NOTE: This is an edited excerpt of the interview I did with Steve Provizer after reading his new book, As Long As They Can Blow: Interracial Jazz Recordings and Other Jive Before 1935. The full interview, with added music, will air Friday, April 12, from noon to 2 Eastern on WRFI's Crazy Words, Crazy Tune. After that, it will be available for TWO WEEKS ONLY as an archive through the WRFI website. It will have a permanent spot at smithmeaword.com., - RKS
SP: I’m a jazz person; I went to Berklee [College of Music] and I’ve been writing about the music and playing it on the radio for many years. The historian in me knew more than what the popular culture was being told about this music.
Part of it was strictly political and completely understandable: as part of the movement to recognize the presence and the contributions of Black people, that’s what was emphasized. That became the mainstream perspective of the music, and unfortunately, in the process of doing that, there was a lot of bad history. If you’ve seen any of the recent movies, the biographical movies, there’s just so much wrong with them and it bugs me. Like the one about Billie Holiday: so many issues!
RKS: You mean in movies this decade?
SP: Yeah. And as I began to look into it and actually resolve for myself what was the reality of those situations—you know, what was really happening in the Paramount studio
