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[Creole love call Playing]

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Narrator: In 1929,
the stock market crashed.

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The great depression that
followed was the worst crisis
in america since the civil war.

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Man:
Somebody had blundered,

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and the most expensive orgy
in history was over.

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Now, once more,
the belt is tight,

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and we summon the proper
expression of horror

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as we look back
on our wasted youth.

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Sometimes, though,
there is a ghostly
rumble among the drums,

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an asthmatic whisper
in the trombones that swings me
back into the early twenties,

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when we drank wood alcohol,

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and every day, in every way,
grew better and better,

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and there was an abortive
shortening of the skirts,

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and people you didn't
want to know said,

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"yes, we have no bananas."

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And it all seems rosy
and romantic to us
who were young then,

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because we will never feel
quite so intensely about
our surroundings anymore.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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narrator:
The jazz age was over.

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Bessie Smith:
♪♪ mister rich man, rich man ♪♪

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♪♪ open up your heart and mind ♪

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♪♪ mister rich man, rich man ♪♪

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♪♪ open up your heart and mind ♪

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♪♪ give the poor man a chance ♪♪

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♪♪ help stop these hard,
hard times ♪♪

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♪♪ while you're living
in your mansion ♪♪

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♪♪ you don't know what
hard time means ♪♪

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Narrator: As the 1930s began,

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one out of every
4 wage-earners--

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more than 15 million men
and women--was without work.

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In Mississippi,
on a single day in 1932,

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1/4 of the entire state
was auctioned off.

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Thousands of jobless men
wandered the landscape.

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Dust storms born in Texas
and the dakotas

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darkened skies all the way east
to Washington.

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Prices of wheat and corn
and cotton fell so low,

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the crops were left to rot
in the fields.

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In Boston, children with
cardboard soles in their shoes

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walked to school past silent
shoe factories with padlocks
on the doors.

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A jobless couple moved into
a cave in central park

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and stayed there for a year.

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They could find nowhere else
to live.

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The music business came close
to collapsing.

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In Chicago,

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shivering, jobless men
burned old phonograph
records to keep warm.

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Which had sold more than
100 million copies a year
in the mid-twenties,

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were soon selling
just 6 million.

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Most of them
went out of business.

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The Victor company stopped
making record players
altogether for a time,

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and sold radios
and radio programs instead.

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[Radio static]

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 [Stardust Playing]

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But that meant that millions of
people all over america

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would now be able to
hear music--all kinds of music,

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played by all kinds of people--

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for free.

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Louis Armstrong,
who had already revolutionized
American instrumental music,

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would return to New York
and transform American
singing, as well--

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and, in the process, win himself
a whole new audience.

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Duke Ellington
was flourishing, too,

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and his sophisticated music
and elegant personal style

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would help change
the perceptions--

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and expectations--
of an entire race.

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Meanwhile, a new big-band sound
called "swing"

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was incubating
in the dance halls of Harlem.

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But it would take an outsider,

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a Jewish immigrant's son
from Chicago,

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to bring it to the rest
of the nation...

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And jazz, which had always
thrived in adversity

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and come to symbolize a certain
kind of American freedom,

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would be called upon to lift
the spirits and raise the morale

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of a frightened country.

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And in the process, it would
begin to break down the barriers

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that had separated Americans
from each other for centuries.

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Man: When you talk about jazz
and freedom,

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see, everybody in the united
states was looking for that.

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The idea of finding a place
where you can be yourself,

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and where you feel comfortable
in whatever the community is,

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that you think that
your family is safe,

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that you think that your dreams
may have some possibility of
being realized...

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That's the American story,
regardless of what the
color of a person is.

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So all we get, really,
from the negro, is just
an intensification

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of the central ethos
of the society.

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How many stories have we seen
with no black people in it

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where the white boy's talking to

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the white girl, and she says,

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"well, Bob, what's wrong?"

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He says, "I just don't feel
right here, Clara.

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"I just don't feel right.
I can't be myself.

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"I have to go somewhere.
I have to get my own place.

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"I want to do things.
I want to get up in the morning.

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I want to be able to look out--
it's not here."

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And she says, "Bob, wherever you
want to go, I'll go with you."

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So there you have
the pioneer couple.

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When Bob and Clara hear
Louis Armstrong play Stardust,

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they hear him do with Stardust
What Bob wants to do

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when he wants to get out
and go someplace

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and find a place for himself
where he can be himself.

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[Echoes of harlem Playing]

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Narrator: Hard times hit
black america hardest,

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and the optimism
and entrepreneurial spirit

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that had been at the heart of
the Harlem renaissance collapsed
almost completely.

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But the people
of Harlem endured.

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In the cold winter of 1929,

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zalama Miller,
a widow from Barbados,

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and her two daughters,
Norma and dot,

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were forced to move
out of their apartment

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across the street from
the cotton club.

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As a small girl, Norma
had danced to the music
of Duke Ellington

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as it spilled out
through the door...

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The Charleston and black bottom,
the shimmy and the shim sham.

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But now, her mother couldn't
come up with the rent.

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 [Rock and rye Playing]

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Their new home was
a smaller, third-floor flat

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on 140th street,

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just behind Harlem's biggest
and most beautiful dance hall,

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the savoy ballroom.

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The savoy covered a whole
city block on lenox Avenue

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between 140th and 141st streets,

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employed two bands at once so
that the music need never stop,

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and was so popular with dancers

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that its maple-and-mahogany
floor had to be replaced

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every 3 years.

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Just 50 cents on weeknights,
75 cents on sundays,

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the savoy was called
"the home of happy feet,"

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and offered
depression-ravaged Harlem

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a respite from its troubles.

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Woman:
The windows was wide open,

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00:11:07,310 --> 00:11:09,380
and so the music can come out,

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blast right into
our living room.

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Every night, we heard
this marvelous music.

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00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:17,290
And in those days,
in the summer,

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the fire escape was where

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you sat to be cool.

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00:11:20,730 --> 00:11:21,830
There was no air conditioning,

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00:11:21,860 --> 00:11:22,730
nowhere.

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00:11:22,860 --> 00:11:24,490
So by sitting on a fire escape,

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and our fire escape
faced the back windows
of the savoy ballroom.

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00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:33,040
And you ever see shadows when
people dance past the windows?

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00:11:33,170 --> 00:11:37,370
You can see figures
dancing to that music.

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And my sister and I would
respond to what we saw in
the windows of the savoy,

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00:11:42,750 --> 00:11:47,780
and we would get into the
living room and dance to some
of the best bands in the world.

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Narrator: For years,
Norma listened to the music

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and dreamed of going inside.

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00:11:53,060 --> 00:11:59,360
In the spring of 1931,
she got her chance.

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Miller: Precisely,
it was easter Sunday...

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00:12:02,900 --> 00:12:04,500
12 years old...

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00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:06,140
And, you know, in those days,

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00:12:06,270 --> 00:12:09,370
you always had a little new
outfit to go out to church.

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00:12:09,510 --> 00:12:10,840
[What a shuffle Playing]

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00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:14,480
4:00, there's a matinee going to
be at the savoy ballroom,

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and after church I dash up to
lenox Avenue.

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And the people that went into
the savoy were sharp.

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And we used to just stand
outside to watch them,

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and that's what I was doing.

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We started dancing outside
the savoy ballroom,

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and I heard somebody say to me,
"hey, kid!"

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And I turned around,
and he say, "you, you."

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'Cause--and then I turned around
and I recognized immediately
who it was.

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It was the great
twistmouth George

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in a white hat,
white suit, white everything,

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asking me to come up to
the ballroom to dance with him.

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00:12:49,780 --> 00:12:51,080
And he said,
"would you come and dance?"

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00:12:51,320 --> 00:12:52,620
I say, "Would I?"

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He grabbed me,
we dashed up the stairs.

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00:12:56,690 --> 00:12:59,720
And I don't know whether I hit
each step,

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00:12:59,960 --> 00:13:03,890
'cause he had such long legs.

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00:13:04,030 --> 00:13:07,300
And I remember just flying up
those stairs with him,

169
00:13:07,430 --> 00:13:11,600
and you go through
these doors...

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00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:14,940
And I think it was the most
beautiful place I'd ever seen
in my life--

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00:13:15,070 --> 00:13:20,910
the reds and the Greens
and the blues.

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00:13:21,050 --> 00:13:24,580
And that was the first time I
ever saw a band on a bandstand.

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I mean, I'd been seeing
the shadows.

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And he--I'm so excited--

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he took me over there
in the corner and sat me down

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00:13:32,260 --> 00:13:34,020
and brought me a coke and said,

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00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:35,830
"you sit here,
and I'll come and get you."

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00:13:35,860 --> 00:13:41,130
And finally, it was his turn,
for twistmouth George to come.

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00:13:41,270 --> 00:13:43,730
And he came and got me,
and he said, "let's go."

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00:13:43,870 --> 00:13:49,170
When they hit that music...

181
00:13:49,410 --> 00:13:52,040
All I know is,
I did everything--

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00:13:52,180 --> 00:13:53,910
he just threw me out,

183
00:13:54,050 --> 00:14:00,420
and my feet never
touched the ground.

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00:14:00,550 --> 00:14:03,620
The people were screaming and he
put me on top of his shoulders,

185
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:05,460
walked me around the ballroom,

186
00:14:05,590 --> 00:14:08,190
and the people is clapping
and talking about twistmouth,

187
00:14:08,330 --> 00:14:10,590
and he took me right around
to the front, right outside,

188
00:14:10,730 --> 00:14:11,660
and put me back outside.

189
00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:13,160
[Laughs]

190
00:14:13,300 --> 00:14:16,300
Greatest moment in my life,
and I'm excited, excited,

191
00:14:16,430 --> 00:14:19,370
and I'm going to go home and
tell my mother and my sister,

192
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:30,110
and then I said,
"no, I better not say nothin'."

193
00:14:31,380 --> 00:14:32,480
 [Chinatown,
 My chinatown Playing]

194
00:14:32,620 --> 00:14:33,780
Man: So they're playing fast,

195
00:14:34,020 --> 00:14:37,190
it sounds like they're nervous,

196
00:14:37,420 --> 00:14:40,160
it sounds like they're having
a hard time coping with this
fast tempo,

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00:14:40,290 --> 00:14:43,230
the hectic nature
of the modern world.

198
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:45,000
It's change, and...

199
00:14:45,230 --> 00:14:47,460
They're after him.

200
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:49,170
The temporal nature of

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00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:50,700
the modern world,

202
00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:53,500
but he's ready, and now there's
going to be no time

203
00:14:53,640 --> 00:14:56,110
when he comes in suddenly,
just one note.

204
00:14:56,240 --> 00:15:02,010
 [Chinatown,
 My chinatown Playing]

205
00:15:02,050 --> 00:15:04,410
Free...

206
00:15:04,550 --> 00:15:07,850
Completely relaxed...

207
00:15:07,990 --> 00:15:10,490
Floating above this.

208
00:15:10,620 --> 00:15:13,290
♪♪ Da da da da da da... ♪♪

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00:15:13,330 --> 00:15:19,530
It sounds like an Aria.

210
00:15:19,660 --> 00:15:23,470
So this is a new way
to experience the modern world

211
00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:25,470
in all of its hectic movement.

212
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:29,870
It's like the platonic world has
entered for a moment into
the modern world.

213
00:15:29,910 --> 00:15:31,910
Just relaxation and freedom,

214
00:15:32,140 --> 00:15:34,340
and jazz has been dealing with
this concept

215
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:35,950
since Louis made this record.

216
00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:41,220
Now drummers and bass players
and everyone can get
into that groove.

217
00:15:41,350 --> 00:15:46,990
In those days, he was
the only guy to have this idea.

218
00:15:47,130 --> 00:15:51,860
Narrator: In 1929,
Louis Armstrong was playing
for mostly black audiences

219
00:15:52,100 --> 00:15:54,030
on the south side of Chicago.

220
00:15:54,170 --> 00:15:56,470
His hot five
and hot seven records,

221
00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:59,300
including his masterpiece
 West end blues,

222
00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:01,770
had sold well
in black neighborhoods,

223
00:16:01,910 --> 00:16:06,310
but he was still largely unknown
among whites.

224
00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:09,550
That was all about to change.

225
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:14,180
He had signed a contract with
a tough-talking booking agent
with mob connections

226
00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:16,390
named Tommy Rockwell,

227
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:18,720
who promised to make him
an even bigger star

228
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:25,530
by introducing him to white
audiences--if he came back to
New York as a solo performer.

229
00:16:25,660 --> 00:16:28,000
Armstrong was willing to go,

230
00:16:28,130 --> 00:16:32,840
but, against Rockwell's wishes,
he brought the members of his
own band with him.

231
00:16:32,970 --> 00:16:36,640
He just couldn't bear to
leave them behind, he said.

232
00:16:36,770 --> 00:16:39,540
They would travel by car,

233
00:16:39,780 --> 00:16:58,260
stopping for the night in
black communities along the way.

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00:16:58,300 --> 00:17:02,700
Man: So Louis and the band
got in this old hupmobile
that Louis had,

235
00:17:02,730 --> 00:17:04,670
and they headed east.

236
00:17:04,900 --> 00:17:08,670
And this, of course, was
the days before superhighways,

237
00:17:08,710 --> 00:17:11,240
and you had to go through
the middle of all these
little towns

238
00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:14,280
to go all the way from Chicago
to New York.

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00:17:14,510 --> 00:17:15,510
And every place they went,

240
00:17:15,650 --> 00:17:16,780
they'd get into this little town

241
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:18,210
and here would be

242
00:17:19,420 --> 00:17:21,620
of the front of some store
on a loudspeaker,

243
00:17:21,750 --> 00:17:23,190
from a record store or whatever.

244
00:17:23,320 --> 00:17:25,020
And these guys were just amazed.

245
00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:27,990
They had no idea how popular
Louis was,

246
00:17:28,130 --> 00:17:29,490
and neither had Louis himself.

247
00:17:29,530 --> 00:17:32,900
But it was at that point
that Louis, I think,

248
00:17:33,030 --> 00:17:34,800
began to have a sense--

249
00:17:34,830 --> 00:17:36,270
"hey, wait a minute.

250
00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:57,820
I can maybe make something more
out of this than I have."

251
00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:00,820
Narrator: At first, Rockwell
could only book Armstrong

252
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:05,230
into black venues in Harlem--
the Lafayette, the audubon,

253
00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:07,730
as well as the savoy.

254
00:18:07,870 --> 00:18:11,500
Eventually, he landed him
a lengthy engagement

255
00:18:11,740 --> 00:18:16,670
at a club called Connie's inn
on seventh Avenue and west
131st street,

256
00:18:16,910 --> 00:18:19,540
where Armstrong's
most devoted admirer

257
00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:21,680
was the club's part-owner,

258
00:18:21,810 --> 00:18:25,010
the murderous king of
the New York numbers racket--

259
00:18:25,050 --> 00:18:27,480
Dutch Schultz.

260
00:18:27,620 --> 00:18:34,360
[Ain't misbehavin' Playing]

261
00:18:34,490 --> 00:18:35,720
A few weeks later,

262
00:18:35,860 --> 00:18:38,130
Armstrong got the break
he'd been waiting for--

263
00:18:38,260 --> 00:18:43,900
playing for white audiences
downtown...On Broadway.

264
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:47,900
The show was an all-black revue
called Hot chocolates.

265
00:18:48,140 --> 00:18:50,440
the songs were written
by Andy razaf

266
00:18:50,580 --> 00:18:58,920
and a Harlem stride piano master
named fats waller.

267
00:18:58,950 --> 00:19:01,520
Armstrong's rendition of
the show's biggest hit,

268
00:19:01,650 --> 00:19:04,990
 ain't misbehavin',
Was so spectacular

269
00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:07,590
that it brought down the house
every night,

270
00:19:07,630 --> 00:19:10,930
and audiences began demanding
that he leave the orchestra pit

271
00:19:11,060 --> 00:19:19,070
and perform it from the stage.

272
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:22,910
Man: "No shabby pretense
about this boy.

273
00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:31,110
"He knows what his audience
will take to their hearts,
and he gives it to them.

274
00:19:31,250 --> 00:19:34,350
"His trumpet virtuosity
is endless,

275
00:19:34,490 --> 00:19:37,920
"all executed with impeccable
style and finish--

276
00:19:38,060 --> 00:19:46,130
"exploits that make his
contemporaries sound like so
many salvation army cornetists.

277
00:19:46,360 --> 00:19:51,570
"It's mad, it's meaningless,
it's hokum of the first order,

278
00:19:51,700 --> 00:19:54,600
but the effect is electrifying."

279
00:19:54,740 --> 00:20:01,480
New york Sun

280
00:20:01,610 --> 00:20:03,310
Armstrong:
♪♪ no one to talk with ♪♪

281
00:20:05,350 --> 00:20:08,980
Narrator: It was not Armstrong's
trumpet playing alone that won
him cheers.

282
00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:12,160
He was singing now, as well.

283
00:20:12,390 --> 00:20:15,890
Armstrong: ♪♪ I said I love you,
really said I love you ♪♪

284
00:20:16,030 --> 00:20:17,760
♪♪ I know for certain ♪♪

285
00:20:17,900 --> 00:20:19,300
♪♪ the one I love ♪♪

286
00:20:19,430 --> 00:20:21,230
♪♪ I'm through with flirtin' ♪♪

287
00:20:21,370 --> 00:20:23,300
♪♪ you that I'm thinkin' of ♪♪

288
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:24,770
♪♪ ain't misbehavin' ♪♪

289
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:26,770
♪♪ I'm savin' my love ♪♪

290
00:20:26,910 --> 00:20:29,770
♪♪ oh, baby, my love for you ♪♪

291
00:20:29,910 --> 00:20:34,340
Narrator: He proved to be a born
showman, delighting in applause,

292
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:38,110
who believed it his duty to do
almost anything to win it.

