The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow by Richard Wormser

Author:Richard Wormser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

In 1900, Robert Charles, harassed by police, became involved in a shootout with tragic consequences. This drawing from a newspaper article shows the arrest of a friend of Charles, who was not involved but was shot by an enraged white man while in police custody.

Around the turn of the century, music in New Orleans was undergoing a transformation. A new sound was being created by musicians like Buddy Bolden, the innovative cornet player famed for his ability to improvise, and Tony Jackson, considered by many “the best pianist they had.” One man who helped bring about this musical revolution was Ferdinand La Menthe, a Creole of Color eventually known as “Jelly Roll” Morton. From early childhood, music was a vital part of Morton’s family’s life. “We always had some kind of musical instruments in the house, including guitar, drums, piano, trombone. We had lots of them, and everybody played for their pleasure.” Other rich sources of inspiration that Morton described were the marching bands and the social clubs they represented. “New Orleans was very organization minded. I have never seen such beautiful clubs as they have there. The Broadway Swells, the High Arts, the Bulls and the Bears, the Tramps and the Iroquois. They’d have a great big band. The grand marshal would ride in front with all his aides behind him.”

While still a teenager, Morton had been hired to play the piano at Lulu White’s bordello in the Storyville section of New Orleans, the most famous red-light district in nineteenth-century America. “In Storyville, lights of all colors were glittering, glaring. Music was pouring into the streets from every house. Women were standing in the doorways, singing or chanting some kind of blues—some very happy, some very sad, some with the desire to end it all with poison, some planning a big outing, a dance or some other kind of enjoyment.”

Storyville was a world of prostitution where white and black women were available to white men, and black men were restricted to black women in segregated establishments. Only black musicians were allowed in the whites-only houses. “You could play music there, but you couldn’t play there,” Morton said. “If a white man even suspected you showed too much interest in one of the ladies, well that could be too bad for you.”

In Storyville, Jelly Roll Morton became one of the jazz greats. Jazz was not created in Storyville, but many jazz musicians perfected their own talents by providing musical entertainment for the prostitutes and their customers. Louis Armstrong, who helped make coal deliveries to Storyville as a child, remembered how enthralled he was at hearing the music: “There were all kinds of thrills for me in Storyville. On every corner I could hear music. And such good music. All those glorious trumpets—Joe Oliver, Bunk Johnson—It seemed that all the bands were shooting each other with these hot riffs.”

Through their music, musicians could drop their masks and express their deepest feelings. Music provided a rich internal life in a Jim Crow world, which influenced their music but did not determine it.

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