All language subtitles for JAZZ - 04 - The True Welcome (1929-1934)

[Creole love call Playing]

Narrator: In 1929,
the stock market crashed.

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

Man:
Somebody had blundered,

and the most expensive orgy
in history was over.

Now, once more,
the belt is tight,

and we summon the proper
expression of horror

as we look back
on our wasted youth.

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

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

when we drank wood alcohol,

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

and there was an abortive
shortening of the skirts,

and people you didn't
want to know said,

"yes, we have no bananas."

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

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

F. Scott Fitzgerald

narrator:
The jazz age was over.

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

♪♪ open up your heart and mind ♪

♪♪ mister rich man, rich man ♪♪

♪♪ open up your heart and mind ♪

♪♪ give the poor man a chance ♪♪

♪♪ help stop these hard,
hard times ♪♪

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

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

Narrator: As the 1930s began,

one out of every
4 wage-earners--

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

In Mississippi,
on a single day in 1932,

1/4 of the entire state
was auctioned off.

Thousands of jobless men
wandered the landscape.

Dust storms born in Texas
and the dakotas

darkened skies all the way east
to Washington.

Prices of wheat and corn
and cotton fell so low,

the crops were left to rot
in the fields.

In Boston, children with
cardboard soles in their shoes

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

A jobless couple moved into
a cave in central park

and stayed there for a year.

They could find nowhere else
to live.

The music business came close
to collapsing.

In Chicago,

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

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

were soon selling
just 6 million.

Most of them
went out of business.

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

and sold radios
and radio programs instead.

[Radio static]

[Stardust Playing]

But that meant that millions of
people all over america

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

played by all kinds of people--

for free.

Louis Armstrong,
who had already revolutionized
American instrumental music,

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

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

Duke Ellington
was flourishing, too,

and his sophisticated music
and elegant personal style

would help change
the perceptions--

and expectations--
of an entire race.

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

was incubating
in the dance halls of Harlem.

But it would take an outsider,

a Jewish immigrant's son
from Chicago,

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

And jazz, which had always
thrived in adversity

and come to symbolize a certain
kind of American freedom,

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

of a frightened country.

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

that had separated Americans
from each other for centuries.

Man: When you talk about jazz
and freedom,

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

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

and where you feel comfortable
in whatever the community is,

that you think that
your family is safe,

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

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

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

of the central ethos
of the society.

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

where the white boy's talking to

the white girl, and she says,

"well, Bob, what's wrong?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

So there you have
the pioneer couple.

When Bob and Clara hear
Louis Armstrong play Stardust,

they hear him do with Stardust
What Bob wants to do

when he wants to get out
and go someplace

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

[Echoes of harlem Playing]

Narrator: Hard times hit
black america hardest,

and the optimism
and entrepreneurial spirit

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

But the people
of Harlem endured.

In the cold winter of 1929,

zalama Miller,
a widow from Barbados,

and her two daughters,
Norma and dot,

were forced to move
out of their apartment

across the street from
the cotton club.

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

as it spilled out
through the door...

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

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

[Rock & rye Playing]

Their new home was
a smaller, third-floor flat

on 140th street,

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

the savoy ballroom.

The savoy covered a whole
city block on lenox Avenue

between 140th and 141st streets,

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

and was so popular with dancers

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

every 3 years.

Just 50 cents on weeknights,
75 cents on sundays,

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

and offered
depression-ravaged Harlem

a respite from its troubles.

Woman:
The windows was wide open,

and so the music can come out,

blast right into
our living room.

Every night, we heard
this marvelous music.

And in those days,
in the summer,

the fire escape was where

you sat to be cool.

There was no air conditioning,

nowhere.

So by sitting on a fire escape,

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

And you ever see shadows when
people dance past the windows?

You can see figures
dancing to that music.

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

and we would get into the
living room and dance to some
of the best bands in the world.

Narrator: For years,
Norma listened to the music

and dreamed of going inside.

In the spring of 1931,
she got her chance.

Miller: Precisely,
it was easter Sunday...

12 years old...

And, you know, in those days,

you always had a little new
outfit to go out to church.

[What a shuffle Playing]

4:00, there's a matinee going to
be at the savoy ballroom,

and after church I dash up to
lenox Avenue.

And the people that went into
the savoy were sharp.

And we used to just stand
outside to watch them,

and that's what I was doing.

We started dancing outside
the savoy ballroom,

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

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

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

It was the great
twistmouth George

in a white hat,
white suit, white everything,

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

And he said,
"would you come and dance?"

I say, "Would I?"

He grabbed me,
we dashed up the stairs.

And I don't know whether I hit
each step,

'cause he had such long legs.

And I remember just flying up
those stairs with him,

and you go through
these doors...

And I think it was the most
beautiful place I'd ever seen
in my life--

the reds and the Greens
and the blues.

And that was the first time I
ever saw a band on a bandstand.

I mean, I'd been seeing
the shadows.

And he--I'm so excited--

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

and brought me a coke and said,

"you sit here,
and I'll come and get you."

And finally, it was his turn,
for twistmouth George to come.

And he came and got me,
and he said, "let's go."

When they hit that music...

All I know is,
I did everything--

he just threw me out,

and my feet never
touched the ground.

The people were screaming and he
put me on top of his shoulders,

walked me around the ballroom,

and the people is clapping
and talking about twistmouth,

and he took me right around
to the front, right outside,

and put me back outside.

[Laughs]

Greatest moment in my life,
and I'm excited, excited,

and I'm going to go home and
tell my mother and my sister,

and then I said,
"no, I better not say nothin'."

[Chinatown,
My chinatown Playing]

Man: So they're playing fast,

it sounds like they're nervous,

it sounds like they're having
a hard time coping with this
fast tempo,

the hectic nature
of the modern world.

It's change, and...

They're after him.

The temporal nature of

the modern world,

but he's ready, and now there's
going to be no time

when he comes in suddenly,
just one note.

[Chinatown,
My chinatown Playing]

Free...

Completely relaxed...

Floating above this.

♪♪ Da da da da da da... ♪♪

It sounds like an Aria.

So this is a new way
to experience the modern world

in all of its hectic movement.

It's like the platonic world has
entered for a moment into
the modern world.

Just relaxation and freedom,

and jazz has been dealing with
this concept

since Louis made this record.

Now drummers and bass players
and everyone can get
into that groove.

In those days, he was
the only guy to have this idea.

Narrator: In 1929,
Louis Armstrong was playing
for mostly black audiences

on the south side of Chicago.

His hot five
and hot seven records,

including his masterpiece
West end blues,

had sold well
in black neighborhoods,

but he was still largely unknown
among whites.

That was all about to change.

He had signed a contract with
a tough-talking booking agent
with mob connections

named Tommy Rockwell,

who promised to make him
an even bigger star

by introducing him to white
audiences--if he came back to
New York as a solo performer.

Armstrong was willing to go,

but, against Rockwell's wishes,
he brought the members of his
own band with him.

He just couldn't bear to
leave them behind, he said.

They would travel by car,

stopping for the night in
black communities along the way.

Man: So Louis and the band
got in this old hupmobile
that Louis had,

and they headed east.

And this, of course, was
the days before superhighways,

and you had to go through
the middle of all these
little towns

to go all the way from Chicago
to New York.

And every place they went,

they'd get into this little town

and here would be

of the front of some store
on a loudspeaker,

from a record store or whatever.

And these guys were just amazed.

They had no idea how popular
Louis was,

and neither had Louis himself.

But it was at that point
that Louis, I think,

began to have a sense--

"hey, wait a minute.

I can maybe make something more
out of this than I have."

Narrator: At first, Rockwell
could only book Armstrong

into black venues in Harlem--
the Lafayette, the audubon,

as well as the savoy.

Eventually, he landed him
a lengthy engagement

at a club called Connie's inn
on seventh Avenue and west
131st street,

where Armstrong's
most devoted admirer

was the club's part-owner,

the murderous king of
the New York numbers racket--

Dutch Schultz.

[Ain't misbehavin' Playing]

A few weeks later,

Armstrong got the break
he'd been waiting for--

playing for white audiences
downtown...On Broadway.