293
00:20:38,350 --> 00:20:39,850
Armstrong:
♪♪ all your kisses ♪♪

294
00:20:40,090 --> 00:20:42,750
♪♪ worth waiting for me ♪♪

295
00:20:42,890 --> 00:20:44,790
Narrator: "The minute I walk
on the bandstand," he said,

296
00:20:44,820 --> 00:20:47,490
"they know they're going to see
something good.

297
00:20:47,630 --> 00:20:50,630
I see to that."

298
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:52,660
Satch was an entertainer.

299
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,830
He would come out and say,

300
00:20:54,970 --> 00:20:56,300
"good evening, everybody!"

301
00:20:56,540 --> 00:20:57,700
And you'd say, "yeah!"

302
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:03,840
Right away, he had you feeling
very, very happy and receptive
to what he was going to do.

303
00:21:03,980 --> 00:21:13,320
That's show business.

304
00:21:13,350 --> 00:21:15,490
Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.

305
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:17,950
I'm Mr. Armstrong,

306
00:21:18,090 --> 00:21:25,530
and we're gonna swing one of
the good old good ones for you.

307
00:21:25,660 --> 00:21:26,530
Yes, sir.

308
00:21:26,660 --> 00:21:28,160
 Dinah. Dinah.

309
00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:30,030
are you ready?

310
00:21:30,170 --> 00:21:31,630
1, 2, 3--

311
00:21:31,770 --> 00:21:38,140
[playing Dinah]

312
00:21:38,180 --> 00:21:58,290
[singing scat]

313
00:21:58,430 --> 00:22:00,100
♪♪ Oh, dinah ♪♪

314
00:22:00,330 --> 00:22:01,870
♪♪ is there anyone finer ♪♪

315
00:22:02,100 --> 00:22:03,470
♪♪ in the state of Carolina? ♪♪

316
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,340
♪♪ if there is and you know ♪♪

317
00:22:05,570 --> 00:22:07,500
♪♪ show her to me ♪♪

318
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:09,140
♪♪ with her Dixie eyes blazin' ♪

319
00:22:09,270 --> 00:22:10,740
♪♪ how I love to sit
and gaze in ♪♪

320
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:12,640
♪♪ to the eyes of dinah Lee ♪♪

321
00:22:12,780 --> 00:22:15,640
♪♪ baby, every night
while I shake with fright ♪♪

322
00:22:15,780 --> 00:22:18,650
♪♪ 'cause my dinah might
change her mind ♪♪

323
00:22:18,780 --> 00:22:20,320
[Sings scat]

324
00:22:20,450 --> 00:22:23,050
♪♪ If you ever wandered
to China, babe ♪♪

325
00:22:23,190 --> 00:22:25,120
♪♪ I would hop an ocean liner,
oh, babe ♪♪

326
00:22:25,260 --> 00:22:28,220
♪♪ oh, dinah ♪♪

327
00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:29,890
♪♪ dinah ♪♪

328
00:22:30,030 --> 00:22:33,660
♪♪ oh, dinah, oh, babe,
dinah Lee ♪♪

329
00:22:33,700 --> 00:22:35,560
♪♪ dinah, dinah, dinah ♪♪

330
00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:48,240
[Singing scat]

331
00:22:48,380 --> 00:22:50,350
♪♪ If you ever wandered
to China, babe ♪♪

332
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:59,890
♪♪ I'd hop an ocean liner, yeah♪

333
00:23:00,020 --> 00:23:02,260
Narrator:
In all the history of music,

334
00:23:02,390 --> 00:23:06,600
no one had ever sung
like that before.

335
00:23:06,630 --> 00:23:08,460
See, because before him,
people sang like:

336
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,530
♪♪ I love you and you love me ♪♪

337
00:23:11,670 --> 00:23:14,370
♪♪ and I'm going to be
with you, baby ♪♪

338
00:23:14,410 --> 00:23:16,670
You know, that's the way people
sang then, you know,

339
00:23:16,810 --> 00:23:17,970
and when that--then after
Louis Armstrong,

340
00:23:18,110 --> 00:23:20,440
when he would, you know,
when he would play,

341
00:23:20,580 --> 00:23:22,480
when he could just say, like,

342
00:23:22,710 --> 00:23:25,720
♪♪ boo bay doo day
doo de doo Dee dah... ♪♪

343
00:23:27,390 --> 00:23:31,750
♪♪ boo be doo Dee, boo bee boo
wee Dee bop boo bee bah... ♪♪

344
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,760
Hey, you're not going to sing,
♪♪ I want you and you want me ♪♪
after you hear that.

345
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:39,860
You know, that's the bad choice.

346
00:23:40,100 --> 00:23:42,200
I mean, anybody going
to go back to that,

347
00:23:42,230 --> 00:23:45,600
they need to be deported,
to Somewhere.

348
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,340
not on the earth--
maybe pluto.

349
00:23:48,470 --> 00:23:50,840
He invented American singing.

350
00:23:50,980 --> 00:23:52,910
I mean, all of the singers

351
00:23:53,140 --> 00:23:55,940
from frank Sinatra, bing Crosby,

352
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:57,650
Mildred Bailey, Jon Hendricks--

353
00:23:58,980 --> 00:24:02,150
Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday,
they all would say, "pops."

354
00:24:02,190 --> 00:24:03,890
 [Lazy river Playing]

355
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:08,060
Narrator: Armstrong now began
recording tin pan alley tunes--

356
00:24:08,190 --> 00:24:09,990
I'm confessin' that I love you,

357
00:24:10,130 --> 00:24:12,160
 stardust,

358
00:24:12,300 --> 00:24:14,830
 I can't give you
 Anything but love,

359
00:24:14,970 --> 00:24:18,570
and Up a lazy river.

360
00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:29,580
he made each song his own.

361
00:24:29,710 --> 00:24:32,450
Glaser: So the saxophones
come in playing the melody,

362
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,180
really corny.

363
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:36,250
And he's, like, coddling them,
condescending,

364
00:24:37,190 --> 00:24:38,620
 [lazy river Playing]

365
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:43,530
Armstrong: Uh-huh.

366
00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:44,930
"Sure."

367
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,200
Like you would say to an insane
person or something.

368
00:24:47,330 --> 00:24:50,700
They're playing the melody in
a very stiff, old-fashioned
kind of way.

369
00:24:50,740 --> 00:24:53,900
And then Louis comes in to show
them a new way to play a melody.

370
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:55,910
Armstrong:
♪♪ up a lazy river ♪♪

371
00:24:55,940 --> 00:24:58,210
♪♪ where the old mill runs ♪♪

372
00:24:58,340 --> 00:25:02,480
Articulated,
completely free rhythmically,

373
00:25:02,610 --> 00:25:08,820
boiled down to one note...
Abstracted.

374
00:25:08,950 --> 00:25:11,470
Armstrong:
♪♪ throw away your trouble,
dream a dream of me ♪♪

375
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:14,820
Glaser: Free, no time.

376
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:16,930
Armstrong: ♪♪ up a lazy river,
where the Robins hum ♪♪

377
00:25:18,430 --> 00:25:23,630
He's boiled down this complex
melody to its essential impulse.

378
00:25:23,670 --> 00:25:25,700
Armstrong:
♪♪ blue skies up above ♪♪

379
00:25:25,940 --> 00:25:28,040
♪♪ everyone in love ♪♪

380
00:25:28,070 --> 00:25:30,810
Glaser:
Everything's boiled down.

381
00:25:30,940 --> 00:25:33,180
Armstrong:
♪♪ how happy we will be ♪♪

382
00:25:33,210 --> 00:25:36,980
Glaser: Then he decides
to go improvise...

383
00:25:37,220 --> 00:25:43,250
[Armstrong singing scat]

384
00:25:43,390 --> 00:25:48,460
A phrase that would be
appropriated by the beboppers.

385
00:25:48,590 --> 00:25:53,960
[Armstrong singing scat]

386
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,830
You can tell he's swinging,
you know,

387
00:25:56,970 --> 00:25:58,570
like he would say.

388
00:25:58,700 --> 00:26:00,970
Armstrong: Boy, am I
riffing this evening, I hope.

389
00:26:01,010 --> 00:26:05,640
"Boy, am I riffing this evening,
I hope."

390
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:07,710
Man: I think Louis Armstrong is

391
00:26:07,850 --> 00:26:10,880
the single most
influential singer

392
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:15,050
American music
has ever produced.

393
00:26:15,190 --> 00:26:17,120
And he had an ability,

394
00:26:17,250 --> 00:26:20,920
which was quite spectacular,

395
00:26:21,060 --> 00:26:25,090
of improvising the vocal
almost as freely as if he
were playing an instrument,

396
00:26:25,230 --> 00:26:26,330
and more than that--

397
00:26:26,460 --> 00:26:29,500
he had a way of singing
the melody phrase

398
00:26:29,630 --> 00:26:32,970
and then singing his own
obligato to it.

399
00:26:33,100 --> 00:26:34,700
So he might go something like,
you know,

400
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,170
and then he's go, ♪♪ open ♪♪

401
00:26:37,310 --> 00:26:39,910
You know, and it might be just
kind of a guttural thing,

402
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:41,410
like "hmmg" or something
like that.

403
00:26:41,550 --> 00:26:44,850
But you could almost transpose
that to a saxophone obligato

404
00:26:44,980 --> 00:26:46,050
or to another instrument.

405
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,520
And so, when you hear
his great vocals,

406
00:26:48,650 --> 00:26:53,990
it almost sounds like there are
two or 3 people producing all of
these phrases.

407
00:26:54,120 --> 00:26:56,390
And he had so much energy,

408
00:26:56,530 --> 00:26:58,790
and he took so much Liberty
with the song.

409
00:26:58,930 --> 00:27:00,460
Even great songs--
 Stardust--

410
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,670
I mean, he virtually recomposes
Stardust And Body and soul--

411
00:27:04,900 --> 00:27:07,800
that I don't think
any singer in that period

412
00:27:07,940 --> 00:27:09,870
could have listened to him
and not been influenced.

413
00:27:11,310 --> 00:27:13,880
Even the singers who had been
around long before him.

414
00:27:13,910 --> 00:27:18,810
Narrator: The musicians with
whom he surrounded himself
mattered less now.

415
00:27:18,950 --> 00:27:24,390
Louis Armstrong was the star.

416
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:29,260
Man:
Louis Armstrong was great.

417
00:27:29,390 --> 00:27:30,490
What we would do is,

418
00:27:30,630 --> 00:27:32,190
you'd stick your head out

419
00:27:32,330 --> 00:27:33,460
and go out in the rain

420
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:34,660
so you could get hoarse

421
00:27:34,700 --> 00:27:36,170
so you could sound like
Louis Armstrong.

422
00:27:36,300 --> 00:27:37,070
[Hoarsely]
Yeah!

423
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,200
 [Black and blue Playing]

424
00:27:39,340 --> 00:27:43,810
Narrator: In Harlem,
young men took to carrying
big white handkerchiefs

425
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,210
because he flourished them
on-stage to mop his brow.

426
00:27:47,250 --> 00:27:52,650
Fans and fellow musicians alike
began to copy his distinctive
vocabulary.

427
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:57,620
He was the first to refer to
a musician's skills as
his "chops,"

428
00:27:57,660 --> 00:28:00,220
the first to call people "cats."

429
00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:02,760
When he couldn't remember
someone's name,

430
00:28:02,890 --> 00:28:06,330
he'd call them "gate" or "pops."

431
00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:10,630
"Pops" would become the fond
nickname his friends around
the world called him

432
00:28:10,770 --> 00:28:14,700
until the day he died.

433
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,610
Among the Broadway tunes
he recorded that year

434
00:28:17,740 --> 00:28:20,110
was fats waller's
 Black and blue,

435
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,710
originally written
for Hot chocolates

436
00:28:22,850 --> 00:28:25,110
as a complaint by
a dark-skinned woman

437
00:28:25,250 --> 00:28:28,650
about her man's preference
for lighter-skinned rivals.

438
00:28:28,790 --> 00:28:33,460
Armstrong transformed it,
without a hint of self-pity,

439
00:28:33,590 --> 00:28:44,500
into a song about being black
in a world run by whites.

440
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,100
Armstrong:
♪♪ cold, empty bed ♪♪

441
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,070
♪♪ Springs hard as lead ♪♪

442
00:28:50,310 --> 00:28:52,280
♪♪ feels like old ned ♪♪

443
00:28:52,410 --> 00:28:54,010
♪♪ wish I was dead ♪♪

444
00:28:54,150 --> 00:28:56,950
♪♪ all my life through ♪♪

445
00:28:57,180 --> 00:29:02,720
♪♪ I been so black and blue ♪♪

446
00:29:02,850 --> 00:29:06,220
♪♪ mmm, even the mouse ♪♪

447
00:29:06,260 --> 00:29:08,920
♪♪ ran from my house ♪♪

448
00:29:09,060 --> 00:29:11,190
♪♪ they laugh at you ♪♪

449
00:29:11,330 --> 00:29:13,660
♪♪ and scorn you, too ♪♪

450
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,030
♪♪ what did I do ♪♪

451
00:29:16,270 --> 00:29:21,140
♪♪ to be so black and blue? ♪♪

452
00:29:21,270 --> 00:29:27,910
♪♪ oh, I'm white inside ♪♪

453
00:29:27,950 --> 00:29:33,120
♪♪ but that don't help my case ♪

454
00:29:33,150 --> 00:29:37,920
♪♪ 'cause I can't hide ♪♪

455
00:29:38,060 --> 00:29:40,860
♪♪ what is in my face ♪♪

456
00:29:40,990 --> 00:29:46,100
[Singing scat]

457
00:29:46,130 --> 00:29:49,330
♪♪ How will it end? ♪♪

458
00:29:49,470 --> 00:29:52,070
♪♪ ain't got a friend ♪♪

459
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,770
♪♪ my only sin ♪♪

460
00:29:54,910 --> 00:29:56,710
♪♪ is in my skin ♪♪

461
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,640
♪♪ what did I do ♪♪

462
00:29:59,780 --> 00:30:05,310
♪♪ to be so black and blue? ♪♪

463
00:30:05,450 --> 00:30:06,350
In those days,

464
00:30:06,580 --> 00:30:07,820
if one black man

465
00:30:07,850 --> 00:30:10,920
called another man "black,"

466
00:30:11,050 --> 00:30:12,720
you know, that was
fighting words, you know?

467
00:30:12,860 --> 00:30:18,230
But Louis, he was the first man
I heard to say, "you're black,
be proud of it.

468
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,800
"You're black--you're not white,
you're not yellow, you're black.

469
00:30:20,930 --> 00:30:23,570
Be proud of it."

470
00:30:23,700 --> 00:30:35,540
He was saying that when it was
so very unpopular, you know?

471
00:30:35,580 --> 00:30:39,080
Narrator: On the evening of
October 12, 1931,

472
00:30:39,220 --> 00:30:46,520
Louis Armstrong opened
a 3-day run at the hotel
driskill in Austin, Texas.

473
00:30:46,660 --> 00:30:50,090
Among those who paid 75 cents to
get in that night

474
00:30:50,230 --> 00:30:54,600
was a freshman at the university
of Texas named Charlie black.

475
00:30:54,730 --> 00:30:56,970
He knew nothing of jazz,

476
00:30:57,100 --> 00:31:00,100
had never even heard
of Armstrong.

477
00:31:00,340 --> 00:31:04,140
He just knew there were
likely to be lots of girls
to dance with.

478
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,240
Then Armstrong began to play.

479
00:31:08,380 --> 00:31:12,880
 [Stardust Playing]

480
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,690
Man: He played mostly
with his eyes closed,

481
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,460
letting flow from that
inner space of music

482
00:31:19,590 --> 00:31:24,430
things that had never
before existed.

483
00:31:24,660 --> 00:31:29,460
He was the first genius
I had ever seen.

484
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,970
It is impossible to overstate
the significance

485
00:31:32,100 --> 00:31:36,300
of a 16-year-old southern boy
seeing genius for the first time

486
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,740
in a black person.

487
00:31:39,780 --> 00:31:42,080
We literally never
saw a black, then,

488
00:31:42,210 --> 00:31:47,520
in any but a servant's capacity.

489
00:31:47,550 --> 00:31:50,820
Louis opened my eyes wide
and put to me a choice.

490
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:55,390
Blacks, the saying went, were
"all right in their place."

491
00:31:55,430 --> 00:31:58,130
But what was the place
of such a man,

492
00:31:58,260 --> 00:32:01,400
and of the people
from which he sprung?

493
00:32:01,530 --> 00:32:05,130
Charlie black

494
00:32:05,270 --> 00:32:06,740
narrator:
Charlie black went on

495
00:32:06,870 --> 00:32:09,370
to become professor
Charles l. Black,

496
00:32:09,510 --> 00:32:16,180
a distinguished teacher of
constitutional law at Yale.

497
00:32:16,210 --> 00:32:20,250
In 1954, he helped provide
the answer to the question

498
00:32:20,380 --> 00:32:23,420
Louis Armstrong's music
had first posed for him.

