As we uncork the final bottle in our jazz-infused podcast series, I can't help but reflect on the melodies that have comforted and inspired us through thick and thin. It's been a season of highs, lows, and everything in between as we've traced the vibrant journey of jazz from the syncopated beats of ragtime to the revolutionary echoes of "Bitches Brew." Raise your glass with us one last time, as we honor the legendary Buddy Bolden, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane, whose masterpieces are as poignant as their lives were turbulent. We weave through the fabric of their stories and the profound impact they've had on the cultural landscape, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate with every note played.
Tonight's episode is a toast to the history that hums behind the jazz scene, a history rich with creativity and resilience. We step into the shoes of Scott Joplin, Jack Teagarden, and Louis Armstrong, unearthing the harmony in their friendships and the rifts in a segregated society that couldn't dim their brilliance. As we bid adieu to this season, we leave you with a heartfelt promise of a return after a brief interlude, armed with more stories that paint our past with the soul-stirring shades of jazz. So, let the rhythm take you, and let's celebrate the symphony of sounds that have become the backdrop of our lives. Goodnight, jazz aficionados, and keep the spirit of exploration alive until we meet again.
As we uncork the final bottle in our jazz-infused podcast series, I can't help but reflect on the melodies that have comforted and inspired us through thick and thin. It's been a season of highs, lows, and everything in between as we've traced the vibrant journey of jazz from the syncopated beats of ragtime to the revolutionary echoes of "Bitches Brew." Raise your glass with us one last time, as we honor the legendary Buddy Bolden, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane, whose masterpieces are as poignant as their lives were turbulent. We weave through the fabric of their stories and the profound impact they've had on the cultural landscape, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate with every note played.
Tonight's episode is a toast to the history that hums behind the jazz scene, a history rich with creativity and resilience. We step into the shoes of Scott Joplin, Jack Teagarden, and Louis Armstrong, unearthing the harmony in their friendships and the rifts in a segregated society that couldn't dim their brilliance. As we bid adieu to this season, we leave you with a heartfelt promise of a return after a brief interlude, armed with more stories that paint our past with the soul-stirring shades of jazz. So, let the rhythm take you, and let's celebrate the symphony of sounds that have become the backdrop of our lives. Goodnight, jazz aficionados, and keep the spirit of exploration alive until we meet again.
Hey everybody, this is Harriette Westmore with the More Wine and Music podcast, a podcast where we discuss music drawn right over a glass of wine. I am so sorry that I am late this evening. I've been kind of busy today. I had an earlier podcast that I did with one of my other shows. Please check it out at the More Self-Discovery podcast. That was a good show about relationships and how we can keep our relationships spicy and keep it alive. It doesn't have to. Just because you're in a relationship, in a partnership, does not mean that you have to be dead. Okay, so please check that out. Today is the last episode, episode 12, for the more wine and music jazz genre, so I'm going to do my countdown and let's get into it. All right, welcome back. All right, before we get started, I wanted to remind everybody to please hit that share, hit that hit that live, hit that like and subscribe button to the More Wine and Music podcast. I want to keep continuing to bring on good content, so if you will just please hit that share, sharing is caring. And I want to also give a special shout out to my cousin. Today's my cousin's birthday, jocelyn Deneen Zobozek. Happy birthday to you. All right, anybody else who has a birthday out there. I wish you happy birthday as well. All right, let's get started.
Speaker 1:
So season two was about jazz and the creation of jazz, and we talked about a lot of known artists as well as lesser known artists. So I want to have a dialogue with the audience, the viewers, to see which ones were your favorite biographies that I brought to you this season. We kind of learned from episode one about the history of jazz. It really came from the ragtime genre, which ragtime was, a certain rhythm that was more upbeat than the blues, that which I featured in the first episode of the podcast. So I also talked about one of the earlier artists who created what we now call the jazz genre, buddy Bolden, and his contribution in playing the cornet and how influential he was, even though his life ended somewhat, you know it was. You know he ended up having, I think it was, syphilis and he passed away in an asylum. But he made a contribution of jazz by his playing of the cornet. Also, as we talked about Miles Davis, miles Davis is one of the well-known trumpet players in all time in the history of jazz and we also we just talked about him last week, matter of fact, we also we just talked about him last week, matter of fact, and we also learned that you know Miles he was, even though personality wise he was somewhat different, but his music was very deep and very thought provoking. Um, if you listen to him play uh, I think his breakout, his real breakout uh album was um Bitches Brew, which is was in the early seventies. So, um, I want to hear feedback from the audience, um the viewers, of what everybody thought about.