The show was an all-black revue
called Hot chocolates.

the songs were written
by Andy razaf

and a Harlem stride piano master
named fats waller.

Armstrong's rendition of
the show's biggest hit,

ain't misbehavin',
Was so spectacular

that it brought down the house
every night,

and audiences began demanding
that he leave the orchestra pit

and perform it from the stage.

Man: "No shabby pretense
about this boy.

"He knows what his audience
will take to their hearts,
and he gives it to them.

"His trumpet virtuosity
is endless,

"all executed with impeccable
style and finish--

"exploits that make his
contemporaries sound like so
many salvation army cornetists.

"It's mad, it's meaningless,
it's hokum of the first order,

but the effect is electrifying."

New york Sun

Armstrong:
♪♪ no one to talk with ♪♪

Narrator: It was not Armstrong's
trumpet playing alone that won
him cheers.

He was singing now, as well.

Armstrong: ♪♪ I said I love you,
really said I love you ♪♪

♪♪ I know for certain ♪♪

♪♪ the one I love ♪♪

♪♪ I'm through with flirtin' ♪♪

♪♪ you that I'm thinkin' of ♪♪

♪♪ ain't misbehavin' ♪♪

♪♪ I'm savin' my love ♪♪

♪♪ oh, baby, my love for you ♪♪

Narrator: He proved to be a born
showman, delighting in applause,

who believed it his duty to do
almost anything to win it.

Armstrong:
♪♪ all your kisses ♪♪

♪♪ worth waiting for me ♪♪

Narrator: "The minute I walk
on the bandstand," he said,

"they know they're going to see
something good.

I see to that."

Satch was an entertainer.

He would come out and say,

"good evening, everybody!"

And you'd say, "yeah!"

Right away, he had you feeling
very, very happy and receptive
to what he was going to do.

That's show business.

Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.

I'm Mr. Armstrong,

and we're gonna swing one of
the good old good ones for you.

Yes, sir.

Dinah. Dinah.

are you ready?

1, 2, 3--

[playing Dinah]

[singing scat]

♪♪ Oh, dinah ♪♪

♪♪ is there anyone finer ♪♪

♪♪ in the state of Carolina? ♪♪

♪♪ if there is and you know ♪♪

♪♪ show her to me ♪♪

♪♪ with her Dixie eyes blazin' ♪

♪♪ how I love to sit
and gaze in ♪♪

♪♪ to the eyes of dinah Lee ♪♪

♪♪ baby, every night
while I shake with fright ♪♪

♪♪ 'cause my dinah might
change her mind ♪♪

[Sings scat]

♪♪ If you ever wandered
to China, babe ♪♪

♪♪ I would hop an ocean liner,
oh, babe ♪♪

♪♪ oh, dinah ♪♪

♪♪ dinah ♪♪

♪♪ oh, dinah, oh, babe,
dinah Lee ♪♪

♪♪ dinah, dinah, dinah ♪♪

[Singing scat]

♪♪ If you ever wandered
to China, babe ♪♪

♪♪ I'd hop an ocean liner, yeah♪

Narrator:
In all the history of music,

no one had ever sung
like that before.

See, because before him,
people sang like:

♪♪ I love you and you love me ♪♪

♪♪ and I'm going to be
with you, baby ♪♪

You know, that's the way people
sang then, you know,

and when that--then after
Louis Armstrong,

when he would, you know,
when he would play,

when he could just say, like,

♪♪ boo bay doo day
doo de doo Dee dah... ♪♪

♪♪ boo be doo Dee, boo bee boo
wee Dee bop boo bee bah... ♪♪

Hey, you're not going to sing,
♪♪ I want you and you want me ♪♪
after you hear that.

You know, that's the bad choice.

I mean, anybody going
to go back to that,

they need to be deported,
to Somewhere.

not on the earth--
maybe pluto.

He invented American singing.

I mean, all of the singers

from frank Sinatra, bing Crosby,

Mildred Bailey, Jon Hendricks--

Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday,
they all would say, "pops."

[Lazy river Playing]

Narrator: Armstrong now began
recording tin pan alley tunes--

I'm confessin' that I love you,

stardust,

I can't give you
Anything but love,

and Up a lazy river.

he made each song his own.

Glaser: So the saxophones
come in playing the melody,

really corny.

And he's, like, coddling them,
condescending,

[lazy river Playing]

Armstrong: Uh-huh.

"Sure."

Like you would say to an insane
person or something.

They're playing the melody in
a very stiff, old-fashioned
kind of way.

And then Louis comes in to show
them a new way to play a melody.

Armstrong:
♪♪ up a lazy river ♪♪

♪♪ where the old mill runs ♪♪

Articulated,
completely free rhythmically,

boiled down to one note...
Abstracted.

Armstrong:
♪♪ throw away your trouble,
dream a dream of me ♪♪

Glaser: Free, no time.

Armstrong: ♪♪ up a lazy river,
where the Robins hum ♪♪

He's boiled down this complex
melody to its essential impulse.

Armstrong:
♪♪ blue skies up above ♪♪

♪♪ everyone in love ♪♪

Glaser:
Everything's boiled down.

Armstrong:
♪♪ how happy we will be ♪♪

Glaser: Then he decides
to go improvise...

[Armstrong singing scat]

A phrase that would be
appropriated by the beboppers.

[Armstrong singing scat]

You can tell he's swinging,
you know,

like he would say.

Armstrong: Boy, am I
riffing this evening, I hope.

"Boy, am I riffing this evening,
I hope."

Man: I think Louis Armstrong is

the single most
influential singer

American music
has ever produced.

And he had an ability,

which was quite spectacular,

of improvising the vocal
almost as freely as if he
were playing an instrument,

and more than that--

he had a way of singing
the melody phrase

and then singing his own
obligato to it.

So he might go something like,
you know,

and then he's go, ♪♪ open ♪♪

You know, and it might be just
kind of a guttural thing,

like "hmmg" or something
like that.

But you could almost transpose
that to a saxophone obligato

or to another instrument.

And so, when you hear
his great vocals,

it almost sounds like there are
two or 3 people producing all of
these phrases.

And he had so much energy,

and he took so much Liberty
with the song.

Even great songs--
Stardust--

I mean, he virtually recomposes
Stardust And Body and soul--

that I don't think
any singer in that period

could have listened to him
and not been influenced.

Even the singers who had been
around long before him.

Narrator: The musicians with
whom he surrounded himself
mattered less now.

Louis Armstrong was the star.

Man:
Louis Armstrong was great.

What we would do is,

you'd stick your head out

and go out in the rain

so you could get hoarse

so you could sound like
Louis Armstrong.

[Hoarsely]
Yeah!

[Black and blue Playing]

Narrator: In Harlem,
young men took to carrying
big white handkerchiefs

because he flourished them
on-stage to mop his brow.

Fans and fellow musicians alike
began to copy his distinctive
vocabulary.

He was the first to refer to
a musician's skills as
his "chops,"

the first to call people "cats."

When he couldn't remember
someone's name,

he'd call them "gate" or "pops."

"Pops" would become the fond
nickname his friends around
the world called him

until the day he died.

Among the Broadway tunes
he recorded that year

was fats waller's
Black and blue,

originally written
for Hot chocolates

as a complaint by
a dark-skinned woman

about her man's preference
for lighter-skinned rivals.

Armstrong transformed it,
without a hint of self-pity,

into a song about being black
in a world run by whites.

Armstrong:
♪♪ cold, empty bed ♪♪

♪♪ Springs hard as lead ♪♪

♪♪ feels like old ned ♪♪

♪♪ wish I was dead ♪♪

♪♪ all my life through ♪♪

♪♪ I been so black and blue ♪♪

♪♪ mmm, even the mouse ♪♪

♪♪ ran from my house ♪♪

♪♪ they laugh at you ♪♪

♪♪ and scorn you, too ♪♪

♪♪ what did I do ♪♪

♪♪ to be so black and blue? ♪♪

♪♪ oh, I'm white inside ♪♪

♪♪ but that don't help my case ♪

♪♪ 'cause I can't hide ♪♪

♪♪ what is in my face ♪♪

[Singing scat]

♪♪ How will it end? ♪♪

♪♪ ain't got a friend ♪♪

♪♪ my only sin ♪♪

♪♪ is in my skin ♪♪

♪♪ what did I do ♪♪

♪♪ to be so black and blue? ♪♪

In those days,

if one black man

called another man "black,"

you know, that was
fighting words, you know?