499
00:32:23,650 --> 00:32:26,820
He volunteered for the team
of lawyers, black and white,

500
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,060
who finally persuaded
the supreme court,

501
00:32:29,190 --> 00:32:33,360
in the case of
Brown vs. Board of education,

502
00:32:33,500 --> 00:32:35,430
that segregating
schoolchildren

503
00:32:35,570 --> 00:32:37,870
on the basis
of race and color

504
00:32:37,900 --> 00:32:43,100
was unconstitutional.

505
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:45,340
[Crickets chirping]

506
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,440
Man: You will find my subject
in the first chapter of John.

507
00:32:49,580 --> 00:32:52,310
man:"Marvel not,"
I say unto thee.

508
00:32:52,450 --> 00:32:55,050
♪♪ Ye must be born again ♪♪

509
00:32:55,290 --> 00:32:57,690
♪♪ there was a man
of the pharisees ♪♪

510
00:32:57,920 --> 00:32:59,220
♪♪ named nicodemus ♪♪

511
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,790
♪♪ came to Christ by night ♪♪

512
00:33:01,930 --> 00:33:04,330
Second man: I was born
in Jacksonville, Florida,

513
00:33:04,460 --> 00:33:06,730
and we used to live
across the river

514
00:33:06,860 --> 00:33:09,230
from one of these
baptist churches.

515
00:33:09,370 --> 00:33:12,900
Man: ♪♪ how can a man
be born... ♪♪

516
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,770
We used to sit on our porch,
like on sundays,

517
00:33:15,910 --> 00:33:18,810
and we'd hear the preacher
across the river preaching,

518
00:33:18,940 --> 00:33:20,740
and we could hear
the sisters and the brothers

519
00:33:20,780 --> 00:33:22,410
shouting and carrying on.

520
00:33:22,550 --> 00:33:25,250
And we, as kids, we would
get out in the yard--

521
00:33:25,380 --> 00:33:28,920
in the front yard--and pretend
that we were in church

522
00:33:29,150 --> 00:33:31,920
and doing that same
shouting and going on.

523
00:33:32,060 --> 00:33:35,360
And I think
that kind of rhythm

524
00:33:35,490 --> 00:33:37,590
kind of stuck
with me from then on.

525
00:33:37,830 --> 00:33:41,760
Man: ♪♪ he must
be born again ♪♪

526
00:33:41,900 --> 00:33:44,030
Narrator: In 1917,

527
00:33:44,170 --> 00:33:46,530
a single mother
named Lucille Manning,

528
00:33:46,670 --> 00:33:48,900
hoping to make
a better life,

529
00:33:49,140 --> 00:33:51,710
left her young son Frankie
in Jacksonville, Florida,

530
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:56,510
and moved to Harlem
in search of work.

531
00:33:56,650 --> 00:33:58,910
As soon as Lucille got a job--

532
00:33:58,950 --> 00:34:01,580
working in a laundry
on the east side--

533
00:34:01,620 --> 00:34:03,420
she sent for her son.

534
00:34:03,550 --> 00:34:11,960
[Orchestra playing
 Stompin' at the savoy]

535
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:13,560
narrator:
Like Norma Miller,

536
00:34:13,700 --> 00:34:17,130
Frankie Manning grew up longing
to get into the savoy ballroom

537
00:34:17,170 --> 00:34:19,030
and join
in a new dance craze

538
00:34:19,170 --> 00:34:23,010
that was just
taking hold in Harlem.

539
00:34:23,140 --> 00:34:25,840
Named after the greatest
hero of the day--

540
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,180
the aviator
Charles Lindbergh--

541
00:34:28,310 --> 00:34:35,650
it was called
the "Lindy hop."

542
00:34:35,790 --> 00:34:40,590
Manning: Now, Lindy hop itself
is done to swing music,

543
00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:44,430
and if you know
what a swing is,

544
00:34:44,660 --> 00:34:48,300
it's very smooth
and it flows.

545
00:34:48,430 --> 00:34:50,700
Before that, you were
doing, like, the Charleston.

546
00:34:50,830 --> 00:34:52,530
You know, that--
♪♪ dong dong dong dong ♪♪

547
00:34:52,670 --> 00:34:55,040
And, you know, music was
being played that way,

548
00:34:55,170 --> 00:34:57,440
so, when they started playing
swing music, it was like...

549
00:34:57,670 --> 00:35:00,210
♪♪ Yum bum, yum bum ♪♪

550
00:35:00,340 --> 00:35:02,040
You know?
So it just swung.

551
00:35:02,180 --> 00:35:04,010
So you just started to--

552
00:35:04,150 --> 00:35:08,420
the dance just started
to evolve with that swing music.

553
00:35:08,450 --> 00:35:22,900
So there you have
the Lindy hop.

554
00:35:23,030 --> 00:35:24,570
Narrator: At the savoy,

555
00:35:24,700 --> 00:35:26,870
the music never stopped.

556
00:35:27,100 --> 00:35:29,140
As one band
wound up a set,

557
00:35:29,170 --> 00:35:31,970
the second band took up
the same tune.

558
00:35:32,110 --> 00:35:36,310
The dancers never needed
to leave the floor.

559
00:35:36,550 --> 00:35:39,950
The larger of the savoy's
two bandstands

560
00:35:40,180 --> 00:35:42,750
was the home of
the drummer chick webb,

561
00:35:42,890 --> 00:35:45,750
and it took a brave bandleader
to dare lay claim

562
00:35:45,890 --> 00:35:49,390
to the other one
when he was in residence.

563
00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:51,660
Webb was small--

564
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,930
just over 4 feet tall--
and frail.

565
00:35:55,070 --> 00:35:59,840
He suffered from
tuberculosis of the spine.

566
00:36:00,070 --> 00:36:02,800
But once "the little giant,"
as he was called,

567
00:36:02,940 --> 00:36:04,770
was seated
behind his drums,

568
00:36:04,910 --> 00:36:06,880
urging his men through
a driving arrangement

569
00:36:07,110 --> 00:36:08,910
like Stomping at the savoy,

570
00:36:09,050 --> 00:36:12,780
few could match
his competitive fury.

571
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,880
Anybody who was
anybody in Harlem

572
00:36:16,020 --> 00:36:18,120
wanted to go
to the savoy--

573
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,390
to hear chick webb,

574
00:36:20,420 --> 00:36:22,890
to try to forget
the depression,

575
00:36:23,030 --> 00:36:26,730
to dance to
the brand-new sound.

576
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:29,900
Manning: And our
one ambition was

577
00:36:29,930 --> 00:36:32,870
to go to the savoy
ballroom.

578
00:36:33,100 --> 00:36:35,840
And I remember
it was 6 of us,

579
00:36:35,970 --> 00:36:37,670
and we're walking up
these steps,

580
00:36:37,710 --> 00:36:39,570
and as we were
climbing up the steps,

581
00:36:39,710 --> 00:36:45,580
I could hear this music
coming down the stairway.

582
00:36:45,620 --> 00:36:48,750
We were walking up there,
and we started, "oh, man!

583
00:36:48,890 --> 00:36:50,920
You hear that music? Wow!"

584
00:36:51,050 --> 00:36:53,020
And we walked
through the door.

585
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:54,590
We opened the door,
and we turned around.

586
00:36:54,830 --> 00:36:56,590
As you come up the steps,

587
00:36:56,730 --> 00:36:57,760
when you come through
the doors,

588
00:36:57,890 --> 00:37:00,400
your back is
to the bandstand,

589
00:37:00,530 --> 00:37:03,200
so you turn around
the stairwell,

590
00:37:03,430 --> 00:37:06,600
and then you face
the band.

591
00:37:06,740 --> 00:37:08,840
And as I turn around
and face this,

592
00:37:08,970 --> 00:37:11,710
the floor was full
with people!

593
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:23,120
And it looked like everyone
on the floor was doing
the Lindy hop.

594
00:37:23,350 --> 00:37:25,550
Manning: Everybody was just
bouncing up and down,

595
00:37:25,690 --> 00:37:27,560
and the music was
romping and stomping

596
00:37:27,790 --> 00:37:29,220
and we start, "man!"

597
00:37:29,460 --> 00:37:30,960
We started looking
at each other.

598
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,460
"Hey, man!
You hear this music?

599
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:41,100
Look at all these people
in this place dance
with each other!"

600
00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:43,100
And the floor was--oh!

601
00:37:43,340 --> 00:37:45,570
Looked like
the floor was getting
into the mood of the dance,

602
00:37:45,710 --> 00:37:47,840
because the floor was just
bouncing up and down, you know?

603
00:37:47,980 --> 00:37:49,540
And the people were
bouncing up and down,

604
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:54,280
and chick webb was on
the bandstand, wailing.

605
00:37:54,420 --> 00:37:57,620
Boy, it was just such
a wonderful time in our life

606
00:37:57,750 --> 00:38:00,020
to come up there,
you know, as youngsters,

607
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,360
and be exposed
to this kind of music.

608
00:38:03,490 --> 00:38:10,270
Oh, wow!

609
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,870
[Radio static squealing]

610
00:38:12,900 --> 00:38:15,770
[Jazz playing]

611
00:38:16,010 --> 00:38:17,870
Announcer: We are
broadcasting this evening

612
00:38:18,010 --> 00:38:20,110
from the cotton club,
where Duke Ellington

613
00:38:20,340 --> 00:38:24,450
and his orchestra are
playing for the dancers.

614
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:44,570
 [Ring dem bells Playing]

615
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,140
Man: Duke Ellington
was elegance.

616
00:38:49,370 --> 00:38:51,570
Duke Ellington was
the capacity

617
00:38:51,710 --> 00:38:52,910
to be in the middle of it

618
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:57,310
and above it
at the same time.

619
00:38:57,450 --> 00:39:01,020
He taught us
the true meaning of style,

620
00:39:01,050 --> 00:39:03,090
the true meaning of grace,

621
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,920
the true meaning of floating.

622
00:39:06,060 --> 00:39:07,690
Here we were, you know,

623
00:39:07,820 --> 00:39:12,190
people described often
as clumsy, stupid,

624
00:39:12,330 --> 00:39:16,700
shuffling,
and, uh, whatever.

625
00:39:16,830 --> 00:39:19,970
Ellington walked on stage...

626
00:39:20,100 --> 00:39:40,920
And all of those myths
were dissipated.

627
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:59,470
[Playing Rockin' in rhythm]

628
00:39:59,710 --> 00:40:04,250
man: And then Ellington
and the great orchestra
came to town...

629
00:40:04,380 --> 00:40:07,750
Came with their uniforms,
their sophistication,

630
00:40:07,790 --> 00:40:10,350
their skills,
their golden horns,

631
00:40:10,390 --> 00:40:13,860
their flights of controlled
and disciplined fantasy...

632
00:40:13,890 --> 00:40:16,590
Came with their art,

633
00:40:16,730 --> 00:40:19,390
their special sound.

634
00:40:19,630 --> 00:40:24,500
They were news from
the great, wide world--

635
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:28,040
an example and a goal.

636
00:40:28,270 --> 00:40:43,320
Ralph Ellison

637
00:40:43,350 --> 00:40:45,220
narrator: As the depression
settled in,

638
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,390
and more and more people found
themselves without work

639
00:40:48,530 --> 00:40:50,630
or even the prospect
of work,

640
00:40:50,860 --> 00:40:55,500
Duke Ellington, like
Louis Armstrong, prospered.

641
00:40:55,530 --> 00:40:59,500
He had become the best-known
black bandleader in america,

642
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,310
famous for the exotic-sounding
"jungle music" he broadcast

643
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:10,310
over a nationwide radio hook-up
from the cotton club.

644
00:41:10,450 --> 00:41:13,250
But Ellington's manager,
Irving mills,

645
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,580
thought he could
be even bigger,

646
00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:20,790
and in 1930 arranged for him
and the band to go to Hollywood

647
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:26,230
and appear in a comedy called
 Check and double check.

648
00:41:26,460 --> 00:41:46,010
[playing jazz tune]

649
00:41:46,150 --> 00:41:47,020
Well, listen, Amos.

650
00:41:47,250 --> 00:41:49,620
We got to get
this thing fixed

651
00:41:49,850 --> 00:41:51,890
and get back
to the lodge meetin'.

652
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:53,550
Well, I can tell you
right now, Andy,

653
00:41:53,690 --> 00:41:55,920
I can't fix
the thing by myself.

654
00:41:56,060 --> 00:41:59,030
Narrator: The heroes of
the film were Amos and Andy--

655
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:02,300
the most popular radio
performers in the country--

656
00:42:02,330 --> 00:42:05,430
white comedians
who played in blackface,

657
00:42:05,570 --> 00:42:08,070
their humor steeped
in racial stereotypes

658
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:12,070
that harked back to the early
days of the minstrel show.

659
00:42:12,210 --> 00:42:16,310
In a bizarre turn,
the studio--

660
00:42:16,450 --> 00:42:17,980
concerned that
white audiences would think

661
00:42:18,020 --> 00:42:19,980
Ellington's band was
integrated,

662
00:42:20,220 --> 00:42:23,180
insisted that Juan tizol
and Barney bigard,

663
00:42:23,220 --> 00:42:25,250
its two lightest-skinned
members,

664
00:42:25,490 --> 00:42:35,200
black up as dark
as Amos and Andy.

665
00:42:35,330 --> 00:42:38,100
If Hollywood's racial code
offended Ellington,

666
00:42:38,240 --> 00:42:40,570
he never let it show.

667
00:42:40,700 --> 00:42:43,270
He saw
 Check and double check

668
00:42:43,410 --> 00:42:45,770
as the chance
of a lifetime,

669
00:42:45,910 --> 00:42:47,440
and he was right.

670
00:42:47,580 --> 00:42:51,280
No other black band had ever
been given such a showcase,

671
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:59,890
and Ellington's fame
continued to spread.

672
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:01,190
[Car horn honks]

673
00:43:01,330 --> 00:43:18,470
[Band playing
 Sophisticated lady]

674
00:43:18,610 --> 00:43:20,980
man: One's earliest
perception

675
00:43:21,110 --> 00:43:24,580
of Duke Ellington
was that

676
00:43:24,820 --> 00:43:31,420
he was a transcendent
figure in the music...

677
00:43:31,550 --> 00:43:34,420
Because the earliest
things that you heard

678
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:40,960
had so much of all of the music
that you knew about in it.

679
00:43:41,100 --> 00:43:42,600
Everybody identified with that.

680
00:43:42,730 --> 00:43:45,700
It was as if we knew exactly
where he got that from--

681
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:48,940
some corner in Washington,
just as we knew it

682
00:43:49,170 --> 00:43:51,710
from some corner
in mobile and all.

683
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,380
And it was like...
People would say,

684
00:43:54,510 --> 00:43:55,640
for the want
of a better term,

685
00:43:55,780 --> 00:43:57,280
it was like
classical music.

686
00:43:57,410 --> 00:44:00,650
It's like taking blues
and making classical
music out of it.

687
00:44:00,780 --> 00:44:02,280
He could listen to a style

688
00:44:02,420 --> 00:44:04,190
and get to
the very center of it

689
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,560
and take the meaning
and the juice out of that style

690
00:44:06,690 --> 00:44:09,790
and put it into his.

691
00:44:10,030 --> 00:44:13,700
He is the originator
of a way of orchestrating

692
00:44:13,730 --> 00:44:17,130
the sounds of the blues
for a large ensemble.

693
00:44:17,270 --> 00:44:19,530
It's the systems
of harmonization and voicings

694
00:44:19,670 --> 00:44:24,370
that he alone invented,
only he knows.

695
00:44:24,510 --> 00:44:26,510
Crouch:
And it's an epic vision

696
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:33,010
that is both ethnic
and all-inclusive.

697
00:44:33,250 --> 00:44:35,480
That's the thing
about him that's so remarkable,

698
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:37,820
is that it's--
is that it's...

699
00:44:37,950 --> 00:44:43,190
It's negroid
without being exclusive.

700
00:44:43,230 --> 00:44:45,090
In Duke Ellington's music,
there's always,

701
00:44:45,230 --> 00:44:47,430
"hey, come on in."

702
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,500
So there's a kind of a welcoming
quality that you associate

703
00:44:50,730 --> 00:44:53,770
with the highest form of
civilization, I would suggest.

704
00:44:53,900 --> 00:44:56,270
See, because civilization,
in a certain sense,

705
00:44:56,410 --> 00:45:04,580
can be reduced
to the word "welcome."

706
00:45:04,710 --> 00:45:07,850
Marsalis: You don't
get the same type
of spiritual high-mindedness

707
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:11,190
in his sound that you have
in Louis Armstrong's,

708
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,260
but it's there.

709
00:45:14,390 --> 00:45:16,960
But Duke Ellington--he's more
of a late-night person.

710
00:45:17,090 --> 00:45:20,600
He's the person
who understands the sensuous,

711
00:45:20,730 --> 00:45:24,630
and that's in his music
and it's in his sound.

712
00:45:24,770 --> 00:45:27,500
Duke Ellington, when he hits
one or two notes on the piano,

713
00:45:27,540 --> 00:45:29,970
he's going to take you
into a late-night room

714
00:45:30,110 --> 00:45:46,550
where something of interest is
about to take place.

715
00:45:46,590 --> 00:46:07,040
[Orchestra playing
That Lindy hop]

716
00:46:07,180 --> 00:46:10,450
narrator: In 1931,
Ellington sent for his mother

717
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:12,550
to join him in
a big, new apartment

718
00:46:12,780 --> 00:46:16,820
in Harlem's best
neighborhood--sugar hill.

