Memories & Stories Told...

1930 the Great Migration from Southern intolerance to Chicago Jazz and the Great Depression.  

I started this post ages ago only to put it away in search of more information.  I find out now that I am only at the being of my journey into John's life & influences in Chicago.  This will be an on going post of additions & edits but I feel I might find more answers if I open the door for input from those out there in the wide world of the Internet.

Somehow back in 2003/04  I got a hit on an Internet search that referred me to Central High in Kenosha, Wisconsin. To the locals the school is know as Mary "Bradford High".  They had a registration card on file for John with his local Kenosha address, and the name & address of his father in Florida.  Other than a date in 1932, and a note saying he had left the school as sophomore there was nothing else to go on.  Here I was stuck for many years not knowing why a young man that had been living in Florida in the 1920's was now near Chicago.  But even though he was in Kenosha I did know then he was just a commuter train ride away from Chicago where the Music surely was. There was a big new theater in town and it did seem like a nice place to live & work. Cynthia Nelson, Curator of Collections/Archivist/Educator at the Kenosha History Center   has told me the town was very forward thinking in  the importance of Education & the Arts early on.  I also had heard his oldest sister Julia had attended a Music College in Chicago... but other stories put her at Julliard.  So where do you go looking?  Well I did start listening to Lou Rugani on WLIP radio in Kenosha online.  I hear Lou is the go to person for alot of the area history including the Music which he himself is involved.  Hope to have a chat with him one day,  give his show a listen, "Remembering Kenosha" during the week, and "Music of the Stars" on Sunday morning.

I just left Chicago alone and time has taken care of bringing new clues.  Last month I contacted Bradford High again as I had misplaced the copy of the student registration card they had sent me years ago.  I got lucky and JoAnn H. contacted me back with a record she had located for John.  It wasn't the one from years before,  but a transcript of his studies, and yes... he was taking Band.  It showed that he had enrolled there on October 7th, 1930 with his records being transferred from Baldwin High School in Florida. This in itself was great because no one in the family knew he went to High School in Baldwin as he had been on his own since about age 16.  Story was John stayed behind in a town where he had a job at a drug store when his father once again packed the family up to move.

From Kenosha it seems John left Bradford High on April 18th, 1932 the file noting "sophomore to Florida". It isn't clear whether he went back to Florida, but any Snowbird will tell you that one doesn't fly south to Florida in May.  Maybe you head to Chicago for the summer and maybe do something  involving the 1933 World's Fair. The new school record did show me this...  On February 15, 1933 John enrolled in Nicholas Senn High School  in Chicago. Take note of an Alumni of Senn at the link who would have graduated about 1948/49, he shares a few common associates that have been mentioned on this website.

I would say John picked one of the best high schools in the area for its music programs.  Although some of the Austin High Alumni would probably say their school put out a fine group of musicians across town. I have just mailed off the forms to Chicago Board of Education to see what they might dig up in their records and the School opens next week so you can bet I will be making contact with the head of the Music Department to see what was happening there in 1933.  I know year books existed as I have requested an online company to check the ones they have from 32 to 36, who knows what they will find and what kind of dollars they will be wanting me to pay for the stuff if they do locate it.   So to my, Chicago Alumni & readers only second in numbers to John's followers in New York.... do me a favor and check yearbooks for John in 1933 & 34.  He also might have been enrolled as a night student. as he was 20 - 21 years old.  But my own grandmother didn't graduate until age 20, and she still went to college & taught school for 40 years.

Just down the L from Senn High was the Aragon Ballroom with its easy access to the residents of Chicago, where in a six day week it wasn't uncommon for 18,000 patrons to enjoy the Bands. Right nearby was The Green Mill Jazz Club  from which it is said,  Al Capone could walk from via an underground tunnel to enter the Aragon's basement. The Uptown area had the Uptown & Rivera Theaters and just down the L on N.Broadway was the Arcadia Ballroom .

This all puts John near the music of Goodman , the Dorsey's, and all the Big Bands of the day.  But it wasn't just these Modern Day musician's influence he was near to in Chicago. His older sister Julia had probably helped draw him north as  she  attended Chicago Music College. In 1928, Rudolph Ganz returned after being the the Director of the St. Louis Orchestra to teach & become the longtime Director of the school.

 
John's son who I recently made contact with shared a childhood memory with me of his father playing the piano as another man stood next to it singing "Opera Music".  Could it have been that John's original goal was to be a Classical Composer & Arranger of Music?  Even thought he was very talented on Sax, Clarinet & Piano his family has always said his focus was not about being a performing musician... but about creating Music. I do believe there is a difference in the two... especially for an individual whose musical mind is always playing.

So as you can read we are just at the begin of our journey
into Chicago and all that was happening in the early thirties.

MUSIC BUSINESS UPDATE:
And because it seems fitting to talk about payoffs and Chicago of the 30's in the same breath.

Another childhood memory from his son was men coming in the house and counting out rolls of money for music papers. This would have been after his return from California, where it seems he was left unemployed in 1946 by  maybe some of the same men that came to see him before the end of 1948.

Why am I not amazed at this memory... seems perfectly fitting for what I have learned about the Music business of years past.  Today it is done with more class... a nice corporate check through a third party.

On a brighter note... Two cousins met in person this past week for the first time in 70 years.  John Forrest shared with my Mother that the last visit he had with his father at age 8 was going fishing with cane poles near Port Washington, New York.  I think that memory alone... would give reason for a father to think of a son in the last years of his life.