of mine,” he conceded—who was a “sporting gentleman,” a euphemism for gangster. When the Club Harlem was being liquidated, then in a losing rivalry with the Cotton Club, Rich intervened. When Carter visited him, “he started raising cushions … getting up cash from this chair, upholstered chair and from this sofa, and I never saw so much money, just being dug up right in front of me … and the next day he became the owner of the Club Harlem.” His motivation? “You’ve got to have a place for your band,” he told Carter, who, staggered, pointed out, “His only purpose for buying the club was to keep my band together.” After a messy split with his spouse, Carter was “pretty broke and George loaned me $150 … to pay my fare back to Paris.” Thus arose Benny Carter and “The Club Harlem Orchestra.”23 Not coincidentally, this beau geste also obligated the composer, arranger, and bandleader to this questionable patron.
This is no trifling matter since, according to critic Leonard Feather, Carter was a trailblazer because as a bandleader he was “the first genuine full-scale integrator,” even though Benny Goodman is often given credit for this feat. But, says Feather, the bespectacled clarinetist hesitated to hire Coleman Hawkins at the behest of John Hammond, the producer. The emphasis on Goodman’s purported trailblazing has hindered the necessity of focusing on others. For example, Feather stresses the pathbreaking efforts of Rex Stewart, perhaps the music’s reigning intellectual, who was crossing the color line in hiring as early as 1934 in Harlem.24
As ever, those at the top of the pyramid of capitalism were the beneficiaries in the first instance. This list included Arnold Rothstein, termed by his biographer as “King of the Jews,” who helped to fund the groundbreaking Negro musical Shuffle Along, which propelled the career of pianist Eubie Blake. Rothstein’s personal aide, Thomas A. Farley, born in Virginia in 1875, was a “gentleman of color” who had his tuition to Columbia University paid by his benefactor. Rothstein was also accused of being one of the earliest of the drug dealers, reportedly importing 1,250 pounds of heroin and allying with opium dealers.25 Pianist Fats Waller was friendly with Rothstein, though understandably wary of him.26 Rothstein was not singular, for New York City also featured the presence of mobster Casper A. Holstein, whose roots were in the former Danish West Indies, recently purloined by Washington from Copenhagen.27 By the 1920s he was running the Saratoga Club in Harlem.28
One of Holstein’s comrades was another personality of Caribbean heritage, Stephanie St. Clair, born in Guadeloupe. Like others, she was concerned when he was kidnapped at gunpoint shortly after betting more than $30, 000 at Belmont Park; at the time he was sporting jewelry worth a like amount and thus a $50,000 ransom was demanded. Ultimately, he was released at 140th Street and Amsterdam in Harlem after frenetic negotiations. Shortly thereafter, Rothstein was shot in a New York hotel; this attack on the man viewed as the “kingpin” of Jewish organized crime was also viewed with grave concern by his comrades, as a small fortune tied up in gambling and speakeasies was at stake. But the problem for his Negro competitors was their lack of influence at City Hall, which meant they were to suffer greatly from police harassment, which proved to be undermining.29
The pervasiveness of Jim Crow continued to hamper the ability of Negroes to gain a foothold in the nightclub business and other venues where the new music was beginning to flourish. On the other hand, the “Great Migration,” or the mass movement north from Dixie and the Caribbean to urban centers, also delivered the right to vote from those fleeing the Deep South and enhanced political power that could be leveraged for economic gain. Chicago was an example of this trend. What was called “policy” or “playing the numbers” was an ostensibly illegal lottery of sorts that was termed “the biggest black-owned business in the world with combined annual sales, sometimes reaching the $100 million mark and employing tens of thousands.” Negroes profiting from this enterprise at times dabbled in the arts, bringing opportunities for musicians. These entrepreneurs underwrote a thriving urban culture of theaters, dance halls, and the like. Those profiting included Jesse Binga, Eudora Johnson Binga, Fenton Johnson, and John “Mushmouth” Johnson. But as so often happened, the authorities viewed Negro wealth, particularly if produced by questionable means, with a more jaundiced eye than that generated by others similarly situated, particularly since their Euro-American competitors were often connected politically and able to wield such power on behalf of their cronies. Mr. Binga, banker, was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned and eventually became a janitor. Still, it was undeniable that a dazzling excitement emerged from this combination of Negro gambling syndicates, Negro entertainment, and the related desire to forge Black Politics in order to elude the crushing of the two.30
Near the center of these trends was the famed pugilist Jack Johnson, a bass fiddler of note in his own right, who opened a popular club in Chicago as early as 1912.31 Despite the problems faced by Negro musicians in places like Chicago, it was undeniable that compared to Dixie, including New Orleans,32 migration northward had a liberating impact. This liberation was enjoyed noticeably by the pimps, card sharks, pool hustlers, and drug dealers who came to populate “Bronzeville” and the clubs there too.33 Musician Milt Hinton found it unsurprising that Chicago emerged as a polestar of the new music, particularly compared to New York City, since the Illinois town had “three times as many blacks” as the eastern city, meaning “three times as many theaters and nightclubs as New York.”34
Chicago was an unpropitious site for the ascension of this music. Prior to the influx of Negroes during the First World War era, Chicago already was known as a place where mobsters had deep influence over politics and judges. Labor racketeering was detected there as early as the 1890s, and criminally inclined comrades virtually controlled nearby Cicero, Stone Park, Calumet, and Chicago Heights.35
It took a while for Black political power to bloom in Chicago, and in the interregnum a gang war erupted in the 1920s with Al Capone emerging triumphant. The firebombing of clubs was not uncommon, with musicians caught in the crossfire. Similar warfare was detonated in Harlem with a Negro-owned club falling victim, contributing to the rise in this Manhattan neighborhood of Capone’s colleagues and imitators. This led to violent attacks on musicians, giving rise to a desire for protection which took the form of self-help, that is, carrying of weapons and banding together in unions, or allying with one gangster faction to foil another. This latter factor influenced certain musicians to tout the wares of their protectors, which could mean more references to controlled substances in their music and lyrics.36 The Italian mobster was viewed as one of the most important impresarios of the new music, hiring musicians to entertain at his enterprises.37 Indeed, Capone has been called the “patron saint” of the new music; it was in Chicago that the saxophone was popularized and rapidly became the paradigmatic instrument of jazz.38 The blaring of these horns could hardly drown out the cacophony of gunshots, for in 1926–27 most notably, there was an unbelievable skein of violence and carnage.39
Louis Armstrong arrived in Chicago during this tense moment, and mobsters helped him to get his first job in New York City after he arrived there from the Midwest in 1924.40 Armstrong was subjected to extortion by plug-uglies early on. His life was threatened unless he forked over a sizeable portion of the money he received from performing. Still, it was whispered that these threats were propelled by musical competitors—defined as “white”—who resented his popularity.41
The ties Armstrong forged in Chicago shaped his career trajectory. Joe Glaser, who helped to shape his career as a manager and agent, was seen as a front for Capone via running one of the mobster’s brothels; his venality was exposed when he was indicted for rape. In a sense, Armstrong chose one set of thugs to protect him against another; such was the sorry plight of musicians then. Glaser’s mob connections meant that Armstrong was at times slated to appear in mob-tied joints, such as Ciro’s in Philadelphia. These shark-infested waters also contributed to Armstrong accusing his then spouse—the protean pianist, composer and arranger Lil Hardin, who helped to shape his repertoire and early popularity—of “running around with one of the Chicago pimps while I was at work.” Thus, a rift developed between the trumpeter and the woman