719
00:46:17,050 --> 00:46:20,790
Daisy Ellington came
right away.

720
00:46:20,820 --> 00:46:26,660
In her eyes,
her son could do no wrong.

721
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,200
Soon, she was happily cleaning
and cooking for him again,

722
00:46:30,330 --> 00:46:33,500
longing for the moment
when he walked through
the door and announced,

723
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:38,470
"mother, I'm home
to dine."

724
00:46:38,710 --> 00:46:41,080
Ellington showered her
with gifts--

725
00:46:41,310 --> 00:46:43,440
ropes of pearls,
a fur coat,

726
00:46:43,580 --> 00:46:46,510
and a chauffeur-driven
Pierce-arrow

727
00:46:46,650 --> 00:46:52,120
so that she could follow her son
from engagement to engagement.

728
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,560
"After a couple of thousand
people had stopped applauding,"

729
00:46:54,690 --> 00:46:56,090
his sister remembered,

730
00:46:56,230 --> 00:47:08,400
"my mother was always
 Still Applauding."

731
00:47:08,540 --> 00:47:43,670
[Piano playing
 I ain't got nobody]

732
00:47:43,710 --> 00:47:46,440
Davis: Jazz was the bubble

733
00:47:46,580 --> 00:47:48,910
in the life of Harlem.

734
00:47:49,050 --> 00:47:51,810
It was...

735
00:47:52,050 --> 00:47:55,850
The thing your soul
worked for...

736
00:47:55,890 --> 00:47:58,750
The epitome...

737
00:47:58,990 --> 00:48:01,420
The final expression

738
00:48:01,660 --> 00:48:07,360
that told us we were
a great people, too.

739
00:48:07,500 --> 00:48:10,600
Now, the explosive nature

740
00:48:10,730 --> 00:48:12,600
would have made it
impossible for us

741
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,270
to keep it to ourselves,
even if we had wanted to.

742
00:48:15,510 --> 00:48:18,270
The very nature of jazz is
to proclaim to all the world,

743
00:48:18,410 --> 00:48:20,410
"hey, look! Wow! Poof!"

744
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:23,640
And this is us:
"Look, come have some."

745
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:25,380
The limitations are off.

746
00:48:25,420 --> 00:48:27,650
Put race aside.

747
00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:31,620
"Come in, open your heart,
open your mind,

748
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:34,360
whoever the hell you are."

749
00:48:34,590 --> 00:48:36,590
"Come in. Just listen
to this, brother.

750
00:48:36,730 --> 00:48:38,460
Listen to this, sister."

751
00:48:38,590 --> 00:48:43,300
You know,
"be a part of this."

752
00:48:43,430 --> 00:48:47,000
"This is going to be good
for you, man, whoever you are.

753
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,570
"It's going
to change you...

754
00:48:49,610 --> 00:48:52,610
Going to do something
 To You--something good."

755
00:48:52,840 --> 00:49:10,490
We felt that.

756
00:49:10,530 --> 00:49:33,610
[Piano playing
 Handful of keys]

757
00:49:33,750 --> 00:49:36,820
narrator: The honorary
mayor of Harlem

758
00:49:36,950 --> 00:49:38,790
was Thomas "fats" waller,

759
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:42,720
who may have been
the most popular man in town--

760
00:49:42,860 --> 00:49:46,560
a brilliant pianist
and an electrifying entertainer

761
00:49:46,700 --> 00:49:53,330
with a gift for songwriting
few musicians would ever match.

762
00:49:53,370 --> 00:49:56,240
He ate more food,
drank more liquor,

763
00:49:56,370 --> 00:49:57,970
played as much piano,

764
00:49:58,110 --> 00:49:59,710
and seemed
to be having more fun

765
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:04,510
than any other musician
of his time.

766
00:50:04,650 --> 00:50:06,410
He was a big man,

767
00:50:06,550 --> 00:50:08,180
nearly 6 feet tall,

768
00:50:08,220 --> 00:50:11,250
sometimes weighing
more than 300 pounds,

769
00:50:11,390 --> 00:50:16,520
and wore size 15 shoes.

770
00:50:16,660 --> 00:50:19,990
He routinely downed
3 steaks for lunch,

771
00:50:20,130 --> 00:50:23,530
drank a quart or more of gin
or whiskey at every
recording session,

772
00:50:23,670 --> 00:50:26,530
and called the liquor he drank
upon awakening each morning

773
00:50:26,670 --> 00:50:32,170
his "liquid
ham and eggs."

774
00:50:32,310 --> 00:50:36,540
The stride piano master
James p. Johnson was
his mentor,

775
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:38,280
and waller never lost
the mighty,

776
00:50:38,410 --> 00:50:44,790
rumbling left hand
Johnson had taught him.

777
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,990
But the touch of his
right hand

778
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:48,820
was light, melodic,

779
00:50:48,960 --> 00:51:05,740
irrepressible.

780
00:51:05,980 --> 00:51:07,840
"Concentrate
on the melody,"

781
00:51:07,980 --> 00:51:09,910
waller told
one interviewer.

782
00:51:10,050 --> 00:51:12,010
"You got to hang
onto the melody

783
00:51:12,150 --> 00:51:15,920
and never let it
get boresome."

784
00:51:16,050 --> 00:51:20,250
Fats waller was
never "boresome."

785
00:51:20,490 --> 00:51:22,690
Man: He was a big man,
he was a fat man.

786
00:51:22,730 --> 00:51:24,760
He was called "fats,"
for heaven's sake.

787
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,090
And people like that are
expected to be jovial,

788
00:51:27,230 --> 00:51:31,270
and he was willing to play
the part, for the most part.

789
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:33,500
It's when you hear
some of the original pieces

790
00:51:33,740 --> 00:51:35,540
and when you hear
the solo piano you realize

791
00:51:35,670 --> 00:51:39,040
he's a musician of enormous
depth and of great learning.

792
00:51:39,180 --> 00:51:42,540
He knows the piano repertoire
in the European tradition,

793
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:44,210
as well as in jazz.

794
00:51:44,350 --> 00:51:47,120
And his rhythm is incomparable.

795
00:51:47,250 --> 00:51:51,890
He doesn't Need A band,
he swings so hard.

796
00:51:52,020 --> 00:51:55,860
Narrator: Waller sold some
400 songs to music publishers,

797
00:51:55,990 --> 00:51:58,460
and because they paid him
so little,

798
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:02,230
he regularly sold
each song several times.

799
00:52:02,370 --> 00:52:05,330
"You had to buy them,"
one publisher remembered,

800
00:52:05,470 --> 00:52:15,410
"even though you knew
he probably had sold it
across the hall."

801
00:52:15,550 --> 00:52:18,580
Waller's tunes included
Louis Armstrong's big hit

802
00:52:18,820 --> 00:52:20,680
 ain't misbehavin',

803
00:52:20,820 --> 00:52:22,580
 honeysuckle Rose,

804
00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:24,950
blue turning grey over you,

805
00:52:25,090 --> 00:52:26,950
numb fumblin',

806
00:52:26,990 --> 00:52:31,260
and The joint is jumpin'.

807
00:52:31,390 --> 00:52:32,860
waller: ♪♪ my, my ♪♪

808
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:34,530
♪♪ oh, oh ♪♪

809
00:52:34,660 --> 00:52:36,360
♪♪ yes, yes ♪♪

810
00:52:36,500 --> 00:52:37,930
♪♪ my, my ♪♪

811
00:52:38,070 --> 00:52:39,600
♪♪ they have
a new expression ♪♪

812
00:52:39,740 --> 00:52:40,940
♪♪ 'long old Harlem way ♪♪

813
00:52:41,070 --> 00:52:42,600
♪♪ that tells you
when a party ♪♪

814
00:52:42,740 --> 00:52:44,340
♪♪ is 10 times more
than gay ♪♪

815
00:52:44,470 --> 00:52:46,040
♪♪ to say that things
are jumpin' ♪♪

816
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:47,610
♪♪ leaves not a single doubt ♪♪

817
00:52:47,740 --> 00:52:49,440
♪♪ watch all these cats,
watch everything

818
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:51,250
♪♪ when you hear
somebody shout ♪♪

819
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:52,880
♪♪ this joint is jumpin' ♪♪

820
00:52:53,020 --> 00:52:54,480
♪♪ really jumpin' ♪♪

821
00:52:54,620 --> 00:52:55,780
♪♪ come in, cats,
and check your hats ♪♪

822
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:57,620
♪♪ I believe this
joint is jumpin' ♪♪

823
00:52:57,850 --> 00:52:59,350
Let it leap! Yes!

824
00:52:59,590 --> 00:53:00,790
Sing it, Jack!

825
00:53:00,820 --> 00:53:02,790
Sing that, Jackson!
I love it!

826
00:53:03,030 --> 00:53:04,630
Oh, yes!

827
00:53:04,860 --> 00:53:07,130
Give that boy
a drink over there.
He's all right!

828
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:08,800
Fine lad, yes.

829
00:53:08,930 --> 00:53:12,030
Uh-huh!

830
00:53:12,170 --> 00:53:24,410
[Playing rapid solo]

831
00:53:24,550 --> 00:53:25,950
♪♪ Get your big feet bingin' ♪♪

832
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:27,710
♪♪ there's plenty
in the kitchen ♪♪

833
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:31,190
♪♪ just look at the way
it's switchin', oh, mercy ♪♪

834
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:32,850
♪♪ don't mind, all ♪♪
[Siren blaring]

835
00:53:32,890 --> 00:53:34,420
♪♪ 'Cause I'm in power ♪♪

836
00:53:35,720 --> 00:53:37,790
♪♪ I mean, this joint is
jumpin', yeah ♪♪

837
00:53:37,930 --> 00:53:39,530
Oh, don't ever give
your right man. No, no.

838
00:53:40,730 --> 00:53:43,160
♪♪ I mean, this joint
is jumpin' ♪♪

839
00:53:43,300 --> 00:53:45,670
Yeah!

840
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:58,850
[Orchestra playing
 Hotter than hell]

841
00:53:58,980 --> 00:54:00,620
giddins: The big band,
in a way,

842
00:54:00,650 --> 00:54:03,050
recapitulates the idea
of the call

843
00:54:03,190 --> 00:54:05,790
and response
of a baptist church.

844
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:08,460
The early Fletcher Henderson
arrangements--i mean,

845
00:54:08,590 --> 00:54:10,290
you have that
almost literally--

846
00:54:10,430 --> 00:54:13,960
saxophones and the brasses
responding to each other.

847
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:17,630
Basically, you have
3 sections in a big band.

848
00:54:17,770 --> 00:54:19,970
You've got the saxophone
section, the Reed section--

849
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:21,640
which often has clarinets.

850
00:54:21,770 --> 00:54:24,970
You have the trumpet section
and the trombone section,

851
00:54:25,110 --> 00:54:26,970
which became more important
as years went by.

852
00:54:27,210 --> 00:54:29,540
Originally, there would usually
just be one trombone.

853
00:54:29,780 --> 00:54:32,750
And the trombones
and the trumpets
together were the brasses.

854
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,180
And then you have
the rhythm section, which
was originally 4 pieces,

855
00:54:36,220 --> 00:54:38,090
and then they dropped
the guitar/banjo guy

856
00:54:38,220 --> 00:54:41,090
and it became 3 pieces--
just drums, bass, and piano.

857
00:54:41,220 --> 00:54:46,590
And these sections work
like gears in a machinery.

858
00:54:46,730 --> 00:54:50,160
They interlock, and what
the orchestrator has to do

859
00:54:50,300 --> 00:54:52,530
is to find really exciting,
inventive ways

860
00:54:52,670 --> 00:54:54,600
to blend these instruments,

861
00:54:54,740 --> 00:54:57,270
to work one section
against another,

862
00:54:57,510 --> 00:54:59,940
and to create
a new music with...

863
00:55:00,180 --> 00:55:03,210
An instrumentation
that is purely American.

864
00:55:03,350 --> 00:55:05,710
It's an American
invention.

865
00:55:05,750 --> 00:55:10,050
It's what we have
instead of the symphony.

866
00:55:10,090 --> 00:55:12,620
Narrator: 89 blocks south
of the savoy,

867
00:55:12,660 --> 00:55:15,890
at Broadway and 51st street,
stood roseland--

868
00:55:16,030 --> 00:55:18,790
Manhattan's most elegantly
appointed ballroom,

869
00:55:18,930 --> 00:55:22,900
where many new yorkers went
to forget the depression.

870
00:55:23,030 --> 00:55:25,730
Off and on
for nearly 20 years,

871
00:55:25,870 --> 00:55:28,970
it was the home
of Fletcher Henderson
and his orchestra.

872
00:55:29,110 --> 00:55:31,670
And it was here that he

873
00:55:31,710 --> 00:55:35,140
and his most adventurous
arranger, Don redman,

874
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:37,810
helped create a new way
of playing jazz--

875
00:55:37,950 --> 00:55:40,180
big band swing.

876
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:41,920
Over the years,

877
00:55:42,050 --> 00:55:44,590
many of the musicians who moved
through Henderson's ranks

878
00:55:44,720 --> 00:55:46,650
became stars
in their own right:

879
00:55:46,790 --> 00:55:49,160
Louis Armstrong,

880
00:55:49,390 --> 00:55:50,760
red Allen,

881
00:55:50,890 --> 00:55:52,660
chu Berry,

882
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,360
Benny Carter,

883
00:55:54,500 --> 00:55:56,130
Roy eldridge,

884
00:55:56,270 --> 00:55:59,200
and the incomparable
tenor saxophone player

885
00:55:59,340 --> 00:56:02,340
Coleman Hawkins.

886
00:56:02,570 --> 00:56:04,640
"It was the stompingest,
pushingest band

887
00:56:04,770 --> 00:56:07,110
I ever heard,"
Hawkins said.

888
00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:09,940
"And few orchestras ever bested
Fletcher Henderson's

889
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:12,380
"once he called out
to his men,

890
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:16,150
 come on,
 Let's take charge."

891
00:56:16,290 --> 00:56:56,760
[orchestra playing
big band swing]

892
00:56:56,790 --> 00:56:59,490
[Song ends,
crowd cheering and applauding]

893
00:56:59,630 --> 00:57:01,230
Narrator: But the dancers
who paid their way

894
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,600
into roseland
were all white.

895
00:57:05,740 --> 00:57:10,370
No blacks were allowed
on the dance floor.

896
00:57:10,510 --> 00:57:12,440
There was one place

897
00:57:12,570 --> 00:57:18,610
where musicians and dancers
of every color could go.

898
00:57:18,750 --> 00:57:22,720
Woman: After the band
would finish playing at
roseland about 1:00 A.M.,

899
00:57:22,750 --> 00:57:25,290
they'd sometimes play
for dances in Harlem

900
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,960
till about 3:30
in the morning.

901
00:57:30,190 --> 00:57:33,290
There'd be a band on
before Fletcher got there,

902
00:57:33,430 --> 00:57:37,160
but when he and the men arrived,
everything would stop.

903
00:57:37,300 --> 00:57:39,430
Folks would get out
of the way.

904
00:57:39,570 --> 00:57:42,070
[Orchestra playing
 Sugar foot stomp]

905
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:46,010
and then Fletcher would
start off with Sugar foot stomp,

906
00:57:46,140 --> 00:58:17,200
and the crowd would go wild.

907
00:58:17,340 --> 00:58:20,010
Miller: We lived in a very
segregated country,

908
00:58:20,140 --> 00:58:22,880
but the most amazing thing
about the ballroom--

909
00:58:23,110 --> 00:58:25,550
it was the first
building in america,

910
00:58:25,780 --> 00:58:27,210
ever in the world,

911
00:58:27,450 --> 00:58:31,290
that opened its doors
completely integrated.

912
00:58:31,420 --> 00:58:35,290
At the time, we didn't
understand that.

913
00:58:35,420 --> 00:58:37,120
Everybody came
to the ballroom,

914
00:58:37,260 --> 00:58:41,730
so I was raised in
an integrated dance world.

915
00:58:41,860 --> 00:58:45,130
I didn't know about
the other until I went
outside the ballroom,

916
00:58:45,270 --> 00:58:48,540
so my first experience,
as far as dancing was concerned,

917
00:58:48,670 --> 00:58:51,740
was always integrated.

918
00:58:51,870 --> 00:58:54,880
I wasn't realizing
that white people and black
people were going there.

919
00:58:55,010 --> 00:58:56,640
All I could
think about was

920
00:58:56,780 --> 00:58:59,380
 dancers Were going
to the savoy ballroom.

921
00:58:59,620 --> 00:59:00,810
Miller: Right.
And whether
you were black,

922
00:59:00,950 --> 00:59:02,180
green, yellow, or what,

923
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:03,720
if you walked
in the savoy,

924
00:59:03,950 --> 00:59:06,890
the only thing we wanted to
know is, "can you dance?"

925
00:59:07,020 --> 00:59:08,760
And if you came
in there,

926
00:59:08,890 --> 00:59:11,030
it wasn't like
a white person
walking in

927
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,260
and everybody would
turn around and look
at them, you know?

928
00:59:13,500 --> 00:59:16,430
It was--we'd come
in there and we
see him and...

929
00:59:16,570 --> 00:59:49,360
"Hey! He can dance!
Right! Ok!"

930
01:00:04,110 --> 01:00:06,080
Man: "Hollywood.

