outside and inside: representations of interracialism and american identity in white jazz ...

387 Pages·2014·1.36 MB·English

OUTSIDE AND INSIDE: REPRESENTATIONS OF INTERRACIALISM
AND AMERICAN IDENTITY IN WHITE JAZZ AUTOBIOGRAPHY

REVA MARIN

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HUMANITIES
YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO

June 2014

© Reva Marin, 2014
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Abstract

This dissertation explores concepts of race, national identity, and gender formation in
fifteen autobiographies published by white male American jazz musicians— that is, jazz
autobiographies written by male subjects who self-identified, and were identified by their
collaborators and by the general public, as white—between 1939 and 2001. A central
concern within these autobiographies is the search for authentication within a musical
form that has been intrinsically linked to African American musical and cultural forms
and practices. A key feature of this quest for authentication is the immersion experience,
through which the white male musician seeks immersion in African American musical
and cultural spheres as a requirement of his jazz education, and later of his status as a
professional musician.
In this respect, these accounts reinforce the notion of jazz as one of the few
spheres within American society in which cultural authority has been historically granted
to African Americans, and in which white musicians, as Burton W. Peretti suggests,
“innovated and rebelled by willingly becoming musically subordinate to a socially and
culturally subordinated group” (96–97). Through their descriptions of this process, these
autobiographers reveal that the playing of jazz created and necessitated interracial and
interethnic mingling to a degree rarely seen in the mainstream society out of which these
stories emerge. Yet discussions of race in these texts seldom move beyond its specific
impact on these musicians’ lives and careers; rarely do white jazz autobiographers
attempt a more reflective analysis of race in the United States, nor do they seem willing to
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acknowledge the benefits that their whiteness conferred upon them in respect to career
opportunities and economic security. For these reasons, white jazz autobiography
provides a fertile source for considering both the possibilities and limitations of culture—
and of individual cultural producers—within 20th-century US society to disrupt,
challenge, or circumvent dominant legal and social practice.
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To my friend, Marlene Kadar, whose suggestion that I return to school as a mature
student turned my life around, and who has provided unfailing support and
encouragement to me throughout this experience.
v
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wonderful dissertation committee—my supervisor Leslie
Sanders, Art Redding, and Michael Coghlan—for their guidance, support, and
encouragement throughout this process. Eight years ago Leslie Sanders’ course, Black
Song: Introduction to African American Poetry, opened new worlds of discovery for me;
since then she has been a mentor and advisor, helping me to see interconnections among
the various expressions of black song, including jazz. Art Redding has also been a
remarkably generous reader and advisor, providing me with detailed and thought-
provoking comments on the various drafts of this dissertation, and in the process
introducing me to theoretical and critical perspectives on jazz and on American culture
more broadly. Michael Coghlan has shared with me his keen insights as a musician over
discussions of music theory and practice in these autobiographies; in addition, his dry wit
and wonderful sense of humour has often displayed itself at just the right time for me,
when I was feeling discouraged or particularly middle-aged.
I would also like to thank Warren Crichlow, who has broadened my perspectives
on jazz and jazz culture in immeasurable ways, and who has gone out of his way to
provide encouragement and feedback as my work progressed. And finally, many thanks
to Sherrie Tucker, who served as the external examiner at my oral defence, and whose
detailed and thoughtful critique of my dissertation has provided an invaluable guide for
me as I continue to think about and to work on white jazz autobiography.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract .………………………………………………………………………... ii
Dedication ……………………………………………………............................ iv
Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………… v
Table of Contents .………………………………………………………............ vi
Introduction.…………………………………………………………………….. 1
Reading White Autobiography………………………………………….. 8
Theoretical Framework………………………………………………….. 12
Who’s Left Out…………………………………………………………... 35
Selected Review of Previous Scholarship……………………………….. 38
Chapter Outline…………………………………………………………... 40
Chapter 1: The Authenticating Collaborator of White Jazz Autobiography …….. 44
Authenticating Prefaces, Forewords, and Introductions………………….. 50
Intertextual Insertions in the Autobiographies of Eddie Condon and
Benny Goodman………………………………………………… 62
The Authenticating Collaborator in Mezz Mezzrow’s Really the Blues 89
Chapter 2: White Student, Black Teacher: Negotiating Race in the Learning of Jazz
Introduction: Explanations of Jazz Learning: From the Practical to the
Sublime………………………………………………………….. 96
Early Music Experiences………………………………………………… 105
Descriptions of Jazz Learning…………………………………………… 125
Private Studies With African American Teachers………………………. 139
Explorations in Black Musical Worlds…………………………………. 158
Interracial Jam Sessions…………………………………………………. 167
Triumphs and Tensions Within Interracial Alliances…………………… 176
Chapter 3: Representations of Identity in Jewish Jazz Autobiography…………. 195
An Unending Search for Identity: Artie Shaw’s The Trouble with
Cinderella………………………………………………………… 200
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Black and Jewish Blues: Mezz Mezzrow’s Really the Blues……………. 223
Beyond Horatio Alger: Benny Goodman’s The Kingdom of Swing……… 248
Ambivalence and Borscht Belt Humour: Max Kaminsky’s Jazz Band: My
Life in Jazz………………………………………………………… 270
Chapter 4: Soldiers for Uncle Sam?: Depictions of Military Service in White Jazz
Autobiography…………………………………………………………… 296
Not Fit for Service: Accounts of 4-F Classification……………………… 303
From Those Who Served: Pride, Cynicism, and Despair………………… 312
The Brief Army Career of the Young Chet Baker………………. 313
“I Couldn’t Believe that I Might Die with These People I Hated”:
Art Pepper’s Army Experience, 1944–1946…………………… 318
Bud Freeman: Artist and Soldier………………………………… 324
Bob Wilber: Left Wing at Fort Dix……………………………… 327
Artie Shaw’s Navy “Rangers”…………………………………… 329
Honour and Dishonour: Post-War Images of Max Kaminsky and
Artie Shaw.......................................................................... 347
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………. 359
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………. 372
1

