Martin Torgoff on the DuPlex

I was joined on the DuPlex Mystery Jazz Hour of 12.28.17 by Martin Torgoff, author of Bop Apocalypse; Jazz, Race, The Beats and Drugs. It was an interesting, wide-ranging conversation that used music as a guideline, as per the playlist below.

LISTEN HERE

PLAYLIST

Louis Armstrong, Muggles. Fred Robinson, trombone; Jimmy Strong, clarinet; Earl Hines, piano; Mancy Carr banjo, and Zutty Singleton on drums.

Mezz Mezzrow, Revolutionary Blues. Tommy Ladnier, Sidney de Paris, t / Mezz Mezzrow, cl / James P. Johnson, p / Teddy Bunn, g / Elmer James, b / Zutty Singleton, d.

Rosetta Howard, If You’re A Viper. With The Harlem Hamfats 

Count Basie Orchestra, Every Tub. 

Billie Holiday, I Must Have That Man. Buck Clayton, t / Edmond Hall, cl / Lester Young, ts / James Sherman, p / Freddy Green, g / Walter Page, sb / Joe Jones, d

Charlie Parker, Ko Ko. Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie played piano, but trumpet here instead of Miles Davis

Charlie Parker, Moose the Mooch. Miles Davis-tp, Lucky Thompson-tenor and Dodo Marmarosa-piano, Vic Macmillan-bass, Arvin Garrison-drums

Charlie Parker, Lover Man. Charlie Parker (alto sax), Howard McGhee (trumpet), Jimmy Bunn (piano), Bob Kesterson (bass), Roy Porter (drums)

Wardell Gray, The Chase. Bass-Don Bagley , Drums –Chico Hamilton, piano-Bobby Tucker B

• Tenor Saxophone –Dexter Gordon, Wardell Grey 

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Miles Davis, Round Midnight. Miles Davis – trumpet, Paul Chambers-bass, John Coltrane – tenor-Red Garland – piano, Philly Joe Jones – drums

John Coltrane, My Favorite Things. McCoy Tyner piano, Steve Davis bass, Elvin Jones drums 

Q&A with Martin Torgoff

I recently reviewed Martin Torgoff's book Bop Apocalypse; Jazz, Race, The Beats and Drugs. Mr. Torgoff was kind enough to answer a few questions I sent to him via email.

One of the things that jazz people still try to understand is why so many players became heroin addicts in the 40's and 50's, even after it was clear that using junk would not make you the player Bird was. Did your understanding of this change before and after your research? Were you satisfied with the level of understanding you achieved about this question, or does it still seem puzzling? 

Drug use is always a very complex and challenging subject, always made more so by the ideologies and hot buttons contained therein. I find it useful to try and look at it from the vantage point of the concept of set and setting, set being all of the factors and ideas around the drug phenomenon and setting being where it happens. In this case the setting is the jazz culture of the 20th century to 1960, and the set is all of the cultural, racial, social and political currents swirling around it. And beyond that is the human element. The idea that so many of the artists got on to dope because of Bird was only prevalent at the beginning of the heroin scene from '45 to '47--that was when it was a critical factor, but it went so much deeper than that. My research made me realize how the story of jazz and heroin and the aspect of the jazz lifestyle during that time was a story that played out against a whole backdrop that encompassed everything from the mafia's organization of the global heroin trade, policies of the police and the US government, and what happened in Harlem as a result--really the first great modern drug epidemic and an American tragedy. Dizzy Gillespie pointed out that very few in the community of jazz musicians and the larger African American community of that time really understood the implications or ramifications of heroin at first. I learned a tremendous amount but I am still staggered by how these artists managed to produce such a remarkable body of classic American music despite being strung out. It really says a lot about them.

New York City was the center of most of the activity of the book. You spend some time on the San Francisco scene, very little on Central Ave., Los Angeles in general and nothing about activity around Big Sur-all places with a lot of drug use and alternative cultural activity. I was interested in why you didn't write more about that.

What I did in the book to a large degree was simply follow the marijuana. It arrived in New Orleans around 1910, just as jazz was coalescing, so it was a part of the story of jazz from the very beginning. It came up river to Chicago after the closing of Storyville in 1917; over the NY along with Pops and Mezz Mezzrow and also filters down to KC and the clubs during the 30s, and takes flight with swing. I mostly write about what happened in NY because of the culture of vipers at the Savoy and what happened when the early Beats intersected with the jazz scene, and then pick up the story of heroin. Of course this was happening elsewhere as well, as you point out in the case of LA and Central Ave (where Dexter Gordon hailed from). The drug scene in LA was quite robust, which produced Synanon, one of the first recovery communities. 

Homosexuality was addressed, and to some degree at least, validated among the Beats, although much paranoia justifiably still inhered. Among jazz musicians, it seems to have been much more on the down low. At least that is the "common wisdom" and the way Bop Apocalypse basically handles it, which is not to bring it up in the jazz context at all. What's your feeling about this-was the incidence of homosexuality so low it was not worth addressing, or was the taboo about talking about it just more intense? Also, since influence seemed to flow from the jazz world to the Beats and not at all the other way, might there in fact have been some lessening of the taboo because of the Beat influence?

