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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, Heed, as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own and nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used his medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners, Well, today's episode

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Speaker 1: is fairly close to my heart. It's on the subject

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Speaker 1: of jazz and drugs and race and the beats. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is Martin to Goof. He's an award winning

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Speaker 1: journalist and author. He's a documentary filmmaker. He's an Emmy

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Speaker 1: nominated television writer, director and producer. Uh. He's got two

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Speaker 1: books of great relevance to the subject and also to

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Speaker 1: my life. The first one was a book called Can't

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Speaker 1: Find My Way Home about America and the great Stoned

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Speaker 1: Age to two thousand and we'll talk about that a

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Speaker 1: little bit, but we're really focusing on a book that

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Speaker 1: he published a few years ago called Bop Apocalypse, Jazz Race,

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Speaker 1: the Beats and Drugs. So, Martin, thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for joining me today on Psychoactive. Thank you for having

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Speaker 1: me Ethan. It's always interesting and fun to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: I think when we think about the origins of jazz

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Speaker 1: and drugs and especially marijuana, there's no place to start

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Speaker 1: but with Louis Armstrong. So Louis Armstrong and marijuana. Martin

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Speaker 1: talk about Louis Armstrong, how special and incredible he was,

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Speaker 1: and and his connection to marijuana. What always fascinated me

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Speaker 1: about this subject was that marijuana appears on the streets

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Speaker 1: of New Orleans at just around the same time that

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Speaker 1: jazz begins to percolate. So they were always there together,

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Speaker 1: um you know, and it was always a kind of

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Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship from the very beginning. Like you're talking around

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven. So by the time, um, you know, Armstrong

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Speaker 1: is a teenager in New Orleans, that entire culture has

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Speaker 1: been just beginning to really coalesced in a very significant way.

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Speaker 1: What happens is that the artists begin making their way

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Speaker 1: up the Mississippi River to Chicago, and in a way,

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Speaker 1: the marijuana follows them. So in a way you can

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Speaker 1: like follow the story of marijuana, want to and jazz

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Speaker 1: together with Louis Armstrong up to Chicago where it begins

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Speaker 1: to blossom at the Lincoln Gardens with his creativity up there,

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Speaker 1: and then it goes down to Kansas City, it goes

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Speaker 1: across to Harlem, and that's really the beginning of it.

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Speaker 1: So Louis fell in love with jazz and fell in

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Speaker 1: love with weed. I mean, jazz came first. Uh, he

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Speaker 1: did not turn on until he got to Chicago, and

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Speaker 1: all of the musicians of the time talk about his

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Speaker 1: love affair with it. So he's he's his powerful figure.

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Speaker 1: But marijuana, I mean, was there any way which marijuana

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Speaker 1: was a negative in his life or was it all positive?

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Speaker 1: Not in his life? Not in his life, And he

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Speaker 1: would talk openly about, you know, the many ways that

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Speaker 1: he characterized it as a positive impact on his life.

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Speaker 1: One of the really amazing things about looking at um

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Speaker 1: all of these jazz artists, the many different ones and

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Speaker 1: their journeys through the use of different substances, is how

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Speaker 1: from the very beginning you can see people who were

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Speaker 1: able to use it in a positive way and set

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Speaker 1: boundaries about it and those who um, who weren't who

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Speaker 1: had a very different um kind of relationship with the

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Speaker 1: substances that became problematical really the difference between use and

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Speaker 1: abuse in you know, and and it's very kind of

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Speaker 1: organic application, right, But with marijuana it typically was not

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Speaker 1: a negative in the way, whereas heroin became a very

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Speaker 1: much more mixed story in subsequent decades. Right, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean absolutely. It wasn't like he was

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Speaker 1: a propagator, um, a soletizer for it, because that wasn't

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Speaker 1: the case. But he was just honest about it, and

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Speaker 1: you know, he believed that it was positive to a

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Speaker 1: lot of people. His relationship with it always kind of

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Speaker 1: embodied his kind of genial, live and let live kind

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Speaker 1: of attitude about life. You know, his kind of enjoyment

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Speaker 1: of things. You know, he was a really beautiful man.

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Speaker 1: You know, you sort of look back and you look

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Speaker 1: at his smile. He had a philosophy of life that

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Speaker 1: was really positive. He had a philosophy of America that

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Speaker 1: was really positive, and you know, his relationship with the

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Speaker 1: weed was really very much embroidered into that philosophy. I

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Speaker 1: remember one time meeting um, somebody who had been in

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Speaker 1: charge of his U s I a U S Information

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Speaker 1: Agency tour in Africa maybe in late fifties early sixties.

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Speaker 1: I remember describing to me what it was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: because he was not going to travel anywhere without his weed,

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Speaker 1: and she had to make sure that that was not

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Speaker 1: going to be a problem as they crossed borders. But

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Speaker 1: he was determined, and in a way, it was a

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Speaker 1: small world around him that I think made sure Louis

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Speaker 1: Armstrong was not going to spend another day in jail,

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Speaker 1: even though marijuana was inna you know, part of his

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Speaker 1: everyday life experience. Yes, Um, he was literally the first

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Speaker 1: celebrity marijuana bust in American history. It happened in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: and um he was actually set up, and um, when

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Speaker 1: he came back to Chicago, he was really worried that

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Speaker 1: it was going to, um have a negative impact on

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Speaker 1: his career. And it didn't. And the reason that it

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Speaker 1: didn't was because by that time, the people who were

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Speaker 1: listening to jazz were really beginning to coalesce into a

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Speaker 1: whole culture, into a viper culture. Um, you know, in

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Speaker 1: in Harlem, around places like uh, you know, the Savoy Ballroom,

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Speaker 1: and it was more widespread. I mean, it certainly wasn't,

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Speaker 1: you know, a mainstream thing. Obviously that didn't happen until

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Speaker 1: you know, the mid to late length nineties, sixties and seventies.

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Speaker 1: But there were enough people who were, you know, listening

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Speaker 1: to jazz, going to see jazz, buying jazz records, who

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Speaker 1: were aware of marijuana, and you know, they weren't going

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Speaker 1: to hold that against him by any means. I think

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Speaker 1: you write in your book that he sat down he

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Speaker 1: wrote a letter to President Eisenhower telling him that marijuana

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Speaker 1: should be legal. So he was not inhibited about expressing

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Speaker 1: his views on that thing. You know, No, No, he

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Speaker 1: wasn't inhibited at all. So the question that rises with

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Speaker 1: marijuana is why the connection between marijuana and jazz. I mean,

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Speaker 1: at one point, you quote Norman Mailer is saying he

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Speaker 1: couldn't think of one without the other. But for the

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Speaker 1: musicians themselves, what was it that made it um, that

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Speaker 1: made marijuana special. Well, for one thing, it was just there,

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Speaker 1: you know, and it was just a part of their lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: I think it was Dexter Gordon, the great saxophonist, who

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Speaker 1: who called jazz lifestyle as music and um by the

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Speaker 1: same token you could call the beat generation lifestyle of literature,

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Speaker 1: and marijuana was was an integral part of that lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: So so it was just there, and from the very

