Is Jackie McLean Black or White?

[Soulstation1]

when the department security guards follow you through the shopping mall.

which has happened to me on a few occassions, with credit cards to their stores in my wallet

ss1

[montg]

His father was Tiny Bradshaw's guitarist in the 30s (John Mclean). The band was an African American band and, of course, the bands were not integrated in the 30s (BG something of an exception).

Race is a dubious social construct that matters less today in the U.S. than it did yesterday and hopefully, by the time my kids grow up, race (and color) won't matter at all.

[RDK]

I've always felt that a musician's race was as relevent or irrelevent as whether he was short or tall...

So how tall is Jackie anyway...?

[Guest ariceffron]

THAT IS INTRESTING RE: JACKIES DAD. TINY BRADSHAW IS HELLA FUNKY. HAVE U HEARD HIS KING RECORDS 78 RPM DISC "T-99"? FUCK YEAH. IT IS ONE OF THE EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF THE STRAIGHT UP FUNK OUT THERE. IT IS SO SLOW AND GROOVY-- IS JACKIES DAD ON THAT ONE????

[robviti]

Sometime prior to 1 million years ago early hominids exited Africa and dispersed into other parts of the Old World. Therefore, Jackie McLean is black, you are black, I am black, etc.

[Claude]

Race is a dubious social construct that matters less today in the U.S. than it did yesterday and hopefully, by the time my kids grow up, race (and color) won't matter at all.

In jazz, the assertion that one has to be black in order to play the music in an authentic way is luckily a thing of the past.

But in other fields of music it seem to be rooted in the marketing. Why are allmost all famous rappers black (Eminem being the big exception) and most boygroups white?

[Chrome]

In jazz, the assertion that one has to be black in order to play the music in an authentic way is luckily a thing of the past.

Paging Mr. Stanley Crouch ...

[tooter]

I heard or read a story about a jazz artist who said he could always tell whether a musician was black or white just by listening. He was put to the test and failed even to get the score that the law of averages should have given him. I forget the details though - does anyone know who, when, where?

[White Lightning]

In jazz, the assertion that one has to be black in order to play the music in an authentic way is luckily a thing of the past.

Jim Rotondi once told me that a Japanese agent cancelled a planned tour to Japan, after realizing that Jim wasn't black. apparently, club owners in Japan still think that only a black Jazz musician will sell the house. Jim told me he was too shocked to even demand some sort of a compensation from that Japanese guy for all his expenses, such as hiring a band and cancelling other gigs.

[rockefeller center]

apparently, club owners in Japan still think that only a black Jazz musician will sell the house.

Apparently? Because one Japanese agent cancelled a tour?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

The Blindfold Test subject was Roy Eldridge in Down Beat with Leonard Feather. It's in the New Encyclopedia of Jazz - I don't have the specific issue date handy.

Mike

[JSngry]

Feather conducted a similar test with Black Jazz label founder Gene Russell in the early 70s. Russell was a lot more accurate than was Eldridge.

[tooter]

The Blindfold Test subject was Roy Eldridge in Down Beat with Leonard Feather. It's in the New Encyclopedia of Jazz - I don't have the specific issue date handy.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. I suppose they tested with musicians unknown to him, otherwise hed would have surely got more. I just heard an item on the radio about it I think, but the name rings a bell.

[maren]

you only have to be 1% african/american to be considered a/a in america

The old "one-drop" rule. Which is why "ethnicity" is a much more valid term than "race" [race is not a scientific concept, anyway -- in biology it just means: the group living on one side of the mountain range (ocean, desert) looks "alike" in a way that differs from the group living on the other side, because they've shared more genes within their group than with the other, due to limited mingling across the physical barrier]. "Ethnicity" implies a shared cultural identity. The U.S. has plenty of more-European-than-African-looking people who "jumped the fence" to live as "white" -- while others felt it very important to continue to identify themselves as black.

NOTE -- I know I'm not telling ss1 anything new!!! -- just expanding on your point for those who aren't aware of this history!

Just a few examples from mixedfolks.com:

"Walter White, who could have passed for white, chose instead to identify with his black ancestry, and ultimately came to be the most ardent protagonist in the fight to stamp out lynching in America, particularly after World War I. White's main task at the NAACP was to investigate lynching and race riots. His light skin enabled him to pass as a white man and this helped him acquire information about racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. His research was eventually published in the book Rope and Faggot (1929). In 1929 White was appointed chief executive of the NAACP."

Edited June 6, 2004 by maren

[White Lightning]

apparently, club owners in Japan still think that only a black Jazz musician will sell the house.

Apparently? Because one Japanese agent cancelled a tour?

From what Jim told me, the tour was cancelled because the Japanese agent couldn't sell the gig to several Japanese club owners, because they said that the Japanese audience won't buy tickets to a white Jazzer.

I dont know if that was the case or not, but that's what Jim told me.

