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Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sam Ross
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE May 10, 1939
SUBJECT Jazz music (Chicago)
1. Date and time of interview
Ii
CHICAGO
No. Words
May 3rd, 1.00 A. M. May 4th .afternoon
2. Place of interview
3 Deuces and California Hotel (Washington Mozart)
3. Name and address of informant
George Barnes, California Hotel
4. Name and address of person, if any,, who put you in
touch with informant.
None
.5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you..
None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
The 3 Deuces is a famous night spot, especially for loveri of jazz music. In
the past, during the prohibition era it was one of the few spots where musicians
would came after working hours to get into jam sessions. In those days manlike
Bix Beiderbeoke, Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman, Frank Tesehmaker, sometimes Benny
Goodman, Dave Tough, would come down and sit together and play the music they
'felt'. Now it is a legitimate spot in which to .00me. Upstairs is a bar mbare
they have Negro performers including Lonnie Johnson on guitar, Lil Armstrong on
piano, and Baby Dodds on drums. Downstairs is the Off Beat Room where there
are usually two orchestras and where Georgie Barnes is a featured guitarist.
Barnes, roam is a typical hotel room. Be has a table beside his bed which has
a radio and a victrola attachment, beneath his bed are a stack of records. All
he has to do is reach over and under to play the music he likes to hear and
(Use as many additional sheets as necessarY, for any of the forms, each(
which influen-
bearing the proper heading and the number tm which the material refers. ees him.
vv3665
FORM B
Personal History of Informant
CHICAGO FOLKSTUrt
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sam Rosa
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE Nay 10, 1939
SUBJECT Jam music (Chicago)
NAME OF INFORMANT George Barnes
1. Ancestry
One eighth French; rest English.
American before Civil War.
2. Place and date of birth
Chicago Heights, July 17, 1921
3. Family
4. Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates
2,years high school 16 .037
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
9. Description of informant
10. Other Points gained in interview
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
No. Words
FOLKLORE
FORM D
Extra Comment
CHICAGO
CHICAGO FOLKS TUFF
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sam Rosa
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE May• 10,1939
SUBJECT Jazz music (Chicago)
NAME OF INFORMANT George Barnes
The informant is one of the featured performers at the 3 Deuces.
Be is a small fellow who walks around the place awkwardly as though his
sleeves were too long on him, and he plays with a dead pan face. Be is
only 17 years old and he is already a sensation, with such men as Tammy
Dorsey and Jimmy MaoFtrtland recognizing him as great. I have heard
him at the club and he wows the audience every time, so that he is
forced to play at least three-four encores nearly every time. Helist
gets out on the floor and sits on a chair and plays, improvising on
various jazz tunes, until he feels that he has exploited the thing, then
he walks back onto the orchestra stand and takes his place very unassumingly,
bows slightly and awkwardly as though he would wish that there wouldn't be
as much applause as there is and that he wouldn't have to play again. But
in his apartment he played me some records to show me haw he would like
to play. His face lights up and you can feel a good trumpet work through
him and his comments are very illuminating. He played some Beiderbecke
records and wished to hell those cymbals would be thrown out of the or-
chestra, for they cluttered up the beauty of Beiderbecke's tone. There
was one spot in the recording of Singing The Blues where Beiderbecke
TEXT
FOLKLORE
FORM D
Extra Comment
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Sam Ross
ADDRESS 713 Rush Street
DATE May 10, 1939
SUBJECT Jazz music (Chicago)
NAME OF INFORMANT George Barnes
CHI CAGO
takes a terrific break, and right after that Beiderbecke goes into a
savage attack. Barnes' face sparked up. "Listen to that break. You
can just feel how big a bang he got of it the way he attacks the next
phrase." At the end when Beiderbeoke goes into a very restrained high
phrase, Barnes said, "That's beautiful, isn't it? That's beautiful."
And he would interrupt the record spin and play the sections over the
over again. Be played a trumpet section by Oliver Armstrong, and he
said, "That's the feel I'd like to get out of my guitar," while
listening to some delicate, inspired phrases, not loud and slurry
and sensational, like Louis Armstrong, but paoked with feeling in
the note arrangement and the restraint.
FOLICLORE
FORM C
Text of Interview (Uneditea)
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
NAME OF INFORMANT
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
Illinois
Sam Ross
713 Rush Street
May 10, 1939
George Barnes
CHICAGO
No. Words
iffo
When I was five years old I first started to play an instrument.
It was a piano. My brother played the piano. Ny father played a guitar.
Owl used to pick out tunes like Dixie and Yankee Doodle. I played
-1
that while I was in shcool. When I was ten my dad lost everythingGis
home and all that,: and we had to move. After that we didn't have a piano.
