1940s DC, Jazz and the Turkish Connection: The Ahmet Ertegun Story By Ayse Sumer, Photographs Courtesy of Atlantic Records Archive & Ayse Sumer My interview with the Chairman and founder of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun took place a week before the holiday season in December. I was very much looking forward to this meeting, as it would be my first time to meet Mr. Ertegun. Before going up to New York, I read his newly published book “What’d I Say” The Atlantic Story 50 Years of Music -- a fascinating book and a tour de force of the history of music. It’s especially enlightening for those who are interested in the history of African-American music. The book was put together and published by his godson, a part-time publisher. “To an extent, the history of Atlantic Records mirrors the history of those times.” Ahmet Ertegun The American Friends of Turkey and American-Turkish Council wanted to take this opportunity to honor the man who made jazz and the musicians’ legends in their own right. The entrance to the offices at Atlantic Records HQ in Manhattan is similar to a TV studio with the many TV screens showing performer video clips on the wall behind the receptionist. I was ushered into the conference room where I set up my equipment. Although he had some health problems recently, Mr. Ertegun looked very fit and was very much the gentleman as he kindly gave me over two hours of his time. The main purpose of this interview was to get the background story about the early days when Ertegun came here together with his father who was appointed as the Turkish Ambassador to the United States in 1934. Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun were brothers who were instrumental in putting together the first integrated concert in Washington, and bringing to the forefront American black music and its influence on all forms of modern music. In the beginning they did this purely out of love and interest in music. I hope you will enjoy reading this fascinating and wonderful story as much as I enjoyed writing it. The history of Atlantic Records is a history that spans over the years. So I shall start from the beginning. Ahmet Ertegun was 12 years old when he came to the United States in 1935. He attended a prep school in Washington, DC and upon graduation went on to St. John’s College in Annapolis. He attained his Graduate degree in Philosophy from Georgetown University. His older brother Nesuhi Ertegun was studying at the Sorbonne University, Paris, but at the break of WWII in 1938 he joined his family in Washington, DC. “I was initiated to jazz music at a young age by my brother Nesuhi. When my father was the Ambassador in England, my brother took me to the Palladium, a big variety hall theater where we went to hear Cab Calloway and his orchestra, and later Duke Ellington. These were very, very moving experiences for me. We later became great friends with Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway. Our growing net of friends in the industry included jazz musicians such as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, most of whom were not Atlantic artists. The musician in the family was my mother. She played many instruments, she really loved Turkish music. She was also a very good singer. At times she would play American music with the Turkish instruments or on the piano in a way that sounded like Turkish music. My father was not musical at all and did not care for music, but he was a very liberal and just man and enjoyed meeting our friends.” On life in Washington, DC and jazz music: Washington, DC during the 1940s was totally segregated. It is very hard to conceive of this today, but in those days there were no department stores that would allow black people in as customers, no restaurants, no movie houses or theaters with white patrons. Black people could not go to clubs that whites frequented. It was only in burlesque theaters, looked down upon by everyone, where people like Gypsy Rosalee played, with strip shows, burlesque comedy, a type of vaudeville that had an integrated audience. In these, one could see blacks but only in the balconies. It was always segregated. That was the closest to where any contact between the whites and the blacks took place. I was very much involved with the black culture due to my interest in jazz music, I spent a lot of time looking for recordings of music, and became interested in the black theaters where a lot of the jazz musicians played. My brother Nesuhi and I befriended many of the people who were as interested in jazz music as we were. The black professors at the Howard University especially the Dean of the School of English Literature Sterling Brown, a very important novelist who wrote the famous book, The Southern Rogue, as well as several other faculty members, were our friends. We also were closely associated with the black intelligencia and members of the Washington black society. Our common interest in jazz brought all of us together. These people were frequent guests of ours at the Turkish Embassy. During those days it was very unusual to see black people in white neighborhoods unless they worked there. We had many parties at the Embassy. Every Sunday we had open lunch for friends. All the jazz enthusiasts would come over. Whichever band was in town such as the members of Duke Ellingtons group, or Louis Armstrong; they would come to play. It came to everyones attention that we had black people coming over as guests to the Turkish Embassy. It was not the custom to have black people enter from the front door. So one day my father received a note from a Southern Senator who said that it was a custom in America for black people to enter a house from the back door of a white persons house. My father wrote back saying that his credo was learned by living in a tekke, a religious halfway house, where their motto is that all human beings entered from the front door and that continued in his house. People were not distinguished by their color or creed, all human beings enter from the front door and that continues in this house, our house. Everyone then understood and accepted the status quo. I remember that I would usually be a minority. People knew of my interest in jazz and thus association with the black communities. At that time, I dated a girl whose father was a navy admiral. Always the question of color came up in our conversations. The admiral once told me that blacks were happier living on their own, just as white folks were happier with the separation, and nobody wanted to mix. I responded by saying that they may not wish to live with whites, but they definitely wanted to be given equal access to the same opportunities, rights and similar living conditions as all Americans. Blacks were relegated in every way to a lesser life than whites. It took a long time to overcome this state. 