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Speaker 1: beginning it was obvious to the people that smoked it

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Speaker 1: and played the music that you know, there were aspects

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Speaker 1: of the marijuana experience that resonated powerfully and creatively for

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Speaker 1: them in playing it, in playing it alone, and in

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Speaker 1: playing it with each other, so that it became a

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Speaker 1: part of the experience ense of performing it, and it

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Speaker 1: became part of the experience of recording it. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the book, I mean you talk about some of

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Speaker 1: these I mean, it was all subtle and nuance and

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Speaker 1: as you say, interwoven. The cause of relationships are hard

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Speaker 1: to identify, but that sometimes marijuana gave some players, you know,

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Speaker 1: a sense of courage if they were a young musician

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Speaker 1: coming up, and would able them to just feel that

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Speaker 1: much more confident, which would shape their jazz because feeling

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Speaker 1: confident was better in performance than not. You talk about

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Speaker 1: maybe it helped to reduce inhibitions and therefore, you know,

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Speaker 1: led to greater improvisation and experimentation. Uh. You talked about

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Speaker 1: some of these writers saying that they could. Actually it

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Speaker 1: wasn't they played better, but that they could hear better.

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Speaker 1: Here one another better, right, I mean, I mean that element.

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Speaker 1: Never mind the fact that it was preferable to all

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Speaker 1: the other psychoactive substances like alcohol and heroin, which we'll

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Speaker 1: get into shortly, in terms of one's health and not

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Speaker 1: giving people a hangover and staying healthy for a lifetime.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are so many different opinions about it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for example, John Hammond, who was you know,

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Speaker 1: like a major figure in the jazz culture of that

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Speaker 1: era in terms of like producing the music. He hated

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Speaker 1: the presence of weed in the lifestyles and the musicians

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Speaker 1: because he felt that well, for one thing, it made

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Speaker 1: them liable for persecution, but also he felt that it

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Speaker 1: played havoc with their sense of time. And a lot

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Speaker 1: of musicians would disagree with him about it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't a smoker, so he wouldn't have known. You know.

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Speaker 1: At one point, I was reading something that Charles Baudelaire

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Speaker 1: wrote about the effects of hashi, you know, Charles Baudelaire,

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Speaker 1: the French poet. He called it a mirror that magnifies,

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Speaker 1: yet only a mirror, And I found that to be

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Speaker 1: very very useful in considering the relationship between you know,

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Speaker 1: the substances and the musicianship. These musicians were all unbelievable artists.

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Speaker 1: They were disciplined, they practiced endlessly, you know, their entire

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Speaker 1: lives were devoted to their art form. And I don't

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Speaker 1: think that marijuana, you know, in and of itself, you know,

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Speaker 1: made any of them innately better musicians. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: it couldn't like put talent uh there that wasn't already there.

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Speaker 1: But what it could do was it could amplify that

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Speaker 1: talent in different ways. And I think I think that

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Speaker 1: the answer is like somehow contained in that kind of thesis.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you that even today, when I find myself

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Speaker 1: now is things are opening up post pandemic. I find

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Speaker 1: myself going to jazz clips in New York more and

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Speaker 1: more frequently. And what they I like to do is

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Speaker 1: to like take a little finally grammedable before I go,

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Speaker 1: and it just enhances the appreciation and especially my ability

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Speaker 1: to appreciate some of the more out there improvisation. M Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think you know, you hear it over and over again.

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Speaker 1: I mean I think it just opens your musical mind, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's just something about it. As Mesro, there was a

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Speaker 1: musician who fell in love with the blues, fell in

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Speaker 1: love with weed, and he and was himself, I mean

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Speaker 1: when he played clarinet or something. Yeah, he was. He

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Speaker 1: was a clarinetist. But there in his book Really the Blues,

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Speaker 1: there is a passage in which he describes the first

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Speaker 1: time that he ever smoked and went out on the

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Speaker 1: on the bandstand to play. And to me, it's one

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Speaker 1: of the most resonant pieces of writing that I've ever

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Speaker 1: come across about, you know, the potential of taking a

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Speaker 1: musician's mind or a listeners mind and just kind of

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Speaker 1: like opening it. Um. It's really it's really a remarkable

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Speaker 1: piece of writing. If you want, I'll read you a

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Speaker 1: little a little passage of what he wrote about. This

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Speaker 1: is him, um, going out to play under the influence

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Speaker 1: for the first time. The first thing I noticed was

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Speaker 1: that I began to hear my saxophone as though it

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Speaker 1: were inside by head. But I couldn't hear much of

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Speaker 1: the bend in back of me, although I knew they

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Speaker 1: were there. All the other instruments sounded like they were

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Speaker 1: way off in the distance. I got the same sensation

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Speaker 1: you'd get if you stuffed your ears with cotton and

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Speaker 1: talked out loud. Then I began to feel the vibrations

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Speaker 1: of the read much more pronounced against my lip, and

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Speaker 1: my head buzzed like a loudspeaker. I found I was

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Speaker 1: slurring much better and putting just the right feeling into

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Speaker 1: my phrases. I was really coming on. All the notes

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Speaker 1: came easing out of my horn like they had already

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Speaker 1: been made up, greased, and stuffed into a bell. So

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Speaker 1: all I had to do was blow a little and

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Speaker 1: send them on their way, one right after the other,

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Speaker 1: never missing, never behind me, all without an ounce of effort.

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Speaker 1: The phrases seemed to have more continuity to them, and

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Speaker 1: I was sticking to the theme without ever going tangent.

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Speaker 1: I felt like I could go on playing for years

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Speaker 1: without running out of ideas or energy. And that's uh,

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Speaker 1: that's it. Well, you know, it's interesting. At one point,

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Speaker 1: you know, you talked about Alan Ginsburg, the great poet,

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Speaker 1: the one who wrote the you know, the poem Howell,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, perhaps the most famous poem American

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Speaker 1: poem writter in America in the mid twentieth century, or

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Speaker 1: maybe even the entire second half of the twentie century,

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Speaker 1: but him being very influenced not just by jazz, but

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Speaker 1: by mes Mesro's book that he was it was formative

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Speaker 1: for him. Yeah, he found it in the the Columbia

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Speaker 1: bookstore when he was a student at Columbia, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the forties, and he was very, very interested in

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Speaker 1: experiencing marijuana. And that book was like the Rosetta Stone

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Speaker 1: for him because it showed him that it emerged from

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Speaker 1: a whole cultural sensibility in the United States, and that

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Speaker 1: really began his whole lifelong interest in um learning about drugs,

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Speaker 1: learning about their origins, learning about their cultural origins, understanding

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Speaker 1: the spiritual connotations of them. You know, the beats were

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Speaker 1: so uh amazing because that's a literature in which the

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Speaker 1: writers were imbued with the experiences of these substances. At

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Speaker 1: the same time as they were trying to find a

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Speaker 1: new form that was like jazz, they were trying to

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Speaker 1: write like the jazz musicians were playing. So you have

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Speaker 1: a literature that's imbued and catalyzed by the experiencing of

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Speaker 1: these substances, about these substances, in which you have writing

