Dangerous Rhythms, page 41
“I smiled all over my face”: Armstrong, Satchmo, 212.
“What he carried with him”: Teachout, Pops, 84.
“As the doors opened the trumpets”: Condon, We Called It Music, 111.
Armstrong’s parting with King Oliver: Louis Armstrong, Swing That Music (Da Capo Press, 1993), 21–22; Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 202–203, 228–229; Teachout, Pops, 72–73, 75–76, 115–116.
Joe Glaser: Armstrong, Swing That Music, 13, 51–53, 125–128; Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 277–279, 283, 372–388; Teachout, Pops, 17, 208, 211, 241–242, 272–273, 317, 365; Terry Teachout, “Satchmo and the Jews: Louis Armstrong’s Heterodox Views,” Commentary magazine, November 2009; Ernie Anderson, “Joe Glaser & Louis Armstrong: A Memoir by Ernie Anderson” (parts I & II), Storyville magazine, vol. 160 (December 1, 1994) and vol. 162 (March 1, 1995): viewed via the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Queens, NY, Satchmo Collection, catalog No. 1995.25.2.
Lincoln Gardens and Sunset Cafe: Dempsey J. Travis, An Autobiography of Black Jazz (Academy Chicago Publications, 1983); Kenny, Chicago Jazz, 19–21, 24, 40, 50–51, 57, 103, 154.
“Something you need to know about me”: “Joseph G. Glaser Is Dead; Booking Agent for Many Stars,” New York Times, June 8, 1969.
“All the young musicians in town”: Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 115.
Al Capone: Herbert Asbury, Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld (later titled The Gangs of Chicago, originally published by Knopf, 1940), 62, 318–320, 323–324, 334–336, 344, 349–351, 353–369, 371–374; John Kobler, Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone (Putnam, 1971); Laurence Bergreen, Capone: The Man and the Era (Simon & Schuster, 1994); Gus Russo, The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America (Bloomsbury USA, 2002), 2, 23–25, 27, 35–38, 43–44, 52, 59, 106–107, 214, 215, 340–341.
Dean O’Banion murder: English, Paddy Whacked, 147–148; Kobler, Capone, 98, 101–110, 124.
“When one of Capone’s Boys”: Armstrong, Swing That Music, 33.
Attempted hit on Johnny Torrio: Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 347–351, 353–355; Bergreen, Capone, 143–146; Kobler, Capone, 207–208, 212, 301.
Capone and jazz: The gangster’s affection for jazz is touched upon in all of the major Capone biographies, especially Bergreen’s Capone, and in many Chicago-based jazz memoirs, such as Condon’s We Called It Music.
Fats Waller in Chicago: Maurice Waller and Anthony Calabrese, Fats Waller (Schirmer Books, 1977).
Joe E. Lewis: Art Cohn, The Joker Is Wild: The Story of Joe E. Lewis (Random House, 1955).
Sam “Momo” Giancana: Sam Giancana and Chuck Giancana, Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America (Warner Books, 1992); Russo, The Outfit, 42, 179–183, 187, 301, 369–370, 374–378, 388–390, 398, 407–408, 413, 427, 448–449.
Chapter 5: Birth of the Hipster
The Plantation Café: Travis, An Autobiography of Black Jazz, 13, 27–28; Kenny, Chicago Jazz, 21–23, 26, 149–151.
“Close those windows or I’ll blow you off 35th Street”: Kenny, Chicago Jazz, 149.
Attacks on Capone’s establishments: Kenny, Chicago Jazz, 150–151.
The quotable Capone: Kobler, Capone, 58, 112; Bergreen, Capone, 212–213, 239–240, 261–264, 268, 356–357, 369, 418, 436, 509. All of the biographies quote Capone from the various Chicago newspapers of the day.
“Are you hip?”: Kenny, Chicago Jazz, 152.
Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow: Mezz Mezzrow with Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues (Random House, 1946). Mezzrow is a legend in jazz history, partly because of his musicianship and his role as a prominent marijuana dealer, but mostly because of Really the Blues, which has achieved the status of a classic. Given Mezzrow’s identification with Black culture, people tend to have strong feelings about his legacy. Laurence Bergreen, who wrote an otherwise excellent biography of Louis Armstrong (cited as a source for this book), sullies his work by going out of his way to scorn Mezzrow. Bergreen describes Mezzrow as “sinister” and Really the Blues as “a chilling self-portrait of an opportunistic junkie, and proto-hipster.” Bergreen blames Mezzrow for getting Armstrong “habituated to the drug” when, in truth, Satchmo was more than capable of handling that himself.
“Our whole jazz music was, in a way”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 182.
“Only [musician] I ever heard of”: Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 130–131.
