Life has been made tolerable again (after your departure) by Brunswick’s release of a ‘New Orleans Album’ to parallel their ‘Chicago Album’. [...] The album is perhaps most valuable in pointing out the difference between New Orleans and Chicago. Or, really, the difference between white & negro – no, that’s not so, remembering Bix and Nichols, but still, put it like this: the Chicagoans are the only gang that play jazz as white people should. Nichols’ parlour-tricks are merely intellectual & Bix’s ‘beauty’ is escapist. No white man can play negro music without a ‘lowering’ of himself. The Chicagoans are conscious of this, & their jazz is cynical and sardonic. They don’t try for the negro’s childlike beauty, but they go for his rhythm. Chicago style is jazz sarcasm. Compare Kaminsky & Armstrong, Russell & Dodds, Freeman and Hawkins, Mezzrow & Bechet. I should say the Chicagoans are more intelligent, more ‘artists’ than Nichols or Bix. They don’t stuff themselves with shit about beauty (Bix: ‘Gee, ain’t Louis wonderful?’ Condon: ‘Aw, go stuff yourself wid’ shit!’) they are conscious of a certain self-contempt. And they are ecstatically thrilled by the rhythm – but not as a negro is, with his whole body, but with their nerves. And their playing is nervous and tense and dirty – exemplified by Mezzrow, the dope-taker, or Tough, the gin-drinker[...] Pardon me if I appear to talk about jazz.... << less