But Louis, he was the first man
I heard to say, "you're black,
be proud of it.

"You're black--you're not white,
you're not yellow, you're black.

Be proud of it."

He was saying that when it was
so very unpopular, you know?

Narrator: On the evening of
October 12, 1931,

Louis Armstrong opened
a 3-day run at the hotel
driskill in Austin, Texas.

Among those who paid 75 cents to
get in that night

was a freshman at the university
of Texas named Charlie black.

He knew nothing of jazz,

had never even heard
of Armstrong.

He just knew there were
likely to be lots of girls
to dance with.

Then Armstrong began to play.

[Stardust Playing]

Man: He played mostly
with his eyes closed,

letting flow from that
inner space of music

things that had never
before existed.

He was the first genius
I had ever seen.

It is impossible to overstate
the significance

of a 16-year-old southern boy
seeing genius for the first time

in a black person.

We literally never
saw a black, then,

in any but a servant's capacity.

Louis opened my eyes wide
and put to me a choice.

Blacks, the saying went, were
"all right in their place."

But what was the place
of such a man,

and of the people
from which he sprung?

Charlie black

narrator:
Charlie black went on

to become professor
Charles l. Black,

a distinguished teacher of
constitutional law at Yale.

In 1954, he helped provide
the answer to the question

Louis Armstrong's music
had first posed for him.

He volunteered for the team
of lawyers, black and white,

who finally persuaded
the supreme court,

in the case of
Brown vs. Board of education,

that segregating
schoolchildren

on the basis
of race and color

was unconstitutional.

[Crickets chirping]

Man: You will find my subject
in the first chapter of John.

man:"Marvel not,"
I say unto thee.

♪♪ Ye must be born again ♪♪

♪♪ there was a man
of the pharisees ♪♪

♪♪ named nicodemus ♪♪

♪♪ came to Christ by night ♪♪

Second man: I was born
in Jacksonville, Florida,

and we used to live
across the river

from one of these
baptist churches.

Man: ♪♪ how can a man
be born... ♪♪

We used to sit on our porch,
like on sundays,

and we'd hear the preacher
across the river preaching,

and we could hear
the sisters and the brothers

shouting and carrying on.

And we, as kids, we would
get out in the yard--

in the front yard--and pretend
that we were in church

and doing that same
shouting and going on.

And I think
that kind of rhythm

kind of stuck
with me from then on.

Man: ♪♪ he must
be born again ♪♪

Narrator: In 1917,

a single mother
named Lucille Manning,

hoping to make
a better life,

left her young son Frankie
in Jacksonville, Florida,

and moved to Harlem
in search of work.

As soon as Lucille got a job--

working in a laundry
on the east side--

she sent for her son.

[Orchestra playing
Stompin' at the savoy]

narrator:
Like Norma Miller,

Frankie Manning grew up longing
to get into the savoy ballroom

and join
in a new dance craze

that was just
taking hold in Harlem.

Named after the greatest
hero of the day--

the aviator
Charles Lindbergh--

it was called
the "Lindy hop."

Manning: Now, Lindy hop itself
is done to swing music,

and if you know
what a swing is,

it's very smooth
and it flows.

Before that, you were
doing, like, the Charleston.

You know, that--
♪♪ dong dong dong dong ♪♪

And, you know, music was
being played that way,

so, when they started playing
swing music, it was like...

♪♪ Yum bum, yum bum ♪♪

You know?
So it just swung.

So you just started to--

the dance just started
to evolve with that swing music.

So there you have
the Lindy hop.

Narrator: At the savoy,

the music never stopped.

As one band
wound up a set,

the second band took up
the same tune.

The dancers never needed
to leave the floor.

The larger of the savoy's
two bandstands

was the home of
the drummer chick webb,

and it took a brave bandleader
to dare lay claim

to the other one
when he was in residence.

Webb was small--

just over 4 feet tall--
and frail.

He suffered from
tuberculosis of the spine.

But once "the little giant,"
as he was called,

was seated
behind his drums,

urging his men through
a driving arrangement

like Stomping at the savoy,

few could match
his competitive fury.

Anybody who was
anybody in Harlem

wanted to go
to the savoy--

to hear chick webb,

to try to forget
the depression,

to dance to
the brand-new sound.

Manning: And our
one ambition was

to go to the savoy
ballroom.

And I remember
it was 6 of us,

and we're walking up
these steps,

and as we were
climbing up the steps,

I could hear this music
coming down the stairway.

We were walking up there,
and we started, "oh, man!

You hear that music? Wow!"

And we walked
through the door.

We opened the door,
and we turned around.

As you come up the steps,

when you come through
the doors,

your back is
to the bandstand,

so you turn around
the stairwell,

and then you face
the band.

And as I turn around
and face this,

the floor was full
with people!

And it looked like everyone
on the floor was doing
the Lindy hop.

Manning: Everybody was just
bouncing up and down,

and the music was
romping and stomping

and we start, "man!"

We started looking
at each other.

"Hey, man!
You hear this music?

Look at all these people
in this place dance
with each other!"

And the floor was--oh!

Looked like
the floor was getting
into the mood of the dance,

because the floor was just
bouncing up and down, you know?

And the people were
bouncing up and down,

and chick webb was on
the bandstand, wailing.

Boy, it was just such
a wonderful time in our life

to come up there,
you know, as youngsters,

and be exposed
to this kind of music.

Oh, wow!

[Radio static squealing]

[Jazz playing]

Announcer: We are
broadcasting this evening

from the cotton club,
where Duke Ellington

and his orchestra are
playing for the dancers.

[Ring dem bells Playing]

Man: Duke Ellington
was elegance.

Duke Ellington was
the capacity

to be in the middle of it

and above it
at the same time.

He taught us
the true meaning of style,

the true meaning of grace,

the true meaning of floating.

Here we were, you know,

people described often
as clumsy, stupid,

shuffling,
and, uh, whatever.

Ellington walked on stage...

And all of those myths
were dissipated.

[Playing Rockin' in rhythm]

man: And then Ellington
and the great orchestra
came to town...

Came with their uniforms,
their sophistication,

their skills,
their golden horns,

their flights of controlled
and disciplined fantasy...

Came with their art,

their special sound.

They were news from
the great, wide world--

an example and a goal.

Ralph Ellison

narrator: As the depression
settled in,

and more and more people found
themselves without work

or even the prospect
of work,

Duke Ellington, like
Louis Armstrong, prospered.

He had become the best-known
black bandleader in america,

famous for the exotic-sounding
"jungle music" he broadcast

over a nationwide radio hook-up
from the cotton club.

But Ellington's manager,
Irving mills,

thought he could
be even bigger,

and in 1930 arranged for him
and the band to go to Hollywood

and appear in a comedy called
Check and double check.

[playing jazz tune]

Well, listen, Amos.

We got to get
this thing fixed

and get back
to the lodge meetin'.

Well, I can tell you
right now, Andy,

I can't fix
the thing by myself.

Narrator: The heroes of
the film were Amos and Andy--

the most popular radio
performers in the country--

white comedians
who played in blackface,

their humor steeped
in racial stereotypes

that harked back to the early
days of the minstrel show.

In a bizarre turn,
the studio--

concerned that
white audiences would think

Ellington's band was
integrated,

insisted that Juan tizol
and Barney bigard,

its two lightest-skinned
members,

black up as dark
as Amos and Andy.

If Hollywood's racial code
offended Ellington,

he never let it show.

He saw
Check and double check

as the chance
of a lifetime,

and he was right.

No other black band had ever
been given such a showcase,

and Ellington's fame
continued to spread.

[Car horn honks]

[Band playing
Sophisticated lady]

man: One's earliest
perception

of Duke Ellington
was that

he was a transcendent
figure in the music...

