still
has jazz as a community music
I mean we've got second lines all the time
with brass bands continuing
in the neighborhoods
and for mother's day or a saint's parade
or social aid and pleasure club.
I think when jazz left New Orleans
and went to Chicago and New York
it became more professionalized,
touring becomes big, you know
bebop is a counter to
big commercialization
it's gonna be about the
freedom of that individual
but you know the Sun Ra direction
and I think the New Orleans direction
emphasizes the communal.
That doesn't mean there
aren't Trombone Shorties
in the crowd who are brilliant you know
or Armstrong for that
matter way before him.
But there is this interesting pulsation
in jazz between the
individual great player
and the crowd following down the street
or playing you know back up to the trumpet
or whoever is the lead instrument
so there's a sense of that there
and I think the military's the same
for these musicians.
You know Dave Brubeck gets picked out
not to go to the front precisely
because he can play the
piano so beautifully.
You know performance has
a way of structuring life
and if you're really
good you get recognized
and it changes how you
operate as a professional
vis-a-vis the music.
- That's a very good point.
This is a communal kind of moment
in jazz and I think it's good for us to
see that too, there are great players
and great talents but there's
a sense of the collective with them right?
- Absolutely, yeah.
- It's a collective project
not just in the music but the whole
way of life is really that
and speaking of you know contrasts.
Nick, we've had Dave Bartholomew then
Marshall Allen, very
different from one anther
even though passing through
the same war, Lester Young.
And here is a very
different war experience.
An incredibly talented musician
but a much unhappier story
and I want to make sure we
include it in our discussion.
- Well I mean Lester Young's
from Woodville, Mississippi
not too far from here,
across the Louisiana borders.
His parents are from Louisiana
and Florida parishes,
musical people, he ends up coming
to New Orleans, getting involved in music
and you know he just grows and grows
as a saxophone player and you know
finally he's drafted and he's drafted
into the regular army, he's not drafted
to play music and that is a problem
and he's basically not allowed to have a
saxophone or play any music and
you know people have described him
he wore a Zoot suit he kind of
created his own language, he's very
much a lot of the modernists of that era
you know wore that little pork pie hat,
you see him in there in the black hat
and he just wasn't a man cut out
for military discipline.
I always wonder if he had been
recruited to play in
a band in the military
if his life would've been
different in the military
but unfortunately you know
he was using heroin, and he
was caught on base doing that
and he was court martialed
and dishonorably discharged.
And all accounts are that it was extremely
difficult for him psychologically.
He actually did a blues called
Detention Base Blues after he got out
that wasn't widely heard but he
put that experience into music.
In the mean time though he grew
and became known as Pres, the President,
that's what Billie Holiday called him
and he played with Billie Holiday
and you know his brilliance
as a musician continued but one sense
is that that experience and you know
sort of being marginalized
and the taunt of threats,
racial threats while in the military
because he was you know the weird guy
with no band basis to be there
and heard him and his career went downhill
little by little towards the end
of the 50s and he dies young
but we could listen to him
when he's still a little
vibrant after war playing a tune
that we've got called
Jumpin' With Symphony Sid
on Spotify, Lester Young on tenor sax.
(upbeat jazz music)
That's just a little bit of Lester Young.
Jumpin' With Symphony Sid, Symphony Sid
was a DJ at 52nd Street and Lester
did the theme song the
crowd in the background
is like opening for the show
and you know that's not
super bebop to there
I mean that's danceable.
The improvs are fairly understated
and so I mean he knew an audience,
he could play in a social context
but he never really had that chance
to succeed in the military and he just
wasn't oriented in that direction
and so one of the great geniuses
has a pretty sad experience even though
he continues but in the end he ends up
passing away young and we all look
back to his stuff with Billie Holiday
and some of this great sort of
pre and kind of bop stuff
and the fluidity and
joy with which he played
and so it's sad to think about him
but happy to know that
he finally kind of got
moving again for a while
after the war years.