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement made a lot of difference. Also, to a great extend the end of WWII was the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The black soldiers who fought in the war were not prepared to come back home and accept the indignities they suffered before the war. The story of the first integrated concert in Washington, DC: Two young Turkish men, Moslems, organized the first integrated concert that was held at a Jewish center; music played by a mixed jazz orchestra and with a mixed audience. A definite historical feat to be remembered! “As our friendship with jazz giants such as Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne grew; we came up with the idea of holding the first integrated concert in Washington. It became very difficult to find a place to stage this concert event in Washington. In the end the Jewish community center was the only place that allowed a mixed audience and a mixed band. We had black and white musicians on stage, and an integrated audience. The musicians who played that night consisted of Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, Pee Wee Russell, Sidney Bechet and others. Our MC was Willie Bryant, who took on this role for some of the other concerts my brother and I staged in DC. After that concert the National Press Club broke down and let us use their auditorium for our future concerts.” The arrest in Annapolis: The incident in Annapolis was something that happened all the time. Annapolis at that time was an old Southern town with strong traditional attitudes. We often went to the black clubs there. One night as we came out of the club, we were arrested by a couple of policemen. They took us to the courthouse. I asked the judge what crime I had committed. He told me that we broke the Jim Crow law. When I asked what law was that and where it was written, he told me nowhere. Apparently, it was a law understood by everyone. He said that we had disturbed his night by having him come all the way to the courthouse. It was just an example of the attitudes of the day. When he found out that I was the son of a diplomat, he released us. This was nothing compared to the great indignities that the black people were put through in those days. To a great extent the South was the worst in its treatment of black people. Segregation was the strongest in states like Mississippi and Alabama. I hate to tell you this but similar incident and treatments took place in liberal cities such as New York and Boston, where you would expect a greater mixture of races. This attitude has not totally dissipated yet. The other day someone said that there is a great deal of integration today. Yes, there is the Budweiser commercial, but I still do not see black & white workers celebrating or having a party together. We are still living in a segregated society in America. It is not enforced as it was in the old days, but it is by choice on both sides. It will take a long time for people to get used to the idea of communicating with one other. The start of Atlantic Records: I was 22 when my father died. I was very intent on doing something with music, so I started Atlantic Records. I borrowed $10,000 from my dentist Dr. Vahdi Sabit. He became a partner with a 50% interest. I had never worked in my life and had no idea about business, only about music. My other partner was Herb Abramson, who had more knowledge of business. Six years after we started we bought out Dr. Sabits shares. My original partner went into the army, and I brought in Jerry Wexler and my brother Nesuhi who was living in California and owned his own jazz company. We were successful and we grew. The music we made filled a void. We had no real strong competition that specialized in the music that America loved real American music. Until that time, America was fed movie music and European music, not the music they really wanted. We believed we knew the music they wanted. That music became Rhythm and Blues, Rock & Roll, Rap, and the Hip-Hop of today. The history of Atlantic & the history of today are really wrapped up in the lives of the great musicians and singers who we had the good fortune to be associated with. We grew and expended into other genres of music. Soul artists such as Aretha Franklin contrasted on the other side Bobby Darren, who was one of the first Grammy winners. We also signed musicians such as Buffalo Sprinfield, out of which grew Crosby Stills Nash & Young. The British invasion came with Eric Clapton and Cream, Yes, Bee Gees, Emerson Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, and then Led Zeppelin, the strongest influenced R&R band today. We had Rolling Stones for 15 years and Abba and Genesis, out of which came Phil Collins. Now we have Plant and Page (Robert & Jimmy respectively). On Turkish and other Ethnic music and musicians: As Italian, Spanish and Hungarian music, Turkish music is beautiful. Most of this music does not travel, it is very popular in their own country of origin. On the other hand, as soon as it was heard in the 1920s, American Black music became the music of the world. During the 1920s and onward, everyone danced to the foxtrot, Charleston, bunny hop, and jazz bands. The jazz bands were either black or imitations of black music. With the advent of swing music, musicians such as Benny Goodman imitated big black orchestras. Elvis Presley and the Beatles arrived and they imitated Chuck Berry, Ray Charles etc. Once in a while music travels out of its origins like the Bosa Nova or Reggae. Nowadays there is great interest in oriental music especially in Central Europe. Tarkan is one of them. His Turkish records were very successful. You cannot make talent it’s just there. We only just record it. The fans and listeners will tell you if you are great. When 10,000 people ask you to sing again and again, that is something. On the tragic events of September 11 and the war against terrorism: I think that there are a lot of terrible governments in the world today. There are dictators who believe in things that are anti-modernists and against democracy. I think that the American way of valuing democracy, free trade, justice, equality and freedom are very important. These ideals must be taught to young people. Young people can be brainwashed and forced to believe in all sorts of things, but are also prone to loving certain movies, actors, music and dancing they are exposed to on the television. We saw the blue jean, hamburger, fast food and Rock & Roll explosion. This is what eventually will topple those governments, as it toppled the communist states and dictators who are the perpetrators of injustice throughout the world. In addition, change comes from young people espousing the values associated with these cultural changes. Whether people like it or not, the world is becoming more modern each day. It is with education, freedom of thought and communication that we will continue to achieve this ideal. Dictators will be eradicated through communication and a love of Rock & Roll developing in a previously “closed” society. This is one of the symptoms of this wonderful re-awakening of the world.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:50:29 +0000
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