Original subtitles

[More than you knowPlaying]

narrator: In 1937, the great depression,

which had begun to show signs of lifting, suddenly deepened.

The stock market collapsed again.

In less than 6 months,

4 million more men and women lost their jobs.

They called it the "Roosevelt recession,"

the steepest economic decline in American history.

Black Americans continued to suffer most,

and white southerners wielded such power on capitol hill

that even Franklin Roosevelt lacked the political will

to support a federal law against the savagery of lynching.

And there were more worries:

A new war in Europe seemed just a matter of time,

and the United States was utterly unprepared.

Jerome: I traveled with Harry reser and his cliquot club eskimos

back in 1936 through the midwest

on a series of one nighters only,

the whole summer, literally.

And it was very hot and destructive.

It was just terrible.

And people were poor. They had no money.

The depression was on.

I turned around to Harry one time, I said,

"Harry, why do--where do people get the money to come hear us?"

'Cause we, you know, we had people come to hear us.

He says, "you know, jer, they save their pennies for the weekend

"so they can get some beer and go out,

"and pay whatever it costs to go to a dance with their wives or girlfriends,

"have a ball, forget about their trouble,

"and after it's all over, start all over again,

get that money back."

[Oh, lady be gooPlaying]

Narrator: By the late 1930s,

swing was big business...

A national craze that despite the depression kept on growing.

Americans seemed to have an insatiable appetite

for more records, more bands, more music.

The saxophone had emerged as a central voice in jazz,

and though some worried that the art of jazz was being smothered,

big band swing now accounted for almost 70% of the profits in the music industry.

Some band leaders were making more than $15,000 a week.

Benny Goodman, who had raised himself up from the slums of Chicago

to become the "king of swing,"

would take his hot sound to the heart of the musical establishment

and then find himself struggling to keep his band together.

Chick webb, Harlem's "king of swing,"

was also eager to reach a national audience.

He would take a chance on an improbable singer,

an "ugly duckling", and for two years, before tragedy struck,

would achieve all that he had hoped for.

Billie Holiday would find a musical soulmate,

travel with two of the best bands in the country,

and then, in the face of prejudice even swing couldn't whitewash,

expressed her pain and indignation in one anguished song.

Louis Armstrong, the man who had started it all,

would continue to transform the most superficial love songs

into great art, and along the way find love himself.

By the late 1930s, swing was big business...

But commerce had sometimes led to compromise.

The individual expression that had been at the heart of jazz

was too often kept under wraps.

Musicians grew impatient playing the same thing

the same way every night,

chafed at not being able to tell their own stories.

[Jumpin' at the woodside Playing]

Narrator: But in the middle of the country,

in the black dance halls and roadhouses and juke joints

of Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri,

a new kind of music was being born...

Pulsing, stomping, suffused with the blues,

and played by men and women who had honed their skills

in cutting contests that sometimes went on all night.

The man who would come to epitomize this new sound

and who would bring it to the rest of the country--

the man who would help return swing to its roots-- was count basie.

Murray: The music that he heard in the midwest was called stomp.

It was a special way that people in Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas played the blues.

It was an up-tempo blues and the vocal was given as a shout.

So you definitely have Kansas City 4/4

and the velocity of celebration.

That's basie's music.

W. Marsalis: I would say swinging is willful participation

with style and in the groove.

Now, if you don't want to participate,

I mean, it's not gonna make you participate. It's nothing they can do.

I don't want to participate in it,"

but if you check it out, if you listen to it,

you listen to what the musicians are saying,

then it will invite you into it.

It's not telling you stay away,

it's telling you, "come in, come in."

This is a jam session...

Quite often these great artists gather and play ad lib hot music.

It could be called a midnight symphony.

[Playing Midnight symphony]

Cuscuna: I think the attraction of the saxophone,

which became the principle instrument of jazz in the late thirties,

is that it is like the cello--

very close to the range of the male voice.

And it is an incredibly expressive instrument.

[I know that you kno Playing]

Narrator: The saxophone had been around since the 1840s,

it had been a staple of marching bands.

But when it fell into the hands of jazz musicians,

its sound was transformed and became both exhilarating and seductive.

The man most responsible for that transformation was Coleman Hawkins.

Giddins: He had the most virile sound I've ever heard on a tenor saxophone.

It was big and full without being blustery,

without a lot of wind or extra vibrato.

Every 8 bars in a solo would just unfurl like a perfect ribbon.

But he came along at a time when the tenor saxophone was a vaudeville clown's instrument,

and no one had ever made serious music on it.

Ravel and a few other composers had attempted to write passages for the saxophone,

but Hawkins took the tenor saxophone and he made art on it.

Narrator: Born in St. Joseph, Missouri,

Coleman Hawkins had toured the country

playing in tent shows and small theaters

before bandleader Fletcher Henderson heard him in 1923

and hired the 18-year-old on the spot.

He stayed with Henderson's band for more than a decade,

and inspired by what Louis Armstrong was doing on the trumpet,

established the tenor saxophone as a solo instrument.

"There's nobody plays like me,

and I don't play like anybody else,"

Coleman Hawkins once said.

And he would prove it again and again

in cutting contests all over the country.

One of his nicknames was "bean"

because of the seemingly inexhaustible stream of musical ideas

that flowed from his fertile brain.

W. Marsalis: So he would always be ready to cut some head.

He would give his card to clubs and say,

"if somebody comes down to this club who even thinks they're playing some music, call me.

"And so I can come down there

and put them through the Bean test."

[bouncing with beanPlaying]

Narrator: Hawkins was a loner all his life.

Music took precedence over everything.

His first wife left him when he seemed never to come home,

and she took with her almost all his furniture.

Hawkins did not bother to replace it.

He didn't plan to be home much, anyway.

[Back to the lanPlaying]

Man: A tall, intense young musician arrived in Oklahoma city

with his heavy white sweater,

blue stocking cap, and up-and-out thrust silver saxophone.

He left absolutely no Reed player unstirred by the wild,

excitingly original flights of his imagination.

Lester young, with his battered horn,

upset the entire negro section of town.

Ralph Ellison.

Narrator: Coleman hawkin's greatest rival was Lester young.

Born in Mississippi, raised in New Orleans,

young played saxophone in his family's tent show band

that traveled the south and midwest.

