[Dixielandjazz] Struttin With Some Barbecue

[Steve Barbone]

on 5/7/07 10:52 PM, Stan Brager at sbrager at socal.rr.com wrote:

> Hello Steve;
> 
> You wrote "So IF Louis composed, Lil wrote it down and could easily put L.
> Armstrong down as composer fooling him while taking credit". This sounds to
> me as if you suspected Lil of being devious and/or dishonest.

Yes indeed, I wrote that. But you did not take into account what I quoted
from Bergreen's book in another post. Begreen says:

"The collaborative nature of the enterprise (Hot 5/Hot 7) makes it nearly
impossible to assign credit for the songs, no matter whose name was
officially listed as composer, especially since many of the tunes were
adaptations of older models. Even when Louis wrote an original song, he left
it to Lil to put on paper - 'Louis would play the melody and Lil would write
it down as fast as Louis played,' said one musician who observed them in
action. This modus operandi gave Lil the impression that she was not just
Louis's transcriber but also his collaborator. Eventually, the impression
hardened into a conviction that prompted Lil to haunt Louis in court fort
years to come."

> With everything that's been written about the relationship of Lil and Louis,
> there is no hint of her trying to "fool" Louis.
> Certainly, Louis was a trusting person and people like Joe Glaser took
> advantage of Louis' nature. But Lil. with all her faults, wasn't like that.

There are written works about their relationship that do give us hints. In
addition to the above, Louis himself is quoted as saying about Lil:(among
other things) "I thought about how Lil had been running around with one of
the Chicago pimps while I was at work. So as we Colored people say, 'What's
is good for the goose is good for the gander. . . Ever since I was a little
boy in New Orleans hanging around those old hustlers and pimps down there
(and they liked me very well) they used to tell me, 'Not one woman, no
matter how pretty or sweet she may be.. Anytime she gets down wrong and
ain't playing the part of a wife, get yourself somebody else, and get
another woman much better than the last one at all times'".

This is how Louis explained his reason for a relationship and later marriage
to Alpha after Lil finally granted him a divorce. There is a lot of similar
information about Lil from Louis and other sources as well.

I think we (including me) tend to sugar coat history. We look at the good
and ignore the bad. So that a few generations later, written history is
cleansed of what "we" don't want to hear. No different from our current
abhorrence of "terrorism". Yet during WW 2, US and British bombing raids
deliberately targeted civilians. These raids were specifically call "Terror"
Raids" by US and British Air Force officials. "Designed to strike terror
into the hearts of the German and Japanese population so that their will to
continue fighting would be broken." as quoted by Bomber Harris (UK) and
Curtis LeMay (US). They, by design, killed almost 1 million civilians. Yet
we have already forgotten that. (Not judging the right or wrong of it here,
just pointing out how we forget history and therefore seem condemned to
repeat it) 
 
> Yes, they had disagreements especially when it came to "Struttin'". They
> each had their own point of view and, until some builds a time machine and
> returns to those heady days, we'll never know what really happened.

I wholeheartedly agree and that was my only point.

Cheers
Steve