[Dixielandjazz] Black & Blue significance

[Nancy Giffin]

OFF-LIST
Hi, Steve,
In a conversation with Tommy Loy when he was out here last year, he said
that it was written because he was having a clandestine affair with a white
woman and was frustrated that he couldn't be out in the open with the truth.
What say ye, Bob Romans, Bill Gunter, Rebecca, Jim Beebe, Bob Ringwald, or
anyone else to whom he may have told this? BTW: Didn't Tommy sing it so
well, and with so much heart? Wonderful.

From: Stephen Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>

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.


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