He was always shy and sensitive,

and at 18, weary of his father's frequent beatings

and unwilling to undertake anher southern tour

after a terrifying encounter with a white mob, he left home.

[Blue devil bluePlaying]

Narrator: In 1932, Lester young joined the original blue devils,

one of the many "territory bands" that crisscrossed the midwest.

Like Coleman Hawkins,

young quickly earned a reputation

as someone who delighted in taking on anyone, anywhere.

Fueled by canned pork-and-beans washed down with orange soda,

he could play for hours.

[Shoe shine boPlaying]

Young modeled his style after Frankie trumbauer,

the white saxophone player whose records he carried with him everywhere.

Young liked trumbauer's way of telling "a little story," he said,

and he admired his light, airy tone.

The result was that Lester young's sound

was the opposite of Coleman Hawkins.

Rowles: He was so different.

In the first place, his sound was completely different

than the accepted sound of all the jazz tenor players.

All of a sudden, here comes a guy that's got a round sound, almost hollow.

Only, it had...It was gorgeous.

I memorized all of Lester young's solos.

They helped me learn how to play.

And if I hadn't done that,

I don't know what I would have done.

Hendricks: Well Lester young, I must say, was an angel.

He was soft, sweet, and gentle,

and his music reflected that.

He played the tenor saxophone like an alto saxophone.

He twisted it so that...

So that the body of the horn extended outward,

and he held it like this,

and he he had to bend his neck to accommodate that,

and turn his mouth piece so he looked like this.

And he played like that.

But the beauty that came out of that horn is ineffable.

[Lester leaps iPlaying]

Narrator: And it was not just his music

that caught the attention of other musicians.

He affected a strange walk and wore distinctive clothes--

a long black topcoat and a porkpie hat.

Young had his own distinctive language, too.

He called other musicians "lady-this" and "lady-that."

To fail was to "get bruised."

"Can madam burn?" Meant "can your wife cook?"

He called white people "grays."

And if he sensed a bigot nearby, he said "I feel a draft."

Rowles, voice-over: He was arrested one time

by some policeman that looked just like Bob Crosby...

Lester would walk by you while you're sitting in a booth,

and as he went by he'd just kind of brush you with his finger.

"Bob Crosby's in the house." And keep going.

That meant that the fuzz was there,

and if you had any marijuana, you better watch it.

And he was way too slick for any of those guys.

He could spot a Bob Crosby anywhere.

And the reason why he called them Bob Crosby,

sometimes there would be two in a club,

he'd say "bing is here, too."

Narrator: After two successful tours in the midwest,

the blue devils decided to head east.

But in the impoverished coal towns of Kentucky and West Virginia,

they ran into trouble.

"The band was getting bruised,

I mean really bruised," young remembered,

"playing to audiences of 3 people."

Nobody could afford to buy a ticket.

The band broke up.

[Train whistle]

Hoboes showed young how to steal a ride aboard a passing freight.

He decided to go where he knew he would find work,

where musicians were prized for their individual sound,

where something new was happening to jazz.

Lester young headed west for Kansas City.

[Moten's swi Playing]

Early: Just imagine: It's the thirties,

you're a young black musician, you've got some talent.

There's this exciting new music out there that people are calling swing,

and you know some of the best people in the world are playing in Kansas City.

They've got these venues in Kansas City,

and you can play all night with the best people in the world.

Of course you'd want to go there.

I mean, anyone would want to go there.

It's, it's the place to be.

It's like tombstone or something.

By the thirties, everybody migrating there,

it's called the territory.

This is, in some ways, the drama of the great American west for African-Americans.

Narrator: Like New Orleans at the turn of the century,

like Chicago in the twenties,

Kansas City, Missouri was a wide open town--

and it flourished even in the depths of the depression.

The boss of Kansas City,

the man who made it all possible,

was Tom pendergast.

He was a devoted family man who attended mass each morning

and spent the rest of the day

presiding over perhaps the most corrupt and the most profitable

political machine in the country.

Vice was one of his biggest profit centers,

and the downtown section of his city was the wildest place in america,

filled with nightclubs, bars, brothels, and gambling dens.

[Roll 'em pe Playing]

"If you want to see some sin,

forget about Paris," one reporter wrote,

"go to Kansas City."

♪ Well, this woman's tryin' to quit me, lord, but I love her still ♪

♪ she's got eyes like diamonds, they shine like klondike gold ♪

♪ she's got eyes like diamonds, they shine like klondike gold ♪

♪ every time she loves me, she sends my mellow soul ♪

♪ my baby is a jockey, she's teaching me how to ride ♪

♪ my baby is a jockey, she's teaching me how to ride ♪

♪ she sat twice in the middle and daddy bumped side to side ♪

♪ git it, daddy, git it ♪

O'Neil: Everything was wide open.

The sky was the limit.

Anything you were big enough to do and could afford, you did it.

You could do it in Kansas City.

Wide open.

Mcshann: Well every night I would go to different clubs,

you know, finding out the town,

finding out everything happening in the town.

And it was so much happening,

I was trying to see everything.

I didn't want to miss nothing.

So, you know, I wasn't doing much sleeping.

Narrator: No one knows exactly how many clubs flourished in the 6 block downtown district,

or in the black neighborhoods that bordered it.

The paseo boulevard room and cherry blossom and chocolate bar.

The lone star and elk's rest and old Kentucky barbecue.

The spinning wheel and Hawaiian gardens.

Street's blue room and hell's kitchen.

The hi hat, the hey hey, and the Reno club.

And every one had jobs for musicians.

W. Marsalis: The clubs were open, people hanging out at night,

a lot of different types of characters, people drinking,

you had a certain vice and you know wherever you have vice

you have a lot of different kinds of people

because all segments love that.

And you just had a lot.

It's like a pressure cooker.

And in the middle of it you have these musicians.

And they're clean, and they come to swing.

[627 sto Playing]

Narrator: Kansas City jazz featured an irresistible joyous beat,

syncopated conversations between the Reed and brass sections

that recalled the old call and response of the sanctified church...

And an abiding fondness for the saxophone.

Unlike more commercial swing,

Kansas City jazz was built upon head arrangements--

musical ideas or riffs that were rarely written down

but provided the foundation for Kansas City musicians

to improvise all night long.

