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Charlie Parker, Harry "Father" White, and Sweet Lucy
by Con Chapman
While it is undeniably true that formal education is generally a benefit both to the student and to society as a whole, it is equally indisputable that many jazz greats got their best education outside a classroom. Johnny Hodges claimed he got the nickname “Rabbit" from his ability to outrun truant officers. Charlie Parker ...
Give Your Regards to Broadway—and Hollywood
by Con Chapman
Those who recognized the complexity and beauty of jazz early on--such as twentieth century French critic Hugues Panassié--rightly characterized it as American's unacknowledged classical music. Their sentiment came to fruition in the wrong way by the end of the century when the genre had fallen from its peak to its current lowly status, tied for last ...
A Tale of Two Jazz Humbugs
by Con Chapman
"Humbug" is a little word of great utility that has unfortunately passed out of general usage. It means, according to Webster's Dictionary, “a person who does not live up to his claims; impostor." While it carries the connotation of deception or trickery, it was more generally applied to what we would today call--with less compactness--a pious ...
The Rat Pack vs. the Kids in the Kitchen: Are Those Our Only Choices?
by Con Chapman
It was a more important anniversary than most so we decided to splurge on a local restaurant that always gives me buyer's remorse when I get the check. My wife and I are both getting up in years and we eat out at what she used to jokingly refer to as “blue hair hours," ...
Shut Up, He Explained: On Talking Heads In Jazz Flicks
by Con Chapman
As an avid watcher of jazz documentaries, my thoughts on the genre may be summed up by the words of two of my favorite writers, Raymond Carver and Ring Lardner. Carver named his first short story collection “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?--the words are spoken by a character named Ralph to his wife Marian, who ...
Which Came First—Jazz or Baseball?
by Con Chapman
Baseball and jazz rank high among the objects of my affection, and have several things in common: Both are distinctively American products with foreign roots; both are inexhaustible sources of enjoyment, at least to me; and both are popular in the best sense of that word, with broad appeal across ages, races and classes.
Kansas City Jazz: A Little Evil Will Do You Good
by Con Chapman
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2 “Stomp to Swing" and Chapter 3 “Bennie Moten and His Competitors" from Con Chapman's Kansas City Jazz: A Little Evil Will Do You Good (Equinox, 2023). Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once wrote that he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it when he saw ...