Speaker 1:
You know, jazz in itself, jazz is a type of music that, as I've always said, is either you like it or you don't. It's something that is. It can be complex, but it can be also simple. It can be complex but it can be also simple. It's not a lot of it's no, you know, necessarily lyrics. It's a composition of instruments coming together and creating a unique sound and beat. So, and it basically comes with a band, a quintet of a horn, you got to have the horns, you got to have the keyboard or piano, you have to have the drums for the beat, a lot of strings or you have the woodwind. Like that to create a unique sound was played in a lot of genres, like in a lot of venues like bars and clubs and it was more of an upbeat. You can do the swing. There was a lot of particularly dance moves that you can create out of hearing the beat of jazz.
Speaker 1:
And, like someone has mentioned, yeah, it is so sad because a lot of the artists, if you notice the pattern, if you listen throughout the season, a lot of the artists is unfortunately as talented as they were For some reason, I don't know, and it's kind of true today, a lot of them get caught up in the drug scene. Look at someone like Billie Holiday. Very much, much she was a heroin addict or you know, or you know an opiate addict. We discussed about Charlie Parker Bird. I always I call him Bird because I just thought that his nickname and how it came about was very interesting to me, so I'll just call him Bird how he became a heroin addict, miles Davis heroin addict, john Coltrane heroin addict. But yet they were very, very, very talented individuals and they contribute a lot to the jazz, what jazz was today, and a lot of people have learned and emulated their playing from them. But it is sad that they came, you know, into an age to where they had to cope through substance abuse. So particularly I thought was interesting was Bolden, buddy Bolden, early in the early turn of the 20th century and how he came about and he played with the King Oliver Creole jazz band.
Speaker 1:
You know, if you go way, way, way back then, as we discussed in season one and the blues genre, a lot of the Black artists didn't get their just dues richly deserved, because again, they were. You know it was an era to where it was the Jim Crow era, and you know you were just an entertainer and you were basically treated like you know, the lowest entertainer. You were just there to entertain. You know people, even though they endured a lot, they endured the racism coming from. A lot of them came from poor backgrounds, backgrounds and they made their way out of the South to find a better life, supposedly by they played their way out of the cotton fields, out of the South to go back into that lifestyle that they, you know, left. And you know not much has changed. You still, I think a lot of artists are not getting the recognition or they're just due that they so much deserve and they've, you know, for them to contribute so much to American style of music.
Speaker 1:
So one person that I thought was very interesting and I thought was kind of ahead of her time was Louis Armstrong's wife, lillian Harden Armstrong. She was a businesswoman. She was a businesswoman and even though she was kind of behind the scenes I mean she really was behind who helped create who Louis Armstrong became. It was her and her backing. So in her backing she's the one that kind of create his persona, his, his style of dress in his stage performance. She was the one who did that and she herself was an accomplished musician and she made sure that she was savvy enough business savvy enough to own her own rights to her music, which is very, very rare back in the you know we're talking about in the forties, the thirties and the forties. So she was very rare. She knew well enough to make sure that she got what she deserved and you know, and got the recognition that she deserved. So that was in episode six.
Speaker 1:
So I thought Lil Harden Armstrong was very interesting. If anybody else has any comments or anything about that, please put that in a chat. I thought you know she. It may have been because she was actually literate, she actually studied music, she actually knew the music business and I think she demanded respect. They had no choice, even through her ex-husband, louis Armstrong, even though they were divorced. They were married but then they divorced but they were business partners and they did write music together and she made sure that she received her credit and you know, again, I think she was ahead of her time. Again, I think she was ahead of her time, but lesser known, because you know, we all know who Louis Armstrong was but not too many of us didn't know who his first wife was. So that was, that was one of the few and unfortunately, as being one of the few, there are a lot of wonderful female musicians that didn't get recognized like they should, even though they did, was the anchor, even, you know, as a background artist or whatever. They weren't that much in the scenes. They still contribute a lot to the music or whoever they were playing with at the time. So I mean, but Lillian did make sure that she would be recognized one way or the other.
Speaker 1:
Another person I thought was interesting you know we talked about Scott Joplin. Everybody know who Scott Joplin was. He was called the father of ragtime. Everybody knows the song the Entertainer. His life was cut short, even though you know you listen to the song Ragtime and you listen to that style of music and you listen to it as a he was. He paved the way from, you know, changing the style from blues because up until that point, before Rack Time, you know, it was more of the blues.
Speaker 1:
And coming from, you know, the Delta and people are moaning and groaning about the hard life that they are enduring, living in the Delta, scott Joplin decided to kind of change the pace of blues and kind of make it upbeat and make it more fun for people to go out and have a good time, you know, go to these local community part um dances, these barn dances or whatever, or the jute joints and stuff and people, you know it. It created, uh, a more upbeat sound of people. Even though you're going through whatever, the hardships of, uh, jim Crow, the hardships of picking cotton. You had a place to go and kind of dance and be merry.
Speaker 1:
And I think that was part of the gay 90s. If you know your history in the 1890s was considered the gay 90s because everybody was more or less, you know, dancing and prancing and everything was kind of jolly and gay in a happy way. So that 10 year span of the 1890s up until the turn of the 20th century was considered the gay 90s. So it's more, it was kind of preclude to the prelude, I'm sorry, to the 20s, the roaring 20s, because everybody was, you know, in the 20s, everybody you know the new style, the, you know the bootleg liquor, everybody was partying, have a good time. That was the roaring 20s. The gay 90s, 1890s was similar to that.
Speaker 1:
So Scott Joplin came along in that era of the gay 90s and he was able to actually showcase his piece of work at the Chicago World's Fair in what was it around 1890. So he was able to do that, to do that. So Scott Jekyll was interesting to me. Also, jack Teagarden, he was the only white jazz performer that I showcased for the season and you know he was interesting because of, again, he admired what he heard as far as Black jazz artists. So he wanted to emulate and play with, you know, his heroes, which was, you know, at the time was, let's see, louis Armstrong. He actually played with him. He actually, I mean, and he came from a family of artists, jazz artists, his mom was a musician, his brother and sister. So I mean he was interesting and I don't think he got what he deserved as far as the way, his style of playing because he created a new style of what was it that he played.
Speaker 1:
I think his horn was the cornet. Like I said, the cornet seemed like, like, like I said, the cornet was like the? Um, the horn of the day to play. If you're going to play jazz, if you're going to play the horn, you will play either the saxophone or the cornet. I think Benny Goodman I may be wrong, um, but Benny Goodman played the clarinet, if I'm not mistaken. I may be wrong on that, but I think he was more of the clarinet. And, yes, as mentioned, jack Teagarden was heavily influenced by, uh, black artists and he, you know, played with many of the black artists, especially he and um, louis armstrong kind of took him in and mentored him and, uh, you know they, they became good friends and even when Jack wanted to, you know, venture out on his own, you know it was with Armstrong's blessing. You know he wasn't the type that you know was more of a hater. He made sure, I mean, he mentored him and influenced him to, you know, branch out, even though his going solo wasn't as popular or he didn't really make it out on his own as he would have liked, but he still made the effort. So Jet Teagarden was definitely a great contribution to the jazz genre.
Speaker 1:
John Coltrane we all know John Coltrane. John Coltrane, I don't know this guy. I consider him deep in his plan and you can tell in his plan that he's a deep soul. When you listen to any of his music and his style of playing you can just feel his. You can feel the music in your soul. I could just sit here and you know I'm such a visual person If I'm in a melancholy mood and it's, I can picture myself actually listening to him on a rainy day or something. If I'm looking outside, you know, and just you know, want to be in deep thought. John Coltrane would be the person that, the type of music that he played would be the type of music that I would play, you know, when I want to go into a deep meditation or deep thought. I mean, that's how his music influenced many people. He just has that way of getting to your soul through his playing.
Speaker 1:
And unfortunately he was another person that had to battle drug addiction, liked enough to where people particularly Miles Davis, ironically, who was also at one point was an addict. But he admired and liked Coltrane enough to where he did all he could to help him get back on his feet, even though he had to fire him at one point. He did. And Coltrane was on a, I think, a three-year hiatus where he had to just get himself physically, mentally together to get clean. And Davis, you know, rarely took him back because he knew how much of a talented young musician that he was. So he was one of the ones that his influence in the saxophone between him and Bird they both have such a major influence in playing in the saxophone to where people from here to come after will try to emulate and they use both of them, especially Coltrane, as a foundation and to learn from how he played.
Speaker 1:
He was a person of deep thought and he did express his feelings through his music. So, like I said, I think Coltrane is one of the ones that really he will get you thinking. When you want to just kind of just sit there and just be in deep thought, your mind is like I just need to kind of just chill out and just be and just sit and just be in thought, just have some put on some Coltrane in the background and he will take you there All right. So Fats Waller Fats Waller was definitely an influential artist. Thomas Fats Waller, he made his contribution by playing the piano, I believe. Let me see, I'm trying to look through my notes here yeah, his, his, his, you know his playing. He was actually a writer, so he composed a lot of his music. So, so he composed a lot of his music and he composed a lot of the Broadway musicals. So he was very influential in the Broadway musicals because he composed a lot of the pieces for different types of Broadway shows.
