[Dixielandjazz] Black & Blue was Lafayette Theater/Harlem Vaudeville

[Stephen Barbone]

List mates & Rob:

There was, and probably still is, color prejudice among black people
regarding lightness of skin tone. The song "Black & Blue" was originally
about this occurance. Sung by a dark black man lamenting the intolerance
of lighter skinned blacks towards him, in a show written by blacks, for
black audiences.

It was only after Louis Armstrong made "Black & Blue" very famous, that
it was assumed to be about the intolerance of whites towards blacks.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Rob McCallm wrote; (polite snip)

I read a fascinating passage this morning from a book called The Blacker
the
Berry.  It was published in 1929 by Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace
Thurman, and the passage describes a night out at the Lafayette Theatre,
an
important establishment in the history of jazz.  Because it is such a
gem
for describing the atmosphere and because it is an uncommon book, I'm
going
to reproduce the couple of paragraphs (though edited) that describe this

scene below (which is a bit long so delete now if uninterested).

A quick note, for those interested, the central theme of the story deals

with color prejudices among black people regarding lightness or darkness
of
skin tone.