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Speaker 1: for you know, a popular audience. Really in this country

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Speaker 1: for the first time about these substances. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: just it's groundbreaking from all of those different aspects. Well,

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Speaker 1: he's talking the book about you know, some of these

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Speaker 1: early before they become famous, they're going up to the

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Speaker 1: jazz clubs in Harlem and elsewhere. You talk about Lester Young,

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Speaker 1: who will get to in a moment um, you know,

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Speaker 1: giving Jack Carroll at his first joint um. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: definitely changed his life for sure. Yeah, yeah, it did,

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Speaker 1: it really did. Just to go back to the jazz

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Speaker 1: for a second, just talk about Lester Young nicknamed Praz

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Speaker 1: you know him and the saxophone to some extent, begins

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Speaker 1: to redefine jazz in the thirties and he's somebody for

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Speaker 1: whom also marijuana is important in his life, although he's

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Speaker 1: unfortunately caught up in other drugs, notably alcohol. But I

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Speaker 1: think at one point you say he may have been

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Speaker 1: the most influential of all jazz musicians, which surprised me

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Speaker 1: a bit. But explain why it was his style that

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Speaker 1: was really so influential as well as his unique musicianship.

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Speaker 1: He was such a singular personality. Um, you know his background,

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Speaker 1: he you know, he came from this band, that um,

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Speaker 1: this musical family, and he was very sensitive and he

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Speaker 1: was very devastated by his experiences of the racism of

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Speaker 1: that time. He also was really really in love with weed.

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Speaker 1: What it did for Prez was it pulled him into

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Speaker 1: himself and it allowed him to create his own kind

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Speaker 1: of insulated musical world in which he kind of became

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Speaker 1: this very singular personality. So that was his impact. He

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Speaker 1: drew people into that, like that little bubble that he

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Speaker 1: wove around himself, and in that bubble was his incredible,

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Speaker 1: fertile creativity and also his sensibility, his unique sensibility. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he really was the inventor of pool as it came

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Speaker 1: to be known in the thirties and forties and fifties.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can almost trace it back to this

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Speaker 1: one individual in his demeanor, in how he walked and

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Speaker 1: how he talked, his invention of of jive, his use

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Speaker 1: of these words that became um, you know, like staples

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Speaker 1: in the vernacular. I mean, he was so unbelievably inventive

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Speaker 1: in every possible way. We'll be talking more after we

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Speaker 1: hear this ad. You mentioned some of the expressions that

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Speaker 1: he probably coined. I got it. Made I got eyes

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Speaker 1: for that copycat. Even the Big Apple is the nickname

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Speaker 1: from New York, the word crib for one's home, the

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Speaker 1: word bread for money, and would even end sentences of

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Speaker 1: conversations by saying you dig I mean, and then of

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Speaker 1: course the expression cool as in that's cool man. So

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Speaker 1: once again, as with Louie Armstrong, whether they originated or popularized,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it's a formative influence in American culture,

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Speaker 1: not just through their music, but even through their own

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Speaker 1: way of talking, of speaking of creating new language. And

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Speaker 1: also it's interesting to consider, uh, you know, the impact

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Speaker 1: of the weed on his musical style because it was

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Speaker 1: so emblematic really of his personality. He was kind of

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Speaker 1: like very very laid back in his tone. It was

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Speaker 1: a very sweet tone, and he would just kind of

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Speaker 1: like lay back and then all of a sudden, just

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Speaker 1: in the most tasteful way, just completely take over the

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Speaker 1: music and just elevate it to this very very unique place.

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Speaker 1: And that was how people kind of saw him. He

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Speaker 1: was kind of a very laid back guy. He was

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Speaker 1: very shy. He was like a laggard, you know, he

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Speaker 1: was just kind of like hang there and then like

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Speaker 1: draw you in and then just take you somewhere. And

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Speaker 1: his relationship with Billie Holiday was one of them, you know,

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Speaker 1: really signature creative relationships of that entire era in the music.

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Speaker 1: Well we'll get into Billie Holliday shortly, but once again

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Speaker 1: to jump forward into the beat, I mean for Alan Ginsberg.

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Speaker 1: Ginsburg you say was strongly influenced by Lester Young, and

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Speaker 1: notably I think his songs I got rid them Let's

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Speaker 1: hear a little clip and Lester leaps in Let's hear

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Speaker 1: a clip. So talk about that connection, Martin, between Lester

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Speaker 1: Young and his influence on Alan Ginsberg. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: Carolac was the real jazz aficionado of the early beats,

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Speaker 1: and he um, of course, who was turned on by

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Speaker 1: Lester Young. You know, he started going to the jazz

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Speaker 1: clubs and he's the first one to write about jazz

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Speaker 1: of of those guys. And you know, he and Allen

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Speaker 1: were very close and they would listen to the music together,

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Speaker 1: and Caro Wac was the first one who became imbued

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Speaker 1: with this notion of writing the same way that the

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Speaker 1: jazz musicians played. He would listen to Charlie Parker and

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Speaker 1: he would listen to Lester young, and one of the

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Speaker 1: things that he really began to see was that they

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Speaker 1: played in these long lines, these kind of like long

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Speaker 1: unbroken lines in which one idea would like initiate like

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Speaker 1: unleash another idea, and then another idea and then another idea,

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Speaker 1: in this kind of endless progression of unfolding of like

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Speaker 1: ideas and melodies and with and there would be breaks,

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Speaker 1: and then the breaks would be used creatively to kind

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Speaker 1: of contextualize something else. And you know, Carolac would like

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Speaker 1: get stoned and he would listen to the jazz and

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Speaker 1: then he would like to think about how he could, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, right in the same way. So some of

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00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 1: his earliest attempts of writing um were um you know,

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Speaker 1: like long improvisations. Really, I mean his whole creation of

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Speaker 1: the manuscript for On the Road, for example, which he

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Speaker 1: did like putting this giant roll of paper and putting

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Speaker 1: it in a typewriter and just sitting down and like

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Speaker 1: literally like twenty three days straight just like churning out

340
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Speaker 1: this manuscript which became this like incredible novel called On

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Speaker 1: the Road. Alan in his development in his poetics, was

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Speaker 1: always looking at Caro Wac and going wow, wow, Wow,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if I can do that with my poetry.

