Return to New Orleans and the Jazz Museum

Abstract

By the early 1960s there were only two clubs in New York City that used jazz bands regularly (that is for dixie—traditional jazz), and they were Jimmy Ryan’s and Eddie Condon’s. For the last fifteen years I had been thinking of just how the many great jazz stars survived—I mean many, many great talented jazz artists. Many of these men have never done any other kind of work, but you see them looking good, well dressed, and still smiling and joking when together—and that is the situation with so many colored actors and performers. I always managed to get some work playing, like playing at Freedomland, then opening at the New York World’s Fair, staying there six weeks.