Jazz scene in Detroit: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 90–92; Lars Bjorn, Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–1960 (University of Michigan Press, 2001).
The Purple Gang in Detroit: Gregory A. Fornier, The Elusive Purple Gang: Detroit’s Kosher Nostra (Wheatmark Inc, 1977); Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 92–101.
“Soon I found myself hanging out with them”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 96.
“The smell in that room was enough to knock you out”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 97.
“Years later, when I was living in New York”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 101.
“At one place we worked”: Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 130.
“The other customers left and the doors were closed”: Condon, We Called It Music, 125.
Earl “Fatha” Hines: Dance, The World of Earl Hines.
“They told us no harm would come to us”: Dance, The World of Earl Hines, 118.
Hines at the Grand Terrace: Ibid.
“I was in a music store a block away when the [massacre] occurred”: Dance, The World of Earl Hines, 123.
Ebony magazine article: Ben Burns, Nitty Gritty: A White Editor in Black Journalism (University Press of Mississippi, 1996); Earl Hines, “How Gangsters Ran the Band Business,” Ebony, September 1948; “Hines Says Gangs Ruled Band ‘Biz’,” Carolina Times, August 20, 1949.
Tommy Rockwell: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 317, 329, 338–339, 348, 378; Teachout, Pops, 127–134, 136, 162–165.
Glaser rape conviction: Teachout, Pops, 205–207, 210; Ricky Riccardi, Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong (Oxford University Press, 2020), 164–165, 167.
Armstrong marijuana arrest in Los Angeles: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 328–331; Teachout, Pops, 157–159, 302.
Johnny Collins: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 330, 335–336, 343, 347, 370–371; Teachout, Pops, 159–160, 162–165, 177, 181–190.
Frankie Foster incident: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 338, 340; Teachout, Pops, 162–165, 169.
Chapter 6: Friends in Dark Places
The Hotsy Totsy Club: Jimmy Durante and Jack Kofoed, Night Clubs (Knopf, 1931), 31, 163–169; Stanley Walker, The Nightclub Era (Frederick A. Stokes, 1983), 236–240; Robert Sylvester, No Cover Charge: A Backward Look at the Nightclubs (Dial Press, 1956), 3–24; “Gives New Version of Café Murders; Doorman at Hotsy Totsy Club Says a Bartender Fled, Stuffing Pistol into Pocket,” New York Times, February 8, 1930.
Jack “Legs” Diamond: Gary Levine, Jack “Legs” Diamond: Anatomy of a Gangster (Purple Mountain Press, 1995).
Al Jolson and Walter Winchell: Tristin Howard, Winchell and Runyon: The Untold Story (Hamilton Books, 2010), 134–135. This incident is part of New York City showbiz lore. In some accounts, Winchell’s role is replaced by journalist (and future screenwriter) Mark Hellinger. It seems far more likely that Winchell would be in a position to exert this degree of influence over the likes of Legs Diamond.
“One night a large party came in”: Condon, We Called It Music, 183–184.
“One night Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond fell into the joint”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 178–179.
Hotsy Totsy shooting and aftermath: Levine, Jack “Legs” Diamond, 99–104, 111–113, 197; Walker, The Nightclub Era, 236–240; Sylvester, No Cover Charge, 11–24.
“Gangdom is in control of the nightclubs”: Sylvester, No Cover Charge, 19.
“I’d had a bellyful of gangsters”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 182.
“A bunch of ugly-looking gangsters”: Mezzrow, Really the Blues, 183.
Cutting sessions: Rex Stewart, Jazz Masters of the 30s (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 143–150; Edward Kennedy Ellington, Music Is My Mistress (Doubleday, 1973); Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 219–220. Many jazz autobiographies and histories touch on the subject of cutting sessions, as well as the rent parties, from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Rent parties: Ellington, Music Is My Mistress; Gioia, History of Jazz; Billie Holiday and William Dufty, Lady Sings the Blues (Doubleday, 1956); Leroi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (HarperCollins, 1963).
“To a degree, all musicians, white or Black”: Stewart, Jazz Masters of the 30s, 143–144.
Fats Waller: Waller and Calabrese, Fats Waller.
Arnold Rothstein: Nick Tosches, King of the Jews: The Greatest Mob Story Never Told (Ecco, 2005).
Andy Razaf: Barr Singer, Black and Blue: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf (Shirmer Books, 1992).
Dutch Schultz: Paul Sann, Kill the Dutchman!: The Story of Dutch Schultz (Arlington House, 1971).
Razaf-Schultz relationship: Singer, Black and Blue, 212, 216–219, 222, 267.