931
01:00:06,220 --> 01:00:09,120
"Vic berton, drummer
with Abe lyman's band,

932
01:00:09,250 --> 01:00:12,090
"and Louis Armstrong,
colored trumpet artist

933
01:00:12,220 --> 01:00:14,350
"in Sebastian's cotton club,

934
01:00:14,490 --> 01:00:17,260
"were arrested
by narcotics officers

935
01:00:17,390 --> 01:00:20,530
"and arraigned on charges
of possessing marijuana,

936
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:23,530
a dope weed used
in cigarettes."

937
01:00:23,770 --> 01:00:27,530
 Variety

938
01:00:27,570 --> 01:00:29,800
narrator: As soon as Armstrong's
agent, Tommy Rockwell,

939
01:00:29,940 --> 01:00:32,210
heard the news
of Armstrong's arrest,

940
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:35,710
he sent a thug named
Johnny Collins to Los Angeles

941
01:00:35,950 --> 01:00:38,450
with orders to use his
underworld connections

942
01:00:38,580 --> 01:00:42,280
to get his trumpet star
out of jail.

943
01:00:42,420 --> 01:00:44,750
It worked.

944
01:00:44,890 --> 01:00:49,090
Armstrong was out
in 9 days.

945
01:00:49,230 --> 01:00:51,890
But then Johnny Collins
convinced Armstrong

946
01:00:52,030 --> 01:00:54,390
that he had cut a deal
with Tommy Rockwell,

947
01:00:54,430 --> 01:00:58,800
and that he--Collins--was now
Armstrong's new manager.

948
01:00:58,930 --> 01:01:00,800
It wasn't true,

949
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:04,340
and Rockwell was furious
when he found out.

950
01:01:04,570 --> 01:01:08,480
Armstrong, unaware
of the double cross,

951
01:01:08,610 --> 01:01:14,180
went on tour with Collins.

952
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:16,680
In April of 1931,

953
01:01:16,820 --> 01:01:18,590
Armstrong was in Chicago,

954
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:21,090
playing at a club called
the showboat,

955
01:01:21,220 --> 01:01:23,420
when a mysterious gunman
appeared in his dressing room

956
01:01:23,660 --> 01:01:25,760
to "persuade" him
to board the train

957
01:01:25,890 --> 01:01:28,800
for New York right away.

958
01:01:28,930 --> 01:01:33,130
His real agent, Tommy Rockwell,
had promised Dutch Schultz

959
01:01:33,270 --> 01:01:36,340
that Armstrong would
play again at Connie's inn,

960
01:01:36,570 --> 01:01:41,610
and Dutch Schultz didn't like
to be disappointed.

961
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:43,610
Armstrong assured the gunman

962
01:01:43,750 --> 01:01:46,380
he would show up
at the station as ordered...

963
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:50,450
Then slipped out of town
with Collins instead.

964
01:01:50,590 --> 01:01:53,220
Nobody was going to tell
Louis Armstrong

965
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:55,960
where he had to play.

966
01:01:55,990 --> 01:01:57,960
Giddins: I think a lot
of people would have assumed

967
01:01:58,090 --> 01:02:00,230
that a black entertainer
would have said,

968
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:02,900
"oh, ok," you know,
"I'll be there. What time?"

969
01:02:02,930 --> 01:02:04,700
Armstrong had
no intention of that.

970
01:02:04,730 --> 01:02:06,530
He asked them where
and when,

971
01:02:06,670 --> 01:02:10,640
they told him,
and then he just left town.

972
01:02:10,770 --> 01:02:12,640
He was a man extremely
self-possessed.

973
01:02:12,770 --> 01:02:14,470
I know that's not
the popular picture,

974
01:02:14,610 --> 01:02:16,810
but the more you learn
about Louis Armstrong,

975
01:02:16,850 --> 01:02:20,250
the more you realize
just how self-possessed he was,

976
01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:23,220
and how sure he was,
and how brave he was.

977
01:02:23,450 --> 01:02:26,490
But he never played Chicago
and he never played New York

978
01:02:26,620 --> 01:02:28,690
until the gangster era
was over.

979
01:02:28,820 --> 01:02:36,660
And he was on the run,
you could say, for two years.

980
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:42,340
[Train whistle blowing]

981
01:02:42,570 --> 01:02:44,100
Narrator:
Later that spring,

982
01:02:44,340 --> 01:02:48,440
Collins booked Armstrong into
his old hometown of New Orleans.

983
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:53,310
Armstrong wasn't sure what kind
of reception he would get...

984
01:02:53,350 --> 01:02:56,420
[Band playing Weary blues]

985
01:02:56,550 --> 01:02:58,550
but when his train pulled
into the same station

986
01:02:58,690 --> 01:03:00,790
from which he had left
9 years earlier

987
01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:03,460
to join Joe Oliver
in Chicago,

988
01:03:03,590 --> 01:03:12,470
8 marching bands and a cheering,
integrated crowd met the train.

989
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:15,400
"All in all,"
Armstrong recalled years later,

990
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:34,350
"I think that day was
the happiest day in my life."

991
01:03:34,490 --> 01:03:39,530
He visited the colored waif's
home, where he had learned
to play the cornet as a boy;

992
01:03:39,660 --> 01:03:44,200
delighted in a Louis Armstrong
cigar, specially manufactured
in his honor;

993
01:03:44,330 --> 01:03:51,340
and outfitted a baseball team--
Louis Armstrong's secret nine.

994
01:03:51,570 --> 01:03:54,370
He also broadcast
from the suburban gardens,

995
01:03:54,410 --> 01:04:00,150
a big restaurant
on the outskirts of town.

996
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:02,380
Only whites were allowed inside,

997
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:05,050
but thousands of blacks gathered
along the riverbank,

998
01:04:05,190 --> 01:04:08,490
in the darkness,
to hear their hero play.

999
01:04:08,620 --> 01:04:42,560
 [Weary blues Playing]

1000
01:04:42,690 --> 01:04:46,660
Man: The very fact that
the best jazz players
barely made a living--

1001
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:52,900
were barred from all playing
jobs in radio and in most
nightclubs--enraged me.

1002
01:04:53,040 --> 01:04:57,140
To bring recognition
to the negro's supremacy in jazz

1003
01:04:57,270 --> 01:05:00,010
was the most effective
and constructive form

1004
01:05:00,140 --> 01:05:03,280
of social protest
I could think of.

1005
01:05:03,310 --> 01:05:05,150
John Hammond

1006
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:09,320
[down Georgia way Playing]

1007
01:05:09,550 --> 01:05:14,160
Narrator:
John Henry Hammond, Jr.
couldn't carry a tune,

1008
01:05:14,290 --> 01:05:18,430
nor did he own a record company
or run a nightclub.

1009
01:05:18,460 --> 01:05:21,000
But he was central
to the history of jazz,

1010
01:05:21,130 --> 01:05:25,230
and without him,
a host of musicians,
both black and white,

1011
01:05:25,370 --> 01:05:28,270
might never have achieved fame.

1012
01:05:28,410 --> 01:05:33,840
He was born in 1910,
the pampered son of privilege.

1013
01:05:33,980 --> 01:05:37,580
The great-grandson
of the railroad king
Cornelius Vanderbilt,

1014
01:05:37,610 --> 01:05:40,480
he was raised in a New York
mansion with 16 servants

1015
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:45,150
and a ballroom that could
hold 250 guests.

1016
01:05:45,290 --> 01:05:50,630
At the age of 12, Hammond heard
his first live jazz...

1017
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:52,830
And was entranced.

1018
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:55,260
He started collecting records,

1019
01:05:55,500 --> 01:05:58,730
began slipping off
to Harlem speakeasies at 17

1020
01:05:58,970 --> 01:06:01,300
to sip lemonade
and listen to black bands...

1021
01:06:01,540 --> 01:06:07,640
And finally dropped out of Yale
to try what only a handful
of people had done--

1022
01:06:07,780 --> 01:06:13,220
write seriously
about jazz and society.

1023
01:06:13,350 --> 01:06:16,350
To many young Americans
like Hammond,

1024
01:06:16,490 --> 01:06:21,860
the despair the depression
caused seemed to signal an end
to the capitalist system itself

1025
01:06:21,890 --> 01:06:26,260
and compelled them
to re-evaluate every
aspect of American life,

1026
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:30,470
including race relations.

1027
01:06:30,500 --> 01:06:33,030
Man: It was depression era,
mind you,

1028
01:06:33,070 --> 01:06:36,470
and they were pretty much
leftist in their feelings

1029
01:06:36,610 --> 01:06:38,040
and their politics
and so on,

1030
01:06:38,170 --> 01:06:42,710
so they approached jazz
with this in mind,

1031
01:06:42,850 --> 01:06:45,210
and that the black musician who,

1032
01:06:45,250 --> 01:06:49,320
after 300 years of maltreatment
in america,

1033
01:06:49,450 --> 01:06:52,250
it's time we open the doors
and windows and recognize

1034
01:06:52,390 --> 01:06:54,220
that they created
a great art.

1035
01:06:54,460 --> 01:07:01,100
Man: I suppose I could best be
described as a New York social
dissident,

1036
01:07:01,230 --> 01:07:04,100
finally free to express
my disagreement

1037
01:07:04,230 --> 01:07:07,740
with the social system
I was born into

1038
01:07:07,770 --> 01:07:12,740
and which most of my
contemporaries accepted
as a matter of course.

1039
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:18,850
The strongest motivation
for my dissent was jazz.

1040
01:07:18,980 --> 01:07:22,780
I heard no color in the music.

1041
01:07:22,920 --> 01:07:26,860
John Hammond

1042
01:07:26,990 --> 01:07:36,160
 [down south camp meeting
Playing]

1043
01:07:36,300 --> 01:07:39,600
Narrator:
At age 21, John Hammond
horrified his family

1044
01:07:39,740 --> 01:07:43,240
by demanding that his name
be deleted from the social
register,

1045
01:07:43,470 --> 01:07:45,340
moved to greenwich village,

1046
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:48,740
and set out immediately
to locate and record

1047
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:54,720
black musicians he believed
had not received the attention
they deserved.

1048
01:07:54,850 --> 01:07:58,220
Hammond helped buy
a lower east side theater

1049
01:07:58,350 --> 01:08:02,360
so that jobless musicians
of any race would have
a dignified place

1050
01:08:02,590 --> 01:08:05,460
to play what he called
"authentic jazz."

1051
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:08,960
He organized jam sessions
on local radio,

1052
01:08:09,100 --> 01:08:13,400
paying musicians $10
a session plus carfare
out of his own pocket

1053
01:08:13,540 --> 01:08:15,940
to make it
worth their while.

1054
01:08:16,070 --> 01:08:19,170
When he couldn't find
an American recording company

1055
01:08:19,310 --> 01:08:21,810
willing to record
his discoveries,

1056
01:08:21,950 --> 01:08:28,950
he talked a British label
into doing it instead.

1057
01:08:28,990 --> 01:08:32,920
And night after night,
John Hammond scoured
Harlem clubs

1058
01:08:33,060 --> 01:08:37,560
for still more talent.

1059
01:08:37,590 --> 01:08:42,100
Man: John Hammond--
one of the most beautiful
people I ever met.

1060
01:08:42,230 --> 01:08:46,330
He just fell in love
with jazz so much.

1061
01:08:46,470 --> 01:08:49,440
Without John Hammond, I don't--
there would have been jazz,

1062
01:08:49,570 --> 01:08:50,640
but a lot of people
would not have been

1063
01:08:50,670 --> 01:08:52,310
discovered and heard.

1064
01:08:52,440 --> 01:08:54,910
But mostly, it's the enthusiasm
of this kid--

1065
01:08:54,940 --> 01:08:56,750
young kid, young guy--

1066
01:08:56,880 --> 01:08:59,310
from a wholly different
aspect of society,

1067
01:08:59,350 --> 01:09:00,980
the opposite end of it,
you know.

1068
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:03,990
I mean, fifth Avenue, riverside,
way back in those days.

1069
01:09:04,220 --> 01:09:06,190
Servants all around the lot--
leaving it.

1070
01:09:06,220 --> 01:09:10,260
This white guy, all alone
in the community--

1071
01:09:10,390 --> 01:09:13,190
he'd go right in,
and they welcomed him,
of course.

1072
01:09:13,330 --> 01:09:17,470
They loved him.

1073
01:09:17,500 --> 01:09:20,840
Narrator:
Coleman Hawkins,
Fletcher Henderson,

1074
01:09:20,970 --> 01:09:23,740
Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman,

1075
01:09:23,870 --> 01:09:29,510
count basie, Charlie Christian,
Billie Holiday--

1076
01:09:29,650 --> 01:09:33,950
some of the best musicians
in jazz would see their
careers advanced

1077
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:42,360
with John Hammond's help.

1078
01:09:42,490 --> 01:10:10,180
 [Clouds Playing]

1079
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:12,220
As the misery
of the depression spread

1080
01:10:13,960 --> 01:10:18,860
membership in the American
federation of musicians fell
by 1/3.

1081
01:10:19,000 --> 01:10:21,400
Even after their dues were
cut in half,

1082
01:10:21,530 --> 01:10:26,600
many musicians could
no longer pay them.

1083
01:10:26,740 --> 01:10:30,600
Even the blues no longer seemed
to ease the pain.

1084
01:10:30,740 --> 01:10:33,940
"Nobody wants to hear
the blues no more,"
bessie Smith said.

1085
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:38,550
"Times is hard."

1086
01:10:38,580 --> 01:10:42,380
The trumpet player Max kaminsky
and his friend, guitarist
Eddie condon,

1087
01:10:42,620 --> 01:10:45,350
were locked out of their
Manhattan hotel room
in mid-winter

1088
01:10:45,490 --> 01:10:48,060
for failing to pay
their rent.

1089
01:10:48,190 --> 01:10:51,630
"We gnawed at each other's
wrists," condon recalled.

1090
01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:55,400
"We bled to death
in those years."

1091
01:10:55,630 --> 01:10:59,070
When kaminsky was finally
lucky enough to land a job,

1092
01:10:59,200 --> 01:11:02,970
he found himself running
his own bread line every
evening,

1093
01:11:03,110 --> 01:11:20,290
passing out 50-cent pieces
to musicians less fortunate
than he.

1094
01:11:20,420 --> 01:11:22,790
I, Franklin delano Roosevelt...

1095
01:11:22,830 --> 01:11:28,300
Narrator: In march of 1933,
Franklin delano Roosevelt was
inaugurated president,

1096
01:11:28,430 --> 01:11:32,930
pledged to a "new deal"
for the American people.

1097
01:11:33,070 --> 01:11:40,170
Economic recovery might take
years, but spirits could be
raised right away.

1098
01:11:40,210 --> 01:11:43,180
Prohibition was repealed.

1099
01:11:43,310 --> 01:11:58,790
[Throwing stones at the sun
Playing]

1100
01:11:58,830 --> 01:12:01,630
Man: The speakeasies unlocked
their doors,

1101
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:05,770
and fresh air hit the customers
for the first time in 13 years.

1102
01:12:05,800 --> 01:12:14,640
The first flood of legal liquor
was so bad, everyone wished
prohibition was back.

1103
01:12:14,780 --> 01:12:18,610
Nightclubs opened on 52nd street
like popcorn.

1104
01:12:18,750 --> 01:12:22,120
The onyx went across the street.

1105
01:12:22,250 --> 01:12:28,520
Leon and Eddie's, Tony's, 21, 18,
and Reilly's took off the locks
and showed lights.

1106
01:12:28,660 --> 01:12:30,730
Eddie condon

1107
01:12:30,860 --> 01:12:36,930
narrator: But when speakeasies
reopened as legal nightclubs,
business was poor.

1108
01:12:37,070 --> 01:12:43,140
With neighborhood liquor stores
now open, people could save
money by drinking at home.

1109
01:12:43,270 --> 01:12:47,410
To get back their customers,
nightclubs needed to offer

1110
01:12:47,540 --> 01:12:50,910
new excitement
and new distractions.

1111
01:12:51,050 --> 01:12:55,080
Billy Rose, a noisy entrepreneur
and showman,

1112
01:12:55,220 --> 01:12:58,520
announced plans to open
an especially lavish club,

1113
01:12:58,660 --> 01:13:10,160
complete with nude dancers,
midgets, a waterfall, and room
for 1,000 patrons.

1114
01:13:10,300 --> 01:13:13,430
Rose also wanted
a white dance band,

1115
01:13:13,570 --> 01:13:23,640
and 23-year-old Benny Goodman
was determined to provide it.

1116
01:13:25,310 --> 01:13:28,480
It had been 8 years
since Goodman had left
his immigrant parents

1117
01:13:28,620 --> 01:13:35,320
on the West Side of Chicago
to become a full-time,
professional musician.

1118
01:13:35,460 --> 01:13:38,190
He had grown up fast
in the Ben pollack band,

1119
01:13:38,230 --> 01:13:40,960
best known for the sweet
dance music it played

1120
01:13:41,100 --> 01:13:50,140
and the hard-drinking
good times its stars enjoyed
between engagements.

1121
01:13:50,270 --> 01:13:54,640
Goodman had earned
a reputation as
a fine clarinetist,

1122
01:13:54,680 --> 01:14:00,150
but the desperate poverty
of his childhood had helped
make him fiercely ambitious.

1123
01:14:00,380 --> 01:14:03,080
He was accused of grabbing
too many solos,

1124
01:14:03,220 --> 01:14:06,090
and was once caught trying
to book the Ben pollack band...

1125
01:14:06,220 --> 01:14:09,460
Without Ben pollack.