- Yeah it's just a reminder
that everyone's experience
I mean they were different,
very different experiences for people who
served and Lester Young's was not
at all lining up with the one
that's typically remembered but we should
make sure we acknowledge it and also note
that yeah he has this
career before and after
World War II this really incredible I mean
his playing is just so warm and beautiful
I mean you just want to sit
and listen to him play
and then when I think
you learn about his story, Nick,
his individual biography, there's so much
turmoil and pain there but it's not
all there is to it, there's so much
kind of affirmation I
think that comes through
and is playing in the
piece that you just shared
with us really has that.
But just kind of watching our time here,
we have a fourth person
we should talk about
and so we've had two sax players
and a trumpeter right,
why don't we bring in a piano
player for this fourth one
and you've already mentioned
him and that's Dave Brubeck.
- Right.
- And the story that he has,
he has a pretty remarkable
World War II story all his own.
- That's true and you know he comes
from California, an agrarian family farm
and he thinks he's gonna be a cowboy
but in the end you know he ends up
being this incredible
classically trained jazz musician
and you know there's
his story intrigues me.
I was reading about the
28th Infantry Division Band
and the Battle of the Bulge how
on some of these organization bands
that went with particular units
ended up actually you know near a front.
You know carrying wounded and dead back,
handling weapons and so apparently
that band in that period would
put away their instruments
and dig fox holes
and go out with guns
and bazookas and fight.
And you know in Battle
of The Bulge you know
that was what was absolutely needed
and Brubeck hit a point where that
was gonna happen for him and
you know this story I mean
you can tell it if you want
it's pretty fascinating.
- It is pretty fascinating and you've
already touched on a few key parts of it
I mean he had qualified as a sharp shooter
during his training in the U.S. Army
and you know he gets to France,
lands on Omaha Beach about three months
after D Day and makes his
way to north central France
and he knows he's very
close to going into combat
as a really replacement
soldier in Patton's Third Army.
I mean that's what he
was going to be doing
and sort of kind of late summer
early fall of '44 and I think Nick
probably either one of
us could tell the story
about the Red Cross
girls that he encountered
and this opportunity to play
there that really changed
his life, it really did.
Changed his military service
and it changed his life.
Do you want to tell that
or I, either one of us?
- You tell it, you're the
man has been researching it
and then we'll go back
and maybe play a clip
that shows what Brubeck
takes from his war experience
in terms of jazz as
really at the center of
American diplomacy by the late 50s.
- Yeah, I'll make this quick so we
can really get to the music
but he's with the 17th Replacement Depot
when he knows that he's gonna ship out
for the front very soon
and there's this group
of women from the Red Cross are there
and the call is issued like we need
somebody to entertain.
You know is anybody here can play piano
and Brubeck said he thought about it
and then he said yeah I can play
and so he stepped up there
and he did such an incredible job
that the commanding officer, Colonel Brown
said oh this guy's staying.
He's gonna stay and he pulled out
two other guys and said
these three are staying
and they're gonna form a
band and that of course
became the basis for
the famous Wolfpack band
that Brubeck led in '44 '45.
- Right.
- And it was by chance, Nick
it was this chance thing that happened
and he said it just
changed his life, it did
it was absolutely--
- Well and I mean in a sense
that is the chaos of war
but he had that moment where
he could stand up and performance
generated a very different
relationship to the military
than say Lester Young ever had
and of course Brubeck,
very thoughtful man,
beautiful player and I know he
fully realized the great
benefit that he had
and then you know he went on
after the war to become part of touring
with Louis Armstrong and
we have a wonderful clip
of him describing going to Eurasia
and Armstrong's involved
in cultural diplomacy
with jazz and so there's an impact
that's different than
say a Dave Bartholomew
and the roots of rhythm
and blues and rock 'n roll
this is about American foreign policy.
Let's see I believe
that's on our PowerPoint.