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Speaker 1: And when he sat down, Uh, he was living in

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Speaker 1: North Beach at the time, in San Francisco, and he,

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Speaker 1: you know, he sat down to write how. Carol wac

347
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Speaker 1: had been living in Mexico at that time and he

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Speaker 1: had created this this long poem called Mexico City Blues

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Speaker 1: and he sent it to Alan, and Alan, you know,

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Speaker 1: started writing How, trying to do it along that kind

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Speaker 1: of like long saxophone line, and that's the entire first

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Speaker 1: movement of How is written exactly. It was almost like

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Speaker 1: he was trying to channel Lester young Um, like sitting

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Speaker 1: down and blowing. So the whole first movement of How

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Speaker 1: is like you know, him just like blowing on a saxophone. Really,

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Speaker 1: you know, this brings us to the next great revolutionary

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Speaker 1: and jazz, Charlie Parker and be back Jazz and Charlie

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Speaker 1: Parker as somebody who's using drugs from the time he's

359
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Speaker 1: in his young teens, Charlie Parker, a man of fantastic appetites,

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Speaker 1: Charlie Parker who just keeps using more and more drugs

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Speaker 1: and keeps getting more and more creative in his music

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Speaker 1: until a breaking point comes, so, I mean a lot

363
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Speaker 1: of your book obviously, the title is Bebop Apocalypse Charlie

364
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Speaker 1: Parker was Mr Bibop. Tell us about Charlie Parker and

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Speaker 1: about the relationship between drugs and his music. Well, he

366
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Speaker 1: was unique because he was so um musically driven and

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Speaker 1: ambitious from a very young age, and also from a

368
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Speaker 1: very young age he was just as driven to use

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Speaker 1: and abuse pretty much everything he could get his hands on.

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Speaker 1: And he was a genius musician, you know, addicted for

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Speaker 1: the first time as a teenager, even before he left

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Speaker 1: Kansas City to you know, hop the freight train that

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Speaker 1: would bring him to Chicago and then eventually to New

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Speaker 1: York and then eventually to fame. We talked extensively about

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Speaker 1: Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong, lifelong user of marijuana, who set

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Speaker 1: pretty strong boundaries about things that he would do and

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Speaker 1: things that he wouldn't do. He, for example, did not

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Speaker 1: like alcohol, and he wouldn't like cross that boundary into

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Speaker 1: the use of alcohol. He really really did not like

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Speaker 1: hard drugs and he never crossed that boundary into hard drugs.

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Speaker 1: Charlie Parker Bird, as he would of course become famously known,

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Speaker 1: He not only had no boundaries about music, but he

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Speaker 1: had no boundary about his use of substances. Not only

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Speaker 1: would he use everything, but he would make an ethos

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Speaker 1: of it. And he was so brilliant musically that that

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00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: boundaryless ethos about his substances became inextricable from his you know,

387
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: just boundary breaking musicianship and genius. So that's what set

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Speaker 1: those two geniuses apart from each other in terms of

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Speaker 1: their relationship to substances. Um. That's the best way I

390
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: could describe it. Yeah, you know, at one point you

391
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: describe there's a song, um, and let's hear a clip

392
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 1: from it, Loverman. This song became part of the legend

393
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Speaker 1: of his genius of Charlie Parker say something about Loverman.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's so interesting because he became an

395
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Speaker 1: addict as a teenager, and then when he got really

396
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: musically ambitious, he decided that he was going to get clean.

397
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Speaker 1: So when he jumped that freight trade out of the

398
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Speaker 1: Kansas City freight yard and you know, to to begin

399
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Speaker 1: his musical Hobysey Um, he kind of understood that he

400
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: needed all of his discipline and all of his energy

401
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: towards that goal and he kind of like, you know,

402
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: he put down, he put down narcotics at that point,

403
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: and then he came to New York and um, you know,

404
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: he hooked up with the small inner nucleus you know

405
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: that would form the Seminole Bebop group. You know that

406
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: all played in Mittens in the you know, the early

407
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: to mid nineteen forties, and it was a small group

408
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: of guys and Mintens was the Jazz Club. Yeah yeah,

409
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: but it was a small subterranean in setting up at

410
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: Harlem and all the like the musicians who were interested

411
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: in exploring this new form of jazz would kind of

412
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: gather there after their gigs, and Bird was one, and

413
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Speaker 1: Dizzy Gillespie was another, Kenny Clark, Max Roach on drums,

414
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Speaker 1: and Felonious Monk, you know, the great pianist. He was

415
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,479
Speaker 1: a part of that group. He really became the spark plug,

416
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: like the creative spark plug of that new form of

417
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: the music. And just as that was happening, he fell

418
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: back into his use of narcotics and got really really

419
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: strung out, strung out in a way that he had

420
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: never been strung out before. So like right at the

421
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: peak of that he was playing in a group with Dizzy,

422
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: and Dizzy decided that he was going to take his

423
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: band out to the West Coast to showcase the music

424
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: the first time at a place called Billy Burghs. And

425
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: it was a big deal. Um. You know, all the

426
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: people who were in the know about jazz out there.

427
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: They they showed up because the buzz was about this

428
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: new form and and this guy Bird. And so he

429
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: got to Los Angeles. It was a new place for him.

430
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: He didn't know where to cop and he immediately got

431
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: in trouble and he became extremely unreliable because he was

432
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: always out scouring the town um looking for a fix.

433
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: And that was when Dizzy decided, okay, you know this

434
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: is not working. He dropped him from the group, brought

435
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: the rest of the group back to New York and

436
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: Bird was left out there in Los Angeles, high and dry,

437
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: badly strung out, and he ended up um like living

438
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: with the trumpet player Howard McGhee um. And it was

439
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: McGhee who got Bird a deal with this guy Ross

440
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: Russell to go in and have this recording session. And

441
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: when he went in to record these songs, he was

442
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: very very very badly strung out and One of the

443
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: songs that he recorded in that session was Loverman, which

444
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:24,719
Speaker 1: had been a billy holiday song, and he played it

445
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: and he just like really really on the edge, and

446
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: he just he did what he what he always did.

447
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: He just went for it and the track was recorded

448
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: and that was when Bird had his breakdown. You know,

449
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: he goes back to the hotel. He and he ended

450
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: up um in Camarillo in the uh the mental institution there.

451
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: And when he got out, that was when the track

452
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: was released, and he came back to New York and

453
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, he was healthy again and he formed this

454
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: group Miles Davis was a part of then, even I

455
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: mean he's just about barely can get it together. But

456
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: it turns out to be one of his great recordings. Well,

457
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: he never liked it himself. He understood, you know, the

458
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of shape that he was in it when he

459
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: recorded it. But the impact that it had on his

460
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: musical community was powerful because by then everyone kind of

461
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: knew about his lifestyle. And he came, you know out,

462
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,239
Speaker 1: and he went back to New York and played at

463
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: the Royal Roost and his band just tore it up.

464
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: He was like at the top of his game and

465
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: that's when really his legend began. And so this track

466
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: comes out and they hear this man who now everybody

467
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: knows had been a junk and is a junkie. And

468
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: what they hear is this statement of this artist like

469
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: essentially playing his pain. And they were terrible, terribly, terribly

470
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: moved by it, just by the pathos of it and

471
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: by his commitment to his art, and somehow the fact

472
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: that he was a dope feed um, you know, it

473
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: just created this aura of this kind of dark romanticism.

474
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: Really at one point might use his phrase, I don't

475
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: know you're quoting somebody else, but saying that with the heroine,

476
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: I mean, and everything else that was going on. It

477
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: wasn't just heroin, because Charlie Parker many others, they were

478
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: using a lot of stuff. They were Sometimes there was

479
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: a lot of alcohol. Sometimes alcohol was a dominant drug.

480
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,479
Speaker 1: It was wed, of course, but they're also bends, a dream.