So I got a German accordion about two years later and then I got a banjo uke
and after that a guitar which I've been playing up until now. I never took
any formal lessons. Lose lessons I did get were kind of informal, from the
guys I used play with, because as far as I know there isn't any method out
for playing solo guitar.
I played in my first orchestra a year and a half ago. It was an
eight piece combination called the Rhythm -Aires. I did all the arranging
for the band. It was freaky, doubling orchestration I did because most
of the guys would switoh from one instrument to another. We did mostly
jobbing dates around Chicago Heights. The guys worked during the day and
they played around at night to make some extra cash and because they liked
to play. From there I went to work in another band in a night club. The
m.o. at the Club Casanova heard tuione night and he asked me to get a couple
guys together to play there. We had a four piece outfit, trumpet,
piano, drums, and guitar. "I worked there twelve weeks. I remember that
FORM C TEXT
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
job better than anything. It was the first time for everything for
me. We played three shows a night and I had to change all my
orchestrations to the tenor scale.
Cmy brother taught me everything I know on harmoney and a little
bit about counterpoint. I don't know enough about counterpoint though
and I'm going to study it some day soon. MY brother had a fins musical
training. But in jazz it'slery easy to feel counterpoint. You feel
your way into it.
the
the
Then I jobbed with Jimmy Reynolds, a ten piece combination. And in
summer we went to Cedar Lake to work in a taxi dance hall. That was
hardest job I ever worked. There was only one intermission a night
of four minutes and then we'd split the band up. The boys in the band'd
call me junior but I don't mind being kidded. That job was so hard we
always played our library from one end to the other. And that place
was crowded until the doors closed. After the job we could hardly stand
up. Even if we wanted to we couldn't drink because we didn't have time.
But I don't drink anyhow, not even now, and most of
didn't oars for it because they had to be all there
can't drink and get places too. I used to play off
.there. We used stook arrangements aside from mine,
the other guys
to perform, and you
the seoond trumpet
and I played all
trumpet solos on my guitar. There were no real swing mAsicians in that
band then.
I liked swing. I always/liked it even whe,n,-1----didn't know what it
was. I felt it thi I knew Guy Lombardo was bad. Bu I didn't
_
FORM C TEXT -3-
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
know what swing really was until I heard Bix Beiderbeoke on records.
$::e has been my big influence. I don't thitk anybody playing today has
not been influenced by Bix. I understand he was a great ggyi everybody
who ever worked with him thought he was great. Even though I don't
approve of a lot of things he done, like smoking weed and doing goofy
things, he was still great. Well, listening to Bix and others on records
were my only influences. You know I never heard Any guitar solos until
a year ago. I liked to tear Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. I don't know
how I missed up on guitar selos I enjoy them so much now. We have some
records of Segovia, you know, the olassical guitar player. He's great.
Anyhow guys like Goodman and Dorsey and Coleman Hawkins never change.
They were good when I first heard them and they are just as good now.
Their kind of music sort of laits. Funny I never benefited by Armstrong
and Bodges. They play different music. It's not that mine has more
notes in the improvisations, but Armstrong's attack ',and expression is a
different thing. It's jagged when it comes to delicacy s.nd terrific when
it comes to feeling. I think the trouble is he isn't satiSfied to playgpod
music. You feel he tries to make great music. Therefore he's hot always
good. Teddy Wilson plays a delicate piano and when he does play ggt bucket
it's a different kind. And when Wilson playa 'lightly and politely' as.
Armstrong mould call it he is tops. Anyhow all the stuff I got that amakt
to anthtrOtfrom t.huse ret..0
Now I've been at the Deuces four months. I vent on the road for a
hillbilly outfit but I didn't play hillbilly music. Ives used to fill
in with other stuff.
FORM C TEXT .4.