- [Brubeck] President
Eisenhower sent me out
but first Louis went out
and before Louis, Dizzy Gillespie.
♪ The state department
has discovered jazz ♪
♪ It reaches folks like nothin' ever has ♪
♪ Like when they feel that jazzy rhythm ♪
♪ They know we really with 'em ♪
♪ That's what we call cultural exchange ♪
Eisenhower knew how important it was
for us to start exchanging culture
and ideas and everything
so he sent me first
behind the Iron Curtain
to Poland then to Turkey
and then right along
the border of Russia
we went to Afghanistan
Iran, Iraq, East and West Pakistan, India
and that was one hardship
tour I'll tell you.
It was tough but it was important
because we realized how important jazz is
to the freedom that we're trying
to establish in the world.
(light jazz music)
- David Brubeck of
course since passed away.
What a great and generous and kind man.
He was and his band was
integrated interestingly enough.
There wasn't you know
that was not a commonplace
and so that was special but his ability
I think to work with all
different kinds of people
was part of it and you know of course
he and Armstrong are such a
wonderfully different pair.
And look at where he went, all the places
in the world where America today
you just have to wonder if there are
elders who heard some of the jazz tours
and had at least some sympathy
for America at its best representing
diversity and unity and creativity
you have to wonder how much of
that filters down to people.
But I'm a big believer
in cultural diplomacy
and that you know World
War II wouldn't happen
without the high command
Eisenhower himself you know.
Realizing hey, we gotta do this.
- And Brubeck pointed out you know
there's a real issue of principle
there was for him I mean The Wolfpack band
was integrated, he had
the master of ceremonies
for the shows was African American,
he had a bass player,
sorry a trombone player,
Johnathan Flowers who was
an African American man
and Brubeck was like this is our band.
I mean this is our band,
it was an integrated band
and he mentioned though
that Colonel Brown,
later General Brown
stood behind him on this,
strongly supported him on this
and that was one of the reasons why
they could do it at the time is that
he did have backing but
Brubeck did stand up
for this and said this is the way
it's gotta be and of course Nick
I think anybody who's
ever studied Brubeck's
post war life knows that he
was openly supportive of civil rights
for African Americans from very early on
and refused to play shows
that segregated venues
in the American south
and later in South Africa
so this was not something that just
was a World War II phenomenon for him,
it was life long.
I mean he was dedicated to
civil rights and to democracy
and really thought it came through
in that clip you shared
well this is about freedom.
- Yeah.
- Intrinsic about jazz
and freedom that--
(phone chimes)
- Sorry about that.
- Feel like it's good
that we keep that you
know we keep that in mind
about Brubeck it was a long post war life
that he enjoyed and where he stuck by
those ideas that you first see him show
in his military service in the war.
- Yeah, and he played jazz
fests here in New Orleans
couple years before his passing and just
amazing to hear all that and you know
you have two great, two of his
sons alright great musicians
too so it's a family
legacy that's continued.
No one's going black to
being a cowboy or a farmer.
But he was certainly in favor,
I mean he was very very
open to all people,
classes and culture and that
I think is what makes him feel like
a wonderful figure in the democracy
in his war experience.
- Great great, so should we, did you
want to play any clips, anything else Nick
from Dave Brubeck or should we start
taking some questions?
- I think we're good for now and if
questions provoke interest in other things
we've got some other music and clips
we can go to but let's see what people
are thinking about all this.
You know I don't get,
you know on the radio
no one ever sees me so I mean
to me on a tight rope here today
but let's hear what some of the folks
who are following your gatherings--
- We're already getting
some questions in so
I'm gonna start with my friend Gretchen
who is, thank you Gretchen for tuning in
and her question for Nick is
did any of the traveling U.S.O. shows
invite soldiers like Dave Bartholomew
or John Coltrane on stage
to perform spontaneously?
Like spur of the moment?
