The Sad Story of Mildred Bailey

There were nights years ago when one of the country’s oldest undergraduate literary societies, Philolexian by name, took to jazz. A few of us had the records, and there was always a phonograph to be borrowed.

Some of the members tended to think of Clyde McCoy’s “Sugar Blues” as the real razz-ma-tazz —which it was, but they didn’t know what the word meant so they were happy. Those of us who loved jazz insisted on the old Armstrong records, then being rediscovered, or Duke Ellington, or the little pick-up bands which made the middle and late thirties know that memorable. We were full of arguments as to the nature and meaning of jazz— fervent debates on the merits of white versus Negro style, of the loose New Orleans beat versus the four-four pounding of the big swing bands.

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Ralph de Toledano

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There were nights years ago when one of the country’s oldest undergraduate literary societies, Philolexian by name, took to jazz. A few of us had the records, and there was always a phonograph to be borrowed.

Some of the members tended to think of Clyde McCoy’s “Sugar Blues” as the real razz-ma-tazz —which it was, but they didn’t know what the word meant so they were happy. Those of us who loved jazz insisted on the old Armstrong records, then being rediscovered, or Duke Ellington, or the little pick-up bands which made the middle and late thirties know that memorable. We were full of arguments as to the nature and meaning of jazz— fervent debates on the merits of white versus Negro style, of the loose New Orleans beat versus the four-four pounding of the big swing bands.