Because the earliest
things that you heard

had so much of all of the music
that you knew about in it.

Everybody identified with that.

It was as if we knew exactly
where he got that from--

some corner in Washington,
just as we knew it

from some corner
in mobile and all.

And it was like...
People would say,

for the want
of a better term,

it was like
classical music.

It's like taking blues
and making classical
music out of it.

He could listen to a style

and get to
the very center of it

and take the meaning
and the juice out of that style

and put it into his.

He is the originator
of a way of orchestrating

the sounds of the blues
for a large ensemble.

It's the systems
of harmonization and voicings

that he alone invented,
only he knows.

Crouch:
And it's an epic vision

that is both ethnic
and all-inclusive.

That's the thing
about him that's so remarkable,

is that it's--
is that it's...

It's negroid
without being exclusive.

In Duke Ellington's music,
there's always,

"hey, come on in."

So there's a kind of a welcoming
quality that you associate

with the highest form of
civilization, I would suggest.

See, because civilization,
in a certain sense,

can be reduced
to the word "welcome."

Marsalis: You don't
get the same type
of spiritual high-mindedness

in his sound that you have
in Louis Armstrong's,

but it's there.

But Duke Ellington--he's more
of a late-night person.

He's the person
who understands the sensuous,

and that's in his music
and it's in his sound.

Duke Ellington, when he hits
one or two notes on the piano,

he's going to take you
into a late-night room

where something of interest is
about to take place.

[Orchestra playing
That Lindy hop]

narrator: In 1931,
Ellington sent for his mother

to join him in
a big, new apartment

in Harlem's best
neighborhood--sugar hill.

Daisy Ellington came
right away.

In her eyes,
her son could do no wrong.

Soon, she was happily cleaning
and cooking for him again,

longing for the moment
when he walked through
the door and announced,

"mother, I'm home
to dine."

Ellington showered her
with gifts--

ropes of pearls,
a fur coat,

and a chauffeur-driven
Pierce-arrow

so that she could follow her son
from engagement to engagement.

"After a couple of thousand
people had stopped applauding,"

his sister remembered,

"my mother was always
Still Applauding."

[Piano playing
I ain't got nobody]

Davis: Jazz was the bubble

in the life of Harlem.

It was...

The thing your soul
worked for...

The epitome...

The final expression

that told us we were
a great people, too.

Now, the explosive nature

would have made it
impossible for us

to keep it to ourselves,
even if we had wanted to.

The very nature of jazz is
to proclaim to all the world,

"hey, look! Wow! Poof!"

And this is us:
"Look, come have some."

The limitations are off.

Put race aside.

"Come in, open your heart,
open your mind,

whoever the hell you are."

"Come in. Just listen
to this, brother.

Listen to this, sister."

You know,
"be a part of this."

"This is going to be good
for you, man, whoever you are.

"It's going
to change you...

Going to do something
To You--something good."

We felt that.

[Piano playing
Handful of keys]

narrator: The honorary
mayor of Harlem

was Thomas "fats" waller,

who may have been
the most popular man in town--

a brilliant pianist
and an electrifying entertainer

with a gift for songwriting
few musicians would ever match.

He ate more food,
drank more liquor,

played as much piano,

and seemed
to be having more fun

than any other musician
of his time.

He was a big man,

nearly 6 feet tall,

sometimes weighing
more than 300 pounds,

and wore size 15 shoes.

He routinely downed
3 steaks for lunch,

drank a quart or more of gin
or whiskey at every
recording session,

and called the liquor he drank
upon awakening each morning

his "liquid
ham and eggs."

The stride piano master
James p. Johnson was
his mentor,

and waller never lost
the mighty,

rumbling left hand
Johnson had taught him.

But the touch of his
right hand

was light, melodic,

irrepressible.

"Concentrate
on the melody,"

waller told
one interviewer.

"You got to hang
onto the melody

and never let it
get boresome."

Fats waller was
never "boresome."

Man: He was a big man,
he was a fat man.

He was called "fats,"
for heaven's sake.

And people like that are
expected to be jovial,

and he was willing to play
the part, for the most part.

It's when you hear
some of the original pieces

and when you hear
the solo piano you realize

he's a musician of enormous
depth and of great learning.

He knows the piano repertoire
in the European tradition,

as well as in jazz.

And his rhythm is incomparable.

He doesn't Need A band,
he swings so hard.

Narrator: Waller sold some
400 songs to music publishers,

and because they paid him
so little,

he regularly sold
each song several times.

"You had to buy them,"
one publisher remembered,

"even though you knew
he probably had sold it
across the hall."

Waller's tunes included
Louis Armstrong's big hit

ain't misbehavin',

honeysuckle Rose,

blue turning grey over you,

numb fumblin',

and The joint is jumpin'.

waller: ♪♪ my, my ♪♪

♪♪ oh, oh ♪♪

♪♪ yes, yes ♪♪

♪♪ my, my ♪♪

♪♪ they have
a new expression ♪♪

♪♪ 'long old Harlem way ♪♪

♪♪ that tells you
when a party ♪♪

♪♪ is 10 times more
than gay ♪♪

♪♪ to say that things
are jumpin' ♪♪

♪♪ leaves not a single doubt ♪♪

♪♪ watch all these cats,
watch everything

♪♪ when you hear
somebody shout ♪♪

♪♪ this joint is jumpin' ♪♪

♪♪ really jumpin' ♪♪

♪♪ come in, cats,
and check your hats ♪♪

♪♪ I believe this
joint is jumpin' ♪♪

Let it leap! Yes!

Sing it, Jack!

Sing that, Jackson!
I love it!

Oh, yes!

Give that boy
a drink over there.
He's all right!

Fine lad, yes.

Uh-huh!

[Playing rapid solo]

♪♪ Get your big feet bingin' ♪♪

♪♪ there's plenty
in the kitchen ♪♪

♪♪ just look at the way
it's switchin', oh, mercy ♪♪

♪♪ don't mind, all ♪♪
[Siren blaring]

♪♪ 'Cause I'm in power ♪♪

♪♪ I mean, this joint is
jumpin', yeah ♪♪

Oh, don't ever give
your right man. No, no.

♪♪ I mean, this joint
is jumpin' ♪♪

Yeah!

[Orchestra playing
Hotter than hell]

giddins: The big band,
in a way,

recapitulates the idea
of the call

and response
of a baptist church.

The early Fletcher Henderson
arrangements--i mean,

you have that
almost literally--

saxophones and the brasses
responding to each other.

Basically, you have
3 sections in a big band.

You've got the saxophone
section, the Reed section--

which often has clarinets.

You have the trumpet section
and the trombone section,

which became more important
as years went by.

Originally, there would usually
just be one trombone.

And the trombones
and the trumpets
together were the brasses.

And then you have
the rhythm section, which
was originally 4 pieces,

and then they dropped
the guitar/banjo guy

and it became 3 pieces--
just drums, bass, and piano.

And these sections work
like gears in a machinery.

They interlock, and what
the orchestrator has to do

is to find really exciting,
inventive ways

to blend these instruments,

to work one section
against another,

and to create
a new music with...

An instrumentation
that is purely American.

It's an American
invention.

It's what we have
instead of the symphony.

Narrator: 89 blocks south
of the savoy,

at Broadway and 51st street,
stood roseland--

Manhattan's most elegantly
appointed ballroom,

where many new yorkers went
to forget the depression.

Off and on
for nearly 20 years,

it was the home
of Fletcher Henderson
and his orchestra.

And it was here that he

and his most adventurous
arranger, Don redman,

helped create a new way
of playing jazz--

big band swing.

Over the years,

many of the musicians who moved
through Henderson's ranks

became stars
in their own right:

Louis Armstrong,

red Allen,

chu Berry,

Benny Carter,

Roy eldridge,

and the incomparable
tenor saxophone player

Coleman Hawkins.

"It was the stompingest,
pushingest band

I ever heard,"
Hawkins said.

"And few orchestras ever bested
Fletcher Henderson's

"once he called out
to his men,

come on,
Let's take charge."