- Yeah, well Coltrane I mean
he was only in the military for a year,
it was largely after the end of the war
in Hawaii, he played in a segregated band
called the Melody Masters and so
I mean the idea that a black person
would get pulled up out to play for people
on a U.S.O. show that
just wasn't gonna happen.
As far as that would
apply to Bartholomew too.
I'm sure that in some of the events
people got up and
certainly danced on stage
whether they were included,
I've never heard that happening
but you know how music
is, once it gets going
and there's a dance scene and suddenly
maybe there's U.S.O. performers you know
things can happen but nothing monumental
that I'm aware of.
- Okay, that's interesting kind of
knowing about what were
the limits of spontaneity
in this case with musical performances
at the time interesting.
So Joanne, she wants to know
if you had to identify
a male and female singer
who embodied the World War II experience
who would they be, who would you
put forward for those, Nick?
A male and a female singer for
the World War II experience.
- And they have to be singers,
well I mean I think the
thing we always come back to
and it's very much the pop music
of the era but it's really great.
I mean I still love The Andrews Sisters
you know and it's almost
cliche Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
you know I love Lena Horne
on shows like Jubilee! That
were produced in Hollywood
and sent over on you know these discs
for people to hear from
an African American
perspective in jazz.
You know there're also a lot of songs
that were not jazz songs
that were emblematic
in country music, Elton Britt.
There's a Star Spangled
Banner Waving Somewhere,
old classic patriotic kind of pan.
In a way I think the thing about jazz
is not all of it is vocal
and a lot of it the
voice is the saxophone,
the voice is the melody and the mood
and you know one reason
I do American Routes
is so I get to play hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of artist and songs
and so I have not been one
who settles on oh that's the one.
I'm just, you know I'm not that guy.
And I think a lot of different people
of that era have the one, I mean
certainly Glenn Miller and
that sound, In the Mood,
American Patrol a really interesting tune.
I think those songs are like soundtracks
for the era, certainly
In the Mood persists.
American Patrol less known.
So you know I guess I'm failing to answer
expect to say Andrews Sisters.
Yeah and there's a good
shot of Glenn Miller.
American Patrol's
interesting to me because
it used old patriotic
songs form the 19th century
and he swung it and you know
you could argue Glenn Miller,
his band was all white
a little scrubbed clean,
and a little perfect
but he did his duty and he organized well
and at the same time the general's
commanding officers were upset with him
for turning Sousa marches into swing.
You know so there was the
other side of the line.
You could say Glenn Miller is very much
the straight mainstream performer
who did that duty and was great at it
but on the other side of it you see him
pushing and saying look we're musicians,
let's swing this, swing
is what the kids want.
The soldiers are the kids.
This is the music they want.
So you gotta go inside the era I think
'to try and feel what
would work the best for you
and any given song about
loss and loneliness
sung by Billie Holiday.
I would have to think some of that
would be really popular
with some people in jazz
but again I'll just defer
to the individual listener
to come up with their own.
- It's a huge topic and we could
have a whole webinar just on that
like our kind of favored
singers from the era.
Speaking of musicians that we haven't
talked about but Elissa asked curious
to hear your thoughts about Louis Prima
and the role of jazz on the home front
during the war especially in New Orleans.
- Well I mean and you know
in the same sense that jazz
helped people you know out on the front
in the battle lines reminds them of home
takes away loneliness,
maybe there's a dance
or a show where they get to have
the play side of life and their humanity
is restored to them in that moment.
Jazz back on the home
front is very meaningful
because you know the crisis in America
is not strictly out on the battlefront
it's the people who are back at home
and the people who are
missing their loved ones
and you know fearful
of the future for them
and for the country and so jazz
and familiar sounds play a role.
And you know Louis Prima one
of my absolute favorites,
played on Bourbon Street a great deal.
Louis Prima loved by African Americans
as well, never really made
it as a rock 'n roller.
