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 while searching for more information.  I've found out now that I am only at the beginning of my journey into John's life & influences in Chicago.  This will be an ongoing post with additions & edits, but I think I might find more answers if I open the door to input from people 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. Locals know the school as Mary "Bradford High".  They had a registration card on file for John with his local Kenosha address and his father's name & address in Florida.  Other than a 1932 date and a note saying he left the school as a sophomore, there was nothing else to go on.  For many years, I was stuck, not knowing why a young man who had been living in Florida in the 1920s was now near Chicago.  But even though he was in Kenosha, I knew then he was just a commuter train ride from Chicago, where the Music surely was. A big new theater was 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 about the importance of education and the Arts early on.  I also heard his oldest sister, Julia, attended a Music College in Chicago... but other stories put her at Juilliard.  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 a lot of the area's history, including the music he's involved in.  Hope to 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 brought new clues.  Last month, I contacted Bradford High again because I had misplaced the copy of the student registration card they sent me years ago.  I got lucky, and JoAnn H. got back to me 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 he enrolled on October 7th, 1930, with his records transferred from Baldwin High School in Florida. This 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.  The story was that John stayed behind in a town where he worked at a drug store when his father once again packed up the family 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 you don'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 alumnus of Senn at the link who would have graduated around 1948/49; he shares a few common associates mentioned on this website.

I would say John picked one of the best high schools in the area for its music programs.  Some Austin High Alumni would probably say their school put out a fine group of musicians across town. I just mailed the forms to the Chicago Board of Education to see what they can dig up in their records, and the School opens next week, so you can bet I will be contacting the head of the Music Department to see what was happening there in 1933.  I know yearbooks existed, so I asked an online company to check the ones they have from 32 to 36; who knows what they will find, or what kind of dollars they'll want me to pay if they do locate it.   So, to my Chicago alumni and readers only second in number to John's followers in New York... do me a favor and check John's yearbooks for  1933 & 34.  He might also have been enrolled as a night student, since 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 easy access for Chicago residents, 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 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 Dorseys, and all the Big Bands of the day.  But he wasn't only near these modern-day musicians'   influence in Chicago. His older sister, Julia, probably helped draw him north, as she attended Chicago Music College. In 1928, Rudolph Ganz returned after serving as director of the St. Louis Orchestra to teach & become the school's longtime director.

 
John's son, whom I recently contacted, shared a childhood memory of his father playing the piano while another man stood beside it singing "Opera Music".  Could it have been that John's original goal was to be a classical composer and arranger?  Even though he was very talented on Sax, clarinet, and piano, his family has always said his focus was not about being a performing musician... but about creating Music. I believe there is a difference between the two... especially for someone whose musical mind is always playing.

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

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

Another childhood memory from his son was men coming into 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 told my Mother that his last visit with his father, at age 8, was going fishing with cane poles near Port Washington, New York.  I think that memory alone... would give a father reason to think of a son in the last years of his life.