1126
01:14:09,590 --> 01:14:12,260
After pollack fired him,

1127
01:14:12,400 --> 01:14:16,560
Goodman became one of New York's
most successful studio
musicians,

1128
01:14:16,700 --> 01:14:24,040
able at a moment's notice
to play any kind of music
on records or on the radio.

1129
01:14:24,170 --> 01:14:28,540
Man: You must remember, we had
another world at that time.

1130
01:14:28,580 --> 01:14:31,250
There was no television.
There was radio.

1131
01:14:31,380 --> 01:14:34,480
It was the only mass medium.

1132
01:14:34,620 --> 01:14:36,450
And if you wanted to play
for a living,

1133
01:14:36,590 --> 01:14:38,850
you had to play execrable music.

1134
01:14:38,890 --> 01:14:42,390
Music was really dreadful,
something that sickened you,

1135
01:14:42,530 --> 01:14:44,330
because you were selling
automobiles,

1136
01:14:44,460 --> 01:14:47,630
you were selling soap, you were
selling everything but music.

1137
01:14:47,660 --> 01:14:51,770
The music was the way
to get an audience
to listen...Ostensibly,

1138
01:14:51,900 --> 01:14:53,400
and then you could
sell them stuff.

1139
01:14:53,540 --> 01:14:54,700
That was what radio was about.

1140
01:14:54,840 --> 01:14:56,800
 [Get happy Playing]

1141
01:14:56,940 --> 01:14:58,840
Narrator: Despite the modest
success he had found

1142
01:14:58,980 --> 01:15:01,710
in the midst of hard times,

1143
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:03,580
Benny Goodman had grown
dissatisfied

1144
01:15:03,810 --> 01:15:08,320
with the kind of music he was
most often hired to play.

1145
01:15:08,450 --> 01:15:11,750
"None of us had much use
for commercial musicians,"
he remembered.

1146
01:15:11,890 --> 01:15:15,960
Goodman had something else
in mind, something far more
challenging,

1147
01:15:16,090 --> 01:15:23,970
and, like John Hammond,
he haunted the clubs of Harlem,
absorbing everything he heard.

1148
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:26,970
Benny Goodman really was driven,

1149
01:15:27,200 --> 01:15:31,840
and he's an example
of a musician who--
he wanted to be the best.

1150
01:15:31,870 --> 01:15:34,080
He wanted to have
the best band.

1151
01:15:34,210 --> 01:15:37,080
He wanted to do whatever
it was going to take

1152
01:15:37,210 --> 01:15:40,810
to learn how to play
and be on a very high level.

1153
01:15:41,050 --> 01:15:44,050
Narrator: Inspired by chick webb
and Fletcher Henderson,

1154
01:15:44,190 --> 01:15:46,520
Goodman began to round up
young white musicians

1155
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:50,730
who shared his passion for
what he called "genuine jazz,"

1156
01:15:50,860 --> 01:15:53,530
including trumpet player
bunny berigan;

1157
01:15:53,660 --> 01:15:57,660
a hard-driving drummer
from Chicago named gene krupa;

1158
01:15:57,800 --> 01:16:01,130
and a young singer, Helen ward.

1159
01:16:01,270 --> 01:16:04,740
It was her attractive presence
that finally persuaded
Billy Rose

1160
01:16:04,770 --> 01:16:11,150
to hire Benny Goodman's band
for his new nightclub.

1161
01:16:11,380 --> 01:16:13,110
Maher: They had a lot
of fun that summer.

1162
01:16:13,250 --> 01:16:16,780
It was new, it was fresh.

1163
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:22,790
And the thing that happened was
the last night of the Billy Rose
engagement.

1164
01:16:22,930 --> 01:16:25,460
A man came in
from an advertising agency

1165
01:16:25,590 --> 01:16:28,100
and heard Benny,
and invited him to audition

1166
01:16:28,230 --> 01:16:31,100
for an extraordinary thing
that nobody had ever tried--

1167
01:16:31,330 --> 01:16:35,170
a 3-hour radio show
entirely made up of music.

1168
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:39,340
And when? On Saturday night.
Boy, what a break, you know?

1169
01:16:39,480 --> 01:16:42,840
Narrator: In the Autumn of 1934,

1170
01:16:42,980 --> 01:16:47,150
the national broadcasting
company planned a new
Saturday night radio program

1171
01:16:47,280 --> 01:16:50,750
called Let's dance.

1172
01:16:50,890 --> 01:16:55,490
they needed 3 bands:
One to play rhumbas,

1173
01:16:55,730 --> 01:16:57,190
one to play sweet dance music,

1174
01:16:57,430 --> 01:17:00,590
and one to play the new,
hot kind of swing music--

1175
01:17:00,730 --> 01:17:09,140
the kind of music
Benny Goodman wanted to play.

1176
01:17:09,270 --> 01:17:15,580
Collier: The audition for
the Let's dance Show was
held in the agency.

1177
01:17:15,710 --> 01:17:18,010
They piped the music
into the offices,

1178
01:17:18,250 --> 01:17:20,850
and they had all the young
secretaries and office boys--

1179
01:17:20,980 --> 01:17:23,680
the young people who were
working in the agency--
get up and dance,

1180
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:25,820
and they'd ask them
which bands they liked best
and which ones they didn't.

1181
01:17:26,060 --> 01:17:28,720
They ended up voting...

1182
01:17:28,860 --> 01:17:34,330
And the Benny Goodman band won
by one vote of these kids,

1183
01:17:34,460 --> 01:17:38,500
so Benny got the job.

1184
01:17:38,530 --> 01:17:42,670
Narrator: But Goodman had
a problem.

1185
01:17:42,810 --> 01:17:45,970
He didn't have a big enough
or good enough book--

1186
01:17:46,110 --> 01:17:51,010
a set of arrangements to fill
all the hours he was expected
to play on the radio.

1187
01:17:51,250 --> 01:17:53,350
He explained his problem
to a friend,

1188
01:17:53,480 --> 01:17:56,380
the singer Mildred Bailey.

1189
01:17:56,520 --> 01:17:58,320
Maher: Mildred said to Benny,

1190
01:17:58,450 --> 01:18:01,820
"Benny, the band sounds
just great. One problem:

1191
01:18:01,960 --> 01:18:05,030
"It sounds like everybody else--
just sounds like a good band.

1192
01:18:05,160 --> 01:18:08,000
You've got to have
a personal identity."

1193
01:18:08,130 --> 01:18:09,800
And she said to him,
out of the blue, she said,

1194
01:18:09,930 --> 01:18:12,600
"why don't you get
a Harlem book?"

1195
01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:17,810
Well, John is standing there--
John Hammond--and he's in
on this conversation.

1196
01:18:17,940 --> 01:18:22,280
He had the access, and he knew
immediately what to do.

1197
01:18:22,410 --> 01:18:25,510
He went and got
Fletcher Henderson.

1198
01:18:25,650 --> 01:18:29,250
Narrator: Henderson's own band
had fallen on hard times,

1199
01:18:29,390 --> 01:18:33,290
and he was happy to sell
his old arrangements--
his book--to Goodman,

1200
01:18:33,420 --> 01:18:36,860
and to write new ones
for him, as well.

1201
01:18:36,990 --> 01:18:38,760
Benny was a mandarin.

1202
01:18:38,890 --> 01:18:41,760
Uh, he believed that
the band should be perfect.

1203
01:18:42,000 --> 01:18:43,330
He didn't have
the best soloists.

1204
01:18:43,470 --> 01:18:44,830
His soloists weren't
nearly as good

1205
01:18:44,870 --> 01:18:46,370
as Fletcher Henderson's
soloists.

1206
01:18:46,500 --> 01:18:49,400
But the ensemble was
spit-and-Polish.

1207
01:18:49,540 --> 01:18:51,640
So Henderson loved
writing for Goodman

1208
01:18:51,770 --> 01:18:53,540
because he could hear
his arrangements played,

1209
01:18:53,680 --> 01:18:58,210
you know, the way
he imagined them.

1210
01:18:58,450 --> 01:19:02,180
Narrator: Goodman used
other arrangers, white
as well as black,

1211
01:19:02,320 --> 01:19:04,790
but without Fletcher Henderson,
Goodman said,

1212
01:19:04,820 --> 01:19:07,390
he would have had
"a pretty good band,

1213
01:19:07,420 --> 01:19:13,630
but something quite
different from what
it turned out to be."

1214
01:19:15,130 --> 01:19:16,930
That Benny Goodman would get
from Fletcher Henderson--

1215
01:19:16,970 --> 01:19:20,470
the classic one is
 King Porter stomp.

1216
01:19:20,500 --> 01:19:23,070
you have the strong
bottom rhythm--doom, doom, doom.

1217
01:19:23,210 --> 01:19:24,770
Um, you know, you have...

1218
01:19:24,910 --> 01:19:27,710
♪♪ Diddly doo Dee Lee doo
Dee dip Dee doo ♪♪

1219
01:19:27,940 --> 01:19:29,680
"D" riff...

1220
01:19:29,810 --> 01:19:31,750
♪♪ Dip boo Dee doo
diddle oodle loo ♪♪

1221
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:33,350
♪♪ dip boo dit dit
doodle lit dit doo ♪♪

1222
01:19:35,050 --> 01:19:37,790
♪♪ dit bee dit bit boo diddle
doodleoo deedle oodle la ♪♪

1223
01:19:37,820 --> 01:19:51,770
[King Porter stomp Playing]

1224
01:19:51,900 --> 01:19:55,040
Narrator: A white bandleader
was now broadcasting

1225
01:19:55,170 --> 01:20:04,480
the kind of swing music that had
first been played at the savoy
and roseland ballrooms.

1226
01:20:04,610 --> 01:20:11,120
Man: I think Benny Goodman was
the man who started outside

1227
01:20:11,350 --> 01:20:15,120
and was attracted to something
he heard inside

1228
01:20:15,260 --> 01:20:19,160
and came inside himself,
saw what was going on,

1229
01:20:19,300 --> 01:20:25,170
and picked up the nearest thing
and joined in.

1230
01:20:25,300 --> 01:20:31,070
He experienced in his own person
the true welcome

1231
01:20:31,310 --> 01:20:35,010
that's at the root of jazz.

1232
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:45,420
For him to cross
the threshold was easy
because jazz made it easy.

1233
01:20:45,450 --> 01:20:49,120
Narrator: Benny Goodman's
reputation began to grow.

1234
01:20:49,260 --> 01:20:54,130
Soon, many young Americans were
planning their Saturday nights

1235
01:20:54,160 --> 01:20:57,870
around the Let's dance
Radio show.

1236
01:20:58,100 --> 01:21:02,000
Man: I would be studying
pathology--i was in med
school at the time--

1237
01:21:02,140 --> 01:21:05,310
and I dropped my books
Saturday night at 12:00 midnight

1238
01:21:05,440 --> 01:21:10,740
and put that show on.

1239
01:21:10,980 --> 01:21:13,480
Forget about pathology.

1240
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:16,480
I gave my good cells
a chance to work out

1241
01:21:16,620 --> 01:21:19,320
just listening to that kind
of music.

1242
01:21:19,460 --> 01:21:23,360
It was fabulous,
just wonderful.

1243
01:21:23,490 --> 01:21:26,360
Narrator: Since the show's
listeners loved popular tunes,

1244
01:21:26,500 --> 01:21:36,600
Goodman persuaded Henderson
to write new arrangements
of familiar favorites.

1245
01:21:36,640 --> 01:21:41,940
Maher: The band was famous
for its precision in intonation,

1246
01:21:42,080 --> 01:21:46,010
in execution, in time values.

1247
01:21:46,150 --> 01:21:54,550
If Fletcher Henderson had
written a triplet, you got
an even triplet.

1248
01:21:54,690 --> 01:22:02,760
But Fletcher started writing
arrangements of popular tunes
of the day...

1249
01:22:02,900 --> 01:22:07,500
That we all knew, that we
whistled, that we sang--
in the shower, generally--

1250
01:22:07,640 --> 01:22:12,310
and had a lot of fun with,
so that this was our language.

1251
01:22:12,440 --> 01:22:15,640
It was not an esoteric language
being played by 6 guys

1252
01:22:15,680 --> 01:22:16,880
in a cellar somewhere.

1253
01:22:17,110 --> 01:22:34,460
This was popular music.

1254
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:37,160
Man: Who's that walking
around here?

1255
01:22:37,300 --> 01:22:40,840
Narrator: One evening,
fats waller was playing
in a New York club

1256
01:22:40,870 --> 01:22:44,400
when he heard a stir
in the audience.

1257
01:22:44,540 --> 01:22:48,480
A large, heavy man was making
his way among the tables.

1258
01:22:48,610 --> 01:22:52,180
Waller stopped playing.

1259
01:22:52,310 --> 01:22:53,850
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said,

1260
01:22:53,980 --> 01:22:59,620
"I just play the piano,
but god is in the house."

1261
01:22:59,760 --> 01:23:06,630
Then he left the piano bench
so that art Tatum could
take over.

1262
01:23:06,760 --> 01:23:23,880
[Playing Tiny's exercise]

1263
01:23:24,010 --> 01:23:28,180
narrator: Tatum was
from Toledo, Ohio.

1264
01:23:28,320 --> 01:23:31,590
He began picking out tunes
on the piano at 3

1265
01:23:31,620 --> 01:23:36,720
and studied at the Toledo
conservatory of music.

1266
01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:45,370
He was totally blind in one eye
and very nearly sightless
in the other.

1267
01:23:45,500 --> 01:23:48,670
Man: He couldn't see
all that well.

1268
01:23:48,800 --> 01:23:50,640
He could see a little bit
out of one eye,

1269
01:23:52,110 --> 01:23:54,110
if he raised his head, he might
recognize you, you know,

1270
01:23:54,140 --> 01:23:56,980
but this one was
totally gone.

1271
01:23:57,110 --> 01:24:02,280
And his mother bought him
a piano roll made by two people.

1272
01:24:02,520 --> 01:24:05,690
And he didn't know it was
made by two people,

1273
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:07,020
so he learned it--

1274
01:24:07,160 --> 01:24:08,620
ha ha ha ha--

1275
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:12,130
and, with two hands,
played this piano roll.

1276
01:24:12,260 --> 01:24:13,330
Ha ha ha!

1277
01:24:13,460 --> 01:24:16,030
Oh, art Tatum, I mean,
when you hear--

1278
01:24:16,170 --> 01:24:17,530
the first time I heard
art Tatum,

1279
01:24:17,570 --> 01:24:21,070
I thought I was listening
to 4 guys--4 people!

1280
01:24:21,200 --> 01:24:22,470
That's what it sounded like.

1281
01:24:22,710 --> 01:24:26,140
I mean, you couldn't even
see what he was doing.

1282
01:24:26,380 --> 01:24:33,050
He was absolutely unbelievable.

1283
01:24:33,280 --> 01:24:36,180
Narrator: Tatum had a memory
for melody so precise

1284
01:24:36,220 --> 01:24:38,220
that he rarely had to hear
a tune more than once

1285
01:24:38,450 --> 01:24:41,490
to play it back
with embellishments,

1286
01:24:41,620 --> 01:24:45,730
and an ear for pitch so uncanny,
he could tell the difference

1287
01:24:45,860 --> 01:24:51,670
between a penny and a dime
dropped on a table
by the sound it made.

1288
01:24:51,800 --> 01:24:59,070
[Three little words Playing]

1289
01:24:59,310 --> 01:25:02,580
Tatum got to New York in 1932

1290
01:25:02,810 --> 01:25:08,180
and soon found himself being
challenged by the 3 most
respected pianists in town:

1291
01:25:08,320 --> 01:25:13,020
James p. Johnson,
Willie "the lion" Smith,
and fats waller.

1292
01:25:13,260 --> 01:25:18,760
They met at a Harlem club
called "Morgan's."

1293
01:25:18,890 --> 01:25:23,330
Johnson, Smith, and waller
each played a favorite number.

1294
01:25:23,570 --> 01:25:27,230
Each time,
art Tatum played it better.

1295
01:25:27,370 --> 01:25:30,570
"He was just too good,"
fats waller remembered.

1296
01:25:30,710 --> 01:25:35,580
When Tatum played
the popular hit
 Three little words,

1297
01:25:35,810 --> 01:25:55,300
another vanquished piano
player said, "it was
3,000 words."

1298
01:25:55,430 --> 01:25:57,030
 [Three little words Ends]

1299
01:25:57,170 --> 01:25:58,870
[Applause]

1300
01:25:59,000 --> 01:26:08,380
 [Too marvelous for words
Playing]

1301
01:26:08,510 --> 01:26:12,450
Narrator: Tatum influenced
every kind of musician.

1302
01:26:12,480 --> 01:26:16,980
"Guys might not realize it,"
the trumpet player
Roy eldridge remembered,

1303
01:26:17,120 --> 01:26:20,220
"but after they heard art,
he was always with them

1304
01:26:20,360 --> 01:26:23,490
"in the way they thought
about improvising.

1305
01:26:23,630 --> 01:26:29,830
He was the Invisible man
Of jazz."

1306
01:26:29,970 --> 01:26:32,970
Giddins: His virtuosity is
awesome.

1307
01:26:33,100 --> 01:26:36,770
I mean, you can't get beyond it,
and it's part of the delight
that we have in his music,

1308
01:26:36,810 --> 01:26:40,310
is to hear those rippling
arpeggios with all these
chords coming in.

1309
01:26:42,080 --> 01:26:45,510
I mean, arpeggios that go on
for 8 measures and then stop
exactly on the beat.

1310
01:26:45,550 --> 01:26:47,580
You know, every time I hear
some of those records,

1311
01:26:47,820 --> 01:27:06,270
I still can't believe
that he's going to make it.