[orchestra playing
big band swing]

[Song ends,
crowd cheering and applauding]

Narrator: But the dancers
who paid their way

into roseland
were all white.

No blacks were allowed
on the dance floor.

There was one place

where musicians and dancers
of every color could go.

Woman: After the band
would finish playing at
roseland about 1:00 A.M.,

they'd sometimes play
for dances in Harlem

till about 3:30
in the morning.

There'd be a band on
before Fletcher got there,

but when he and the men arrived,
everything would stop.

Folks would get out
of the way.

[Orchestra playing
Sugar foot stomp]

and then Fletcher would
start off with Sugar foot stomp,

and the crowd would go wild.

Miller: We lived in a very
segregated country,

but the most amazing thing
about the ballroom--

it was the first
building in america,

ever in the world,

that opened its doors
completely integrated.

At the time, we didn't
understand that.

Everybody came
to the ballroom,

so I was raised in
an integrated dance world.

I didn't know about
the other until I went
outside the ballroom,

so my first experience,
as far as dancing was concerned,

was always integrated.

I wasn't realizing
that white people and black
people were going there.

All I could
think about was

dancers Were going
to the savoy ballroom.

Miller: Right.
And whether
you were black,

green, yellow, or what,

if you walked
in the savoy,

the only thing we wanted to
know is, "can you dance?"

And if you came
in there,

it wasn't like
a white person
walking in

and everybody would
turn around and look
at them, you know?

It was--we'd come
in there and we
see him and...

"Hey! He can dance!
Right! Ok!"

Man: "Hollywood.

"Vic berton, drummer
with Abe lyman's band,

"and Louis Armstrong,
colored trumpet artist

"in Sebastian's cotton club,

"were arrested
by narcotics officers

"and arraigned on charges
of possessing marijuana,

a dope weed used
in cigarettes."

Variety

narrator: As soon as Armstrong's
agent, Tommy Rockwell,

heard the news
of Armstrong's arrest,

he sent a thug named
Johnny Collins to Los Angeles

with orders to use his
underworld connections

to get his trumpet star
out of jail.

It worked.

Armstrong was out
in 9 days.

But then Johnny Collins
convinced Armstrong

that he had cut a deal
with Tommy Rockwell,

and that he--Collins--was now
Armstrong's new manager.

It wasn't true,

and Rockwell was furious
when he found out.

Armstrong, unaware
of the double cross,

went on tour with Collins.

In April of 1931,

Armstrong was in Chicago,

playing at a club called
the showboat,

when a mysterious gunman
appeared in his dressing room

to "persuade" him
to board the train

for New York right away.

His real agent, Tommy Rockwell,
had promised Dutch Schultz

that Armstrong would
play again at Connie's inn,

and Dutch Schultz didn't like
to be disappointed.

Armstrong assured the gunman

he would show up
at the station as ordered...

Then slipped out of town
with Collins instead.

Nobody was going to tell
Louis Armstrong

where he had to play.

Giddins: I think a lot
of people would have assumed

that a black entertainer
would have said,

"oh, ok," you know,
"I'll be there. What time?"

Armstrong had
no intention of that.

He asked them where
and when,

they told him,
and then he just left town.

He was a man extremely
self-possessed.

I know that's not
the popular picture,

but the more you learn
about Louis Armstrong,

the more you realize
just how self-possessed he was,

and how sure he was,
and how brave he was.

But he never played Chicago
and he never played New York

until the gangster era
was over.

And he was on the run,
you could say, for two years.

[Train whistle blowing]

Narrator:
Later that spring,

Collins booked Armstrong into
his old hometown of New Orleans.

Armstrong wasn't sure what kind
of reception he would get...

[Band playing Weary blues]

but when his train pulled
into the same station

from which he had left
9 years earlier

to join Joe Oliver
in Chicago,

8 marching bands and a cheering,
integrated crowd met the train.

"All in all,"
Armstrong recalled years later,

"I think that day was
the happiest day in my life."

He visited the colored waif's
home, where he had learned
to play the cornet as a boy;

delighted in a Louis Armstrong
cigar, specially manufactured
in his honor;

and outfitted a baseball team--
Louis Armstrong's secret nine.

He also broadcast
from the suburban gardens,

a big restaurant
on the outskirts of town.

Only whites were allowed inside,

but thousands of blacks gathered
along the riverbank,

in the darkness,
to hear their hero play.

[Weary blues Playing]

Man: The very fact that
the best jazz players
barely made a living--

were barred from all playing
jobs in radio and in most
nightclubs--enraged me.

To bring recognition
to the negro's supremacy in jazz

was the most effective
and constructive form

of social protest
I could think of.

John Hammond

[down Georgia way Playing]

Narrator:
John Henry Hammond, Jr.
couldn't carry a tune,

nor did he own a record company
or run a nightclub.

But he was central
to the history of jazz,

and without him,
a host of musicians,
both black and white,

might never have achieved fame.

He was born in 1910,
the pampered son of privilege.

The great-grandson
of the railroad king
Cornelius Vanderbilt,

he was raised in a New York
mansion with 16 servants

and a ballroom that could
hold 250 guests.

At the age of 12, Hammond heard
his first live jazz...

And was entranced.

He started collecting records,

began slipping off
to Harlem speakeasies at 17

to sip lemonade
and listen to black bands...

And finally dropped out of Yale
to try what only a handful
of people had done--

write seriously
about jazz and society.

To many young Americans
like Hammond,

the despair the depression
caused seemed to signal an end
to the capitalist system itself

and compelled them
to re-evaluate every
aspect of American life,

including race relations.

Man: It was depression era,
mind you,

and they were pretty much
leftist in their feelings

and their politics
and so on,

so they approached jazz
with this in mind,

and that the black musician who,

after 300 years of maltreatment
in america,

it's time we open the doors
and windows and recognize

that they created
a great art.

Man: I suppose I could best be
described as a New York social
dissident,

finally free to express
my disagreement

with the social system
I was born into

and which most of my
contemporaries accepted
as a matter of course.

The strongest motivation
for my dissent was jazz.

I heard no color in the music.

John Hammond

[down south camp meeting
Playing]

Narrator:
At age 21, John Hammond
horrified his family

by demanding that his name
be deleted from the social
register,

moved to greenwich village,

and set out immediately
to locate and record

black musicians he believed
had not received the attention
they deserved.

Hammond helped buy
a lower east side theater

so that jobless musicians
of any race would have
a dignified place

to play what he called
"authentic jazz."

He organized jam sessions
on local radio,

paying musicians $10
a session plus carfare
out of his own pocket

to make it
worth their while.

When he couldn't find
an American recording company

willing to record
his discoveries,

he talked a British label
into doing it instead.

And night after night,
John Hammond scoured
Harlem clubs

for still more talent.

Man: John Hammond--
one of the most beautiful
people I ever met.

He just fell in love
with jazz so much.

Without John Hammond, I don't--
there would have been jazz,

but a lot of people
would not have been

discovered and heard.

But mostly, it's the enthusiasm
of this kid--

young kid, young guy--

from a wholly different
aspect of society,

the opposite end of it,
you know.

I mean, fifth Avenue, riverside,
way back in those days.

Servants all around the lot--
leaving it.

This white guy, all alone
in the community--

he'd go right in,
and they welcomed him,
of course.

They loved him.

Narrator:
Coleman Hawkins,
Fletcher Henderson,

Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman,

count basie, Charlie Christian,
Billie Holiday--

some of the best musicians
in jazz would see their
careers advanced

with John Hammond's help.

[Clouds Playing]

As the misery
of the depression spread

membership in the American
federation of musicians fell
by 1/3.

Even after their dues were
cut in half,

many musicians could
no longer pay them.

Even the blues no longer seemed
to ease the pain.

"Nobody wants to hear
the blues no more,"
bessie Smith said.

"Times is hard."

The trumpet player Max kaminsky
and his friend, guitarist
Eddie condon,

were locked out of their
Manhattan hotel room
in mid-winter

for failing to pay
their rent.

"We gnawed at each other's
wrists," condon recalled.

"We bled to death
in those years."

