Chapter 12 - A Jazz Origin Myth

Summary

Among the most notorious outlaws in the history of New Orleans is a runaway slave who lost an arm in a skirmish with the police, through which he earned the nickname that means “severed arm.” His career is visible in detail in the historical record but migrated into folklore and, in turn, literary works of various kinds, ultimately to form the basis of Sidney Bechet’s vision of the origins of jazz. Many supposed that he had supernatural powers, and his exploits as an entertainer in Congo Square in the antebellum period are the basis, for Bechet, of the expressive traditions that ultimately took shape as the city’s most significant cultural contribution to the world.