[78-L] Musicians and drug use (was) Charlie Shavers and

[Geoffrey Wheeler]

Cary Ginell says: “Just because you didn't see much of it doesn't mean 
it wasn't there. Drugs pervade every aspect of our society. You are 
right that jazz should not be singled out as being equated with drug 
use, but for many groups, especially in the bop world, it was the norm 
and not the exception.”

When I related my story about my school paper on drug use, I should 
have specified I had boppers and some of the then modernists in mind. 
Not for nothing are Blue Note, Prestige, and, to some extent, Riverside 
referred to as “junky” labels because of the number of drug users that 
recorded for those respective labels. When I was in high school and 
worked out at the “Y,” I had a drummer friend who also worked out 
there. He had graduated from high school ahead of me and was working in 
the music business in Boston, mainly cocktail lounges. He would tell me 
how many bop-oriented musicians he had met that were users of hard 
drugs and name some. Dick Twardzik, who I heard play a few times, was 
NOT one of them, but the drummer who toured and recorded with Chet 
Baker reportedly was.

When I went to live in New York City in 1958 after graduating from 
college, I  encountered many jazz musicians who had been or were 
currently drug users. Some who were not shooting up were using Cocinol, 
a codeine-based cough medicine. There was a drug store near Birdland 
where they would pop in, buy a bottle, then go down the nearest Subway 
stairs so they were not visible from the street, and drink up. Again, 
these were the bop or post-bop musicians. At the time, I assumed 
because I did not know otherwise, that this could not be said about 
most working musicians, including dance bands, or earlier jazz players, 
some of whom drank, smoked, or both. Mezz Mezzrow was noted for being a 
pot seller with his own “Mezz Roll,”  which reportedly made him more 
popular with fellow musicians than his playing.

Fortunately, today’s musician is not only better trained and more 
experienced in playing a variety of musics, but also more health 
conscious when it comes to diet, exercise, life style, and awareness 
that one’s success in the business of music and in life depends on 
taking proper care of one’s body and mind! A friend was who writing a 
bio-discography of Bud Shank, told me when he went the rounds, no 
publishers were interested because Bud was not only a brilliant, 
accomplished musician, but most important—went home at night and lived 
an otherwise boring “straight” life with his family. Some publishers 
want sensationalism to sell books and this is why Ross Russell’s book 
“Bird Lives” on Charlie Parker is partly novelized to make it “sell.” I 
asked Ross and he agreed that was the case. During the late 1950s, I 
used to see the graffiti words “Bird Lives” on subway walls. But my 
favorite was a poster that said “Support Mental Health” on which 
someone had added “Or I’ll Kill You!”