[Dixielandjazz] Lil Hardin

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HARDIN, Lillian "Lil"                        Piano
1898, Feb 3; Memphis, TN                    1971, Aug 27
Lil Hardin was the granddaughter of a former slave (Priscilla Martin, née 
Thompson) who moved to Memphis from Oxford, Mississippi to escape a drunken 
husband. Lil's mother Dempsey (born 1875) was hardworking and ambitious for her 
daughter. Much to her mother's initial chagrin Lil, having studied music at Fisk 
University in Nashville took to more vernacular styles. Contrary to what she 
later claimed Lil never obtained a degree, and seemed only to have been there 
one year. She moved to Chicago in 1917 with the family and began working as a 
music demonstrator. Before long she was signed up with Laurence Duhé's New 
Orleans Creole Jazz Band and played with the legendary Sugar Johnny Smith. She 
also worked with Freddy Keppard, and led her own group before joining Bill 
Johnson and King Oliver. She was the force behind Louis Armstrong's early career; 
marrying him in 1924 (She had been married previously to a singer named Jimmy Jo
hnson) and persuading him to leave Oliver. After divorce from Louis she had a 
successful career as a bandleader in Chicago and New York before retiring, 
although she made a comeback in Europe during 1952 and '53. On her return to the 
States she performed on and off for the rest of her life. She died 6 weeks 
after Louis at an outdoor concert in Chicago in his honour, where she had a heart 
attack halfway through a number. Her mother, Dempsey "Deecie" Miller had said 
(strictly speaking, about the blues):  "wuthless immoral music, played by 
wuthless immoral loafers expressin' their vulgar minds with vulgar music"  which 
would seem to be a nice pithy comment on Lil's relationship with Louis in 
particular and jazz in general. James Lincoln Collier in "Louis Armstrong: A 
biography" ascribes the quote to an interview note in a Rutgers University file. 
Dickerson again does not mention this. Instead, he has Lil's grandmother, 
Priscilla Martin, shooing Lil away from the vulgar music of a blues guitarist. I had 
originally assumed that Lil's mother was called Dempsey Hardin until I read 
page 65 of "Louis Armstrong in His Own Words", but I now understand that Mrs 
Hardin remarried, to someone called Miller. Strangely, this is not given an 
index entry in the Dickerson biography of Lil., although it is referred to in the 
text.

Brian Wood
quoting from his work "The Song for Me - a glossary of New Orleans Musicians 
and others of that ilk"  - a mighty tome of very nearly 500.000 words and, as 
far as I know, the only work of its kind: available as a printed book (2 
volumes) and as a CD-ROM