481
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: There might have been other stuff, but in some level

482
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: they were playing their lifestyle. I think you put it

483
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: that way for better or works, Uh, you know, you

484
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: describe another moment to I think it's Norman Grants, the

485
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 1: jazz producer is putting on jazz at the Philharmonic, and

486
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: Charlie Parker is supposed to be there, Um, you know,

487
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: he's trying to score. Finally shows up and I think

488
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: the song was sweet Georgia Brown. Yeah, yeah, what happened there? Well,

489
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 1: he just like you know, he comes on stage and

490
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 1: and blows everybody away. Let's hear a clip of that.

491
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: So that and the rest of it blew people away

492
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 1: that evening, huh, and he was totally high as it,

493
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: but pulling it together. Well. The thing that people don't

494
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: really get about, um, you know, Heroin is that these

495
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: guys were not shooting dope to get high and go

496
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 1: on stage and play. Um. You know, if you shot dope,

497
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: you would go on the nod. Um. You know, that's

498
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: not really where they wanted to be when they played.

499
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 1: What Heroin did was it made them what they called straight,

500
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: they called it getting straight. It kind of stabilized them really, um,

501
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: you know, it's that's one of the misconceptions that you know,

502
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: people have about heroin and jazz is that, you know,

503
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: when these guys were addicted, you know, they would shoot

504
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 1: dope and like you know, get on the stand and

505
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: like be high out of their minds. And play. No,

506
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: that's not what was going on. What was going on

507
00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: was that this drug, which had created this metabolic need

508
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 1: for it um, was being satisfied and and so that's

509
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: what would allow them, you know, the kind of stability

510
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: be anchored, you know, back again in their music, in

511
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: their creativity. You remind me, Martin, of years ago I

512
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: read the biography of Stan Getz, who was the great

513
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: um White jazz saxophonist, and what it described it there

514
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: was his addiction to two drugs, heroin and alcohol. But

515
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: its story, I told, was that alcohol was the drug

516
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: that turned him into an asshole, and that screwed up

517
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: his playing and messed up everything you know in his life.

518
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: That with heroin, it wasn't the drug itself. It was

519
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: the need to score, to find a place to score,

520
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 1: to get the money together, to find a place to use,

521
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: to do all that and then get to his gig

522
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: in time. And it was to some extent, not the drug,

523
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: but the illegality of it, the criminality of it um,

524
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: which might have been in some respect it's part of

525
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: the enticement for a whole bunch of rebellious personalities who

526
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 1: were pioneers in jazz. But that was also the destructive,

527
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,280
Speaker 1: harmful element of it. And I think what you described

528
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: by Charlie Parker as well, right, Um, another point you described,

529
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: there's another protege of Charlie Parker, Jackie McLean, who I

530
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: think was one of your key sources because he was

531
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: still alive and available when you write in his book,

532
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: and I think you quote Jackie McLean saying, you know,

533
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: Harold was kind of a working drug for Yeah, for

534
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: a lot of them, it was. I mean, you know,

535
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: it's very complex, um when you think about it. I mean,

536
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: these were brilliant musicians, highly evolved, highly sensitive people devoted

537
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: to this art form, devoted to like really pushing it,

538
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: and a lot of them believe that, you know, it

539
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: had not only creative capacity but socio cultural racial ability

540
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: to bring people together. And yet the irony was that

541
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: it was making them vulnerable to prosecution and the element

542
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: of racism. You know, of course not all of the

543
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: musicians were African American, you know, but um, a lot

544
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: of them were. And they're the whole role that Heroin

545
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:23,280
Speaker 1: played in as an anodyne to the racism of that time,

546
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: and and what these people had to endure is also

547
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: a significant factor, I believe. So they were all very

548
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:38,280
Speaker 1: different people having different experiences. And in Jackie's case, who's

549
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 1: a wonderful man, by the way, it took him twenty

550
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: five years to get clean and he would never have

551
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 1: been able to do it without method on and that

552
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: that was his bridge to you know, getting clean from

553
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: heroin was through use of in another opiate. So it

554
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: was a very complicated thing. I just to give the

555
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: audience here a sense of how pervasive this was, I mean,

556
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: it really happens. I think the heyday of Heron and

557
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: jazz is really from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty seven,

558
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: give or take a few years here or there. But

559
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 1: at one point, one of the famous jazz critics that entoff,

560
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: he goes to the Newport Jazz Festival of nineteen fifty seven,

561
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: and he surveys over four hundred jazz musicians from New

562
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: York City and asked them about their drug use and

563
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: with marijuana, he finds, according to people who self reporting,

564
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: eighty two percent say they've tried marijuana, fifty four percent

565
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: say they've used that occasionally, twenty three percent say they

566
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,399
Speaker 1: do so regularly. With heroin, fifty three percent said they

567
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: tried at twenty four percent say they used it occasionally,

568
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: in sixteen percent say they use it regularly. And separately,

569
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: there was another jazz historian, Lincoln Collier, who claimed he

570
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: thought that up to seventy five percent of all jazz

571
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: musicians used heroin during the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties.

572
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: So this is a period when heroin was becoming a

573
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: little more prominent in the black community. And Claude Brown

574
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 1: and his famous Bookman Child in a Promised Land writes

575
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 1: about what happens in the late forties and the fifties

576
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 1: where heroin does get take off, but the vast majority

577
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: of the culture is not using it. So this really

578
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: is a subculture of jazz greats and jazz great wannabes

579
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 1: who are also using heroin. And of course many people

580
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 1: put the blame on Charlie Parker about how many musicians

581
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: would listen to Charlie Parker play in a way that

582
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: nobody had ever played before, and it seemed almost impossible.

583
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: And you know, oh, it must be because he shooting heroin.

584
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: And if I become a Heroin user, I can be

585
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: more like my hero, Charlie Parker, and maybe I can

586
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: play more like Ken. I mean, there's some truth to that,

587
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: I guess Martin writes that people you know kind of

588
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: either let down their guard visa the heroin or even

589
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,240
Speaker 1: went into it. Because Charlie Parker was the infamous heroin

590
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:59,359
Speaker 1: using jazz great yes, UM, and he recognized that and

591
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: he was deeply unhappy about it. Bird was um a

592
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: very complex uh human being. UM. And you know that's

593
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: one of the challenges of you know, writing about people

594
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: like Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday, these mythic figures who

595
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: um you know, at the same time became addicts and

596
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: their myths essentially um become their stories, you know. And

597
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, this is like happening on stage, but

598
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: the backdrop is something that's happening, you know, to an

599
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: entire community really up there in Arlem. You know, you

600
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: mentioned Claude brown Um writing about that manchild and Promised Land.

601
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: I had the honor of interviewing Claude brown Um for

602
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: my books before he passed away. And one of the

603
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:07,319
Speaker 1: things that really um comes across is how these individuals, um,

604
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: these artists became really really prominent and heroes really to

605
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: the community up there, and UM, you know, their lifestyles

606
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: became inextricable from their accomplishments as as artists. So really

607
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: what you have for the first time is a group

608
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: of individuals who become role models for UM, a phenomenon

609
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: of heroin use in a community at large, UM, a

610
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: community that finds itself in the cross hairs really of

611
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: forces in which you know, the lives of these musicians

612
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: is really just one thread really where so much else

613
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 1: is going on, you know, about crime in public policy

614
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: and racism and things like that, and that's when the

615
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: whole thing becomes extremely complex and in its own way tragic.