When kaminsky was finally
lucky enough to land a job,

he found himself running
his own bread line every
evening,

passing out 50-cent pieces
to musicians less fortunate
than he.

I, Franklin delano Roosevelt...

Narrator: In march of 1933,
Franklin delano Roosevelt was
inaugurated president,

pledged to a "new deal"
for the American people.

Economic recovery might take
years, but spirits could be
raised right away.

Prohibition was repealed.

[Throwing stones at the sun
Playing]

Man: The speakeasies unlocked
their doors,

and fresh air hit the customers
for the first time in 13 years.

The first flood of legal liquor
was so bad, everyone wished
prohibition was back.

Nightclubs opened on 52nd street
like popcorn.

The onyx went across the street.

Leon & Eddie's, Tony's, 21, 18,
and Reilly's took off the locks
and showed lights.

Eddie condon

narrator: But when speakeasies
reopened as legal nightclubs,
business was poor.

With neighborhood liquor stores
now open, people could save
money by drinking at home.

To get back their customers,
nightclubs needed to offer

new excitement
and new distractions.

Billy Rose, a noisy entrepreneur
and showman,

announced plans to open
an especially lavish club,

complete with nude dancers,
midgets, a waterfall, and room
for 1,000 patrons.

Rose also wanted
a white dance band,

and 23-year-old Benny Goodman
was determined to provide it.

It had been 8 years
since Goodman had left
his immigrant parents

on the West Side of Chicago
to become a full-time,
professional musician.

He had grown up fast
in the Ben pollack band,

best known for the sweet
dance music it played

and the hard-drinking
good times its stars enjoyed
between engagements.

Goodman had earned
a reputation as
a fine clarinetist,

but the desperate poverty
of his childhood had helped
make him fiercely ambitious.

He was accused of grabbing
too many solos,

and was once caught trying
to book the Ben pollack band...

Without Ben pollack.

After pollack fired him,

Goodman became one of New York's
most successful studio
musicians,

able at a moment's notice
to play any kind of music
on records or on the radio.

Man: You must remember, we had
another world at that time.

There was no television.
There was radio.

It was the only mass medium.

And if you wanted to play
for a living,

you had to play execrable music.

Music was really dreadful,
something that sickened you,

because you were selling
automobiles,

you were selling soap, you were
selling everything but music.

The music was the way
to get an audience
to listen...Ostensibly,

and then you could
sell them stuff.

That was what radio was about.

[Get happy Playing]

Narrator: Despite the modest
success he had found

in the midst of hard times,

Benny Goodman had grown
dissatisfied

with the kind of music he was
most often hired to play.

"None of us had much use
for commercial musicians,"
he remembered.

Goodman had something else
in mind, something far more
challenging,

and, like John Hammond,
he haunted the clubs of Harlem,
absorbing everything he heard.

Benny Goodman really was driven,

and he's an example
of a musician who--
he wanted to be the best.

He wanted to have
the best band.

He wanted to do whatever
it was going to take

to learn how to play
and be on a very high level.

Narrator: Inspired by chick webb
and Fletcher Henderson,

Goodman began to round up
young white musicians

who shared his passion for
what he called "genuine jazz,"

including trumpet player
bunny berigan;

a hard-driving drummer
from Chicago named gene krupa;

and a young singer, Helen ward.

It was her attractive presence
that finally persuaded
Billy Rose

to hire Benny Goodman's band
for his new nightclub.

Maher: They had a lot
of fun that summer.

It was new, it was fresh.

And the thing that happened was
the last night of the Billy Rose
engagement.

A man came in
from an advertising agency

and heard Benny,
and invited him to audition

for an extraordinary thing
that nobody had ever tried--

a 3-hour radio show
entirely made up of music.

And when? On Saturday night.
Boy, what a break, you know?

Narrator: In the Autumn of 1934,

the national broadcasting
company planned a new
Saturday night radio program

called Let's dance.

they needed 3 bands:
One to play rhumbas,

one to play sweet dance music,

and one to play the new,
hot kind of swing music--

the kind of music
Benny Goodman wanted to play.

Collier: The audition for
the Let's dance Show was
held in the agency.

They piped the music
into the offices,

and they had all the young
secretaries and office boys--

the young people who were
working in the agency--
get up and dance,

and they'd ask them
which bands they liked best
and which ones they didn't.

They ended up voting...

And the Benny Goodman band won
by one vote of these kids,

so Benny got the job.

Narrator: But Goodman had
a problem.

He didn't have a big enough
or good enough book--

a set of arrangements to fill
all the hours he was expected
to play on the radio.

He explained his problem
to a friend,

the singer Mildred Bailey.

Maher: Mildred said to Benny,

"Benny, the band sounds
just great. One problem:

"It sounds like everybody else--
just sounds like a good band.

You've got to have
a personal identity."

And she said to him,
out of the blue, she said,

"why don't you get
a Harlem book?"

Well, John is standing there--
John Hammond--and he's in
on this conversation.

He had the access, and he knew
immediately what to do.

He went and got
Fletcher Henderson.

Narrator: Henderson's own band
had fallen on hard times,

and he was happy to sell
his old arrangements--
his book--to Goodman,

and to write new ones
for him, as well.

Benny was a mandarin.

Uh, he believed that
the band should be perfect.

He didn't have
the best soloists.

His soloists weren't
nearly as good

as Fletcher Henderson's
soloists.

But the ensemble was
spit-and-Polish.

So Henderson loved
writing for Goodman

because he could hear
his arrangements played,

you know, the way
he imagined them.

Narrator: Goodman used
other arrangers, white
as well as black,

but without Fletcher Henderson,
Goodman said,

he would have had
"a pretty good band,

but something quite
different from what
it turned out to be."

That Benny Goodman would get
from Fletcher Henderson--

the classic one is
King Porter stomp.

you have the strong
bottom rhythm--doom, doom, doom.

Um, you know, you have...

♪♪ Diddly doo Dee Lee doo
Dee dip Dee doo ♪♪

"D" riff...

♪♪ Dip boo Dee doo
diddle oodle loo ♪♪

♪♪ dip boo dit dit
doodle lit dit doo ♪♪

♪♪ dit bee dit bit boo diddle
doodleoo deedle oodle la ♪♪

[King Porter stomp Playing]

Narrator: A white bandleader
was now broadcasting

the kind of swing music that had
first been played at the savoy
and roseland ballrooms.

Man: I think Benny Goodman was
the man who started outside

and was attracted to something
he heard inside

and came inside himself,
saw what was going on,

and picked up the nearest thing
and joined in.

He experienced in his own person
the true welcome

that's at the root of jazz.

For him to cross
the threshold was easy
because jazz made it easy.

Narrator: Benny Goodman's
reputation began to grow.

Soon, many young Americans were
planning their Saturday nights

around the Let's dance
Radio show.

Man: I would be studying
pathology--i was in med
school at the time--

and I dropped my books
Saturday night at 12:00 midnight

and put that show on.

Forget about pathology.

I gave my good cells
a chance to work out

just listening to that kind
of music.

It was fabulous,
just wonderful.

Narrator: Since the show's
listeners loved popular tunes,

Goodman persuaded Henderson
to write new arrangements
of familiar favorites.

Maher: The band was famous
for its precision in intonation,

in execution, in time values.

If Fletcher Henderson had
written a triplet, you got
an even triplet.

But Fletcher started writing
arrangements of popular tunes
of the day...

That we all knew, that we
whistled, that we sang--
in the shower, generally--

and had a lot of fun with,
so that this was our language.

It was not an esoteric language
being played by 6 guys

in a cellar somewhere.

This was popular music.

Man: Who's that walking
around here?

Narrator: One evening,
fats waller was playing
in a New York club

when he heard a stir
in the audience.

A large, heavy man was making
his way among the tables.

Waller stopped playing.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said,

"I just play the piano,
but god is in the house."

Then he left the piano bench
so that art Tatum could
take over.

[Playing Tiny's exercise]

narrator: Tatum was
from Toledo, Ohio.

He began picking out tunes
on the piano at 3

and studied at the Toledo
conservatory of music.

He was totally blind in one eye
and very nearly sightless
in the other.