1312
01:27:06,300 --> 01:27:08,900
Narrator: Tatum's whole
life was music.

1313
01:27:09,040 --> 01:27:13,410
He did play a little pinochle,
using a special light to squint
at his hand,

1314
01:27:13,540 --> 01:27:16,840
loved to drink quart after quart
of pabst blue ribbon beer,

1315
01:27:16,980 --> 01:27:23,420
and had an encyclopedic memory
for baseball statistics.

1316
01:27:23,550 --> 01:27:28,860
Otherwise, he was at the piano,
playing at one club

1317
01:27:28,890 --> 01:27:30,860
and then moving on
to close another...

1318
01:27:31,090 --> 01:27:32,860
And another...

1319
01:27:32,990 --> 01:27:35,760
Finally falling asleep
for a few hours

1320
01:27:35,900 --> 01:27:55,080
before starting in again.

1321
01:27:55,220 --> 01:27:56,620
[Too marvelous for words Ends]

1322
01:27:56,650 --> 01:28:01,520
[Applause]

1323
01:28:01,660 --> 01:28:09,560
[Shanghai shuffle Playing]

1324
01:28:09,800 --> 01:28:13,330
[Horn honks]

1325
01:28:13,470 --> 01:28:16,300
Davis: One of the things
I looked forward to when
I first got to New York

1326
01:28:16,440 --> 01:28:19,910
was experiencing everything that
Harlem had meant to me

1327
01:28:20,140 --> 01:28:28,250
from all the stories
I had heard.

1328
01:28:28,380 --> 01:28:32,290
There was the Apollo,
there was the renaissance,

1329
01:28:32,420 --> 01:28:35,490
and there was the savoy.

1330
01:28:35,720 --> 01:28:54,840
And the savoy was
a palace of dance.

1331
01:28:54,980 --> 01:29:00,010
I never quite managed
all of the dynamics.

1332
01:29:00,220 --> 01:29:01,750
And I remember being
on the floor,

1333
01:29:01,880 --> 01:29:04,480
having picked up some
charming young lady

1334
01:29:04,620 --> 01:29:06,520
who might, you know,
be working out on the island,

1335
01:29:06,660 --> 01:29:08,390
and dancing with her.

1336
01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:10,120
And, of course,

1337
01:29:10,260 --> 01:29:13,260
I had imbibed
some of the juice,

1338
01:29:13,400 --> 01:29:16,830
and I remember throwing
the girl out...

1339
01:29:16,870 --> 01:29:19,370
And sometimes,
the girl never came back.

1340
01:29:19,500 --> 01:30:03,710
[Laughing]

1341
01:30:03,750 --> 01:30:07,350
Miller: And everybody
came to dance.

1342
01:30:07,480 --> 01:30:10,020
Swing has a marvelous thing
of bringing people together.

1343
01:30:10,150 --> 01:30:11,720
Oh, you said it.

1344
01:30:11,850 --> 01:30:13,450
It brought she
and I together.

1345
01:30:13,590 --> 01:30:17,760
We had white dancers
in the savoy ballroom.

1346
01:30:17,890 --> 01:30:19,190
Oh, yeah,
Lindy-hopping.

1347
01:30:19,330 --> 01:30:21,090
And I'm telling you,
they were good.

1348
01:30:21,230 --> 01:30:22,530
Oh, man,
were they ever!

1349
01:30:22,660 --> 01:30:25,100
They were so good that
you wanted to him 'em.

1350
01:30:25,230 --> 01:30:26,500
[Laughing]

1351
01:30:26,640 --> 01:30:29,500
But, see, that was
such an American thing.

1352
01:30:29,640 --> 01:30:33,210
We had Italian boys that
used to come from the Bronx,

1353
01:30:33,340 --> 01:30:35,940
you had the Jewish boys
that come from Brooklyn...

1354
01:30:36,080 --> 01:30:42,650
And this melting pot
of everybody trying
to outdance each other.

1355
01:30:42,780 --> 01:30:47,750
We didn't know how rich
we were in relationships.

1356
01:30:47,890 --> 01:30:50,560
But 50 years ago,
when we look back,

1357
01:30:50,590 --> 01:30:55,600
we realize we had
a wonderful thing going
with all races,

1358
01:30:55,730 --> 01:30:58,400
and that's what made
the savoy so...

1359
01:30:58,530 --> 01:30:59,800
A wonderful place.

1360
01:30:59,940 --> 01:31:08,480
Such a wonderful place
to be, right.

1361
01:31:08,610 --> 01:31:10,310
[Horns honking]

1362
01:31:10,450 --> 01:31:29,560
[It don't mean a thing if it
Ain't got that swing Playing]

1363
01:31:29,800 --> 01:31:34,130
Narrator: Duke Ellington
was moving far beyond
the"jungle music"

1364
01:31:34,270 --> 01:31:36,870
that had first
made him famous.

1365
01:31:37,010 --> 01:31:39,610
He was constantly
on the road now,

1366
01:31:39,740 --> 01:31:43,310
performing hits that seemed to
flow effortlessly from his pen--

1367
01:31:43,450 --> 01:31:46,610
 mood indigo,
 Sophisticated lady,

1368
01:31:46,750 --> 01:31:52,850
 solitude, And It don't
 Mean a thing if it ain't
 Got that swing,

1369
01:31:52,990 --> 01:31:56,990
recorded with the band's
brilliant new singer,
Ivy Anderson.

1370
01:31:57,030 --> 01:32:01,060
There were radio broadcasts,
theater appearances,

1371
01:32:01,200 --> 01:32:04,030
formal concerts
as well as one-nighters,

1372
01:32:04,070 --> 01:32:25,620
and more movies
featuring the band.

1373
01:32:25,650 --> 01:32:28,660
Woman: A band like
Ellington's had so left

1374
01:32:28,890 --> 01:32:41,330
the degrading aspects
of minstrelsy behind.

1375
01:32:41,470 --> 01:32:43,670
They were essentially
creating, you know,

1376
01:32:43,810 --> 01:32:47,140
this wonderful palette
of American styles

1377
01:32:47,280 --> 01:32:50,040
that you were seeing
only created by whites

1378
01:32:50,180 --> 01:32:51,780
in the movies.

1379
01:32:51,910 --> 01:32:55,210
They're matinee idols,
they're great actors,

1380
01:32:55,350 --> 01:32:58,420
they are embodying
this strange,

1381
01:32:58,550 --> 01:33:02,320
multi-stylized American chic.

1382
01:33:02,460 --> 01:33:05,590
And, you know, god, how could
you, as a black person,

1383
01:33:05,630 --> 01:33:07,990
not find this
utterly thrilling?

1384
01:33:08,130 --> 01:33:11,670
[Ivy Anderson singing scat]

1385
01:33:11,700 --> 01:33:16,940
Jefferson: They're making
every aspect of American style
their own.

1386
01:33:17,070 --> 01:33:18,940
Anderson:
♪♪ it don't mean a thing ♪♪

1387
01:33:19,170 --> 01:33:21,710
♪♪if it ain't
got that swing ♪♪

1388
01:33:21,840 --> 01:33:24,440
Man: One of the interesting
ironies about Ellington,

1389
01:33:24,580 --> 01:33:27,280
when he and his band
would come to town--

1390
01:33:27,420 --> 01:33:30,650
half the people
would not dance.

1391
01:33:30,790 --> 01:33:32,320
These people were so impressed

1392
01:33:32,450 --> 01:33:35,590
with what Ellington was doing
to the music,

1393
01:33:35,720 --> 01:33:38,190
that they'd dress up
and just sit, you know?

1394
01:33:38,330 --> 01:33:40,190
And Duke wanted them
to dance, too.

1395
01:33:40,330 --> 01:33:42,860
But people would say,
"I'll buy the record

1396
01:33:42,900 --> 01:33:46,870
and dance to that at home,
but he's present."

1397
01:33:47,000 --> 01:33:50,370
So it was like
a sacred event.

1398
01:33:50,510 --> 01:34:03,980
 [Black beauty Playing]

1399
01:34:04,120 --> 01:34:06,850
Man: Nobody in my family
had a tuxedo.

1400
01:34:06,990 --> 01:34:10,790
Here all these gentlemen
had on these tuxedos,

1401
01:34:10,930 --> 01:34:12,830
so it was my inspiration
to want to be--

1402
01:34:12,960 --> 01:34:14,560
this is where I want to be.

1403
01:34:14,700 --> 01:34:16,300
If music was going
to take me there,

1404
01:34:16,430 --> 01:34:18,900
this is what I wanted to do,
how I wanted to go.

1405
01:34:18,930 --> 01:34:22,000
Narrator: For millions
of black Americans

1406
01:34:22,140 --> 01:34:24,970
struggling just to survive
during the depression,

1407
01:34:25,110 --> 01:34:29,910
Duke Ellington would
always represent the very best.

1408
01:34:30,050 --> 01:34:34,350
Giddins: I think that
one of the things that
we look to art for

1409
01:34:34,480 --> 01:34:38,020
is to give us a sense
of community and who we are,

1410
01:34:38,150 --> 01:34:41,450
who the other is,
to make the other less "other."

1411
01:34:41,590 --> 01:34:43,420
For example,
in the 1930s,

1412
01:34:43,560 --> 01:34:47,690
I think the popularity
of people like Jack Benny
and Groucho Marx

1413
01:34:47,830 --> 01:34:50,360
made the whole country
a little bit Jewish.

1414
01:34:50,500 --> 01:34:53,270
And I think that jazz certainly
makes the whole country

1415
01:34:53,400 --> 01:34:55,170
more than a little bit
African-American.

1416
01:34:56,470 --> 01:34:59,670
When you listen to
a piece like Sepia panorama...

1417
01:35:00,880 --> 01:35:03,380
the whole way it opens up,
or Black beauty,

1418
01:35:03,510 --> 01:35:06,450
one of the loveliest melodies
in American music, no lyric,

1419
01:35:06,580 --> 01:35:09,820
you think that being
an African-American

1420
01:35:09,950 --> 01:35:15,120
must be the grandest state that
a human being could achieve.

1421
01:35:15,260 --> 01:35:18,660
There's a sense of patriotism
that Ellington brings to it.

1422
01:35:18,790 --> 01:35:20,490
No protests,

1423
01:35:20,630 --> 01:35:24,800
no sense of irony
or sarcasm or bitterness...

1424
01:35:24,830 --> 01:35:39,580
But just a sense of wonder and
delight and tremendous pride.

1425
01:35:39,710 --> 01:35:43,420
 [Mood indigo Playing]

1426
01:35:43,650 --> 01:35:45,650
Narrator: In 1933,

1427
01:35:45,690 --> 01:35:48,860
Ellington went on tour
in Europe and england.

1428
01:35:48,990 --> 01:35:51,020
It was a triumph.

1429
01:35:51,160 --> 01:35:54,460
One British critic declared
that Ellington's music possessed

1430
01:35:54,600 --> 01:35:58,400
"a truly shakespearean
universality."

1431
01:35:58,530 --> 01:36:00,270
"Girls wept," he said,

1432
01:36:00,500 --> 01:36:06,140
"and young chaps
sank to their knees."

1433
01:36:06,270 --> 01:36:09,440
Man: "How can I describe
the unbelievable spectacle

1434
01:36:09,480 --> 01:36:17,950
I have just beheld
at the palladium?"

1435
01:36:18,090 --> 01:36:20,420
"I'm not ashamed to say
that I cried

1436
01:36:20,560 --> 01:36:30,330
during the playing
of Mood indigo."

1437
01:36:30,370 --> 01:36:32,970
"here was a music far removed

1438
01:36:33,000 --> 01:36:36,400
"from the abracadabra
of symphony.

1439
01:36:36,440 --> 01:36:39,540
"Here was
a tenuous melodic line

1440
01:36:39,670 --> 01:36:41,870
"which distilled
from the emotions

1441
01:36:42,110 --> 01:36:44,210
"all heritage
of human sorrow,

1442
01:36:44,350 --> 01:36:47,850
which lies deep
in every one of us."

1443
01:36:47,980 --> 01:36:58,590
The london Era

1444
01:36:58,730 --> 01:37:02,660
[song ends, applause]

1445
01:37:02,800 --> 01:37:14,010
[Drop me off in harlem Playing]

1446
01:37:14,240 --> 01:37:17,340
Narrator: Back home,
the band made a 12-week
tour of the south.

1447
01:37:17,480 --> 01:37:24,950
It, too, was a triumph.

1448
01:37:24,990 --> 01:37:28,650
The music critic of the Dallas
 News Called Ellington

1449
01:37:28,790 --> 01:37:30,990
"something of
an African stravinsky,"

1450
01:37:31,030 --> 01:37:32,890
who had "erased the color line"

1451
01:37:33,030 --> 01:37:41,430
between jazz and
classical music.

1452
01:37:41,570 --> 01:37:44,300
But black fans had to hear him
from the balcony

1453
01:37:44,440 --> 01:37:46,540
of the theaters he played,

1454
01:37:46,680 --> 01:37:48,680
and white hotels
and restaurants

1455
01:37:48,910 --> 01:37:56,150
excluded him and his band.

1456
01:37:56,180 --> 01:37:59,650
Daisy Ellington had taught
her son from childhood

1457
01:37:59,790 --> 01:38:02,520
to overlook
all unpleasantness.

1458
01:38:02,660 --> 01:38:04,920
After his southern tour,

1459
01:38:05,060 --> 01:38:06,860
rather than again suffer
the indignity

1460
01:38:07,000 --> 01:38:09,760
of being turned away
from hotels and restaurants,

1461
01:38:09,900 --> 01:38:12,700
Ellington and his manager,
Irving mills,

1462
01:38:12,830 --> 01:38:15,130
saw to it that
the orchestra traveled

1463
01:38:15,270 --> 01:38:17,040
in its own private
Pullman cars,

1464
01:38:17,070 --> 01:38:28,450
eating and sleeping
in the railroad yards
between appearances.

1465
01:38:28,580 --> 01:38:31,250
"The natives would come by
and they would say,

1466
01:38:31,490 --> 01:38:34,450
 what on earth is that?"
Ellington remembered.

1467
01:38:34,590 --> 01:38:38,860
"And we would say, That's
The way the president travels.

1468
01:38:38,990 --> 01:38:46,030
you do the very best
with what you've got."

1469
01:38:46,270 --> 01:38:51,140
 [Solitude Playing]

1470
01:38:51,370 --> 01:38:54,640
In early 1934,

1471
01:38:54,880 --> 01:38:58,850
Daisy Ellington was
diagnosed with cancer.

1472
01:38:58,980 --> 01:39:03,150
She had always been the center
of her son's world.

1473
01:39:03,280 --> 01:39:06,490
He sought out the finest
specialists in the country,

1474
01:39:06,620 --> 01:39:08,390
but they could do nothing,

1475
01:39:08,520 --> 01:39:12,590
and she died on may 27, 1935.

1476
01:39:12,630 --> 01:39:15,760
For her funeral,
her son filled the church

1477
01:39:15,900 --> 01:39:18,630
with 3,000 flowers,

1478
01:39:18,670 --> 01:39:24,170
and he asked Irving mills
to buy the most splendid
casket in New York.

1479
01:39:24,410 --> 01:39:27,110
Then he collapsed
in grief.

1480
01:39:27,240 --> 01:39:30,140
"The bottom's out of
everything," he said.

1481
01:39:30,280 --> 01:39:37,150
"I have no ambition left."

1482
01:39:37,390 --> 01:39:40,490
He drank heavily,
saw no one,

1483
01:39:40,620 --> 01:39:49,260
refused to leave
the apartment they had shared.

1484
01:39:49,500 --> 01:39:52,470
Woman: He stopped writing.

1485
01:39:52,600 --> 01:39:54,200
I think he continued to play,

1486
01:39:54,340 --> 01:39:58,370
or he let the band go out
and play for a week or two,

1487
01:39:58,510 --> 01:40:00,310
but he himself
stopped composing.

1488
01:40:00,340 --> 01:40:03,010
He didn't operate
when his mother died.

1489
01:40:03,140 --> 01:40:06,310
He was very upset
when his father died,

1490
01:40:06,350 --> 01:40:08,780
but when his mother died,
he was totally shattered...

1491
01:40:08,920 --> 01:40:14,120
Like the end of the world.

1492
01:40:14,260 --> 01:40:16,760
[Train whistle]

1493
01:40:16,790 --> 01:40:23,660
[Reminiscing in tempo Playing]

1494
01:40:23,730 --> 01:40:27,100
Narrator: Then, slowly,
he began to work again...

1495
01:40:27,140 --> 01:40:31,540
On a new composition.

1496
01:40:31,670 --> 01:40:34,440
As he wrote and rewrote
in his train compartment,

1497
01:40:34,680 --> 01:40:38,580
he remembered,
tears stained the music sheets.

1498
01:40:38,710 --> 01:40:56,030
He called the piece
 Reminiscing in tempo.

1499
01:40:56,160 --> 01:40:59,230
it was a tribute
to his mother,

1500
01:40:59,370 --> 01:41:03,940
filled with melancholy
and carefully crafted.

1501
01:41:04,170 --> 01:41:07,710
Even the solos were composed.

1502
01:41:07,840 --> 01:41:12,250
It was the most ambitious music
he had yet written,

1503
01:41:12,380 --> 01:41:15,710
in 3 movements,
13 minutes long,

1504
01:41:15,750 --> 01:41:20,690
covering both sides
of two records.