CHICLGO FOLKSTUFF
The best jam sessions are in Chicago Heights. There everybody
r
played and liked to play but they didn't show off. I've been around
plenty of sessions in Chicago but they are nothing like those in
Chicago Heights. I didn't like the Chicago sessions. In Chicago
Heights they really played. There was a trumpet there who inspired
us all but now he is definitely commercial in a sweet band. Boy,
we used to groove real holes out there. We'd start about 2:30 Sunday
afternoon at one joint and at 5:30 everybody'd go to -a hideout joint
in order to avoid union complications and play indefinitely. The
trouble with the sessions in Chicago the musioians like to show off,
they want to show the others what they got, and they take as many
choruses they can get away with, and they sort of hog the show, and then
they are not making music and feeling it but they are just being clever
rind I just can't get in the groove with them. Hell, up in Chicago Heights
we'd sit down and play blues for an hour and a half and we'd have to stop
from mental and physical exhaustion although the ideas we'd be getting
are absolutely inexhaustible. The more you get yourself worked up you
know you're in a groove. You can walk in on a session and even if they're
on the eight or ninth chorus, if they are right and in the groove you can
tell immediately, even when you walk in cold -.you can tell it from the
flexibility of tone from the instruments haw long they've been playing
and haw long they've been in the groove. Now, at the Deuces, with my
quartet I get off about three grooves a night, but I couldn't get it
before with the orchestra behind me. When you're in a groove you are
FORM C 2E12
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
lost in what you're doing. You can talk to somebody, you can be
distracted but the groove stays and you pick it up right away. You
have to relax and let it get you.
To play good music you have to
relax and when you are it gets yoEt
Jam' isn't like classical music where you get a chance to desoribe
things. Most swing musicians aren't well educated and they don't do
anything but play their instruments and sleep late in the day, and
that's bad. I'm going to get away from that and broaden myself and get
a background. I think it'll help my music. The images we got are very
disconnected, not like in classical music, it's more like a dream. For
instanoe just before you came gp I dreamed that Jimmy MkoPertland was
leading our orchestra. And you know what a fine trumpet player he is.
Now if I hadn't mentioned it to you and hadn't talked about it tonight
he may have had a certain influence on my notes, the way I'd get them
out. You see, our images are really definite. Now Raymond Scott uses
open desoription in his music. You take Stormy Night Aboard An Ocean
Liner. You can see and feel that in his music. For instance I wrote
a piece recently called Howard Street Express. You know how that ex-
pressimit. ride can drive a guy nutty and I tried to get it, the thoughts,
the sounds, the feelings of that ride.
that's definite and I oan
describe the meaning of every note, but in jazz, when in the groove it
is all that experience of the ride, say, and more, but you can't put
your fingers on it exaotly. Here.'s haw I happened to write that piece.
That night I took that ride I had a fight with my girl earlier because
FORM C TEXT .60
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
I didn't like her to smoke cigarettes, which I guess was a pretty
foolish thing. I was in a terrific groove. I couldn't eat and I
couldn't sleep and I rode that all night long. About a month later
we made up but that ride and its feeling was still on my mind and I
thought I'd better get it off and write the song.
L-1
off my mind. That is the omay thing I ever play where I never change
iting it got it
a note. Usually there are certain passages I improvise when I play
even though it is arranged and rehearsed, ehioh nigh; be variations
of those thoughts and others, but that Howard Street Express I play
the same may all the time.
think American jags is a part of American folk music). The class-
ical music is a thing of the past; it is Europian and outdone and a lot
of our composers are copyists of those old time classical scores. I am
prejudiced I guess because I am Amerioan and I think American things are
better than European. And in the long run I think it'll develop (jams)
into a real music, a finished product, different than the classical
stuff and just as great if not greater. Some people say that American
=Sic is low because it was originated by Negroes but that's not so.
It hasn't developed yet but it will.
I wrote another tune called Soatter Brain Rag. It's a goofy title.
It closely resembles a march. It sort of expresses my first time at the
Deuces. I played with Jimmy (MasPartlamd) for the first time and with
guys who really played Dixieland music which was always tops with me.
I had never played with guys who knew Dixieland musics before. And I
FORK C TEXT -7-
CHICAGO FOLKSIurr
liked Jimmy a lot, the way he could play that trumpet. Well, we
played three-four Dixieland tunes that sounded like marches. That
set me in a groove and I got to thinking haw close Dixieland musics
resemble marches and how nice marches sounded even though I never
liked them before but they can sound real nice. I got to thinking
about the different liOks and I put it together about three-four
months ago when ono night ee didn't have anything special to rehearse
and I wrote the thing almost exactly like a march, you know, with a
prelude, a first pat1 then the trio coming in, and then back to the
refrain and I had five measures to improvise. Benny Goodman's manager
liked it when he heard it.
I like evolutionistio arrangements like EllingtotW. They go like
this. (Referring to Scatter Brain Bag). I start out on guitar with a
simple two measure phrase, which is the foundation idea. The bass
fiddle comes in and plays chord structures with a little embellishment,
then the guitar on the third phrase and the sax on the fourth with
counterpoint and the fifth time you start the tune and at the end of
the fifth solo the counterpoint is used and than the melody comes off
that, which doesn't come in until the complete background is built up.
And the tune ends the may it begins, and at the end we, get a bangout
for two measures with everybody in.