Baron Wilkins: James Haskins, The Cotton Club: A Pictorial and Social History of the Most Famous Symbol of the Jazz Era (Random House, 1977); “Barron Wilkins Slain in Harlem: ‘Yellow Charleston,’ Who Shot Noted Negro, Had Just Killed Another Man,” New York Times, May 25, 1924.
“For hours after Wilkins was killed”: “Popular Harlem Man Shot in Cold Blood; Killed When He Refused Money for Get-Away to Man Who Had Just Murdered Another Man About a Fifty Cent Loan,” New York Age, May 31, 1924.
Casper Holstein: “Former ‘Policy King’ in Harlem Dies Broke; Casper Holstein of Harlem Had $500,000 at Peak of Career,” New York Times, April 9, 1944.
“We cannot enjoy half slavery and half freedom”: “Casper Holstein Gives $100 in Katy Ferguson Fund Drive for $16,000,” New York Age, December 12, 1925.
Holstein kidnapping by Mad Dog Coll: “Kidnapped Negro Freed by Captors; Five Seized in Plot,” New York Times, September 24, 1925.
Chapter 7: Down on the Plantation
Mayor Jimmy Walker: Gene Fowler, Beau James: The Life and Times of Jimmy Walker (Viking, 1949).
The Jazz Age: Herbert Asbury, The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (Dodd, Mead, 1950); Gioia, History of Jazz, 53–88; Albert Murray, Stomping the Blues (McGraw-Hill, 1976); Haskins, The Cotton Club; Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (Scribner, 2011), 205–212; Walker, The Nightclub Era, 26–50, 77–102.
Owney Madden youth and crime career: English, Paddy Whacked, 115–119.
Madden’s bootlegging empire: English, Paddy Whacked, 119–121, 123, 125–126; Graham Nown, Arkansas Godfather: The Story of Owney Madden and How He Hijacked Middle America (Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2013), 9, 34, 148–149, 205; David Hill, The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s Forgotten Capital of Vice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), 31–32, 37, 84–86, 107, 145, 157, 206–210, 256.
Origins of the Cotton Club: Haskins, The Cotton Club; Malcolm Womack, “Harlem Holiday: The Cotton Club, 1925–1940,” dissertation, doctorate degree in philosophy, University of Washington, 2013.
“Owney Madden’s club”: “Dry Padlocks Snapped on Nine Wet Doors; ‘Owney’ Madden’s ‘Club’ Is One of Them,” New York Times, June 23, 1925.
“It was a real distinction”: Haskins, The Cotton Club, 43.
“If you were a Black person”: Ibid.
“White people began to come to Harlem in droves”: Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography (Knopf, 1940),134.
Lena Horne: Lena Horne and Richard Schickel, Lena (Doubleday, 1965); James Gavin, Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (Atria, 2009); Haskins, The Cotton Club, 65; Gerald Horne, Jazz and Justice (Monthly Review Press, 2019), 54.
Duke Ellington: Ellington, Music Is My Mistress; Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington (Avery, 2014); Haskins, The Cotton Club, 111; Crouch, Considering Genius, 133–153.
“The music of my race”: Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, 78.
“The episodes of the gangster era”: Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, 82.
“I keep hearing about how bad”: Sonny Greer oral history interview (conducted by Stanley Crouch), Rutgers University, Institute of Jazz Studies.
“[Madden] loved Duke”: Ibid.
“There was this guy”: Teachout, Duke, 191.
Cab Calloway: Alyn Shipton, Hi-de-ho: The Life of Cab Calloway (Oxford University Press, 2013); Cab Calloway and Bryant Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher & Me (Crowell, 1976), 66, 68; Haskins, The Cotton Club, 81.
“Four guys were sitting there”: Calloway and Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher & Me, 112.
“Any time we needed a quick buck”: Sonny Greer oral history interview, Rutgers University, Institute of Jazz Studies.
“These guys liked me”: Calloway and Rollins: Of Minnie the Moocher & Me, 130–131.
“The Plantation was [designed to be] a fine, fine place”: Calloway and Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher & Me, 82–83.
Murder of Dutch Schultz: Sann, Kill the Dutchman!, 3–20, 47–55.
Armstrong reconnects with Glaser: Anderson, Storyville magazine; Teachout, Pops, 363–365; Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 372–388, 433–434; Riccardi, Heart Full of Rhythm, 161–179, 219.
“When Louis came back from England”: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 372.
“I could see he was down and out”: Anderson, Storyville magazine.
“He was the most obscene”: Max Gordon, Live at the Village Vanguard (St. Martin’s, 1980), 79.
“Joe was a professional tough guy”: Bergreen, Louis Armstrong, 373.