Introduction

In his monumental social and musical history of bebop, Scott DeVeaux suggests that “the
usual narratives for jazz history remain largely suprapersonal”—that is, that even as “jazz
writing” focuses on the lives of individual musicians, “beneath the surface of anecdotes,
the real agents of change are abstractions to which individual will is subordinated” (28).
Although DeVeaux grants the benefits of this approach, noting that historical trends “are
often larger than individuals,” he believes that “telling history this way sacrifices the
complexity and ambiguity of lives lived in a particular historical moment” (28). For this
reason, he explains, in his own study he has chosen to highlight the individuals who
contributed to the shaping and development of the musical form that came to be known as
bebop: “My concern in this book is to understand bebop as a result of the decision these
musicians made” (28).1
With only slight revisions, DeVeaux’s observations may serve as a concise
explanation of this study’s decision to focus on jazz autobiography as a way to uncover
aspects of jazz history through “the complexity and ambiguity of lives lived in . . .
particular historical moment[s].” This is not to deny, of course, the inherent limitations of
the autobiographical form; rather, this study proposes, following Daniel Stein, to adopt “a
theoretical lens through which jazz autobiography can be read productively, without

1 DeVeaux also distinguishes his study from “the ‘Great Man’ school of historical
writing,” which he believes also subordinates “individual will” to “lofty abstractions”
(28).
2
either accepting the basic ‘untruth’ of autobiographical narrative, as poststructuralist
critics might advocate, or damning the texts to the status of simple eye-witness accounts”
(174).2 (A more detailed explanation of my approach to the autobiographical texts under
discussion in this study will follow later in the introduction.)
From 1926, with the publication of Paul Whiteman’s Jazz, to the end of the 20th
century, more than sixty US jazz musicians published their autobiographies and memoirs;
taken together, this body of work offers valuable first-hand accounts of jazz from the
music’s infancy to the present day, allowing important insights into changing musical,
cultural, and social landscapes that inextricably tie the history of jazz to the history of the
United States in the 20th century. While many of these autobiographies were published by
trade presses, in the 1980s and 1990s university presses greatly accelerated the
publication of jazz autobiographies, clearly hoping to preserve the life stories of aging
musicians whose careers represented a wide range of jazz history, including the early
music of New Orleans and Chicago, big band swing, and bebop.
Although many of the earliest jazz autobiographies—those published between the
1920s and 1950s—attracted considerable public interest and were reviewed in jazz

2 My approach to this study has also been strongly influenced by two key studies on jazz
improvisation—Paul E. Berliner’s Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation
(1994) and Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction
(1996)—both of which argue that an insider perspective is essential for understanding the
process of jazz learning and improvisatory jazz performance. In his response to this
approach, Ajay Heble suggests that “the best writing on jazz has to involve a rather tricky
balancing act, a complex set of negotiations between on the one hand the teaching of
critical theory . . . and, on the other, a recognition of the value and importance of
documenting insider perspectives. . . . Just as it would . . . be inappropriate to ignore what
musicians have said about their own craft, so too it would be foolish simply to take what
they say at face value” (91).
3
magazines and general-interest publications, it is only in the last three decades that
scholars began to consider jazz autobiography a legitimate source for critical
investigation. Since the 1980s a number of studies have been published; among these,
some have used jazz autobiography as a way to explore various aspects of the
autobiographical form itself; others have applied the methodologies of literary theory in
their readings of particular autobiographical texts; others have used jazz autobiography to
illuminate historical discourses around race, gender, and politics in 20th century American
life. In addition to the few scholars who made jazz autobiography the subject of their
study, many others—including ethnomusicologists, cultural and social historians, and
literary scholars—have increasingly utilized jazz autobiography as primary source
material for investigating broader themes within American history and cultural and
literary studies.
It is worth noting that these studies have concentrated much of their attention on
autobiographies written by African American jazz musicians, although selected texts by
white jazz autobiographers, including Paul Whiteman (1926), Benny Goodman (1939),
Mezz Mezzrow (1946), Artie Shaw (1952), and Art Pepper (1979), garnered considerable
notice and some scholarly interest at and since the time of publication. For the most part,
studies that have referred to white jazz autobiographies have tended to consider them
within the context of a particular historical moment, such as the Swing Era, or a particular
jazz style, such as 1920s Chicago jazz or bebop. That the focus of critical attention should
have been on texts written by African American jazz musicians is hardly surprising, of
course, nor that the majority (by a significant margin) of jazz autobiographers are black: it