Didn't quite get into
the New York jazz scene,
came home to New Orleans
and finally goes to Vegas
in the late 50s and early 60s
and becomes the sound of the Rat Pack
but there's no question
that lots of musicians
played back home for people
and some of it was explicitly about
war messages and
promotions but a lot of it
was just dancing and having a little party
and you know hanging out which
music allows people to come together.
Here we are in the COVID moment
you know people are missing going to clubs
and being in street parades and
being at a concert and everything's
being done virtually which you know
sure we can listen to records
and dare I say the radio
that's important but in a city like
New Orleans where being
together with people
in the streets and clubs I have to feel
like Louis Prima's stuff
would be really important.
- Thank you.
Well I'm gonna follow that up with
this is a question going
back to Glenn Miller
since you'd shown the image, Nick
that would you describe Glenn Miller
as the most famous of the
World War II band leaders?
Is he the person--
- Yeah I think
there's no question about that.
I mean they were recruiting for this band
just like the NFL recruits
players from colleges.
They were going to get guys
to have big bands and bunches of bands
to go everywhere and he
was extremely good at it
you know what everyone would say about
like my dad was in World War II and he did
not like Glenn Miller,
he was a classical person
and he heard Elmer's Tune one more time
he said I might shoot myself
but for the vast majority of people
Glenn Miller really was very
very powerful and popular
and yeah maybe do you mind
if we listen to that
little bit of Glenn Miller.
- Not.
- This is a track called on Spotify
called American Patrol and this isn't
as well known as In the Mood but I think
it's really cool how it draws on
Yankee Doodle, Dixie,
Columbia, Gem of the Ocean,
but this is marches and
military songs jazzed up.
(upbeat swing music)
Old feel good music.
You know I mean it's feel good music,
it's predictable but you get
a smile when you hear it.
Military theme music jazzed up
with a little bit of
swing and bounce in it
and musically I mean they
were just rock solid.
Those arrangements were
all just very precise
and so it's different than
a lot of the black music
where you have much more
focus on the improvisation
but swing was meant for
people all the sections
to all be coordinated work together.
Some people said that they increased
the mechanization in the Depression era
where everybody on the assembly line
has to work together that the swing
is almost like an assembly line of music
but it's enormously
comforting and familiar
and I would be smiling if I was hearing
you know these old military theme songs
turned into essentially
that kind of riffing
and it reminds you of
both the social change
but also like hey that's
where that started.
So Glenn Miller's there and of course
his mysterious disappearance
over the English Channel
in '44 adds to the aura
of how important he was.
When somebody goes to the war effort,
he didn't need to be involved
from what I've read and then he ends up
passing away and we don't
know how it happened.
- Yeah that's a terrific
tune you played, Nick
and if you ever visit
the National World War II Museum
you'll get you know a serious exposure
to Glenn Miller's music I mean
there's plenty all over the museum,
we have lots of images of him
I mean he was such a towering figure
in American pop culture at the time
and maybe that's a good
place for us to close, Nick
we're about it's almost noon here.
And I want to thank you very much
for a great conversation.
I learned a lot from it and I hope
our viewers did as well and they'll do
some following up of their own
and go check out Marshall
Allen and Dave Bartholomew
and Dave Brubeck and Lester Young
and listen to a little more Glenn Miller
so thanks very much, Nick for your time.
This was a real pleasure.
- Well pleasure's mine and I appreciate
all the good work that you're doing
all your team there and getting out
information while the
museum has to you know
close its doors but I
think you've opened it up
online and that's been brilliant
and I'd be unprofessional if I didn't say
I hope people will turn
into American Routes,
R O U T E S, you can find us online.
We do topics like this all the time
and we enjoy doing it and yes
I will soon be back at
the World War II Museum
and channeling Glenn Miller and looking
at the photos and everything else
that's really great that you do
with culture and history that frames
our understanding of World War II.
- That's much appreciated, Nick.
We look forward to seeing you there.
