[Dixielandjazz] Questions about laws regarding musicians and segregation

[Bert]

In nearly all books about the history of Jazz music the subject of segregation and it's impact on jazz and jazz musicians comes forward.
But nowhere I can find what the laws/rules actually were exactly.

As I am doing correction work (language, but also fact checks)  for Dr. Jazz Magazine, I quite often see these subjects and sometimes things get confusing.

So the general picture I get:


  *   It was officially not allowed for Afro-American and white musicians to play on stage together
  *   They were allowed to work together in recording studios
  *   The laws in Southern States seems to have been more strict than in the north of the USA.

But then the conflicting stories appear:

  *   Bill Moore (Afro-American) allready played regular in the California Ramblers (mostly white band) in the early 1920's.
  *   some stories (true or false?) of white musicians (esp. Bix) sitting in with King Oliver.
  *   Jelly Roll Morton recorded with NORK
  *   Fletcher Henderson and Jack Teagarden were close friends, Teagarden was also friends with Hawkins and Jimmie Harrison. Their daily routine was to go out together and practice in Hawkins apartment, probably get very drunk together. As a result Teagarden started to help out in the Henderson band.
  *   There is also report of Pee Wee Russell helping out in the Fletcher Henderson band.
  *   Rex Stewart describes Coleman Hawkins idolation for Adrian Rollini and his bass sax. (Makes sence, since I found 48 records of Hawkins playing bass sax himself!) According to Rex, Hawkins and Rollini quite often jammed together in Harlem, where Rollini with Dixie went out at least once a week.

So, to me this leads to questions:


  *   was it officially forbidden for white and black musicians to share a stage? If yes, was it actively enforced? (Like prohobition, it was law, but not all the States did actually enforce the law)
  *   was it the same in all the states?
  *   To share a stage during jam sessions was not illegal for musicians from different backgrounds?
  *   is there a certain timeframe when these regulations/laws started/ended?

Any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated,

Bert Brandsma

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20191111/2682c869/attachment.html>