A new book, “Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld,” explains why jazz greats flourished within mob empires.
“Jazz began at the end of a long sustained period of lynching after the Emancipation Proclamation,” English told The Post, speaking from his Manhattan home where he has lived for 32 years. “The music seems to me an attempt to create a new reality,” he added. “The music says, ‘We are alive.’ I see jazz as a response to terror and violence.”
“Black people had less to fear from a Mafiosa boss than a white police officer,” said English, a self-confessed jazz fan. “They saw the mob as their protection in the commercial marketplace. That was very true of Louis Armstrong. He knew you had to have your gangster for protection. Louis said, ‘Get yourself the biggest gangster you can.’ ”
Beyond just shelling out for entertainment and liquor, mobsters continued to uphold their part of the bargain to keep performers safe.Library of Congress Bing and Jack — also known as “Machine Gun Jack,” who reportedly took part in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, when seven Irish mobsters were gunned down by Capone’s rival Italian crew —But “the biggest singer in the United States golfing with a gangster didn’t look so good,” said English. “So Bing ended the friendship. Jack was actually murdered eight months later, so maybe it was wise to end it.
Mo’s brother Irving managed the club, glad-handing with big stars like Marlon Brando and writers such as Norman Mailer, who were regulars., Irving was stabbed and killed by a pimp while the band was playing. “It was sensational,” said English. One newspaper headline read, ‘Jazz serves as background for death.’ ”
“Young people thought Vegas was hokey. The music was music their parents liked,” said English. Jazz, once the music of rebellion, started to sound old-fashioned in comparison to the youth culture’s pop, rock and soul, and the mob’s hold on the entertainment business began to show cracks. By the 1980s, the old gangster world had crumbled and jazz lost its financial backing.Jazz at Lincoln Center“[At the beginning] there was no patronage from the institutions of culture and wealth,” said English.
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