W. Marsalis: Now in Kansas City,

they'll start playing these background riffs,

and they'll use something like a hat mute,

and they'll wave the hat back and forth and it'll be like [plays].

Now to hear a group of men playing rhythms like that,

duh boo be dun dooo dit be dedileep Dee da uh

doo Dee Dee doo whee deebee bee Dee bee Dee bee du uh uh uh.

[Rockin' and swingin Playing]

Narrator: Kansas City musicians came from everywhere.

Lester young was from Mississippi.

Hot lips page was from Dallas.

Sweets Edison from Columbus, Ohio.

Jo Jones from Illinois.

Mary Lou Williams from Georgia.

Jay mcshann was from muskogie, Oklahoma.

And William James basie was from red bank, New Jersey.

What they had in common was the blues.

Giddins: Kansas City becomes the mecca of the midwest.

Here you've got musicians with all different kinds of backgrounds,

all converging in Kansas City.

How are they going to speak the same language?

Well, there is one language that they all speak

and that's the twelve-bar blues.

Soon as somebody sets a tempo and the key,

everybody can get up there and play within that framework.

They found an infinite number of ways to make it exciting and new and original.

Not just night after night,

but number after number for hours on end.

[Out the windoPlaying]

Narrator: And of all the Kansas City bands,

none was greater than count basie and his barons of rhythm.

Davis: Count basie was the bubble.

The bubble on colored champagne, that's what he was.

There was such a joy in the music he expressed.

Such an energy, you know, such a delight.

And yet there was a kind of playful boyishness in what he did, too.

That element of jazz which expressed the thing that happens

when a bunch of kids would get together and make a game for themselves

and just have one hell of a time

without knowing exactly why or for anybody,

just for the hell of it.

That was count basie.

You know, an exquisite musician,

but man, could he make the bubbles rise in your bloodstream.

[John's idePlaying]

Narrator: William James basie was born in 1904, in New Jersey,

the son of a coachman and chauffeur.

His mother took in laundry to pay for his piano lessons,

and almost from the start he knew he wanted to be an entertainer.

He dropped out of school and in 1924, moved to Manhattan,

where he learned all he could

from the masters of the Harlem stride style--

James p. Johnson, Willie "the lion" Smith,

and his own contemporary, fats waller,

who gave him organ lessons in a Harlem theater.

Over the next few years, basie played every kind of music.

He accompanied silent movies,

played vaudeville, and toured burlesque theaters with a novelty band,

which ran out of money once it reached the new jazz capital, Kansas City.

Until he got there, basie remembered,

he'd never paid much attention to the blues.

But in Kansas City,

he could hear them pouring out through every door and window.

"Right away," he said, "I knew that was for me."

[Easy does iPlaying]

By 1935, basie was playing in small Kansas City bars

like the cherry blossom and the Reno club.

He slowly began putting together a 9 piece band of his own

that included Lester young and several other rising stars.

Basie knew exactly how he wanted his "barons of rhythm" to sound.

Terry: Well count basie became very, very, very popular

through the medium of the notes which he didn't play

more so than the notes which he did play.

And he developed this habit

through the medium of his socializing in Kansas City.

The cherry blossom, the little club that they played in,

was a place maybe the size of this living room with tables,

gingham tablecloths all around,

and everybody was very intimately arranged, you know,

so much so that basie's piano is right next to a table here,

you know, so he would have friends,

so naturally everybody in the place is his friend.

So he has a little taste over here and the rhythm section is playing,

[imitates rhythm section]

Big 'UN's pulling away and Jo Jones you hear the guitarist, 'chum chum,'

so all he has to do is say, 'splank',

and he goes over here and say, "yeah baby, you know,

it's good to see you man. I haven't seen you."

And he has a little taste over here.

Meanwhile the rhythm section is still going, he comes back,

[imitates rhythm section]

He goes over here, "yeah, you know, we was talking about it before the so and so and so."

And he has a little taste over here,

so his habits of a social life kind of contributed

to his sparse indulgence on the keyboard.

Whatever the reason,

we always say that basie was a person who taught us all,

beginners and old timers alike, a very, very important lesson:

And that is the importance of the utilization of space and time in jazz.

[One o'clock jumPlaying]

Narrator: The heart of the basie band would be its rhythm section--

the greatest rhythm section in jazz history.

Jo Jones was on drums.

By transferring the beat from the bass drum to the high hat and ride cymbals

he brought an unprecedented drive and energy to the music.

Walter page played bass.

To the men of the band, he was known as "big 'UN."

Freddie green was on guitar.

He would remain with basie for 46 years

and never lose the beat-- or take a solo.

And basie himself was at the piano.

"A band can really swing when it swings easy," he believed,

"when it can play along like cutting butter."

Even a single note, count basie said, can swing.

Narrator: Several times a week,

a local radio station set up a microphone in the Reno club

and broadcast basie's music as far east as Chicago.

Late one night, with a few minutes still to fill before his show went off the air,

basie was asked by the announcer for the name of his next number.

It was just a head arrangement

and the name the men called it, Blue balls,

wouldn't bear repeating over the air.

Basie looked up at the clock and said,

"call it One o'clock jump."

it would become his trademark song, played night after night for the rest of his life.

Edison: We had no music,

everything was head arrangements.

All the music that we made like Every tub, John's idea,

out the window, And One o'clock jump,

we just made that up.

It was no music to it, it wasn't written at all.

Jimmy lunceford, Ellington,

dorsey, Benny Goodman, chick webb--

they all had arrangements.

If you played one chorus, they had music that you had to read,

in count basie's band, you could play 5, 6, 7 choruses--

whatever you wanted, as long as you was swinging.

Narrator: When the promoter John Hammond

heard the electrifying sound of the basie band on his car radio,

he drove all the way from Chicago to Kansas City

to see them in person.

Hammond had already advanced the careers of Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday,

and now he was determined to make a star out of count basie.

[Love walked iPlaying]

Narrator: One evening while playing at the cotton club,

Louis Armstrong, the man who had shown the world how to swing,

met a dancer named Lucille Wilson and fell in love.

To make extra money to support her family,

Lucille was selling cookies backstage.

Armstrong began his courtship by buying up all of them.