Speaker 1:
Unfortunately, again, being on the road, I can't imagine being a musician and being constantly on the road, especially back then. Even now it's hard as a musician, but even back then you're on the road, you're not being accommodated. Well, especially, particularly, you know, black artists back in the day. They weren't accommodated. Their accommodations was pretty much, you know, either at people's houses, if they couldn't find you know someone that would take them in because they certainly couldn't go to you know nice hotels or anything. They weren't, you know, because of segregation, blacks weren't allowed to stay at hotels. So it was mostly so. It was a rough, it's a rough road and so, and being on the road most of the time, trying to perform, trying to make a living by performing on the road most of the time trying to perform, trying to make a living by performing.
Speaker 1:
Obviously your diet is not always the best and Fats Waller, you know he was known of being, you know, drinking and not eating right. And you know he was heavy, he had a heavy set. So I mean that was kind of ultimately his demise as being, you know, because of overweight. And you know that fun, you know all those years of doing you know that, of being that being that it'll catch up with you. So you know, but he, you know, was a big contributor, sorry, in composing pieces for different types of Broadway shows. So when you, you know, look back at those old shows and stuff, those black and white shows that you see a lot of performers do, a lot of those music came from Fats Waller and if you see him playing the piano you can definitely hear his style of playing and how it made a contribution to the jazz genre as well.
Speaker 1:
But you know, I enjoy talking about a lot of these artists because, first of all, I grew up, I come from a musically inclined family. Both sides of my family, both sides of my parents have, we have, musical talent on both ends. So I grew up, you know, listening to all types of music all my life. So I've always had an interest in learning, not only learning about the music itself, but the person who created the music, type of music that's, you know, are today like the jazz and blues, rock or whatever. It really makes you appreciate their wisdom and their ingenuity of how they just had that gift of bringing somewhat joy in a dismal life. Because being Black even now, but even back then, living as a Black American during the South early, you know, turn of the century, turn of the 20th century, the Jim Crow era, they endured a lot and they needed to have an outlet and of course, I think that's in our DNA is through our expression, is through music, and so we take something ordinary, a beat or a sound, and turn it into something extraordinary, and that's just what we do. So I wanted to give homage to these artists for paving the way for artists that are, you know, today, musicians. They need to really look back at the history and see whose shoulders they're standing on, because if it wasn't for people like Scott Joplin, people like Buddy Bolden, people like Miles Davis, louis Armstrong, dizzy Gillespie, lillian Harden, armstrong, charlie Bird, parker, king Oliver, if it wasn't Miles Davis, if it wasn't for these individuals and whoever now wants to play jazz, if it wasn't for them, I don't think jazz would be what it is now. You've got artists like Wynton Marsalis now, who still understands and tries to keep that sound of what was back in the day. He plays it, he has it more, makes it modern. But you can, you know he still appreciates and give homage to the early pioneers of the sound of true jazz. There's contemporary jazz, you've got acid jazz, you've got straight jazz, the sounds of jazz how it was intended to be. But you have to give thanks and give the credit to those who paved that ability for us to take upon what they did and then just build upon that and make it better. So, all right. That is episode 12, season finale.
Speaker 1:
Season two of More Wine and Music podcast. I'm going to be taking a two week break and then I'm not sure, but I'm kind of certain of the next phase, of a different, of the next genre I'm going to talk about in season three. I will, I will let everybody know once it gets closer time to to time for the next season. But I try to be sequential and keep it in sequence of the different genres that came about in American music. So I'm going to try to do that. So, like I said, just stay tuned. Probably the last, the second week before I go back on live, I will announce the new genre that I will be discussing. So and if you know, if you're pretty much of a history buff, know if you're pretty much of a history buff, you can kind of guess of where I will be going from this point, from the ragtime to the blues, to the jazz, and so you will kind of see and you can go by the figure it out by the years that we're talking. So, but until then, I appreciate, I'm glad, I mean it's already season.
Speaker 1:
The end of season two Seemed like yesterday. I just started this whole podcast, but again, it's interesting to me. It's interesting. I love history, always did, and I particularly love learning about the music history. So I will see you guys in two weeks and in the meantime, keep your head to the sky and keep listening and keep sharing. All right, have a good night. Bye, sounds for me.