Harlem Jazz Adventures

Timme Rosenkrantz

doi:10.5771/9780810879782

Summary

Timme Rosenkrantz (1911–1969) was a Danish journalist, author, concert and record producer, radio show host, and entrepreneur with a consuming passion for jazz and little head for business. Known in Denmark and New York as the “Jazz Baron” because of his noble lineage, he was the first European journalist to cover the jazz scene in Harlem. Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934–1969 recounts Rosenkrantz’s happy years in New York City, where he would produce jazz concerts, record top musicians and bands in his midtown apartment, organize a “dream band” for Timme Rosenkrantz and His Barrelhouse Barons, a 1938 RCA Victor recording, (DL) live in Harlem and run a record shop with his life companion, journalist and singer Inez Cavanaugh. A good friend of jazz impresario John Hammond, Rosenkrantz would become the James Boswell of the Harlem jazz scene. Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday—there wasn’t a New York jazz musician unknown to “Honeysuckle Rosenkrantz,” as christened by Fats Waller. Drawing on the published Danish-language original Dus med Jazzen, and an unpublished English free translation (DL) by Rosenkrantz and Cavanaugh, translator-adapter Fradley Hamilton Garner gives polish and context to Rosenkrantz’s stories of meetings with Cecile and Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Eddie Condon, Erroll Garner—whom Rosenkrantz discovered and was first to record—and many others. This book is a must-have for jazz lovers. Social historians interested in the intersection of race and the music business will find in Rosenkrantz’s memoir an invaluable primary source on Harlem’s social scene and its musical legacy.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2012
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8108-8209-6
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8108-7978-2
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 298
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Preview No access
3. I Remember Timme No access
4. Tusind Tak No access
5. A Word from the Adapter No access
6. Now I’ve Done It No access
1. Chapter 1. Get Off at 125th Street, and God Be with You No access
2. Chapter 2. Don Redman Sparks the Apollo, John Hammond Offers a Tour No access
3. Chapter 3. Stompin’ at the Savoy to Mighty Chick Webb No access
4. Chapter 4. Take Off Those Shades, We Know Who You Are! No access
5. Chapter 5. Scat Master Leo Watson Zaps It with “Z-o-o-o-t!” No access
6. Chapter 6. From Met Opera to Empire Ballroom—and Benny Carter No access
7. Chapter 7. At the Shim Sham, a Date with Young Billie Holiday No access
8. Chapter 8. Jake Vandermeulen Loses Everything but His Shorts No access
9. Chapter 9. At Beefsteak Charlie’s, There’s Adrian Rollini No access
10. Chapter 10. Who Said Danish Baron? Why, He’s Just a Gigolo! No access
11. Chapter 11. “My Technique Terrifies Me!” Says Willie “The Lion” Smith No access
12. Chapter 12. Art Tatum Is Down at Basement Brown’s! No access
13. Chapter 13. To Fats Waller with Love, Honeysuckle Rosenkrantz No access
14. Chapter 14. Mezz Mezzrow Puts Timme on a Little Pink Cloud No access
15. Chapter 15. Canceled: Josh Billings’s Greenwich Village Gig No access
16. Chapter 16. At Timme’s Farewell Party, Fats Waller Takes a Bath No access
1. Chapter 17. Checking Out Harlem’s Other Halls of Pleasure No access
2. Chapter 18. Voutie! Slim and Slam, Wow! Inez Cavanaugh No access
3. Chapter 19. Plugging a Tune to W. C. Handy, Cutting a Record for RCA Victor No access
4. Chapter 20. Louis Armstrong Kick-Starts the Mel-O-Dee Music Shop No access
5. Chapter 21. Harry “Father” White, Jitter Bugs, and Bill Coleman’s Band No access
6. Chapter 22. Turning Off the Lights at Mel-O-Dee Music Shop No access
7. Chapter 23. A Danish Nobel Laureate Digs Harlem by Night No access
8. Chapter 24. Eddie Condon and That Good Ol’ Nicksieland No access
9. Chapter 25. There Is Just One King, and He Is the Duke No access
10. Chapter 26. Here Lived Diamond Jim Brady and Jazz Baron Rosenkrantz No access
11. Chapter 27. The Stupendous “Stuff ” of Jazz, Leroy Gordon (Hezekiah) Smith No access
12. Chapter 28. Discovering, Befriending, Recording Erroll Garner No access
13. Chapter 29. A Great, Big, Fat White Christmas ’44 No access
14. Chapter 30. Timme’s Recording Service and Threatened Jazz Concert No access
15. Chapter 31. Zeb Julian’s Dream and Claude Thornhill’s Joke No access
16. Chapter 32. Bud Powell Plays Not Being There No access
17. Chapter 33. Jam Sessions Outlawed? Come to Café Bohemia! No access
18. Chapter 34. Tatum Leads a Black Sheep into Piano Battle at Ruben’s No access
19. Chapter 35. A Last Record Session and Tour of Haunts No access
20. Chapter 36. Coleman Hawkins: The Picasso of Jazz No access
Epilogue: The Song Has Ended, but the Melody Lingers On No access Pages 217 - 220
Resources No access Pages 221 - 226
Discography No access Pages 227 - 270
Discography Song Index No access Pages 271 - 276
Discography Musician Index No access Pages 277 - 282
General Index No access Pages 283 - 298