Man: He couldn't see
all that well.

He could see a little bit
out of one eye,

if he raised his head, he might
recognize you, you know,

but this one was
totally gone.

And his mother bought him
a piano roll made by two people.

And he didn't know it was
made by two people,

so he learned it--

ha ha ha ha--

and, with two hands,
played this piano roll.

Ha ha ha!

Oh, art Tatum, I mean,
when you hear--

the first time I heard
art Tatum,

I thought I was listening
to 4 guys--4 people!

That's what it sounded like.

I mean, you couldn't even
see what he was doing.

He was absolutely unbelievable.

Narrator: Tatum had a memory
for melody so precise

that he rarely had to hear
a tune more than once

to play it back
with embellishments,

and an ear for pitch so uncanny,
he could tell the difference

between a penny and a dime
dropped on a table
by the sound it made.

[Three little words Playing]

Tatum got to New York in 1932

and soon found himself being
challenged by the 3 most
respected pianists in town:

James p. Johnson,
Willie "the lion" Smith,
and fats waller.

They met at a Harlem club
called "Morgan's."

Johnson, Smith, and waller
each played a favorite number.

Each time,
art Tatum played it better.

"He was just too good,"
fats waller remembered.

When Tatum played
the popular hit
Three little words,

another vanquished piano
player said, "it was
3,000 words."

[Three little words Ends]

[Applause]

[Too marvelous for words
Playing]

Narrator: Tatum influenced
every kind of musician.

"Guys might not realize it,"
the trumpet player
Roy eldridge remembered,

"but after they heard art,
he was always with them

"in the way they thought
about improvising.

He was the Invisible man
Of jazz."

Giddins: His virtuosity is
awesome.

I mean, you can't get beyond it,
and it's part of the delight
that we have in his music,

is to hear those rippling
arpeggios with all these
chords coming in.

I mean, arpeggios that go on
for 8 measures and then stop
exactly on the beat.

You know, every time I hear
some of those records,

I still can't believe
that he's going to make it.

Narrator: Tatum's whole
life was music.

He did play a little pinochle,
using a special light to squint
at his hand,

loved to drink quart after quart
of pabst blue ribbon beer,

and had an encyclopedic memory
for baseball statistics.

Otherwise, he was at the piano,
playing at one club

and then moving on
to close another...

And another...

Finally falling asleep
for a few hours

before starting in again.

[Too marvelous for words Ends]

[Applause]

[Shanghai shuffle Playing]

[Horn honks]

Davis: One of the things
I looked forward to when
I first got to New York

was experiencing everything that
Harlem had meant to me

from all the stories
I had heard.

There was the Apollo,
there was the renaissance,

and there was the savoy.

And the savoy was
a palace of dance.

I never quite managed
all of the dynamics.

And I remember being
on the floor,

having picked up some
charming young lady

who might, you know,
be working out on the island,

and dancing with her.

And, of course,

I had imbibed
some of the juice,

and I remember throwing
the girl out...

And sometimes,
the girl never came back.

[Laughing]

Miller: And everybody
came to dance.

Swing has a marvelous thing
of bringing people together.

Oh, you said it.

It brought she
and I together.

We had white dancers
in the savoy ballroom.

Oh, yeah,
Lindy-hopping.

And I'm telling you,
they were good.

Oh, man,
were they ever!

They were so good that
you wanted to him 'em.

[Laughing]

But, see, that was
such an American thing.

We had Italian boys that
used to come from the Bronx,

you had the Jewish boys
that come from Brooklyn...

And this melting pot
of everybody trying
to outdance each other.

We didn't know how rich
we were in relationships.

But 50 years ago,
when we look back,

we realize we had
a wonderful thing going
with all races,

and that's what made
the savoy so...

A wonderful place.

Such a wonderful place
to be, right.

[Horns honking]

[It don't mean a thing if it
Ain't got that swing Playing]

Narrator: Duke Ellington
was moving far beyond
the"jungle music"

that had first
made him famous.

He was constantly
on the road now,

performing hits that seemed to
flow effortlessly from his pen--

mood indigo,
Sophisticated lady,

solitude, And It don't
Mean a thing if it ain't
Got that swing,

recorded with the band's
brilliant new singer,
Ivy Anderson.

There were radio broadcasts,
theater appearances,

formal concerts
as well as one-nighters,

and more movies
featuring the band.

Woman: A band like
Ellington's had so left

the degrading aspects
of minstrelsy behind.

They were essentially
creating, you know,

this wonderful palette
of American styles

that you were seeing
only created by whites

in the movies.

They're matinee idols,
they're great actors,

they are embodying
this strange,

multi-stylized American chic.

And, you know, god, how could
you, as a black person,

not find this
utterly thrilling?

[Ivy Anderson singing scat]

Jefferson: They're making
every aspect of American style
their own.

Anderson:
♪♪ it don't mean a thing ♪♪

♪♪if it ain't
got that swing ♪♪

Man: One of the interesting
ironies about Ellington,

when he and his band
would come to town--

half the people
would not dance.

These people were so impressed

with what Ellington was doing
to the music,

that they'd dress up
and just sit, you know?

And Duke wanted them
to dance, too.

But people would say,
"I'll buy the record

and dance to that at home,
but he's present."

So it was like
a sacred event.

[Black beauty Playing]

Man: Nobody in my family
had a tuxedo.

Here all these gentlemen
had on these tuxedos,

so it was my inspiration
to want to be--

this is where I want to be.

If music was going
to take me there,

this is what I wanted to do,
how I wanted to go.

Narrator: For millions
of black Americans

struggling just to survive
during the depression,

Duke Ellington would
always represent the very best.

Giddins: I think that
one of the things that
we look to art for

is to give us a sense
of community and who we are,

who the other is,
to make the other less "other."

For example,
in the 1930s,

I think the popularity
of people like Jack Benny
and Groucho Marx

made the whole country
a little bit Jewish.

And I think that jazz certainly
makes the whole country

more than a little bit
African-American.

When you listen to
a piece like Sepia panorama...

the whole way it opens up,
or Black beauty,

one of the loveliest melodies
in American music, no lyric,

you think that being
an African-American

must be the grandest state that
a human being could achieve.

There's a sense of patriotism
that Ellington brings to it.

No protests,

no sense of irony
or sarcasm or bitterness...

But just a sense of wonder and
delight and tremendous pride.

[Mood indigo Playing]

Narrator: In 1933,

Ellington went on tour
in Europe and england.

It was a triumph.

One British critic declared
that Ellington's music possessed

"a truly shakespearean
universality."

"Girls wept," he said,

"and young chaps
sank to their knees."

Man: "How can I describe
the unbelievable spectacle

I have just beheld
at the palladium?"

"I'm not ashamed to say
that I cried

during the playing
of Mood indigo."

"here was a music far removed

"from the abracadabra
of symphony.

"Here was
a tenuous melodic line

"which distilled
from the emotions

"all heritage
of human sorrow,

which lies deep
in every one of us."

The london Era

[song ends, applause]

[Drop me off in harlem Playing]

Narrator: Back home,
the band made a 12-week
tour of the south.

It, too, was a triumph.

The music critic of the Dallas
News Called Ellington

"something of
an African stravinsky,"

who had "erased the color line"

between jazz and
classical music.

But black fans had to hear him
from the balcony

of the theaters he played,

and white hotels
and restaurants

excluded him and his band.

Daisy Ellington had taught
her son from childhood

to overlook
all unpleasantness.

After his southern tour,

rather than again suffer
the indignity

of being turned away
from hotels and restaurants,

Ellington and his manager,
Irving mills,

saw to it that
the orchestra traveled

in its own private
Pullman cars,

eating and sleeping
in the railroad yards
between appearances.

"The natives would come by
and they would say,

what on earth is that?"
Ellington remembered.

"And we would say, That's
The way the president travels.

you do the very best
with what you've got."

[Solitude Playing]

In early 1934,

Daisy Ellington was
diagnosed with cancer.

She had always been the center
of her son's world.

He sought out the finest
specialists in the country,

but they could do nothing,

and she died on may 27, 1935.