[GiovanniMariaRuggiero]

it is not racism. It's like asking "was the classical pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni Italian or German?" actually his mother was half German and Busoni as culturally very germanized, notwithstanding the italian family name. Given that Italian and German approach to classical music are very different so it is intriguing and not meaningless (or racist) to know the personal relatioship of Busoni to German and Italian culture also with respect to his mixed ethnicity. Given that it is indeniable that also black and white approach to jazz is partially different, it is interesting to know the racial ascendacy of mclean, but above all how he defined himself: black or white?

[Noj]

This thread is really old, and a strange thing to dredge up for a first post, Gio.

[Hardbopjazz]

Yes this thread was started 7 years ago.

[AllenLowe]

I'm not even going to bring up Frank Strozier -

[GiovanniMariaRuggiero]

Actually I was interested in the topic. I must confess that in pictures Mclean (above all when he was young) looked "white" or "caucasian" (we do not use this term in Italy). I do not know how I understood he was black. In time, I felt that he had a fiery and "black" sound, different not only from the polite and etereal white sound of Konitz and Getz, but also from the bebop-but-clean sound of Phil Woods. In addition, he never was in the Tristano or Kenton or Herman groups or environments. This is why I started thinking I did not see himself as a white. Of course, this is another risky generalization. For example Allen Eager and Al Haig and Red Rodney played almost only in "black" bebop groups and they were white people.

Anyway I have discovered that McLean had black and white parents and relatives and I sense that he chose a "black" identity without too much concern. This is strange because I am just reading a book about black american people who transformed themselves in "white" people.

In addition, I learn saxophone here in Milano with the old/historical Italian saxophonist Paolo Tomelleri who played with people like Webster, Mulligan, Konitz, and Bill Holman in the fifties when they spent time in Milano. Sometimes Tomelleri tells me how relationships between black and white jazzmen who met in Milano wasn't that easy.

Ciao

Gioovanni

Actually I was interested in the topic. I must confess that in pictures Mclean (above all when he was young) looked "white" or "caucasian" (we do not use this term in Italy). I do not know how I understood he was black. In time, I felt that he had a fiery and "black" sound, different not only from the polite and etereal white sound of Konitz and Getz, but also from the bebop-but-clean sound of Phil Woods. In addition, he never was in the Tristano or Kenton or Herman groups or environments. This is why I started thinking I did not see himself as a white. Of course, this is another risky generalization. For example Allen Eager and Al Haig and Red Rodney played almost only in "black" bebop groups and they were white people.

Anyway I have discovered that McLean had black and white parents and relatives and I sense that he chose a "black" identity without too much concern. This is strange because I am just reading a book about black american people who transformed themselves in "white" people.

In addition, I learn saxophone here in Milano with the old/historical Italian saxophonist Paolo Tomelleri who played with people like Webster, Mulligan, Konitz, and Bill Holman in the fifties when they spent time in Milano. Sometimes Tomelleri tells me how relationships between black and white jazzmen who met in Milano wasn't that easy.

Ciao

Gioovanni

[Brad]

Wow, this is an old one indeed. Not sure I ever saw it or responded but I guess my comment would be what does it matter.

[Larry Kart]

Wow, this is an old one indeed. Not sure I ever saw it or responded but I guess my comment would be what does it matter.

Oh, it could matter a lot in simple (or not so simple) human terms if Jackie sounded the way he did and was white, or if he sounded the way he did and got a lot of guff from other black guys about the way he looked, but we know the first isn't so, and I've never heard anything about him getting hassled on the second count.

[Chuck Nessa]

Wow, this is an old one indeed. Not sure I ever saw it or responded but I guess my comment would be what does it matter.

Oh, it could matter a lot in simple (or not so simple) human terms if Jackie sounded the way he did and was white, or if he sounded the way he did and got a lot of guff from other black guys about the way he looked, but we know the first isn't so, and I've never heard anything about him getting hassled on the second count.

It mattered to me in high school (small farming community in central Iowa). The Prestige records I had at the time used photos that were "one or the other" and he sounded unlike white players I had heard at the time. At that point in my life, when I was trying to figure out 1000 things, this was one.

Interesting (in a good way) to have this thread resurrected now.

[Chuck Nessa]

FWIW, my maternal great-grandmother was an American Indian and my fraternal grandmother was what some people call "black Irish" - she had olive skin and kinky black hair - she was a product of the defeat of the Spanish armada when they had those danged Moors with them. My other ancestors are from Norway, England, Germany and wherever.

[Noj]

As with all racial categorizing, it falls short of describing the individual taste/personality, individual physique/natural ability, family influence, friend/teacher influences, and specific cultural/regional influences which feed a sound. A musician's intellect and identity creates his/her sound and tells us more about that sound than the vague categories of race. Just consider how different as people any two musicians of the same color can be...