616
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:21,959
Speaker 1: Let's take a break here and go to an ad.

617
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: You also bring out something else there, which was specifically

618
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 1: about bebop. I mean, your book is called Bebop of

619
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,319
Speaker 1: Popplix and Charlie Parker is a key figure in it,

620
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 1: and you talk about bebop music to some extent um

621
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: kind of intersecting with heroin. But also it's the type

622
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: of music that reflects and that manifests the feeling of

623
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: resentment that's so many black people feel, especially after World

624
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: War Two. Of people had served in the army in

625
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 1: World War Two, served in the military, coming back and

626
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: then being thrown back into Jim Crow America, and even

627
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: the racism in the in the Northern States. And then

628
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: you have, of course the great evil you know, human

629
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: being throughout all this period, Harry Anslinger, who becomes the

630
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 1: founding director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in thirty

631
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: and rules that agency for thirty two years until nineteen

632
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 1: sixty two, who is by all accounts a racist, right um,

633
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: and who somebody is initially focused on heroin, but by

634
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: the mid thirties begins to focus on marijuana, the demon drug,

635
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: and the era of reefer madness and really conflating you know,

636
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: the whole fear of white women having sex with black

637
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,479
Speaker 1: men in the role of drugs and music and all

638
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: of that. So say more about bebop and racism and

639
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 1: heroin and net interweaving of those elements with the revolution

640
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: within the jazz community. Um, it was a revolutionary kind

641
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: of music. I mean, it evolved from swing, but it

642
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: turned swing on its head really and there were people

643
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: who hated it as a result of it, jazz critics

644
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 1: and jazz musicians. So the music itself was considered to

645
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: be um subversive, and so on top of that you

646
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:34,919
Speaker 1: have it being played by these individuals who were very

647
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: very aware of that and also aware of the fact that, um,

648
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: you know, they were African Americans and that the music

649
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: was to them. They saw it as a vehicle to

650
00:45:53,320 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: express um you know. There they're absolute awareness of and

651
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: condemnation of the racist society that they lived in. A

652
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,280
Speaker 1: lot of the people who are who are jazz lovers

653
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: of that time were very very sympatico with that entire sensibility,

654
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: and Slinger from the very beginning understood that this was

655
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 1: a subversive culture socially and raciully. I mean when he

656
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: decided to, um, you know, conduct the entire anti marijuana crusade,

657
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: he was compiling a list of jazz musicians and his

658
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: idea was that with the marijuana law of seven, he

659
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 1: was going to go after all of these jazz musicians

660
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:01,920
Speaker 1: and basically, you know, further into isn't so from the

661
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 1: very beginning there was this sort of adversarial relationship between

662
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: the jazz community and and Harry Innslinger and the Federal

663
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: Beeau of Narcotics. In a way, that's where the culture

664
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: war over drug use in this country really really begins.

665
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: So it's couched in this racism. From the very very beginning,

666
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 1: you have, you know, this phenomenon of you know, what's

667
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: called the Great Harlem heroin Epidemic. You know, some people

668
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 1: have a problem with the use of the word epidemic,

669
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: but it's used to express the fact that you have,

670
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: for the first time, you know, this community which is

671
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:03,680
Speaker 1: really really suffering from addiction, heroin addiction on a level

672
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: that's never really been experienced before in American society. So

673
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: while you have that happening, you have these laws being

674
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,320
Speaker 1: put into effect so that, um, people who are addicted,

675
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: there's only one thing that can happen to them, you know,

676
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: them to be thrown into prison and buried, you know,

677
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,880
Speaker 1: for decades. At the same time, you have what is

678
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:37,319
Speaker 1: really the first popular movement to try to medicalized, to

679
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 1: try to take heroin addiction and bring it back to

680
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: the purview of you know, people in the medical community. Durminding,

681
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: I should say, Olso Martino, at the beginning of this thing,

682
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: I wanted to actually, for the first time I ever

683
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: dedicate an episode of Psychoactive to somebody, and that person

684
00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:02,320
Speaker 1: is doctor Professor John P. Morgan. As professor at City College,

685
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: he taught the mixed undergraduate graduate medical program there. But

686
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 1: he was one of the America's great drug experts, the

687
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: one who coined the term opio phobia. He was probably

688
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: the most frequent expert business on drug cases for the

689
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:19,240
Speaker 1: defense in America. But he was also an extraordinary ethno

690
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: musicologist who had a library of thousands of songs and

691
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: and also somebody who had like audiographic memory, where he

692
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: actually had in his head the lyrics of of thousands

693
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 1: of songs that had drug references in that. He passed

694
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: away at a fairly young age, But I would like

695
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: to dedicate this episode to him. And I know you

696
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: mentioned him in your book you acknowledge his role in

697
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: helping inform you as you were writing about this. Yeah,

698
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: he was an amazing man. I mean, I you know,

699
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful to you, by the way, for when

700
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: I really really started delving into the whole um subject

701
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: of drug culture. You know that ended up in you know,

702
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 1: my two book books and the various documentary and television surians.

703
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: I've done it of opening up that whole network of

704
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:10,359
Speaker 1: those people who had a huge impact on me, and

705
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: he was certainly one of them. I mean, he was

706
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,800
Speaker 1: a great lover of jazz, and he was incredibly knowledgeable

707
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: about it, and at the same time that he was

708
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: like so obviously incredibly knowledgeable about drugs from you know,

709
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: from a scholarly and medical point of view, at the

710
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 1: same time that he was aware of, you know, the

711
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: sort of cultural dimensions of it. And I think that's

712
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: really appropriate that you would dedicate this, hyeh, this episode

713
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, okay, well to John to Dr John P. Morrigan.

714
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: So Martin, you know, just going back, so we get

715
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: into the fifties and Miles Davis who becomes a chief

716
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: figure it has his been John Coltrane, and John Coltrane,

717
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:00,920
Speaker 1: who really, of all the as great is the one

718
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: that has the most personal impact on me. But I

719
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: noticed in writing you know, Coltrane goes through this terrible

720
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: period of heroin and alcohol really messing him up in

721
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 1: in a in a in a significant way, and he

722
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: then finally goes through this experience that he describes as

723
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: a spiritual awakening where he puts it all behind him,

724
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:26,959
Speaker 1: and that unleash is you know, one of the most

725
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: extraordinarily creative periods in the history of all of jazz.

726
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: But I noticed in reading about this that you wrote

727
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: about John Coltrane's transformation, and there was something personal in it.

728
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: I don't know if you specifically said in the book,

729
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: but I remember when you came to see me, you said, Ethan,

730
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 1: you know, I'm somebody who's had my struggles with drugs

731
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: and I had to, you know, put them behind me.

732
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: But I'm also somebody who gets it about all the

733
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 1: positive ways that drugs play in life. So what to

734
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: just explain a little more from a personal side, how

735
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: the story of John coltraneans um spiritual awakening as he

736
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: comes leaves his heroin addiction and alcohol adiction behind him.

