From: mingus@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Damballah Wedo)
Subject: On Drugs, Bebop and The Wire
Organization: The Poto Mitan in the Houmfor
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 03:48:42 GMT

In their November 1992 issue, The Wire included an article by
Joel Lewis that purported to explore the connection between
post-WWII jazz and heroin. This article is a response to Lewis.

While Lewis generally gets his facts straight, he weaves them
into a fabric that fundamentally, dangerously understates the
scourge that heroin visited on jazz and jazz musicians. He
never quite says this, but his approach to the subject is rather
too light and airy. For instance: "Other musicians simply
outgrew their habits -- a maturing which often happens in the mid
to late 30s." Or: "it seems that most of the addicted musicians
managed their habit to the extent that they could function as
musicians." Or: "[heroin] lets you concentrate and takes you away
from everything. Heroin is a working drug."

Well, sounds nice, doesn't it. Take some shit up your arm for a while,
till you outgrow it. Won't really hurt you from playing the music,
and will help you concentrate.

I wonder whether Lewis, when he was writing this, looked up and
noticed the ghosts on the wall, standing in silent indictment:
Serge Chaloff, dead at 27, Booker Little, gone at 23. Or Paul
Chambers. Or Fats Navarro (does Lewis this helpful drug helped
Fats fight TB, which killed him at 28?) Or Tina Brooks. Or Ronnie
Boykins. Or Dannie Richmond. Or George Adams (cocaine, in this
case, if recent rumors are correct.) Or Bill Evans. Or Emily
Remler. (these last few point the lie in Lewis' howler that heroin
use was pretty much over by the mid 60s...) To say nothing of
early beboppers, like Allen Eager, who quit the music as a way
to stay away from heroin.

Lewis, in talking about how heroin addiction could be managed, lists
such as Bud Powell or Sonny Stitt as addicts who managed not to OD.
An odd measure of success: he did not die, so heroin is not too bad.
It also distorts the reality in crucial ways: these men's careers
were significantly diminished by their addiction. Bud Powell merely
switched to alcohol, which killed his apetite, leading to his death
(at 42!) of malnutrition. Sonny Stitt, a genius of the alto and tenor
sax who was almost the equal of Bird (he created bebop harmonies
independently of Bird and Diz), spent his career playing cheap
joints with local rhythm sections and died forgotten, pretty much
because he was always in need of cash to "manage" his addiction,
and so could never afford to pay the sidemen who could frame a
music as big as his.

Art Pepper, Frank Morgan, did not OD. But they were off the scene
for decades, either in jail or in the gutter. Is that better?
Does Lewis think the sad charade that was Chet Baker from the
late 50s on was something for jazz to eb proud of? Why did Dexter
Gordon record so little from the late 40s glory days to the brilliant
series of albums he did for Blue Note in the early 60s? Because he
was too fucked up for most of the decade to put too much coherent
music together, that's why, and it's a dirty shame not to be dismissed.

Damnit, we as fans of jazz music have a responsibility to distinguish
between the beauty of the music and the weaknesses of the musicians.
We should not, cannot, must not accept the lies of the latter because
we allow ourselves to be blinded by the former. Charlie Parker never
did anything significant to get off heroin; for the most part this is
why the brilliance of his genius was so often constrained by lame
rhythm sections, bad recording technology, and endless rehashes of
the same tunes. He was at best a weak personality, who pissed away
his life, and wound up all used up and dead at 34. There's NOTHING
heroic about being dead at 34, and we must not be afraid to say that.

Shit, consider Dizzy, whose accomplishments as at least as great as
Bird (did Bird bring the music to big band format? did Bird take
Jelly Roll's advice and deal with the latin spice? and did Bird in
his later years reflect on his art and become the impossibly brilliant
blues players Dizzy is? hell not, Bird was too busy shooting shit up
his arms), and who remains a role model, as musician and more importantly
as human being.

Or Clifford Brown. Or Coltrane and Miles, ex-junkies whose major
accomplishments came AFTER heroin. And what about Sun Ra, always fighting,
never giving up.

Joel Lewis is, IMO, an irresponsible journalist and a gullible fool.
His article has value only in that it demonstrates how and what not to
write about jazz, and how not to let one's enthusiasm for the music
cloud one's better judgement.


-- 
Marcel-Franck Simon             	mingus@usl.com, usl!mingus

	" Papa Loko, ou se' van, ou-a pouse'-n ale'
	  Nou se' papiyon, n'a pote' nouvel bay Agwe' "
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote