Jazz and Death by Spencer Frederick J

Author:Spencer, Frederick J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2002-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Dave Tough showing how easy it was to continue smoking while playing drums. Courtesy of the estate of Harold S. Kaye, and of Miranda Rehm and Laurie Wright.

Spanier became so ill that his life was threatened. Enter Dr. Alton Ochsner, a New Orleans surgeon:

My first contact with Muggsy was the day after he’d been admitted to the Touro Infirmary. He had had a perforation of a duodenal ulcer. He was under the care of the medical man, Dr. Brown, who thought he was too sick to be seen by a surgeon. But then he got progressively worse and they needed somebody to share the responsibility. I remember I was called one Sunday afternoon and was shocked to see how ill he was. He was almost moribund. His abdomen was so tense that it looked and sounded like a balloon. I realized that he must have perforated an ulcer and, although I knew he was too sick to be operated upon, I felt he had to be relieved because his abdomen was so tight that he could just not breath [sic]. So, within his room and without any local anesthesia because he was so far gone he could not feel any pain, I made an incision and the fluid was under such pressure that it squirted out and hit the ceiling. I put in a drain and felt he was going to die but would die in peace because he would not have the distension. I watched him during the afternoon and eventually he began to breath [sic] more easily. He had every complication that a person could develop, consisting of a subphrenic abscess, a cul-de-sac abscess and a left-sided abscess, all of which had to be drained at the appropriate times.123

Dr. Ochsner’s decision to operate saved Spanier’s life. In gratitude, he gave a trumpet to Dr. Ochsner’s son, Alton Ochsner Jr., a gift they would remember twenty-six years later.

During his convalescence, Spanier had three abscesses within the abdominal cavity: one under the diaphragm (subphrenic), one adjacent to the rectum (cul-de-sac), and one in the region of the descending colon (left-sided). These complications show the extent of the damage done by the perforation. Spanier wrote two compositions celebrating his recovery, “Oh Dr. Ochsner” and “Relaxin’ at the Touro.” George Brunis claimed that the title for the second one was his idea and said, “And then we were rehearsing, and Muggsy was going to do the ‘Blues in F.’ So, I said, ‘Why don’t you call it “Relaxing at the Touro”?’ I said, ‘You just got out of the hospital, my nephew gave you a pint of blood, a couple of pints of blood, and you’re living off Brunis blood now.’”124

For many years cigarette smoking was blamed for the occurrence of peptic ulcers. They are now believed to follow a bacterial infection. There is no doubt, however, that smoking contributes to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, resulting in chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Muggsy Spanier was a heavy smoker, and in 1964 he began to show signs of lung and heart failure.

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