Jacobs: Louis and Lucille were beautiful.

Now Louis was playing Romeo and Juliet all his life.

He'd eye Lucille up, look at her legs and say she was a thoroughbred,

"look at those ankles. She looks like a good little filly."

I mean, he loved everything about Lucille.

He treated her like she was a little doll

and he was in love with love, he was very romantic.

Extremely romantic man.

Narrator: "It seemed to me Lucille was the ideal girl for me," Armstrong remembered.

"Good common sense...Not particular about showy people."

Armstrong dreamed of marrying her.

But his third wife Alpha showed no signs of leaving him

so long as he kept bringing his paycheck home.

Then, Alpha ran off with the drummer in the Charlie barnet band.

"Thank god," Armstrong said,

"...if I could only see him and tell him

"how much I appreciate what he's done for me

by taking that chick away..."

When he and Lucille were finally married,

Armstrong began a 6 month tour of one-nighters.

Lucille didn't complain.

She alone, of all the women he had known, understood,

Armstrong said, "that my music comes first."

[Memories of yoPlaying]

♪ Waking skies at sunrise ♪

♪ every sunset, too, babe ♪

♪ seems to be bringing me ♪

♪ memories of you ♪

♪ now, honey, here and there ♪

♪ everywhere ♪

♪ scenes that we once knew ♪

♪ oh, and they all just recall ♪

♪ memories of you, baby ♪

Narrator: He was a big star now

with a lucrative recording contract with decca,

making hit after unexpected hit out of pop tunes,

country and western ballads,

spirituals, and duets with bing Crosby,

the mills brothers, and Billie Holiday.

Through it all, he remained himself.

Collier: There's this story that Lucille told later

of being in Kansas City, and it was Christmas Eve,

and Louie played the gig and came back to the hotel or whatever

and sat and had a drink and something to eat,

and Lucille had gone out and bought a little Christmas tree.

They got ready to go to bed,

and Louis said, "don't turn the lights off."

He said, "I want to just sit here and look at those lights."

He said, "that's the first Christmas tree I've ever had."

He was so enamored by that tree

that when they left the next day,

he made Lucille pack it and carry it along.

And they carried it along on the gig, night after night,

until it actually fell apart.

W. Marsalis: Well, swing is a matter of coordination.

So, when count basie says he could make one note swing,

what he means is that the whole preparation

and everything in the rhythm and the feeling of the note is coordinated.

Louis Armstrong is the master of that,

but the count, you could, just the way he sat at the piano,

you could just tell, before he came in, he was going to swing.

The way he lifted his hand before he hit the note,

he was swinging all ready.

So bing, when he would hit it,

it was just like if you see someone with incredible presence at something.

You know before they even-- just the way they hold their instrument,

you know, well we're in forreat tonight.

[Eveninplaying]

Narrator: In the fall of 1936,

John Hammond persuaded count basie to go to New York.

But Hammond also insisted that basie add new musicians

to expand the band from 9 to 12 members.

The result, for a time at least,

was ragged, unwieldy, under-rehearsed.

Their first appearance in Manhattan,

at the famous roseland ballroom, was a disaster.

Humiliated, basie replaced some of his men

and tightened discipline among the rest.

He still had with him the incomparable Lester young...

His great trumpet player buck Clayton,

and the band's remarkable singer Jimmy rushing,

whose ever expanding bulk earned him the nickname "Mr. Five by five."

He would add the trombonist dicky Wells,

and the trumpet master Harry "sweets" Edison.

Count basie spent most of the next year and a half

on the road, working to improve his band.

Across depression-ravaged america, from Albany to Omaha,

from shreveport to mt. Hope, West Virginia,

he played college dances, movie theaters, hotel ballrooms,

bringing his blues-drenched Kansas City sound

to people desperate for release from their troubles.

♪ Take me darling ♪

♪ let me see the great dawn that's breaking ♪

♪ I don't care if I don't wake up ♪

♪ since my gal is gone ♪

W. Marsalis: As an American, you definitely can live without jazz.

The only thing you need to live is water and some food.

The question of art in general is nonessential to live.

But now the style that you gonna be living in,

I don't know about that.

You don't need a bed to sleep.

You don't have to cook food to eat it.

You don't have to have clothes of a certain style.

You don't have to speak a certain way.

Most of the things that you are surrounded by-- you don't need them.

But when you have these things around you,

it makes you feel good about living in the world.

And it gives you something to look forward to,

and it also gives you a way to connect yourself with everything that has happened

and the flow of humans on earth and of civilization.

Jazz music...It's like real poor people in the country, on a Sunday,

people would get dressed up and they wouldn't have any money,

but just that little hat with the flower on it, you know,

just what that flower represents a certain thing.

Just a little something to make you special and make you sweet.

That's jazz music.

[Sailboat in the moonlig Ht playing]

♪ A sailboat in the moonlight and you ♪

Narrator: In 1937, hoping to make his band even better,

count basie hired Billie Holiday.

It was the break she was looking for.

She called him "daddy basie."

He called her "William"-- and he understood both her talent and her temperament.

When the band went on tour,

she drank and cursed and gambled with the men on the bus as if she were one of them--

and won so much money shooting dice that when Christmas came,

she had to lend the losers cash to buy presents for their families back home.

"She was like a man," sweets Edison said, "...Only feminine."

♪ Just give me a sailboat in the moonlight and you ♪

She had an affair with guitarist Freddie green,

whom she claimed was the only man she ever really loved.

But on the road and off, she was closest with Lester young.

They would be friends most of their lives but never lovers.

She had met him at a Harlem jam session

and was instantly drawn to his acute sensitivity,

his attention to lyrics as well as melody,

and his light, laid-back sound

that seemed perfectly to complement her own.

W. Marsalis: Billie Holiday and Lester young had a musical kinship.

And they even nicknamed each other.

He called her "lady day"

and she called him "the president", which they shortened to "Prez."

And when you hear the two of them together on a recording,

it's like they have-- they're in the same orbit.

♪ Some things dear that I long for are few ♪

♪ just give me a sailboat in the moonlight and you ♪

B. Marsalis: Billie Holiday was my girl.

If I had to do anything in my life, if I could be anything,

I'd want to be a saxophone player in 1930-whatever and just play behind her.

I just couldn't imagine doing anything better.

She was the greatest jazz singer of them all.

She really was able to embody what jazz is about.

She didn't have a great singing voice.

But she still stands out.

What she sang commanded your attention.

And that, that's a very special thing.

That's a very special gift.

[Without your lo Playing]

♪ Without your love ♪

♪ I'm like a song without words ♪

♪ just like a nest without birds ♪

♪ without your love ♪

Narrator: John Hammond had brought Billie and Lester together in the recording studio

for the first of a series of small group sessions

that would be among the most memorable in jazz history.

♪ I rode the crest of a wave with you beside me ♪

♪ now who's to guide me because I'm lost at sea ♪

♪ without your love ♪

♪ I'm like a plane without wings ♪

♪ a violin with no strings ♪

♪ without your love ♪

W. Marsalis: When you're playing music,

it's hard to really--even it's hard to explain verbally,

but when you play music, it's--you enter another world.

It's very abstract and your sense of hearing

is the thing that you really--it's heightened.

And you're listening to another person

and you're trying to absorb everything about them,

their consciousness,

what they mean when they're talking to you,

what they're feeling like,

where you think they're going to go.

And it's rare for people to really connect, you know.

You think 'cause jazz music is about communication and connection

you would have a lot of it, but you don't have that much of it.

And you don't have it really on the level for Billie Holiday and Lester young

because they both have that same, that same type of burn.

That same type of hurt, and the same, same joy.

They express it through their swing.

♪ I rode the crest of a wave with you beside me ♪

♪ now who's to guide me because I'm lost at sea ♪

♪ without your love ♪

♪ I'm like a plane without wings ♪

♪ a violin with no strings ♪

♪ without your love ♪

Narrator: Jazz history was made in New York on Sunday, January 16, 1938--and it was made twice.

Benny Goodman was scheduled to bring his swing band to carnegie hall for a formal concert.

That night the show was sold out.

In the audience were classical musicians and music critics

and concertgoers in tuxedos and evening gowns.

Collier: In those days,

the idea of bringing a swing band into carnegie hall was scandalous.

The players were very nervous and they thought,

"what are we doing here?"

Harry James peeked out behind the curtain

and took a look at the this great throng out there and said,

"I feel like a whore in church."

[Don't be that w Playing]

Narrator: Things did not get off to a good start.

Schaap, voice-over: You listen to Benny Goodman on the first number,

don't be that wa Ycarnegie hall, January 16, of '38.

They're stiff... And the band is scared.

And gene krupa, what he did for Goodman should always be acknowledged

and he's saying "this band sounds sad.

"We're going to bomb. We're in trouble."

And he knows that he has to do something.

He's not trying to wake up the crowd.

He's trying to wake up the band.

He's trying to relax them or scare them beyond their fear.

And he gets to that break in the arrangement,

he hits every piece of equipment in his drum kit as loud as he can

and as many times as he can

in something that is nearly cacophonous.

It doesn't make any sense except in the emotional content of--

he's trying to bust this band's hump.

He went, "come on. Get up on my back and I'll teach you how to swing again,

"'cause you guys forgot."

[Applause]

Narrator: "By the end of that first piece,"

one trumpet-player remembered, "we were back home."

[Sing, sing, sinPlaying]

During the historic concert, other jazz musicians,

including count basie and members of his band,

took part in a jam session.

The finale was Goodman's most popular tune,

sing, sing, sing,

and the highlight of the evening.

Young people and older concertgoers alike

got up and danced in the aisles of the staid old hall.

"I think the band I had at carnegie hall," Goodman remembered,

"was the best I ever had."

Narrator: Count basie and his men had not stayed around for the end of the concert.

They hurried uptown, instead, to the savoy ballroom,

one of the places where swing had been born.

Chick webb and his orchestra were waiting for them.

As soon as the carnegie hall concert ended,

some of Benny Goodman's men raced north, too,

to see whether the new band from Kansas City

could out-swing the band that had cut them to ribbons the year before.

Miller: It was every band's dream to play the savoy.

Nothing in america compared to coming to the savoy.

Count basie, when basie came

to Harlem for the first time.

And he walked and saw lenox Avenue and he saw his name on the marquee,

this was his ambition, to play the savoy ballroom,

this was the great count basie.

But we didn't know basie then.

He was the incoming band

swinging the blues

out of Kansas City.

That was the first time

we heard the music come

from that direction.

Narrator: Despite the spinal disease that left him gasping in pain after every performance,

chick webb was not about to be cut by a bunch of newcomers from out west.

Basie was turning out to be the greatest swing band that ever was, and it was.

And so, chick never wanted

to admit that anything

could defeat him, ever.

So he said, "sure, I'll play basie. Sure I will.

I'll tell basie what's what."

[Harlem congPlaying]

Woman, voice-over: Throughout the fight, which never let down in its intensity,

chick took the aggressive,

with the count playing along easily

and more musically, scientifically.

Undismayed by chick's forceful drum-beating,

the count maintained an attitude of poise and self-assurance.

He parried chick's thundering haymakers

with tantalizing runs and arpeggios,

which teased more and more force from his adversary.

The Amsterdam news.

narrator: A judge declared webb the official winner,

but the house remained divided, and for more than 60 years,

surviving band members would argue over who had actually won that evening.

Basie himself was relieved he hadn't been run out of the savoy,

"I'm just thankful," he said,

"that we won't have to run up against those babies anymore."

But whatever the outcome,

he had held his own against one of the country's best swing bands.

Basie's hard work was paying off.

But they hadn't had a home in a long time.

It's a band from Kansas City, being from somewhere is fine,

but you got to go somewhere, you got to settle down.

And then came something that allowed it all to solidify.

They got a gig at the famous door at 66 west 52nd street.

The deal was the door closed for the summer because air-conditioning wasn't common.

Narrator: Out of his own pocket,

John Hammond agreed to pay to have the club air conditioned

in exchange for a promise that basie could play there all summer long.

Schaap: And there was several months sitting down in one place.

They rehearsed in the afternoons,

they gigged at night, and it all came together.

It was fun to go to work,

and they made music that was so magical.

And there's the turning point.

After the summer of '38,

the count basie orchestra was the swingingest band in the land.

Sweets would be playing like that one note.

