Published: 2 December 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
A new book exposes a dark underside of the music industry, showing how mob-adjacent Jews fought segregation while exploiting the talent.
“Jazz Provides Background for Death,” screamed the Associated Press headline following the January 26, 1959, murder of Irving Levy at Birdland in New York. Levy was the manager of the popular jazz venue, located near the burgeoning musical mecca of West 52nd Street. His brother, Mo Levy, owned the club.
The Levy brothers grew up in a struggling Jewish family. Eventually, they ran one of the hottest jazz clubs in the country, named after one of the genre’s biggest stars, Charlie “Bird” Parker.
On the fateful night, Birdland was filled to its 500-person capacity. Irving Levy confronted an uninvited guest — a man he claimed was a pimp escorting a prostitute. The man fatally stabbed Levy, who bled to death as the Urbie Green Big Band continued playing.
This is a seminal moment from a new book that explores a complicated historical relationship, “Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld,” by veteran crime writer T.J. English.
The book tells a complex tale about race and immigration in America. On the one hand, there were the largely Black jazz luminaries such as Parker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday who dazzled onstage while facing racial discrimination. On the other hand, there were the Mob-connected figures with immigrant roots — Jewish, Italian and Irish — who ran many of the nightclubs that featured jazz stars.
The lawless club owners were surprisingly effective at protecting Black talent against the racial violence of the era, but they also took advantage of the musicians and abided by the Jim Crow laws of the era. Even in Harlem, where Duke Ellington created some of English’s favourite jazz music, there were segregated audiences.
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Jewish organised crime made jazz noteworthy – but left Black musicians flat (Times of Israel)
Photo: Max Kaminsky, Lester Young, Hot Lips Page, Charlie Parker and Lennie Tristano at Birdland in 1949 (Birdland Club)