For her funeral,
her son filled the church

with 3,000 flowers,

and he asked Irving mills
to buy the most splendid
casket in New York.

Then he collapsed
in grief.

"The bottom's out of
everything," he said.

"I have no ambition left."

He drank heavily,
saw no one,

refused to leave
the apartment they had shared.

Woman: He stopped writing.

I think he continued to play,

or he let the band go out
and play for a week or two,

but he himself
stopped composing.

He didn't operate
when his mother died.

He was very upset
when his father died,

but when his mother died,
he was totally shattered...

Like the end of the world.

[Train whistle]

[Reminiscing in tempo Playing]

Narrator: Then, slowly,
he began to work again...

On a new composition.

As he wrote and rewrote
in his train compartment,

he remembered,
tears stained the music sheets.

He called the piece
Reminiscing in tempo.

it was a tribute
to his mother,

filled with melancholy
and carefully crafted.

Even the solos were composed.

It was the most ambitious music
he had yet written,

in 3 movements,
13 minutes long,

covering both sides
of two records.

Nothing like it had ever
been recorded before.

Reminiscing in tempo
Baffled most critics.

Some called it pretentious,
and urged Ellington

to go back to 3-minute
dance tunes.

John Hammond thought it
a disaster,

"without the slightest
semblance of guts."

Ellington, he said,
had shut "his eyes to the abuses

being heaped upon his race
and his original class."

There were two worlds of jazz
in this sense:

There was the world
of the musician,

and there was the world
of the writer/observer/critic.

The writer/observer/critic
frequently is defining jazz,

telling the musician
what he could play,

what he couldn't play,
or should play,
or shouldn't play.

These were the people
who established what
is the canon of jazz--

who's good, who's bad,
who's a hero, who's a bum,

so forth and so on.

I've often wondered, musicians
going through the years

reading this stuff
must have felt

they were absolutely lost
in a wilderness.

Narrator: For his part,

Ellington refused
to respond to Hammond...

Or any critic.

For the next 40 years,

he would continue
to explore and experiment,

composing some of
the most remarkable music

ever made in america.

[Tiger rag Playing]

Man: Albert Einstein says
as you get closer

to the speed of light,
the faster you go,

the more time slows down.

And if you could actually get
to the speed of light,

there'd be no time.

And Louis had figured that out
in his gut some way.

The faster you go,
the more relaxed you can be.

Just relaxed,

holding the note forever.

No time.

Narrator: In 1933,

Louis Armstrong was in Europe,
still traveling,

still reluctant
to return to New York.

He was accompanied by his
new manager, Johnny Collins,

who was still feuding with his
old booking agent Tommy Rockwell

and the gangster Dutch Schultz.

Armstrong was a sensation
everywhere he went--

Holland, Belgium,

Italy, Switzerland...

And Copenhagen, Denmark,

where 10,000 fans
turned out to meet him
at the railroad station.

He filled
the tivoli concert hall
8 evenings in a row.

Glaser: He is
absolutely on fire.

And it occurred to me that
it was possible--

and no one will tell me
otherwise,

it's a fantasy
that I treasure--

that Werner Heisenberg
could have been in the audience

in Copenhagen in 1933.

He lived in Copenhagen
at that time,

and in 1933
he won the nobel prize

for his work
on quantum mechanics.

And I've always had this fantasy
that he and a couple
of other scientists,

after a hard day of work
on quantum mechanics,

went out that night,
heard Louis Armstrong,

and were completely
blown away,

and realized that
in a completely different idiom,

he embodied everything
that they were working on--

profound new ideas
about time, space,

and the human place
in the cosmos.

And they saw Louis playing,
and they thought,

"wow, that's it."

In a language utterly different
than their scientific language,

that's it.

Narrator: Like Ellington,

Armstrong was now
an international star,

beloved on both sides
of the Atlantic.

But his success was
taking a fearful toll.

[St. James infirmary Playing]

Johnny Collins had turned out
to be a driven,

sometimes abusive taskmaster,

utterly uninterested
in his client beyond the money

he could make
out of overbooking him.

In order to make the high notes
that were among his specialties,

Armstrong placed enormous
pressure on his lip.

He built up a thick callus

which was prone
to infection and injury.

In London
in November of 1933,

his lip gave way on stage,

spattering his shirt
with blood.

He stopped playing,
moved to Paris,

and settled into
a semi-retirement

that lasted nearly 8 months.

In January of 1935,

after more than
14 months in Europe,

Armstrong sailed for home.

Disaster seemed
to loom everywhere.

He had discovered
that Johnny Collins

had been cheating him steadily

and failing to pay
his income taxes.

He fired Collins,

who then sued him
for breach of contract.

Now he had two men
with mob connections mad at him.

His second wife, lil hardin,
from whom he had separated,

was now demanding
what she called "maintenance."

His new girlfriend,
Alpha Smith,

was demanding
that he marry her.

And when he finally
got back to Chicago,

where he had first won fame,

he couldn't seem
to find steady work.

Even Louis Armstrong,

the man who had invented
modern time,

had hit hard times.

[Down south camp meeting
Playing]

Man: "March 1935.

"Benny Goodman and
his Let's dance Band

"are a great medicine,
a truly great outfit--

"fine arrangers and musicians
who are together all the time.

"They phrase together,
they bite together,

they swing together."

Metronome

narrator:
In the spring of 1935,

things looked bright
for Benny Goodman.

The audience for
the Let's dance Radio program

was growing every week.

But then workers at
the national biscuit company,

the show's sponsor,
went out on strike.

Let's dance Was canceled.

Desperate to keep
his band together,

Goodman scrambled to find work.

Eventually,
his agent arranged

a cross-country tour
to end in Los Angeles.

Benny Goodman was not pleased.

He knew that most of america
still hadn't heard swing,

and "the west," he said,

"had a reputation
for being corny."

The band set out
in mid-July anyway,

playing one-nighters
as they went.

There was no money for a bus,

so the musicians had to drive
themselves across the continent.

[Horn honks]

Things did not go well.

In Denver, the manager
of one dance hall

demanded they leave
after hearing them
for just half an hour.

"I hired a dance band,"
he told Goodman.

"What's the matter?

Can't you boys
play any waltzes?"

In grand junction, Colorado,

the band played
behind chicken wire

to keep from being hit
by the whiskey bottles

hurled by disappointed dancers.

As Goodman's
little caravan of cars

continued west
toward California,

he realized that
if their luck didn't change,

it was unlikely he could hold
his band together much longer.

On August 21, 1935,

Goodman and his orchestra
finally reached Los Angeles.

"I thought we'd finish
the engagement," he said,

"then take the train
back to New York,

"and that would be it.

I'd just be
a clarinetist again."

Then the band pulled up
in front of the brand-new
palomar ballroom.

[Horns honking]

Giddins: They found
this enormous throng of people

lined up around the block,
waiting to get in.

And they thought, "well,
wait a minute. What's this?

It can't be for us."

Collier:
Benny now has been told

by every ballroom owner
across the country

not to play
the jazz stuff.

They just want to hear
the dance tunes.

So he gets to the palomar,
and there's a crowd there,

but he's not taking
any chances.

[Restless Playing]

So they start playing
the waltzes and the pop--

and the audience is just
kind of milling around.
There's no response.

Collier: And so
they were doing this,

and it wasn't going very well,

and bunny berrigan
or somebody in the band said,

you know,
"the heck with this.

"If we're going to go down,
let's go down

doing the kind of music
we want to play."

[King Porter stomp Playing]

So they broke out
the King Porter stomp.

giddins: That's what
they were waiting for.

They'd been listening
to this stuff on the radio,

and that's what they wanted
to hear--this jazz music.

Collier:
The audience was cheering,

crowding around the bandstand
and shouting and jumping...

And they couldn't believe it.

They were absolutely stunned.

And the next morning,
Benny Goodman was famous.

Narrator: The sound of swing

that had begun
with Louis Armstrong

and had been nurtured
in the dance halls of Harlem

was now echoing
across the country.

The swing era
was about to begin.

Armstrong: Are you ready?
One, two...

[Music begins]