737
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:09,959
Speaker 1: What it meant to you? Well, I mean I come

738
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 1: to this subject as someone who pretty much crashed and

739
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:18,280
Speaker 1: burned on drugs and had to, you know, get clean

740
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 1: and sober at the age of thirty seven. And initially

741
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: my whole interest in this subject became about trying to

742
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: understand its impact on me and trying to sort it

743
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 1: all out. And then I began to sort of think about, Okay,

744
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: what was its impact on my generation? And then I

745
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: began to think about, well, what was its impact on

746
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: my country? And in my experience of recovery, of the

747
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: recovery culture. You know, I was kind of thinking about,

748
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: you know what Bill Wilson had to say, you know,

749
00:52:55,080 --> 00:53:01,319
Speaker 1: the founder of alcoholics Anonymous, and his uh correspondence with

750
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: the great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Young, in which they began

751
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: to postulate about how what they call the spiritual awakening

752
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 1: could transform the landscape of the addict and the alcoholic,

753
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: and how that was, as they saw it, like the

754
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 1: most beneficial, the most advantageous. That would kind of like

755
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: give the addict and the alcoholic the best shot at,

756
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: you know, living a different life that was not consumed

757
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 1: by the destructive impact of these things, um by addiction

758
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 1: and all the kind of side effects of being addicted

759
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 1: to whatever it was that you can be addicted to.

760
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: M So, you know, when I really began to um

761
00:53:55,719 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: look at the transits of these different musicians through addiction,

762
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 1: what really really leapt out at me was Coltrane's experience

763
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: and him directly referring to what happened to him to

764
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 1: him leaving Heroin behind as a spiritual awakening, Because what

765
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: happened to Coltrane with it, he had tried numerous times

766
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: to kick and he couldn't do it, But finally he

767
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: reached the bottom, and he went to, you know, sequester

768
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 1: himself away, and he basically shut himself up in a

769
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 1: room for a couple of weeks, and he told people,

770
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,840
Speaker 1: you know, only just bring me water. Um, you know,

771
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay in this room, and what's ever

772
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: going to happen to me is going to happen to me.

773
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: And at some point during the experience, and when he

774
00:54:56,680 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: was suffering from the agony, the physical agony of withdrawal

775
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: from Heroin, of how he called out, he reached out

776
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 1: to a higher power of his understanding and ask for

777
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 1: help and asked for this terrible experience to be lifted

778
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: to be removed from him. And he he writes about it,

779
00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: and he basically says that he experienced the piece a

780
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: kind of inner peace, and also at the same time,

781
00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: he asked his higher power to be able to use

782
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: his gift, to use his art in a way that

783
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 1: would spiritually uplift people. And that was his entire approach

784
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: to his art as he left Heroine behind. So that

785
00:55:53,880 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: when you were listening two that wonderful track, that amazing

786
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:06,800
Speaker 1: his version of My Favorite Things in which he picks

787
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:11,360
Speaker 1: up the soprano saxophone in essence what you were hearing

788
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: is that love, that expression of that love, of that

789
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: awakening that he was experienced as a result of that.

790
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: And it's really amazing because, I mean, Cultrane's music is

791
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: actually used in you know, the numerous churches, you know,

792
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 1: the same way that the music of both and you

793
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: know St. Matthew's Passion would would be used in a church.

794
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: And it's for a reason. It's because that music is

795
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 1: just completely about his relationship with his church in San

796
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:59,319
Speaker 1: Francisco still in existence. So it's uh, you know, in fact,

797
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: it's funny disc of jazz, um and drugs without discuss

798
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: a jazz musician who in the nineteen fifties is described

799
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: as quote unquote the most famous drug addict in America

800
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: UM and who was simultaneously one of the perhaps the

801
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,680
Speaker 1: greatest jazz vocalist in American history and global history. And

802
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: that's Billie Holiday. I mean, somebody who liked Charlie Parker

803
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 1: struggles with all sorts of drugs and although heroines, you know,

804
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: as a UM, somebody for whom the drugs seemed to

805
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 1: have UM I think probably thinks and speaks politically about

806
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: the war on drugs. So you have a lot about

807
00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: Billie Holiday in your in your books, say something about

808
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:51,320
Speaker 1: her that stands out? Oh God, where did begin with

809
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: Lady Day, someone whose life was shrouded in myth in

810
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: the very beginning? Well, how about how about let's just

811
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 1: hear a ve clipped from her one of the most

812
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: famous songs, Strange Fruit, so the cheese that's strange true,

813
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: blot on leaves and let it. Strange Fruit was a

814
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: song that Billy began performing at Cafe Society in the

815
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: late dirties when she came down from Harlem to like

816
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: really become just an absolute phenomenon um, you know, in

817
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: the first like really important downtown inter racial jazz club.

818
00:58:53,080 --> 00:58:55,200
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sure you know that it's a

819
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: song about lynching a guy by the name of a Mire.

820
00:58:58,880 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: Paul wrote the lyrics and her musical director there at

821
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: Cafe Society gave it to her when she began performing it.

822
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:12,480
Speaker 1: And the thing about Billie Holiday that was so unique

823
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:18,920
Speaker 1: was here with someone who just instinctively understood how to

824
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 1: take a composition and translate it, transform it, express it

825
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 1: um as a deeply personal, deeply moving uh piece of

826
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 1: art and have that impact on the also had an

827
00:59:38,400 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: impact Onstlinger. I think it's the first time he really

828
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 1: becomes aware of Billie Holiday, because that, you know, is uh.

829
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: It's one of the really maybe the one of the earliest,

830
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: if not the first, really great protests song against racial injustice. Yes, yes,

831
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:03,440
Speaker 1: it was the first time that someone had used UM

832
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: an art form, really a popular art form, to make

833
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 1: a statement about lynching and racism in America. It was transformative, really,

834
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:20,440
Speaker 1: and yes it was a bold political statement. Her record

835
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:23,360
Speaker 1: label at the time would not release it. She had

836
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 1: to find another record label to release it. And and yes,

837
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: that was what brought her on the radar screen of

838
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 1: Harry Anslinger, you know, of the FBI, of the New

839
01:00:35,240 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: York Police Department, and of course in her case, it

840
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: would make her vulnerable to UM prosecution because of the

841
01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: fact of her relationship to drugs, specifically her heroin addiction.

842
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:57,080
Speaker 1: So from the very beginning from on, she had to

843
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 1: do walk this type brobe really between her public legend

844
01:01:03,920 --> 01:01:08,479
Speaker 1: and you know, these forces that we're going to use

845
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:12,439
Speaker 1: that to try to bring her. You know, from very

846
01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:16,560
Speaker 1: early on, she decided that one of the ways she

847
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 1: was going to deal with this very difficult situation, this

848
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 1: very dangerous situation where she was just going to talk

849
01:01:25,120 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 1: about it, and she was really one of the first

850
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: people to do that. He she was busted three times,

851
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: you know, and each time basically she just like you know,

852
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,440
Speaker 1: talked about it. And one of the things she talked

853
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 1: about was what bullshit it was, you know, the fact that, um,

854
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:47,480
Speaker 1: she was being hounded by the police. She was aware

855
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:49,720
Speaker 1: of the fact that she was a public figure, She

856
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 1: was aware of the fact that she had these problems

857
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 1: with addiction. She was aware of the fact that people

858
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: were going to listen to what she said about it,

859
01:02:00,560 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: and so that's what she did, and she talked about

860
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 1: how she believed that it was more of a medical

861
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 1: problem than a criminal justice problem, and that was anathema

862
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: to what Harry Anslinger wanted to put across to him.