1505
01:41:20,820 --> 01:41:27,130
Nothing like it had ever
been recorded before.

1506
01:41:27,260 --> 01:41:30,660
 Reminiscing in tempo
Baffled most critics.

1507
01:41:30,800 --> 01:41:33,600
Some called it pretentious,
and urged Ellington

1508
01:41:33,740 --> 01:41:36,370
to go back to 3-minute
dance tunes.

1509
01:41:36,500 --> 01:41:39,770
John Hammond thought it
a disaster,

1510
01:41:39,910 --> 01:41:42,640
"without the slightest
semblance of guts."

1511
01:41:42,780 --> 01:41:46,150
Ellington, he said,
had shut "his eyes to the abuses

1512
01:41:46,180 --> 01:41:51,280
being heaped upon his race
and his original class."

1513
01:41:51,320 --> 01:41:55,090
There were two worlds of jazz
in this sense:

1514
01:41:55,320 --> 01:41:57,190
There was the world
of the musician,

1515
01:41:57,330 --> 01:42:01,690
and there was the world
of the writer/observer/critic.

1516
01:42:01,730 --> 01:42:06,900
The writer/observer/critic
frequently is defining jazz,

1517
01:42:07,030 --> 01:42:09,330
telling the musician
what he could play,

1518
01:42:09,470 --> 01:42:12,640
what he couldn't play,
or should play,
or shouldn't play.

1519
01:42:12,770 --> 01:42:17,380
These were the people
who established what
is the canon of jazz--

1520
01:42:17,510 --> 01:42:22,620
who's good, who's bad,
who's a hero, who's a bum,

1521
01:42:22,750 --> 01:42:25,180
so forth and so on.

1522
01:42:25,320 --> 01:42:28,750
I've often wondered, musicians
going through the years

1523
01:42:28,890 --> 01:42:31,020
reading this stuff
must have felt

1524
01:42:31,160 --> 01:42:35,690
they were absolutely lost
in a wilderness.

1525
01:42:35,830 --> 01:42:37,060
Narrator: For his part,

1526
01:42:37,200 --> 01:42:39,730
Ellington refused
to respond to Hammond...

1527
01:42:39,870 --> 01:42:41,930
Or any critic.

1528
01:42:42,170 --> 01:42:44,240
For the next 40 years,

1529
01:42:44,370 --> 01:42:47,470
he would continue
to explore and experiment,

1530
01:42:47,610 --> 01:42:50,440
composing some of
the most remarkable music

1531
01:42:50,580 --> 01:42:57,120
ever made in america.

1532
01:42:57,250 --> 01:43:03,920
 [Tiger rag Playing]

1533
01:43:04,060 --> 01:43:06,490
Man: Albert Einstein says
as you get closer

1534
01:43:06,630 --> 01:43:09,230
to the speed of light,
the faster you go,

1535
01:43:09,460 --> 01:43:12,170
the more time slows down.

1536
01:43:12,300 --> 01:43:14,200
And if you could actually get
to the speed of light,

1537
01:43:14,240 --> 01:43:15,570
there'd be no time.

1538
01:43:16,900 --> 01:43:19,510
And Louis had figured that out
in his gut some way.

1539
01:43:19,640 --> 01:43:22,680
The faster you go,
the more relaxed you can be.

1540
01:43:22,810 --> 01:43:24,040
Just relaxed,

1541
01:43:24,280 --> 01:43:27,180
holding the note forever.

1542
01:43:27,210 --> 01:43:32,020
No time.

1543
01:43:32,150 --> 01:43:33,850
Narrator: In 1933,

1544
01:43:33,990 --> 01:43:37,060
Louis Armstrong was in Europe,
still traveling,

1545
01:43:37,290 --> 01:43:40,130
still reluctant
to return to New York.

1546
01:43:40,160 --> 01:43:43,360
He was accompanied by his
new manager, Johnny Collins,

1547
01:43:43,500 --> 01:43:47,000
who was still feuding with his
old booking agent Tommy Rockwell

1548
01:43:47,140 --> 01:43:49,670
and the gangster Dutch Schultz.

1549
01:43:49,700 --> 01:43:53,110
Armstrong was a sensation
everywhere he went--

1550
01:43:53,240 --> 01:43:55,780
Holland, Belgium,

1551
01:43:55,910 --> 01:43:58,210
Italy, Switzerland...

1552
01:43:58,350 --> 01:44:00,680
And Copenhagen, Denmark,

1553
01:44:00,810 --> 01:44:05,050
where 10,000 fans
turned out to meet him
at the railroad station.

1554
01:44:05,190 --> 01:44:43,760
He filled
the tivoli concert hall
8 evenings in a row.

1555
01:44:43,890 --> 01:44:48,530
Glaser: He is
absolutely on fire.

1556
01:44:48,660 --> 01:44:50,800
And it occurred to me that
it was possible--

1557
01:44:51,030 --> 01:44:52,400
and no one will tell me
otherwise,

1558
01:44:52,530 --> 01:44:53,900
it's a fantasy
that I treasure--

1559
01:44:54,040 --> 01:44:56,340
that Werner Heisenberg
could have been in the audience

1560
01:44:56,470 --> 01:44:58,170
in Copenhagen in 1933.

1561
01:44:58,310 --> 01:44:59,970
He lived in Copenhagen
at that time,

1562
01:45:00,010 --> 01:45:02,070
and in 1933
he won the nobel prize

1563
01:45:02,310 --> 01:45:04,040
for his work
on quantum mechanics.

1564
01:45:04,180 --> 01:45:06,780
And I've always had this fantasy
that he and a couple
of other scientists,

1565
01:45:06,910 --> 01:45:09,180
after a hard day of work
on quantum mechanics,

1566
01:45:09,320 --> 01:45:11,250
went out that night,
heard Louis Armstrong,

1567
01:45:11,390 --> 01:45:12,920
and were completely
blown away,

1568
01:45:13,050 --> 01:45:15,590
and realized that
in a completely different idiom,

1569
01:45:15,720 --> 01:45:18,260
he embodied everything
that they were working on--

1570
01:45:18,390 --> 01:45:20,830
profound new ideas
about time, space,

1571
01:45:20,860 --> 01:45:24,930
and the human place
in the cosmos.

1572
01:45:25,070 --> 01:45:27,000
And they saw Louis playing,
and they thought,

1573
01:45:27,130 --> 01:45:28,600
"wow, that's it."

1574
01:45:28,640 --> 01:45:32,400
In a language utterly different
than their scientific language,

1575
01:45:32,640 --> 01:45:45,080
that's it.

1576
01:45:45,120 --> 01:45:46,990
Narrator: Like Ellington,

1577
01:45:47,120 --> 01:45:50,160
Armstrong was now
an international star,

1578
01:45:50,290 --> 01:45:53,890
beloved on both sides
of the Atlantic.

1579
01:45:54,030 --> 01:45:57,930
But his success was
taking a fearful toll.

1580
01:45:58,070 --> 01:46:01,600
[St. James infirmary Playing]

1581
01:46:01,740 --> 01:46:04,400
Johnny Collins had turned out
to be a driven,

1582
01:46:04,540 --> 01:46:06,270
sometimes abusive taskmaster,

1583
01:46:06,510 --> 01:46:09,980
utterly uninterested
in his client beyond the money

1584
01:46:10,110 --> 01:46:13,710
he could make
out of overbooking him.

1585
01:46:13,850 --> 01:46:18,120
In order to make the high notes
that were among his specialties,

1586
01:46:18,150 --> 01:46:22,190
Armstrong placed enormous
pressure on his lip.

1587
01:46:22,320 --> 01:46:24,160
He built up a thick callus

1588
01:46:24,190 --> 01:46:27,660
which was prone
to infection and injury.

1589
01:46:27,700 --> 01:46:31,300
In London
in November of 1933,

1590
01:46:31,430 --> 01:46:33,770
his lip gave way on stage,

1591
01:46:33,900 --> 01:46:36,140
spattering his shirt
with blood.

1592
01:46:36,270 --> 01:46:39,940
He stopped playing,
moved to Paris,

1593
01:46:40,070 --> 01:46:42,340
and settled into
a semi-retirement

1594
01:46:42,380 --> 01:46:46,880
that lasted nearly 8 months.

1595
01:46:47,010 --> 01:46:49,880
In January of 1935,

1596
01:46:50,020 --> 01:46:52,550
after more than
14 months in Europe,

1597
01:46:52,690 --> 01:46:55,420
Armstrong sailed for home.

1598
01:46:55,560 --> 01:46:59,690
Disaster seemed
to loom everywhere.

1599
01:46:59,830 --> 01:47:02,290
He had discovered
that Johnny Collins

1600
01:47:02,330 --> 01:47:04,760
had been cheating him steadily

1601
01:47:04,900 --> 01:47:08,030
and failing to pay
his income taxes.

1602
01:47:08,170 --> 01:47:10,100
He fired Collins,

1603
01:47:10,140 --> 01:47:13,410
who then sued him
for breach of contract.

1604
01:47:13,540 --> 01:47:18,110
Now he had two men
with mob connections mad at him.

1605
01:47:18,350 --> 01:47:22,510
His second wife, lil hardin,
from whom he had separated,

1606
01:47:22,650 --> 01:47:26,450
was now demanding
what she called "maintenance."

1607
01:47:26,590 --> 01:47:29,720
His new girlfriend,
Alpha Smith,

1608
01:47:29,860 --> 01:47:32,660
was demanding
that he marry her.

1609
01:47:32,690 --> 01:47:36,100
And when he finally
got back to Chicago,

1610
01:47:36,130 --> 01:47:38,530
where he had first won fame,

1611
01:47:38,670 --> 01:47:48,010
he couldn't seem
to find steady work.

1612
01:47:48,140 --> 01:47:50,110
Even Louis Armstrong,

1613
01:47:50,240 --> 01:47:53,180
the man who had invented
modern time,

1614
01:47:53,310 --> 01:47:59,550
had hit hard times.

1615
01:47:59,690 --> 01:48:06,990
 [Down south camp meeting
Playing]

1616
01:48:07,130 --> 01:48:10,000
Man: "March 1935.

1617
01:48:10,030 --> 01:48:12,700
"Benny Goodman and
his Let's dance Band

1618
01:48:12,830 --> 01:48:16,200
"are a great medicine,
a truly great outfit--

1619
01:48:16,340 --> 01:48:21,140
"fine arrangers and musicians
who are together all the time.

1620
01:48:21,280 --> 01:48:24,010
"They phrase together,
they bite together,

1621
01:48:24,140 --> 01:48:26,180
they swing together."

1622
01:48:26,310 --> 01:48:42,330
 Metronome

1623
01:48:42,560 --> 01:48:45,030
narrator:
In the spring of 1935,

1624
01:48:45,270 --> 01:48:47,300
things looked bright
for Benny Goodman.

1625
01:48:47,440 --> 01:48:50,070
The audience for
the Let's dance Radio program

1626
01:48:50,200 --> 01:48:56,680
was growing every week.

1627
01:48:56,810 --> 01:49:00,350
But then workers at
the national biscuit company,

1628
01:49:00,480 --> 01:49:03,750
the show's sponsor,
went out on strike.

1629
01:49:03,780 --> 01:49:06,580
 Let's dance Was canceled.

1630
01:49:06,720 --> 01:49:09,860
Desperate to keep
his band together,

1631
01:49:09,990 --> 01:49:12,590
Goodman scrambled to find work.

1632
01:49:12,730 --> 01:49:15,030
Eventually,
his agent arranged

1633
01:49:15,060 --> 01:49:18,760
a cross-country tour
to end in Los Angeles.

1634
01:49:19,000 --> 01:49:21,970
Benny Goodman was not pleased.

1635
01:49:22,100 --> 01:49:25,640
He knew that most of america
still hadn't heard swing,

1636
01:49:25,770 --> 01:49:27,310
and "the west," he said,

1637
01:49:27,440 --> 01:49:31,840
"had a reputation
for being corny."

1638
01:49:32,080 --> 01:49:34,880
The band set out
in mid-July anyway,

1639
01:49:35,020 --> 01:49:38,380
playing one-nighters
as they went.

1640
01:49:38,420 --> 01:49:40,950
There was no money for a bus,

1641
01:49:41,090 --> 01:49:59,300
so the musicians had to drive
themselves across the continent.

1642
01:49:59,340 --> 01:50:05,440
[Horn honks]

1643
01:50:05,580 --> 01:50:08,110
Things did not go well.

1644
01:50:08,250 --> 01:50:11,480
In Denver, the manager
of one dance hall

1645
01:50:11,620 --> 01:50:15,720
demanded they leave
after hearing them
for just half an hour.

1646
01:50:15,860 --> 01:50:18,490
"I hired a dance band,"
he told Goodman.

1647
01:50:18,630 --> 01:50:20,090
"What's the matter?

1648
01:50:20,130 --> 01:50:24,060
Can't you boys
play any waltzes?"

1649
01:50:24,200 --> 01:50:26,700
In grand junction, Colorado,

1650
01:50:26,830 --> 01:50:28,700
the band played
behind chicken wire

1651
01:50:28,740 --> 01:50:31,600
to keep from being hit
by the whiskey bottles

1652
01:50:31,740 --> 01:50:35,570
hurled by disappointed dancers.

1653
01:50:35,710 --> 01:50:37,410
As Goodman's
little caravan of cars

1654
01:50:37,540 --> 01:50:39,740
continued west
toward California,

1655
01:50:39,880 --> 01:50:42,650
he realized that
if their luck didn't change,

1656
01:50:42,780 --> 01:50:50,520
it was unlikely he could hold
his band together much longer.

1657
01:50:50,660 --> 01:50:53,960
On August 21, 1935,

1658
01:50:54,100 --> 01:50:58,930
Goodman and his orchestra
finally reached Los Angeles.

1659
01:50:59,070 --> 01:51:01,400
"I thought we'd finish
the engagement," he said,

1660
01:51:01,540 --> 01:51:03,770
"then take the train
back to New York,

1661
01:51:04,000 --> 01:51:05,470
"and that would be it.

1662
01:51:05,710 --> 01:51:07,610
I'd just be
a clarinetist again."

1663
01:51:07,740 --> 01:51:13,810
Then the band pulled up
in front of the brand-new
palomar ballroom.

1664
01:51:13,850 --> 01:51:22,890
[Horns honking]

1665
01:51:23,120 --> 01:51:25,420
Giddins: They found
this enormous throng of people

1666
01:51:25,660 --> 01:51:31,130
lined up around the block,
waiting to get in.

1667
01:51:31,270 --> 01:51:34,330
And they thought, "well,
wait a minute. What's this?

1668
01:51:34,470 --> 01:51:35,930
It can't be for us."

1669
01:51:36,170 --> 01:51:37,870
Collier:
Benny now has been told

1670
01:51:38,010 --> 01:51:41,340
by every ballroom owner
across the country

1671
01:51:41,480 --> 01:51:43,340
not to play
the jazz stuff.

1672
01:51:43,380 --> 01:51:46,350
They just want to hear
the dance tunes.

1673
01:51:46,580 --> 01:51:50,250
So he gets to the palomar,
and there's a crowd there,

1674
01:51:50,280 --> 01:51:52,620
but he's not taking
any chances.

1675
01:51:52,750 --> 01:51:57,560
 [Restless Playing]

1676
01:51:57,690 --> 01:51:59,990
So they start playing
the waltzes and the pop--

1677
01:52:01,530 --> 01:52:16,470
and the audience is just
kind of milling around.
There's no response.

1678
01:52:16,610 --> 01:52:18,640
Collier: And so
they were doing this,

1679
01:52:18,780 --> 01:52:20,850
and it wasn't going very well,

1680
01:52:20,980 --> 01:52:23,780
and bunny berrigan
or somebody in the band said,

1681
01:52:23,920 --> 01:52:25,350
you know,
"the heck with this.

1682
01:52:25,490 --> 01:52:27,520
"If we're going to go down,
let's go down

1683
01:52:27,750 --> 01:52:29,590
doing the kind of music
we want to play."

1684
01:52:29,720 --> 01:52:32,220
[King Porter stomp Playing]

1685
01:52:32,460 --> 01:52:51,040
So they broke out
the King Porter stomp.

1686
01:52:51,080 --> 01:52:53,650
giddins: That's what
they were waiting for.

1687
01:52:53,680 --> 01:52:56,250
They'd been listening
to this stuff on the radio,

1688
01:52:56,380 --> 01:53:02,520
and that's what they wanted
to hear--this jazz music.

1689
01:53:02,660 --> 01:53:04,760
Collier:
The audience was cheering,

1690
01:53:04,890 --> 01:53:10,100
crowding around the bandstand
and shouting and jumping...

1691
01:53:10,230 --> 01:53:11,930
And they couldn't believe it.

1692
01:53:12,070 --> 01:53:17,570
They were absolutely stunned.

1693
01:53:17,700 --> 01:54:07,420
And the next morning,
Benny Goodman was famous.

1694
01:54:07,560 --> 01:54:09,120
Narrator: The sound of swing

1695
01:54:09,260 --> 01:54:11,090
that had begun
with Louis Armstrong

1696
01:54:11,230 --> 01:54:14,360
and had been nurtured
in the dance halls of Harlem

1697
01:54:14,500 --> 01:54:19,500
was now echoing
across the country.

1698
01:54:19,630 --> 01:54:35,750
The swing era
was about to begin.

1699
01:54:44,990 --> 01:54:47,260
Armstrong: Are you ready?
One, two...

1700
01:54:47,390 --> 01:58:57,087
[Music begins]