[Dixielandjazz] Re:Jews in Jazz

[John Bird]

As synchronicity would have it, there was a very interesting documentary on
one of the PBS stations last night called From Shtetl to Swing. It traced
the history of Jewish migration to the U.S., which made NYC the largest
Jewish city in the world, and talked about how the next generation really
took to jazz and "American" musical forms. Listed so many tin-pan alley
composers who were Jewish and seemed to have written the bulk of the songs
that have become Jazz standards. Gershwin, of course, and named Sophie
Tucker as one of the first white women singers to embrace Black music and
Jazz. Benny Goodman, one of the first big names to push for racially
integrated bands. The klezmer influence in the development of jazz--and much
more that I can't remember any more (memory being the second thing that
goes, and I can't remember what the first is).

Cheers,
John