863
01:02:17,680 --> 01:02:21,120
Speaker 1: It was all about, you know, these people were weak,

864
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:25,760
Speaker 1: they were depraved, they were evil, they needed to be

865
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 1: locked up. And anyone who expressed the point of view

866
01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 1: that was sympathetic to the idea that these people they

867
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:39,480
Speaker 1: needed to be cared for. They weren't even allowing them

868
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 1: in hospitals. It was illegal to allow a drug addict

869
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 1: in Harlem to be admitted to a hospital. Think about

870
01:02:53,160 --> 01:02:59,160
Speaker 1: that until Billie Holiday in n died in a hospital

871
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 1: on Harlem. But there are these moments. Billy Holliday had

872
01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 1: a really close friend, um. She was a dancer and

873
01:03:07,560 --> 01:03:10,240
Speaker 1: a singer and an actress. Her name was Marie Bryant,

874
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:14,960
Speaker 1: and she said something really interesting. She said, people like

875
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: Billy Holiday and Lester Young, they were real and that reality,

876
01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:26,600
Speaker 1: just how real they were, is what made them so vulnerable.

877
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: You know, for people like that who were so just

878
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: like so so vulnerable, it just made it very very

879
01:03:35,880 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: hard for them. You know. There's a wonderful image that

880
01:03:39,400 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: Bono puts forth about Billie Holiday in his song Angel

881
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 1: of Harlem, which I think also kind of gets to

882
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: that when he sings Lady Day had Diamond Eyed she

883
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:57,880
Speaker 1: sees the truth behind the lies, you know, and I

884
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 1: think that's what Marie Bryant was talking. Well, Mark, let

885
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 1: me ask you this, you know, because you do. I mean,

886
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: you know, obviously one key part of the election with race,

887
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: and we've been talking about, you know, the ways in

888
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: which racism, uh, you know, it was one of the

889
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,160
Speaker 1: reasons why so many of these musicians, you know, found

890
01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: drugs as a way of kind of insulating that from

891
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,640
Speaker 1: that or defying it, or whatever it might be. I mean,

892
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: the book's worth reading because you get so much more

893
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: deeply and nuanced about so much of this. But you know,

894
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is it was also true

895
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: of the white jazz musicians. I mean, if I think

896
01:04:31,600 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 1: of the famous you know, white white jazz saxophonist, when

897
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:37,440
Speaker 1: you think about not just Stan Gets, but Jerry Mulligan

898
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:41,160
Speaker 1: perhaps the greatest of all. You know, baritone saxophonist Art Pepper,

899
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: you know the vocalist Chet Baker. You think about the

900
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: singer Anita oh Day, you think about Zoots Sims and

901
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:49,320
Speaker 1: Alcohon and Red Rodney, even Drift, I'd think, because there's

902
01:04:49,400 --> 01:04:51,560
Speaker 1: more of a theme around race there. But just say

903
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:53,720
Speaker 1: a little more about that. That that experience of the

904
01:04:53,720 --> 01:05:00,280
Speaker 1: white jazz musicians and all of this, well you they

905
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:02,920
Speaker 1: were just as prone and just as vulnerable to it.

906
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:06,800
Speaker 1: You know, all of the same forces culturally and musically

907
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: were at work on them. And they were you know,

908
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:12,919
Speaker 1: the brothers and sisters of the black jazz musicians. I mean,

909
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: they all lived in this world. They all had this

910
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:22,640
Speaker 1: experience together. Listen, addiction, it knows no race, it knows

911
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:27,160
Speaker 1: no socio economic level. I mean, it's just it's human.

912
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:34,920
Speaker 1: I mean, this is fundamentally a human experience. It's not racial,

913
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:41,120
Speaker 1: it's not musical, it's not white. It's just fundamentally human

914
01:05:42,560 --> 01:05:47,480
Speaker 1: and um, it knows no bounds. Listen. And it wasn't

915
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:51,200
Speaker 1: just white jazz musicians. I mean the white community of

916
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:54,880
Speaker 1: jazz lovers, the hitsters. You know, they were just as

917
01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:58,120
Speaker 1: prone to you know, the use of the drugs and

918
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:01,760
Speaker 1: the possibility of addiction in as you know anyone who

919
01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:05,680
Speaker 1: was black. So Martin, listen. I mean, I've loved our conversation.

920
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:09,240
Speaker 1: I hope for our listeners that for those you've already

921
01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 1: into jazz, you'll track down and listen to some of

922
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:13,760
Speaker 1: those songs that we play clips of and some of

923
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:16,959
Speaker 1: the other references. So Martin, thank you ever so much

924
01:06:17,000 --> 01:06:20,760
Speaker 1: for joining me and my listeners on Psychoactive. Thank you

925
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: and all the all the best for you and all

926
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: the work that you do. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please

927
01:06:35,640 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 1: tell your friends about it, or you can write us

928
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 1: a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

929
01:06:41,440 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: We love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like

930
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:46,880
Speaker 1: to share your own stories, comments, and ideas, then leave

931
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:50,840
Speaker 1: us a message at one eight three three seven seven

932
01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:56,880
Speaker 1: nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you

933
01:06:56,920 --> 01:07:00,080
Speaker 1: can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com on

934
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:03,360
Speaker 1: or find me on Twitter at Ethan natal Man. You

935
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:07,480
Speaker 1: can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive

936
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:11,000
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures.

937
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman. It's produced by Noam

938
01:07:14,840 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden,

939
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:23,240
Speaker 1: Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures,

940
01:07:23,360 --> 01:07:26,200
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio and

941
01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 1: me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and

942
01:07:30,720 --> 01:07:34,840
Speaker 1: a special thanks to a brios f, Bianca Grimshaw and

943
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:48,360
Speaker 1: Robert BB. Next week I'll be talking with the founder

944
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Her name's Lynn Paltrow

945
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:55,720
Speaker 1: and she's the leading advocate at the intersection of drug policy,

946
01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 1: reform and reproductive rights. I once got a call from

947
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 1: a drug testing representative on his way to a hospital,

948
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:06,320
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm going up to talk to this

949
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: hospital and I want to convince them to use our

950
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 1: drug test because it will help them treat pregnant women.

951
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:14,760
Speaker 1: I was like, no, it won't. It will be used

952
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:18,519
Speaker 1: to turn those women over to police or punitive civil

953
01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 1: child welfare folks and used against them. Subscribe to Cycoactive

954
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:25,080
Speaker 1: now see you don't miss it