♪ Doot doot doot Dee doo doo ♪

And they just, and they'd get the little riff going in the background,

♪ gee doo lu Dee du lu ♪

And the rhythm section,

♪ do doong doong ding doong che che che ♪

♪ Joe Jones, jing je jing ♪

You got count basie's, ♪ bloomp bloomp ♪

That's real relaxed,

but everybody just swinging and grooving.

Then you got the trombones, ♪ oooorm budup doo dit ♪

The trombones--trumpets, ♪ dit dit dit ditooloop ♪

Look at this, and the saxophone, ♪ doooo de doo dit ♪

And then you got sweets in there,

♪ doo doo dit dit be boo doodle ee dit dit dit doo doodle eet ♪

I mean, you're swinging.

[Playing Swingin' the blues]

Narrator: All that summer, basie and his band held forth at the famous door,

playing for a nationwide radio hook-up, making records,

offering new yorkers and the whole world a joyous

and liberating alternative to commercial swing.

[Playing Goodbye]

narrator: After his triumph at carnegie hall,

Benny Goodman's band would never be the same:

Gene krupa would soon leave to form his own orchestra;

so would Teddy Wilson and Harry James and Lionel Hampton,

forcing Goodman to rebuild the most popular band in america.

Man, voice-over: We were frankly amazed at the universal expressions of dislike for Benny

among musicians, bookers, publishers,

and other band leaders in New York.

Even Benny's own musicians couldn't help betraying

a certain discomfiture and lack of ease with him.

Whether Benny likes it or not,

there is a certain cordiality demanded in an artist,

a certain friendliness that he should genuinely feel towards his associates

whether he likes them or not.

Your friends can make or break you, Benny,

and in all fairness to yourself,

you should accord them even more consideration than you did when you were on the way up!

Down beat.

narrator: Benny Goodman had fought hard for his success--

and he fought still harder to keep from losing it.

"Benny wanted perfection," the singer Helen ward remembered,

"and he got it."

Jacobs: Benny Goodman was a maestro.

When he got on the bandstand,

he meant business.

He could have been a surgeon

everybody had to be

on their toes

there were a lot of tough band leaders in the swing band era

tough because jobs were scarce

and anybody who had a job with

a good band wanted to keep it.

And they were really martinets,

they were they were all pretty tough,

but Benny went beyond that.

There was a quality to Benny's relationships with his musicians that was almost paranoid.

He seemed to be constantly worried that they were out to get him.

Goodman's musicians found him aloof,

so obsessed with making music and making his band still better-known,

that he sometimes couldn't even remember their names.

Collier: Goodman had a look that he would give his players from time to time

which they called "the ray,"

where he would lean forward and he would stare at you.

And he would stare.

And he would stare.

And you'd go on playing, and you'd get more and more nervous thinking,

"what have I done wrong, what have I done wrong,

what am I doing wrong, why is he giving me that look?" And you'd never know.

He turned the "ray" on the guys in the band.

He didn't know it was the "ray."

But he would simply turn his eyes on you

and look at you as though, "are you real?

"Did you really do that?

"You don't rea--

couldn't you have done better?" And they withered.

His guys were terrified of the "ray."

All of a sudden, I notice one night, you know,

that he was give--looking at me.

And I looked back at him,

you know, I'm playing, you know,

and I look back at him and he's looking at me like that.

So, finally one night, I just walked up to him during intermission.

I said, "please, I don't like that ray thing."

I just had enough.

Because it wasn't any fun working for this guy.

I'd been having fun.

Music is supposed to be a pleasure.

And this guy was not, definitely not a pleasure.

[Grand slaPlaying]

Narrator: As Goodman set about finding new stars for his band,

he sometimes had more help than he liked from John Hammond,

the self-appointed arbiter of jazz talent,

who was always telling bandleaders who to hire and who to fire.

Maher: John used to show up at rehearsals,

and John was a natural-born scout,

he was always on the lookout.

Wherever John showed up

at rehearsals somebody would,

"oh my god, here comes

the undertaker."

They would know that John, last night,

somewhere found a guy that Benny has to get.

He's absolutely the greatest.

He's on bass.

There's nobody like him.

Boom.

And that was the way it was.

Narrator: In 1939, Mary Lou Williams told Hammond

about a 23 year-old musician from Oklahoma city who,

she said, could somehow make music on the electric guitar

in the cool, laid back style of Lester young.

His name was Charlie Christian,

and he would turn the amplified guitar into a major jazz instrument.

Without even hearing Christian and without asking Goodman,

Hammond arranged for the young guitarist to board a train for Hollywood,

where the Goodman sextet was playing.

[Rose ro Playing]

Narrator: Goodman was furious at Hammond for putting a stranger on the stand

and zapped Hammond with the ray.

Goodman then called for Rose room,

a favorite tune he was sure Christian wouldn't know

and was surprised when Christian had no trouble with it.

It was a favorite of his, too.

They played the tune for nearly three quarters of an hour,

and when the set was over, Charlie Christian was hired on the spot.

Goodman was so moved by the beauty and complexity of Christian's playing,

that tears sometimes came to his eyes.

Charlie Christian would bring a new experimental spirit

and a taste of the Kansas City sound to Benny Goodman's music,

and many thought the band never sounded better.

Goodman's determination always to play with the best had paid off once more.

His orchestra would soon be the number one band in the country--again.

[Ella Fitzgerald singing Love and kisses]

♪ love and kisses ♪

♪ never misses ♪

♪ making a heaven for two ♪

♪ with the tender sweet surrender ♪

♪ coming from someone like you ♪

This column has emitted toasts and raves about various unknowns.

Here's number one for the coming year:

Ella Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald: ♪ no indecision I know that my vision is clear ♪

Voice-over: Unheralded and practically unknown right now, but what a future.

And there's no reason why she shouldn't be just about the best in time to come.

George t. Simon, Metronome.

Fitzgerald: ♪ that's what bliss is ♪

♪ that thing whatever you do ♪

Narrator: Like Billie Holiday, Ella Jane Fitzgerald had a bleak and troubled childhood.

Her parents never married.

Her stepfather abused her.

Her mother died when she was 14.

She dropped out of high school and ran away from the juvenile home

to which she was sent for truancy.