“Joe Glaser had the wonderful ability to lie”: George Wein with Nate Chinen, Myself Among Others: A Memoir (Da Capo Press, 2003).
Chapter 8: The Crooner
Early Frank Sinatra: James Kaplan, Frank: The Voice (Doubleday, 2010), 5, 8–17, 21–25, 27–33, 467–468, 531–532; Kitty Kelley, His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (Bantam, 1986); Pete Hamill, Why Sinatra Matters (Little Brown, 1998).
Bing Crosby and Jack McGurn: FBI file, Bing Crosby, # 9-49113, memorandum to Clyde Tolson, November 1942; Michael Ellison, “FBI files lift lid on Big Crosby’s links to the mob,” Guardian, December 23, 1999; Tim Cronin, “When the Boys Play Through,” Chicago Golf, April 2017; John Gault, “Going Bing’s Way,” Maclean’s, October 1977; Russo, The Outfit, 123–124.
The mafia in New Jersey: Kaplan, Frank, 10–13, 161, 288–291; Hamill, Why Sinatra Matters; Jonathan Van Meter, The Last Good Time: Skinny D’Amato, the Notorious 500 Club, & the Rise and Fall of Atlantic City (Crown, 2003), 34, 39, 44, 46–54, 58–59, 99, 151–152, 158, 182. See also Scott Deitche, Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey (Rowan & Littlefield, 2017).
Sinatra arrest: Tom Kuntz and Phil Kuntz, The Sinatra Files: The Secret FBI Dossier (Three Rivers Press, 2000); Kaplan, Frank, 6–72; Kelley, His Way, 35–37, 41–42.
Willie Moretti: Kaplan, Frank, 10, 161, 183–184, 318–319, 498–499.
Sinatra and the Dorsey band: Kaplan, Frank, 90–92, 101, 107–108, 112–119, 127–128, 135–137; Kelley, His Way, 141–142, 161.
“Buddy Rich Gets Face Bashed In”: Kaplan, Frank, 118.
The Big Band era: Gioia, History of Jazz, 127–184.
Newark, New Jersey: Barbara J. Kukla, Swing City: Newark Night Life (Temple University Press, 1991); Horne, Jazz and Justice, 80–81.
Atlantic City: Van Meter, The Last Good Time, 100–108. In his memoir, Of Minnie the Moocher & Me, Cab Calloway describes the Atlantic City of his young adulthood as “a big, fancy resort with a lot of jumping nightclubs.”
Skinny D’Amato and the 500 Club: Van Meter, The Last Good Time, 73–78, 109–110, 117–118, 131–133, 148–149, 154–155, 228.
Tampa and Ybor City: Author interview with Scott Deitche, January 11, 2021. For the city’s organized crime background, see Scott Deitche, Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (Barricade Books, 2004).
South Florida carpet joints: Robert Lacey, Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life (Little Brown, 1991); T. J. English, Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba . . . and Lost It to the Revolution (William Morrow, 2008), 9, 56–57, 67, 78–80.
Newport and Covington, Kentucky: Jon Hendricks oral history interview, Museum of American History, Smithsonian, August 17–18, 1995; Nick Tosches, Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams (Doubleday, 1992), 99–100.
Hot Springs, Arkansas: Philip Leigh, The Devil’s Town: Hot Springs during the Gangster Era (Shotwell Publishing, 2018); Hill, The Vapors.
St. Louis: Dennis C. Owsley, St Louis Jazz: A History (History Press, 2015); Dizzy Gillespie and Al Fraser, To Be or Not to Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie (Doubleday, 1979), 188–189.
“Somebody insulted this lady”: Clark Terry, oral history, June 15 and 19, 1999, National Museum of American History.
“The Plantation Club was a white club”: Gillespie and Fraser, To Be or Not to Bop, 188.
Pittsburgh (Smoketown): Mark Whitaker, Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Black Renaissance (Simon & Schuster, 2019); Brian McKenna, “Gus Geenlee,” The Society for American Baseball Research, SABR Digital Library; Ralph Carhart, “Rufus Jackson,” The Society for American Baseball Research, SABR Digital Library.
Denver: Dick Kreck, Smaldone: The Untold Story of an American Crime Family (Fulcrum Publishing, 2010); Tom Lundin, “The Moonlight Ranch and Diamond Jack,” Historic Denver Nightlife, Denver Public Library, July 14, 2017; Tom Lundin, “The Moonlight Ranch and Mike Rossi,” Historic Denver Nightlife, Denver Public Library, May 25, 2017.
“The Moonlight Ranch was pretty high class”: Kirk, Twenty Years on Wheels, 38–40.
“Rossi may have been tough”: Ibid.
“Here was this lady at the bar”: Kreck, Smaldone, 41.
