HELLO FRIENDS and WELCOME! I have LOTS of never-published research on everyone from Jelly Roll Morton through Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and beyond. I am now posting these items frequently in the form of a Substack email newsletter.
I recently read your 2018 piece on the origin of the word jazz. Very interesting, but wait, Ben Henderson? Wasn’t he a pitcher in the Negro baseball league? I thought there were no whites in that league. Is the creator of the jazz ball a different person? You lost me…
I will be updating that piece here at some point. FYI, the creator of the jazz ball was indeed a white person. Ben Henderson of the Negro leagues was a different person (the name is not that rare), and I believe he was quite a bit younger (active in the 1930s, not the 1910s). All this will be in my updated version. Thanks for asking!
Thanks much! Glad you could make it. I see you're on WICN with my friends Bonnie Johnson, Ben Young, and others. I was a guest of Rich Falco and Eunmi Shim at WPI a few times. THANKS!
I'm writing an essay and was going to relay the story of Billie Holiday being forbidden to sing Strange Fruit. I check that kind of stuff twice before I use it and I am glad I ran into your essay in Jazz Times. It would have been a good vignette for my essay, but I won't promote a falsehood so it got the heave-ho. Thank you!
Glad to hear it. There are 17 essays (so far) of my Billie research in this series so far, including an expanded 4-part discussion of that lying film. Over 250 essays in all, with an Index on the home page. THANK YOU DAVE!
I recently read your 2018 piece on the origin of the word jazz. Very interesting, but wait, Ben Henderson? Wasn’t he a pitcher in the Negro baseball league? I thought there were no whites in that league. Is the creator of the jazz ball a different person? You lost me…
Hello Anibal,
I will be updating that piece here at some point. FYI, the creator of the jazz ball was indeed a white person. Ben Henderson of the Negro leagues was a different person (the name is not that rare), and I believe he was quite a bit younger (active in the 1930s, not the 1910s). All this will be in my updated version. Thanks for asking!
Thank you so much for clarifying this issue. As a jazz fan, I have written on this matter in spanish, maybe you could check my site:
https://ajmorillo.notion.site/Notas-de-jazz-3f6d88ef8cd34db991828ef7a36d46da
Best Regards
Aníbal
I'll check it out--THANK YOU
Thanks. As it happens with your posts, I am constantly updating the information on this site. Your input on Ben Henderson will surely make it soon!
Great!
Lewis: Really enjoyed your Zoom presentation last evening.
Thanks much! Glad you could make it. I see you're on WICN with my friends Bonnie Johnson, Ben Young, and others. I was a guest of Rich Falco and Eunmi Shim at WPI a few times. THANKS!
I'm writing an essay and was going to relay the story of Billie Holiday being forbidden to sing Strange Fruit. I check that kind of stuff twice before I use it and I am glad I ran into your essay in Jazz Times. It would have been a good vignette for my essay, but I won't promote a falsehood so it got the heave-ho. Thank you!
Glad to hear it. There are 17 essays (so far) of my Billie research in this series so far, including an expanded 4-part discussion of that lying film. Over 250 essays in all, with an Index on the home page. THANK YOU DAVE!