For nearly two years, she was homeless,

living on the streets of New York,

dancing and singing for tips,

sometimes supporting herself as a numbers runner

or a lookout for a brothel.

In November of 1934, Fitzgerald entered an amateur show

at the Apollo theater in Harlem.

She wore second hand clothes and men's boots

as she stepped into the spotlight.

She was awkward and nervous;

she knew Apollo audiences could be brutal.

Fitzgerald: ♪ I'll chase the blues away ♪

♪ I'll laugh and sing all day ♪

♪ I found my lover, someone who'll be true ♪

♪ the bluebirds in the trees ♪

Narrator: But when she began to sing,

she brought down the house and was awarded the first prize.

She was supposed to get a week's work at the theater,

but the manager of the Apollo didn't think Ella Fitzgerald was pretty enough.

She returned to the streets,

entering other amateur shows when she could,

singing without pay for local bands.

Meanwhile, chick webb was looking for a beautiful girl who could sing,

someone who could at last bring him the fame he sought

in the bigger world beyond the savoy.

He sent his vocalist Charles linton to scour the city,

and linton brought back Ella Fitzgerald.

Webb was appalled.

"You're not putting That On my bandstand," he said.

But linton threatened to quit if she wasn't given a chance.

Webb finally relented.

Narrator: It was the best decision he ever made.

[Fitzgerald singing Sing me a swing song And let me dance]

narrator: Soon, his orchestra, with Ella Fitzgerald,

was appearing regularly on the radio and on the best bandstands all over the country,

with hit after hit on the jukebox.

♪ On the ballroom floor ♪

♪ when a body asks a body what's a swing band for? ♪

♪ Oh, baby, I don't want you to go soft and mellow ♪

♪ let me warn you in advance ♪

♪ sing me a swing song and let me dance ♪

♪ oh, baby, I don't want anymore bright and yellow ♪

♪ you can have your sweet romance ♪

Narrator: Fitzgerald's flawless intonation astonished other musicians,

and her ferocious sense of swing and girlish voice delighted the public.

♪ Mr. Trumpet, grab a horn ♪

Narrator: In 1937, she won the number one female vocalist poll

in both the country's leading jazz magazines,

down bea Andd Metronome, Beating out Billie Holiday.

♪ Old chick webb is beating it out ♪

♪ makes me feel like I want to shout ♪

♪ all the boys are ready to prance ♪

♪ so sing me a swing song and let me dance ♪

Narrator: At 19, Ella Fitzgerald was being billed as "the first lady of swing."

♪ A-tisket, a-tasket ♪

Narrator: In the spring of 1938, chick webb and Ella Fitzgerald

recorded an old nursery rhyme

and turned it into a swing anthem.

Fitzgerald: ♪ I dropped it, I dropped it ♪

♪ yes, on the way I dropped it ♪

♪ a little girlie picked it up and put it in her pocket ♪

♪ she was truckin' on down the Avenue ♪

♪ but not a single thing to do ♪

♪ she went a peck, peck, pecking all around ♪

Narrator: It stayed number one for 17 weeks.

♪ She took it, she took it ♪

♪ my little yellow basket ♪

Narrator: By Autumn, they had 3 more tunes on the charts all at once.

♪ No, no, no, no ♪

Was it green?

♪ No, no, no, no ♪

Was it cerise?

♪ No, no, just a little yellow basket ♪

♪ a little yellow basket ♪

Narrator: But just as webb had begun to win the fame he'd always dreamed of,

his life-long physical frailty grew worse.

His kidneys weakened,

complicating his struggle against the spinal tuberculosis

that had plagued him since childhood.

He collapsed after several performances

and was finally confined to a Baltimore hospital.

"Anything happens to me," he told a friend,

"take care of Ella."

Chick webb, the first "king of swing," died on June 16, 1939.

He was just 30 years old.

♪ I betcha a nickel ♪

♪ I betcha I'll win ♪

♪ I betcha a nickel that you will give in ♪

♪ what's the matter, honey, afraid you'll lose? ♪

♪ Do what you want to and say what you choose ♪

♪ I still betcha a nickel that you will be mine ♪

Narrator: Webb's band stayed together and changed its name

to "Ella Fitzgerald and her famous orchestra."

She didn't need to be taken care of.

Fitzgerald recorded one light-hearted novelty tune after another--

my wubba Dolly, Chew, chew, chew,

deedle de dum, And I found my yellow basket.

♪ I betcha you'll sign on the dotted line ♪

♪ I don't see no sense in wasting all this time ♪

♪ 'cause whatever you bet, you bet it's gonna be mine ♪

Davis: Ella looks at america, and in spite of poverty,

in spite of pain, in spite of segregation,

in spite of the lynching statistics,

Ella sings.

And her soul is full of joy

and you couldn't help but share in the joy,

the excitement that she brought to to whatever it was that she sang.

♪ I don't see no sense in all this rhythm and rhyme ♪

♪ 'cause whatever you bet, you bet it's gonna be mine ♪

O'Neil: It was tellin' a story if you listen to jazz.

And every jazz musician has a story to tell,

and he tells it.

And this is why to follow jazz, you've got to really listen.

Because everybody is tellin' a story.

[Easy livinPlaying]

Schaap: Billie Holiday's life on the road with the count basie band was more than awkward.

It probably was horrific in that she is in sort of like a double negative.

She's both a woman traveling with an all-male band,

and she's black, traveling with a black band in a segregated society.

There were no amenities

or special things done for her.

She just had to ride on this blue-goose bus,

just like everybody else and change and sleep and, you know,

it was a tough setting.

Narrator: In 1938, Billie Holiday left the count basie orchestra

for Artie Shaw's band.

Conditions were better, but life was just as hard.

When the band played the hotel Lincoln in her adopted home town of New York,

she was ordered to use the service elevator

so that guests wouldn't assume blacks were staying in the hotel.

When Shaw's band appeared twice weekly on network radio,

the show's sponsor, old gold cigarettes,

insisted that only the band's white singer, Helen forrest, perform on the air.

Some places even demanded holiday leave the bandstand between numbers.

America was not ready for a black woman in a white band.

Shaw we played down south and on the way down below the Mason-Dixon line,

that mystic line, she said, "you think I should come down?"

