Swing Shift

Tucker Sherrie Tucker

Description

The forgotten history of the "all-girl" big bands of the World War II era takes center stage in Sherrie Tucker's Swing Shift. American demand for swing skyrocketed with the onslaught of war as millions-isolated from loved ones-sought diversion, comfort, and social contact through music and dance. Although all-female jazz and dance bands had existed since the 1920s, now hundreds of such groups, both African American and white, barnstormed ballrooms, theaters, dance halls, military installations, and makeshift USO stages on the home front and abroad.Filled with firsthand accounts of more than a hundred women who performed during this era and complemented by thorough-and eye-opening-archival research, Swing Shift not only offers a history of this significant aspect of American society and culture but also examines how and why whole bands of dedicated and talented women musicians were dropped from-or never inducted into-our national memory. Tucker's nuanced presentation reveals who these remarkable women were, where and when they began to play music, and how they navigated a sometimes wild and bumpy road-including their experiences with gas and rubber rationing, travel restrictions designed to prioritize transportation for military needs, and Jim Crow laws and other prejudices. She explains how the expanded opportunities brought by the war, along with sudden increased publicity, created the illusion that all female musicians-no matter how experienced or talented-were "Swing Shift Maisies," 1940s slang for the substitutes for the "real" workers (or musicians) who were away in combat. Comparing the working conditions and public representations of women musicians with figures such as Rosie the Riveter, WACs, USO hostesses, pin-ups, and movie stars, Tucker chronicles the careers of such bands as the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny's Hours of Charm, The Darlings of Rhythm, and the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band.

Sujets

• Jazz
• États-Unis
• History of the Americas
• World War II
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822380900
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Swing Shift

Swing

‘‘All-Girl’’

Bands of the 1940s

Shift

Sherrie Tucker

Duke University Press Durham and London 2000

∫2000 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Times Roman with Bodoni and Twentieth Century display

by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last

printed page of this book.

Acknowledgments vii

Contents

Introduction: ‘‘It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t in the History Books’’ 1

I Playing the Changes of World War II 1. Working the Swing Shift: Effects of World War II on All-Girl Bands 33

2. ‘‘Hours of Charm’’ with Phil Spitalny

70

3. Extracurricular Activities with the Prairie View Co-Eds 97

II Road Hazards 4. Surveillance and Survival in the Jim Crow South

5. Internationalism and the Sweethearts of Rhythm

135

163

6. The Darlings of Rhythm: On the Road and Ready to Run

III USO–Camp Shows 7. Female Big Bands, Male Mass Audiences: Gendered Performances in a Theater of War

8. Battles of a ‘‘Sophisticated Lady’’: Ada Leonard and the USO 259

227

9. ‘‘And, Fellas, They’reAmericanGirls!’’: On the Road with the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band

291

Conclusion: Postwar Changes, Familiar Refrains 317

Notes

335

Bibliography

Index

399

371

195

Acknowledgments

This project benefits from an embarrassment of riches in the form of incomparable mentors, colleagues, narrators, and friends. I must first thank the women musicians, both those still living and those who, as eighty-nine-year-old former trombonist Velzoe Brown likes to put it, ‘‘have modulated to a higher key.’’ This book wouldn’t have been possi- ble without their willingness to share their time, memories, photos, re- cordings, scrapbooks, address books, theoretical frameworks, and narra- tive strategies. Many women musicians became actively involved in the research process, digging up additional information, confirming memo- ries with friends and associates, even recruiting interviewees. A com- plete list would be too long, but let me name Martye Awkerman, Clora Bryant, Roz Cron, Laura Daniels, Mary Demond, Peggy Gilbert, Flor- ence Kuhn, Jane Sager, and Vi Wilson for their indispensable assistance in these areas. Because this book grew in tandem with my dissertation, I owe an unfathomable debt to my dream committee at the University of Califor- nia, Santa Cruz: Angela Y. Davis, Donna Haraway, and Herman Gray, who never failed to take ‘‘all-girl’’ bands, and me, seriously. Especially, I offer humble gratitude to Angela Davis, who guided me through the re- search and writing for nearly a decade, generously and tirelessly reading and commenting on literally thousands of pages of drafts from beginning to end, and counseling me on ethical, theoretical, methodological, and political dilemmas as they arose. Donna Haraway and Herman Gray gen- erously read draft after draft, saw what I was trying to do— usually long before I did— and gave me necessary directions, challenges, reading lists, and questions to make it better. Jim Clifford and Steven Feld rounded out my extraordinary qualifying exam committee, which gave me direction at a key crossroads. Other professors, mentors, colleagues, and friends read chapters, collaborated on panels, contributed leads, and discussed issues that helped immensely in complicating my analyses. Thanks to Maylei Blackwell, Darshan Campos, Susan Cook, Teresa De Lauretis, Dana Frank, Sherna Gluck, Lisbeth Haas, Roger Harding, David Hey- mann, Sarah Jain, Robin D. G. Kelley, Florice Kovan, Mary Letterii, Kim McCord, Bob McMichael, Mark Miller, the late John Miner, Keta Mi-

