William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf could fight.
Born in 1893 to a Black mother and a Jewish father, Willie studied Hebrew, spoke Yiddish and even had a bar mitzvah. He loved ragtime music and wanted to learn how to play the piano. Because of his boxing skills, he eventually became one of only two Black kids in an all-Jewish gang in Newark, N.J. By the time Willie was 16, he’d dropped out of the gang, got a job and bought a piano.
In 1914, while playing in Newark, he met the classically trained gospel pianist, James Johnson, who was performing with his wife. Born in New Brunswick, N.J., Johnson began studying with classically trained musicians at 15 to learn technique, music theory, harmony, composition, counterpoint, instrumentation and orchestration. His life’s goal was to create a catalog that would “tell the story of the distinctive role of his race in the mosaic of America’s ethnic heritage.”
Willie and James met a vaudeville musician who was on their level, Ferdinand Lemott. Because Lemott grew up in New Orleans and learned the piano in a brothel, he couldn’t read music. Still, he could play anything by ear, including ragtime, blues, gospel and his own genre of R-rated songs about how much he loved sex.
The self-taught former gangsta, the classically trained virtuoso and the pimp who loved women became fast friends. And because Willie could speak Yiddish, Jewish nightclub owners in New York hired the three friends to play everything from classical music to ragtime in Jewish-owned nightclubs around the city. To be fair, two of Willie’s childhood friends from his old gang probably helped them get a lot of those gigs…
Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano.
Together, the three began developing a new style of playing ragtime called “stride piano” that incorporated Willie’s ragtime style, James’ classical training and Ferdinand’s New Orleans vaudeville. The trio combined their talents for another hustle—composing dozens of piano-roll compositions for a company called Aeolian, which would reproduce the songs on perforated sheets for automatic player pianos. Other musicians, even classical musicians, would learn their songs, mimic their style note-for-note and play them in classical competitions. Soon, Willie, Ferdinand and James’ music was being played at clubs where Black musicians couldn’t play, like the famed Reisenweber’s Cafe in Manhattan.
When World War II broke out, Willie enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a decorated war hero with the Buffalo Soldiers’ famed 350th Field Artillery unit. He even formed a band with his fellow soldiers. With no connection to Willie’s gangster friends to book gigs, James began composing musicals, ballets, operas and symphonies.
Ferdinand eventually returned to pimping while writing songs for a gospel group led by—I kid you not—one of the original Fisk Jubilee singers. He recorded a song that was a modest hit about a euphemism for vagaina. He moved to California to work with a bandleader and then to Canada.
Meanwhile, the music they developed became the new craze. It was so popular that Reisenweber’s Cafe found an all-white band to impersonate the Black musicians’ sound. When the war ended, Willie returned home to find everybody playing like him and Willie. But no one called it stride music. Many of the white stride musicians had no idea who Willie was.
His homeboys did.
Still, Willie wanted the musicians to put some respect on his name. He began cutting in on his bandmates’ solos during performances to show his skills. Even when he went to auditions, jam sessions and parties, Willie would hold a musical freestyle competition of skills that became known as a “cutting contest” or “cutting session.”
This is the origin story of every guitar solo, drum solo or sax solo you’ve ever heard. Perhaps the most legendary cutting session story of all time comes from Rex Stewart’s book Jazz Masters of the 1930s.
One night, a bunch of legendary young musicians were sitting around after a show at New York’s Rhythm Club when an old man walked in and announced that he was ready for any turkey who was willing to challenge him. Usually, the musicians were ready for a cutting contest. But sensing there was something different about this guy, no one was willing to engage in the stranger’s offer for a cutting contest.
Ferdinand was back from Canada.
While Ferdinand continued bragging and berating the young musicians, the band’s popular pianist made a phone call. As the stranger performed an improvised virtuoso performance, the door burst open. "Either play something or get up, you heathen!” a voice yelled into the club. “The Lion is in port, and it's my mood to roar!" He literally pushed Ferdinand off the stool and, without breaking the rhythm or the melody, continued playing Ferdinand’s song that did not exist.
It was Willie.
As news of this legendary cutting contest traveled all across the city, every musician came to watch. Ferdinand was gaining a slight advantage when the door burst open again. A well-dressed musician who looked as if he’d never set foot in a jazz club walked in and suggested they take the party to another music venue. “Let’s go down to the Hoofers,” he stuttered. “They have a better piano and I’ll en-entertain you.”
It was James.
“As I recall, there were about sixty or seventy cats in the ‘second line’ on that occasion,” wrote Stewart. “History was made as James P. wiped up the floor with [Ferdinand]. Never before or since have I heard such piano playing!”
What’s the point of this story?
In 1917, when Willie went off to war and Ferdinand went to California, Reisenweber’s Cafe hired an all-white ragtime group from New Orleans called the Original Dixieland Jass Band. But since the patrons at Reisenweber’s had already heard stride music, they didn’t want to hear that white nonsense. Thankfully, the club had some of those old Aeolian player piano rolls, which the white band used to learn stride music. The white band became so big that they earned different record deals.
In 1917, they recorded “Tiger Rag” for Aeolian and “Livery Stable Blues” for Victor Records…
The Library of Congress notes:
What is generally acknowledged as the first recording of jazz was released. “Livery Stable Blues,” performed by the Original Dixieland Jass Band was a best-selling record for Victor, but is a problematic “first” as it is a recording of a white band performing an African American genre. There was a copyright lawsuit concerning authorship of the piece. But worse, far from crediting the New Orleans African American musicians they learned from, these young musicians claimed to have “invented” jazz.
To be fair, Ferdinand Lemott changed his last name to prevent his family from being disgraced by his vagina song, the “Jelly Roll Blues.” William changed his last name to Smith after his stepfather. And James Johnson left the genre to write symphonies and compose music with his friend, George Gershwin.
Still, everyone agrees “Jelly Roll” Morton, Willie “the Lion” Smith, and James P. Johnson invented the style of music that white people called “jazz.” Other Black musicians did the rest.
This story is about Jack Harlow.
Thank you KJ Kearney, Tashara Parker, Bryant "BeMo" Brown, Lazy&Golden🌱, Tai Goodwin, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join us on Fridays for The Wake-Up Call Live.
Today’s Reading List:
An Open Letter to Post Malone by Michael Harriot
A Pianist with Harlem on his Mind by David Schiff
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Queer Black Woman Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll by Michael Harriot
Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture by Greg Tate