Very interesting question. Beyond the homosexuality of the great Billy Strayhorn and the bisexuality of Billie Holiday, I confess that, like so many others, I know precious little about this in the jazz world of that time. It was such a taboo subject everywhere--so transgressive-- but especially in the black culture of the era. It must have been there, but forever hidden and now buried...Given that atmosphere, it's really quit astounding how open both Ginsberg and Burroughs were about the subject, but that appears to have had little or no impact on attitudes about it in the jazz scene. 

Two of the competing myths in America are: Rugged Individual-Wild West versus the Shining City on a Hill. The first says we should be free to pursue our own lives with little or no government interference. The second says we are members of a body politic, complying with an implied morality associated with the Puritan/Yankee tradition. In the history of drug use and enforcement we see the latter myth clearly dominating. Why do you think that was so?

I believe the prevalent reason was race. The whole regime of drug prohibitionism and the first drug laws were really about containing the "Other", whether ethnic immigrants, African Americans, or Mexicans, bohemians, sexual and cultural libertarians, etc. Fear of race-mixing was behind all of the early drug laws. It's stunning how the story of drugs so perfectly affirms the thesis of historian Richard Hofstadter in his classic essay The Paranoid Trend in American Politics. 

Review of "Bop Apocalypse," by Martin Torgoff

The vilification and suppression of marijuana and narcotics in the U.S. was fueled in the 20th century by a campaign that whipped up fear of "the other"- Mexicans, Caribbean islanders, South Americans and African-Americans.  Bop Apocalypse limns the history of this campaign and uses it to frame the story of how our own American "others"- (black and white) jazz musicians and the (white) Beat movement-interacted with each other and with law enforcement.

Most of the key cast of musical characters in Bop Apocalypse will be familiar-Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday. So too, will the cast of Beats-Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassidy and William Burroughs. Others playing smaller parts are Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jackie Maclean and writers Antonin Artaud, John Clellan Holmes, Michael McClure, Herbert Huncke and a few others.

As chief antagonist, we have Harry Anslinger, for 30 years the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Anslinger was a master propagandist, willing to manufacture evidence in order to convince the public and Congress that, well, we know the litany: gateway drug, leads to violent crimes, corrupts youth. All the "facts" about marijuana that have dominated public opinion until recently were shaped by Anslinger. And yes, in some quarters, they continue to dominate.

For most readers, the story of the interaction between Anslinger, Congress, the law and the perps will be new. Details of Lester and Billie's stories will make for interesting reading, while the stories of Armstrong, Mezzrow and Bird as told here may serve to fill in parts of stories we already knew.

A few other aspects of the book stand out. First of all, I'm used to thinking of the Beats-Kerouac, Ginsburg, et al, as planets in eccentric orbits, interacting intensively but haphazardly. Torgoff shows there was a discernible flow of ideas and influences that bound the group together and shaped white beat/bohemianism in mid-century America. He shows there were clear literary and cultural through-lines: Club Des Hashichins, Gautier, Hugo, Balzac, Spengler, Rimbaud, Blake and that smoking pot, although useful sexually, was part of a shared ethic of drug use as spiritual exploration.

The author describes interplay between the Beats and jazz musicians that gives a sense of their relationship; for example, Lester Young turning Kerouac on to pot. Influence between these two groups seemed to flow pretty much in one direction-from jazz to beats.  One infers that jazz culture was not particularly interested in "new literature," although eventually collaborations arose between poetry and jazz.

The difference between the white and black experiences of being "outsiders" is noted. Historically, as I said, the campaign against drugs was a campaign against outsiders and jazz musicians were some of the first and most overt outsiders. The jazz world was a backdrop for the intermingling of races and the cultural center of pushback against the Yankee and Puritan ethics. The beats, too, were easy to peg as cultural outsiders, but they didn't have the added layer of racism to contend with.

Torgoff engages the question of whether Kerouac's romanticizing of jazz was another example of white de-dimentionalizing of the black experience. He seems to take it as it comes-a marker of Kerouac's genuine affection and empathy for the black jazz world. I've always had my doubts, in fact saw a cartoon-ish quality to some of Kerouac's writing on jazz and this book didn't change my mind, but Torgoff's presentation gives the reader a fair view of competing perspectives.

Torgoff tries to come to terms with why such a large number of jazz musicians became heroin addicts in the 40's and 50's, Of course, there was Charlie Parker's out-sized influence and Torgoff explores this and some other ideas. Ultimately, though, his approach is to tell a number of individual stories of addiction; to personalize it rather than trying to over-theorize about it. Even though part of me wishes to find more closure on this vexing question, I think Torgoff's approach is viable and useful.

Are there things in Bop Apocalyse that I don't like? Yes. The long exploration of Burroughs' life is fairly interesting, but I see it as an extensive footnote or an Appendix, not something that should be in the body of the book. So too, the story of the junkie-prostitute Ruby, who had crossed paths with Billie and Bird at a shooting gallery. I don't think there's enough there to spend as much time on the story as Torgoff does and see it as another Appendix. Speaking of structural aspects-the Notes and Bibliography are extensive, but the lack of an Index for a book of this scope and size is disappointing.*

Don't get me wrong. I think Torgoff does many things right and those who've read about this subject in a scattershot way will find in this well-written book a coherent exegesis of several important 20th century cultural currents. There is a great deal to ponder in Bop Apocalypse and what I read here will usefully inform my thoughts about how we are now dealing, or not dealing, with drugs, literature and jazz.

*I was contacted by Mr. Torgoff, who tells me that the review copy which I read didn't have an index, but that the released book does."