One name band leader has seen the light. He is eliminating, one by one, his sidemen who are known to be using the stuff. There have been half a dozen replacements in his band recently. Other leaders should follow his example. It’s a tough decision to make, turning out an otherwise capable instrumentalist who may well have stellar talent. But it’s better than having the entire structure collapse.
It’s a pity, too, that such musicians should practically be deprived of making a living by the only means they know. Too many of them, however, are not making a living even when they are working. The dope pusher takes most of it. It’s better that they should be forced to work out their own destiny alone, rather than be permitted to remain and infect others, like a rotten apple in a barrel, down beat, November 17, 1950. Copyright 1950 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
Perspectives CRITIC DEMANDS JUNKING OF WEAKLING JAZZMEN by Ralph J. Gleason
The most important question in the music business today is not who’s going to make the next hit record, but rather is something nobody talks about, particularly for publication.
Apparently operating on the ancient myth that you can conceal illness by not recognizing its existence, nobody, from bandboy and sideman up to bandleader and booker, will speak openly and frankly on the cancer that is infecting the business. I don’t have to state it any plainer than that for you to know exactly what I’m talking about.
Jazz Is Big Business Jazz is big business today. It’s an important and money-making part of every major record company’s activities and a major part of most minor firms’ work. The jazz clubs flourish all over the country. In the opinion of a veteran publicist in San Francisco, a man connected with show business, the entertainment world and publicity for years, the jazz clubs are a strong part of the backbone of the entertainment field today and in the near future will be the biggest thing in the business.
Today’s youngsters are the potential night club patrons of ten years from now, and what today’s kids want is jazz. They are giving up the Joe E. Lewises for the John Lewises and the Sophie Tuckers for the Sarah Vaughans. Every year the older entertainment world loses another generation of customers. And the new order gains one.
Time To Clean House With this in mind, please consider the possibility that it is time for the musicians, the jazz fans, and the musicians’ union if necessary, to clean house. But good. It’s up to bandleaders and bookers, sidemen and managers to see to it that the cancer is contained, that the infection is stopped and a thriving business, that is also an art and a way of life, is not penalized by the twisted attitudes and hysterical flight from reality of a very few. And they are, relatively, a few. Even though they may be a talented, articulate, and amazingly active few.
How can you respect a man who does not respect himself? There is no reality on Cloud 9, and there is no clearer perception of life. If the music business, itself, doesn’t do something about it, we will all be losers in the long run. Frankly, I can think of no re-orientation too severe for certain of our so-called stars for their behavior in recent years. An addict is a shame and a disgrace to the very word “musician.”
“Special Privilege” Gone Time was when camaraderie between the races and the colors and the factions in music was the rule. The residue of history when musicians were strolling players, a group apart, and as artists and special human beings enjoyed special privileges. It’s getting so the word is one of opprobrium rather than praise.
Sure the papers exaggerate; sure the hysterical columnists shoot off a lot of nonsense. But you know what’s happening, don’t you? Is it good? No one can cure it but you. It’s time the hipsters got their hip cards punched, but in the right place, down beat, December 2, 1953. Copyright 1953 by down beat. Reprinted by special permission.
(Shelly Manne) Drug use was prevalent among musicians then. That was why I originally left New York. People hitting on me for money to score. Leave something on the bandstand, turn around, and it’s gone. Friendship goes right out the window. People turn into animals. But there are different extenuating circumstances in everybody’s life: the need to be accepted by a group of peers who maybe are using drugs or alcohol at the time, the need to be accepted as one of the guys, the need to be considered hipper by doing that, by being a farout cat, or the discontent with one’s own playing. Maybe he feels that a stimulant or a depressant might somehow enable him to get his head together so he can cut the crowd out and get totally into his playing. Who knows. There’s a hundred reasons why. It might be something in your personal life which a friend wouldn’t necessarily know about, in your background, in your bringing up, in your environment. It’s too hard for me to speculate on why a guy would use heavy drugs or heavy alcohol. I know that to do it just for fun — smoke some pot, take a few drinks with the guys, just partying it up — or because there’s a lot of tension on the road, just as a release, was cool. We used to have a lot of fun. We’d get stoned or something and just enjoy ourselves. But when you start getting into heavy drugs, you’re getting into another area, and it’s a terrible vicious circle because it’s a losing battle all around. You’re not only leading a life on the road that is debilitating to your body, to use heavy drugs as a relief from the stress of being on the road creates another disability to your body. And finally your body breaks down, and finally you break down, and finally you have no control or will power, and the whole thing just goes down the toilet.
I was fortunate because drugs scared the hell out of me. When I was young, in New York, playing on Fifty-second Street, when I was eighteen I looked fifteen, and all the musicians I was playing with—Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Trummy Young, Dizzy—all those musicians, kinda were very protective. Even when I hung out in a saloon, the White Rose, on Fifty-second Street, with all those guys and somebody’d offer me a drink (I didn’t like alcohol), they would put them down, “No, give him a Coke.” I’m very grateful to them for that, being protected like that. And, of course, what helped me, too, was being accepted by those guys. It gave me strength and confidence. I felt self-assured about what I wanted to do, where I was going.
| 7 | Busted1952–1953 |
THE POINT was whether I really wanted to do it or not. A month at the sanitarium cost two thousand dollars, and there was no sense in spending all that money if I was just going to come out and start using again. But I felt I wanted to stop. I was hoping I felt that way.
My dad phoned the sanitarium and they told him I should go and stay with him so they would know exactly how much I was shooting a day. He put his house in mortgage and took his money out of the bank. He bought dope for me. I’d make a phone call to East L.A. and line it up, and he and my step-mother would drive me to score. We did this for three days. Then they made the appointment for me to go into the sanitarium.
Before I left, my dad got a hammer and we all went into the kitchen. Patti was there. He handed me the hammer and told me to do it right. It was like a ceremony. I broke the outfit into a million pieces and took the pieces into the backyard and threw them as far as I could. I felt that I’d be able to make it with my dad behind me.
When I got to the sanitarium I was already sick. They got me into bed and took the standard tests, and then the doctor came in with the nurse and talked to me for a while. Heroin isn’t like drugstore dope: you never know what you’re getting. He tried to estimate how much I’d been taking a day but he couldn’t do that, so he said, “I’ll send the nurse back with a shot of morphine and after you get the effects of it, call for her and let her know how you feel, if it takes away the sickness, because I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” The nurse came back with a syringe and injected the morphine under my skin instead of into the vein. (Later on I tried to get her to let me fix myself in the vein, but she wouldn’t do it.)
The