[Dixielandjazz] Tad Jones obit (long)

[Charles Suhor]

A huge and shocking loss. Besides being an ace scholar, Tad was a  
really nice man. I hope that his Armstrong manuscript is published,  
even if unfinished. I'm sure it will be a worthwhile piece of  
scholarship and a tribute to Tad.

Charlie

On Jan 3, 2007, at 3:06 PM, loerchen2 at aol.com wrote:

> Hi listmates,
>
> I was saddened to hear that one of my friends and colleagues had died  
> early Monday morning.  Tad was the person who discovered Louis  
> Armstrong's actual birth date, and was working on a new book about  
> Armstrong's early life.  He also organized the programming at Satchmo  
> Summerfest.  We'll all miss him.
>
> Sue
>
> ***
> Tad Jones, N.O. music scholar
> Wednesday, January 03, 2007
> By Keith Spera
> Music writer
> Tad Jones, a music historian, researcher and writer who specialized in  
> the early life of Louis Armstrong, died Monday after a fall at his  
> home. He was 54.
> Mr. Jones, a fifth-generation New Orleanian, graduated from De La  
> Salle High School and Loyola University. As a disc jockey at Loyola's  
> campus radio station, he interviewed scores of prominent local  
> musicians.
> In 1986, he teamed with Jonathan Foose and Jason Berry to co-write "Up  
> From the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II," an  
> authoritative study of the roots and manifestations of local music,  
> especially rhythm & blues.
> But Mr. Jones' most significant contribution to music scholarship was  
> his 1988 discovery of Louis Armstrong's actual birthday.
> The jazz trumpeter always maintained that he was born on July 4, 1900.  
> After learning that Armstrong was baptized at Sacred Heart of Jesus  
> Church at South Lopez and Canal streets, Mr. Jones asked church  
> officials to search their files for the official record.
> They came across a baptismal certificate for one Louis Daniel  
> Armstrong, born out of wedlock to William Armstrong and Mary Albert on  
> Aug. 4, 1901, then baptized three weeks later.
> That information rewrote the history of one of the 20th century's  
> greatest cultural figures and New Orleans' most famous son.
> Mr. Jones said at the time that he was "surprised" at his discovery,  
> "but only because it had been sitting there for 87 years and no one  
> else had found it. It wasn't like looking into King Tut's tomb."
> He later theorized that a teenage Armstrong first fibbed about his age  
> while trying to enlist in the Army in September 1918, near the end of  
> World War I.
> "He was doing everything he could to get into the Army," Mr. Jones  
> said in July 2000, as jazz fans around the world celebrated  
> Armstrong's mythical 100th birthday. "He had friends who had gone into  
> the Army. You get three meals a day, a place to sleep, and you get to  
> play music (in the Army band). He thought that if he could get in the  
> Army, he could get in the band."
> Mr. Jones helped coordinate the jazz history component of the annual  
> Satchmo SummerFest, established in August 2001 by French Quarter  
> Festivals Inc. to mark the actual centennial of Armstrong's birth. Mr.  
> Jones was also a frequent lecturer at the festival.
> "He was dedicated, energetic and very knowledgeable about music and  
> the history of music," said former French Quarter Festival Executive  
> Director Laurie Toups. "He dedicated himself to those interests.  
> Research took up a lot of his life. He'll be missed in the jazz  
> community."
> He occasionally did paralegal and accounting work, handled the  
> Radiators' music publishing interests and received grants to finance  
> his prolific research. He spent countless hours poring over tax, real  
> estate and arrest records to paint a detailed portrait of his  
> subjects, especially Armstrong.
> "Scholars all over the world came to Tad to find out about Armstrong,"  
> said Connie Atkinson, associate director of the University of New  
> Orleans' Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies. "People trusted his  
> research. I'd have him talk to my history of New Orleans music class  
> about his experiences. He was a great showman in front of the  
> students."
> For years, Mr. Jones researched an exhaustive account of Armstrong's  
> turbulent youth in New Orleans. The manuscript was nearly finished; in  
> November, he read a chapter at the Satchmo Meets Amadeus conference in  
> Austria.
> Jack Stewart, a fellow music historian who collaborated with Mr. Jones  
> for more than a decade, described the project as "myth-breaking. Tad  
> said it was going to show how Louis Armstrong was a common criminal  
> who was rescued by an amazingly progressive juvenile justice system in  
> New Orleans.
> "He was going to break that news to the world. At first he felt uneasy  
> about it. But he didn't put any artificial or subjective spin on  
> anything," Stewart said.
> Survivors include his parents, Phyllis Bunol Jones and C. Palmer Jones  
> Sr.; a brother, Calvin P. Jones; and a sister, Suzanne Jones Myers.
> Visitation is Friday from 8 to 10 a.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral  
> Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. A Mass will be said 10 a.m. Burial will  
> be at Lake Lawn.
> _______________________________________________________________________ 
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