randa, Ingrid Monson, Kathy Ogren, Naomi Pabst, Kay D. Ray, Chris Russell, Barbara Schottenfeld, Catherine Parsons Smith, Darla Thomp- son, Marilyn and Roy Tucker, Deb Vargas, Isa Velez, Penny Von Eschen, and the members of Donna Haraway’s feminist theory writing seminar (winter 1996), Jim Clifford’s race and ethnicity writing seminar (spring 1996), and Teresa De Lauretis’s writing seminar (fall 1996). Sheila Peuse helped me in numberless ways, ranging from crisis management, to deadline reminders, to pretending that I hadn’t already asked the ques- tions I continued to ask over, and over, and over. At San Francisco State, I owe additional immeasurable thanks to Chinosole, Inderpal Grewal, Whitney Chadwick, and Dee Spencer for their excellent guidance in the women’s studies master’s thesis that preceded both my dissertation and this book. More special thanks go to the fabulous ‘‘No Name’’ writing group: Kathryn Chetkovich, Lin Colavin, Frances Hatfield, Candida Lawrence, Joan McMillan, Maude Meehan, Claudia Sternbach, Amber Coverdale Sumrall, Dena Taylor, and Ellen Treen. I am thankful to Ken Wissoker at Duke University Press for thinking early on that this project would make a worthwhile book and for struggling with me through the cognitive dissonance that comes from working on a book and a disserta- tion at the same time. Thanks also to the anonymous readers at Duke for incredibly constructive comments. For invaluable forums that helped me better understand issues of 1940s jazzwomen in relation to those of both earlier and more contemporary women jazz musicians, I am grateful to Haybert Houston, editor ofJazz Now Magazine;Matt Watson, director of the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project; Janice McNeil, project man- ager and symposium director forSung/Unsung Jazzwomen; and Tim Hodges and Bob Parlocha at the oldkjaz-fm. I am deeply grateful to my parents, Marilyn and Roy Tucker, who instilled in me a love for music and a genuine interest in hearing people talk about their lives, and who indulged me in several hundred hours of long-distance conversations about World War II. More humble apprecia- tion and love go out to Roger Harding and his menagerie for unforget- table kindness and friendship. I also owe many thanks to librarians and archivists at various collec- tions: the patient and knowledgeable curators at the Archives Center at the Smithsonian Museum of American History; the special collections librarians at the New York Public Library of Performing Arts; the media and special collections librarians at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Flori Kovan for showing me the ropes at the Library of

viii

Acknowledgments

Congress; everyone, but especially Esther Smith, at the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers, Newark, New Jersey; Bruce Boyd Raeburn at the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, New Orleans; jazz film archivist Mark Cantor; Matt Watson of the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program; Eric Key, Dudley Yates, Rose Sonnier Judd, and especially Phyllis Earles Martin at the John B. Coleman Library at Prairie View A&M University; Bozy White at the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors Library, Oakland, California; Carol A. McCormick, First Sergeant, USA Retired, of the Women’s Army Corps Museum, Fort McClellan, Ala- bama; and trombonist/librarian extraordinaire Pat Mullan at the Berke- ley City Library. I also thank the following journals for permission to reprint previously published material: An earlier version of chapter 1 appeared as ‘‘Working the Swing Shift: Women Musicians during World War II’’ inLabor’s Heritage, no. 1 (summer 1996): 46–66. Chapter 3 appeared as ‘‘The Prairie View Co-Eds: Black College Women Musicians in Class and on the Road’’ inBlack Music Research Journal,19, no. 1: 000–000. Chapter 6 originally appeared as ‘‘Nobody’s Sweethearts: Gender, Race, Jazz, and the Darlings of Rhythm’’ inAmerican Music16, no. 2 (1998): 255–88. Chapter 7 was originally published as ‘‘Female Big Bands, Male Mass Audiences: Gendered Performances in a Theater of War’’ inWomen and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 2 (International Alliance for Women and Music) (fall 1998): 64–89. An earlier version of chapter 9 appeared as ‘‘ ‘And Fellas, They’re American Girls’: On the Road with the Sharon Rogers All-Girl Band’’ in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 16, nos. 2–3 (spring 1996): 128–60.

Acknowledgments

ix