I said, "yeah, Billie,

I think it's important that you do this."

I wasn't thinking in terms of black/white.

I was thinking it important that she come and stay with this band.

Holiday: ♪ when you're in love ♪

♪ and I'm so in love ♪

♪ there's nothing in life but you ♪

Shaw: And everything was fine, and they loved her

until one night she sang a tune, and after the tune was over,

some redneck in front of the band hollered up,

"have the nigger wench sing another song."

She, she was a pretty hot-tempered girl,

and she looked over at him,

and you could see her flushing under the tan

and calling him a...

So, a little turmoil arose out there and I was prepared for it,

and I had a couple of cops in the wings, just in case,

and they hustled her off into the bus and drove her away.

Narrator: Holiday left Artie Shaw, too,

telling the press she would never travel with a dance band again.

She returned to New York City,

to the small, intimate clubs she loved.

On December 30, 1938, cafe society,

a nightclub like no other,

opened its doors in greenwich village.

In charge was an ex-shoe salesman named Barney josephson,

who hoped to demonstrate that new yorkers would come out

to hear jazz presented "with dignity and respect"

before a genuinely integrated audience.

Billie Holiday was on the first bill

and stayed there for nearly a year.

One day, a young leftist high-school teacher

named Abel meeropol turned up at the club.

He had written a poem and set it to music.

He gave it to holiday.

Would she sing it?

It was about a lynching.

She was nervous at first.

"I was scared people would hate it," she said.

"And the first time I sang it I thought it was a mistake."

Holiday: ♪ southern trees bear a strange fruit ♪

♪ blood on the leaves and blood at the root ♪

♪ black bodies swinging in the southern breeze ♪

♪ strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees ♪

Early: Billie Holiday sang this song,

it's like an Aria,

a song like that would have been unthinkable in the twenties,

but the thirties had brought about a new kind of political consciousness.

You had more people who were thinking dramatically about social protest,

you had a certain kind of growing militancy in the African American community.

This is a whole new sensibility for jazz.

I think Strange fruit Is really one of those seminal events in jazz music,

the creation of this protest song,

because it showed that black people could, in fact,

create a music, have a sensibility in their music

which had explicit kind of politics and explicit sort of social protest.

♪ Pastoral scene of the gallant south ♪

♪ the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth ♪

♪ scent of magnolias sweet and fresh ♪

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh ♪

♪ here is a fruit for the crows to pluck ♪

♪ for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck ♪

♪ for the sun to rot, for the tree to drop ♪

♪ here is a strange and bitter crop ♪

Narrator: "There wasn't even a patter of applause

when I finished," Billie Holiday remembered.

"Then a lone person began clapping nervously.

Then suddenly, everyone was clapping."

[Doggin' arounPlaying]

Narrator: On a warm Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1938,

with the depression in its 9th cruel year,

24,000 people, black and white, paid 50 cents each to attend

the first outdoor jazz festival in history

at a stadium on Randall's island in New York City.

It was billed as a "carnival of swing."

As if it were medicine,

Americans were buying 700,000 swing records a month now,

and 24 bands were on hand.

But no band had a bigger impact on the crowd that afternoon,

none embodied more of the "velocity of celebration"

that the best swing had come to represent

than count basie and his orchestra.

For months they had been turning out hit after exhilarating hit:

Jumpin' at the woodside, Boogie woogie,

swingin' at the Daisy chain, Lady be good,

out the window, An Doggin' around.

Murray: His band came in 1936, by 1937 he was a household word,

and his impact on jazz was universal.

Because what he brought to it was a rhythmic precision

and a pulse that was,

you know, almost, it was definitive.

Narrator: Count basie proved that big band swing could be popular

without sacrificing the spontaneity that is at the heart of jazz.

Narrator: In march of 1939, Duke Ellington and his orchestra

set sail for Europe for an extended concert tour.

Even he could not have foreseen the sort of impact it would have.

In the United States, Ellington was often overshadowed by more commercial bands,

but in Europe, he reigned supreme.

Crowds met their ship at le havre with "such adoration and genuine joy,"

his trumpeter Rex Stewart remembered, "that for the first time in my life,

"I had the feeling of being accepted as an artist,

a gentleman, and a member of the human race."

Thousands turned out in Brussels, antwerp, the hague, utrecht, Amsterdam, Copenhagen,

and Stockholm, where fans filled Ellington's hotel room

with flowers for his 40th birthday.

A Paris critic proclaimed that Ellington's music revealed

"the very secret of the cosmos."

And the French poet Blaise cendrars pronounced his music

"not only a new art form but a new reason for living."

But that same spring, when the train carrying Ellington's band

across northern Germany was delayed at Hamburg,

uniformed soldiers patrolled the platform,

and his men could not get off even to stretch their legs.

The Nazis had barred both black foreigners and jazz--

which they called "nigger-Jew music."

Man, voice-over: The nigger has a very pronounced feeling for rhythm,

and his "art" is perhaps indigenous but nevertheless offensive to our sentiments.

Surely, such stuff belongs among the hottentots.

Ministry of propaganda.

Narrator: As their train crossed Holland,

the clarinetist Barney bigard remembered,

"we could see out of the windows that they were putting machine-gun posts

in all the haystacks and in the ditches."

And in Paris, the band played in a new underground theater,

built to withstand the German bombs the French were sure would soon be falling.

Ellington and his band returned to america in may.

Europe was only months away from war.

Narrator: In October of 1939, a month after German troops invaded Poland,

Coleman Hawkins, the man who had made the tenor saxophone a jazz instrument,

went into the studio.

He recorded 4 sides that day, including the popular tune Body and soul.

nothing quite like it had ever been recorded before.

Giddins: Body and so Ulis one of the supreme masterpieces among jazz records.

Hawkins comes along with a recording that consists of two choruses

in which he never, except for the first two measures,

plays any of the melody.

This was a marvelous thing,

a confusing thing

to a lot of people.

I mean, he starts off ba da boo de boo be bop,

and then he goes off into his own melodic variation

and he sustains and continues that variation for two full choruses,

playing one brilliant melodic idea after another until the end of the record.

[Body and so Playing]

Narrator: Body and soul Was a hit with Americans of every color

and would help inspire a generation of young musicians

to take jazz in a whole new direction.