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Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs
The gripping story of the rise of early drug culture in America, from the author of the acclaimed Can't Find My Way Home
With an intricate storyline that unites engaging characters and themes and reads like a novel, Bop Apocalypse details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new and revolutionary segment of the American social fabric.
Drawing upon his rich decades of writing experience, master storyteller Martin Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Reefer Madness , Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the coming of heroin to Harlem. Aficionados of jazz, the Beats, counterculture, and drug history will all find much to enjoy here, with a cast of characters that includes vivid and memorable depictions of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jackie McLean, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Borroughs, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, Terry Southern, and countless others.
Bop Apocalypse is also a living history that teaches us much about the conflicts and questions surrounding drugs today, casting many contemporary issues in a new light by connecting them back to the events of this transformative era. At a time when marijuana legalization is rapidly becoming a reality, it takes us back to the advent of marijuana prohibition, when the templates of modern drug law, policy, and culture were first established, along with the concomitant racial stereotypes. As a new opioid epidemic sweeps through white working- and middle-class communities, it brings us back to when heroin first arrived on the streets of Harlem in the 1940s. And as we debate and grapple with the gross racial disparities of mass incarceration, it puts into sharp and provocative focus the racism at the very roots of our drug war.
Having spent a lifetime at the nexus of drugs and music, Torgoff reveals material never before disclosed and offers new insights, crafting and contextualizing Bop Apocalypse into a truly novel contribution to our understanding of jazz, race, literature, drug culture, and American social and cultural history.
With an intricate storyline that unites engaging characters and themes and reads like a novel, Bop Apocalypse details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new and revolutionary segment of the American social fabric.
Drawing upon his rich decades of writing experience, master storyteller Martin Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, the Savoy Ballroom, Reefer Madness , Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the coming of heroin to Harlem. Aficionados of jazz, the Beats, counterculture, and drug history will all find much to enjoy here, with a cast of characters that includes vivid and memorable depictions of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jackie McLean, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Borroughs, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke, Terry Southern, and countless others.
Bop Apocalypse is also a living history that teaches us much about the conflicts and questions surrounding drugs today, casting many contemporary issues in a new light by connecting them back to the events of this transformative era. At a time when marijuana legalization is rapidly becoming a reality, it takes us back to the advent of marijuana prohibition, when the templates of modern drug law, policy, and culture were first established, along with the concomitant racial stereotypes. As a new opioid epidemic sweeps through white working- and middle-class communities, it brings us back to when heroin first arrived on the streets of Harlem in the 1940s. And as we debate and grapple with the gross racial disparities of mass incarceration, it puts into sharp and provocative focus the racism at the very roots of our drug war.
Having spent a lifetime at the nexus of drugs and music, Torgoff reveals material never before disclosed and offers new insights, crafting and contextualizing Bop Apocalypse into a truly novel contribution to our understanding of jazz, race, literature, drug culture, and American social and cultural history.
448 pages, Hardcover
Published January 24, 2017
12 people are currently reading
211 people want to read
About the author
Martin Torgoff
7 books2 followersFor more than three decades, Martin Torgoff has been at the forefront of major media trends and cultural currents, documenting and telling the story of America through the evolution of its popular culture. An award-winning journalist, author of prize-winning and best-selling books, documentary filmmaker and Emmy-nominated television writer, director and producer of shows that have been seen by millions, his work has encompassed music, art, film, theater, literature, politics, history, biography, sexuality, sports, sociology, and celebrity culture. As the New Yorker put it, “Martin Torgoff has been writing books and making films about sex, drugs and rock and roll for thirty years.”
Although an expert on the cultural landscape of the baby boom era, Torgoff’s interests range far and wide. His film Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation, produced for VH1, was nominated for Emmys in Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming and Outstanding Achievement in a Craft: Writing. In 2004, he published a landmark work about how illicit drugs have shaped American popular culture, Can’t Find My Way Home: America In the Great Stoned Age, 1945 - 2000 (Simon & Schuster), then turned the book into The Drug Years, an award-winning multi-part documentary series in 2006 that became one of the most successful in the history of VH1. This and another series on the sexual revolution called Sex—The Revolution, a co-production of VH1 and Sundance in which Torgoff also appeared as a principal commentator, established him as a recognized television personality and authority on music and American pop culture, after which he was invited to lecture at Brown University and other colleges.
Although an expert on the cultural landscape of the baby boom era, Torgoff’s interests range far and wide. His film Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation, produced for VH1, was nominated for Emmys in Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming and Outstanding Achievement in a Craft: Writing. In 2004, he published a landmark work about how illicit drugs have shaped American popular culture, Can’t Find My Way Home: America In the Great Stoned Age, 1945 - 2000 (Simon & Schuster), then turned the book into The Drug Years, an award-winning multi-part documentary series in 2006 that became one of the most successful in the history of VH1. This and another series on the sexual revolution called Sex—The Revolution, a co-production of VH1 and Sundance in which Torgoff also appeared as a principal commentator, established him as a recognized television personality and authority on music and American pop culture, after which he was invited to lecture at Brown University and other colleges.
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November 12, 2016
This book begins with the author’s own experience of drug use before looking at the influence of drugs on the evolution of jazz and the relationship between narcotics and the writers, and poets, of the Beat Generation. The book opens in the 1930’s, with the country plunged into Depression, and the birth of jazz in New Orleans. While we hear of how future screenwriter, Terry Southern, and the founder of Jazz label, Stash Records, Bernie Brightman, discovered marijuana; archconservative, Harry J. Anslinger, the Chief of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, preached the evils of the same substance and promised a moral crusade against drugs.
It is clear that, in those early days, drugs were sold fairly openly. Bernie Brightman recalled smoking joints in Harlem dance halls, while there were even famous sellers, such as Mezz Mezzrow. Along with the history of drug use, there is also – of course – the history of the music. Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others. This book not only brings the place, and the era, alive, but gives us biographies of the characters and the music. We then move on to the Beat Generation, with Herbert Huncke (hustler, writer and drug addict and like most of the people that populate these pages, he just has an amazing name as a matter of course), Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.
This book will appeal to music buffs, as well as those interested in history. It takes us through the professional success of many of those involved, as well as the personal cost – and cost there is. What begins optimistically and experimentally, often leads to abuse, addiction and all of the issues that go along with that. While marijuana often led to stronger drugs, such as heroin, the needle marks of addiction was often initially viewed as a declaration of being hip – of rebellion. However, they led to the pain of withdrawal, often combined with the problems of fame and alcoholism. Drug use over the years, which was initially viewed as something fashionable and, even romantic, later become viewed as a plague in the community.
I found this a really fascinating read. The author does a great job of explaining why drug use was so important to this group of musicians and writers. He does not romanticise drug use, but shows the influence it had and why it was so important. I liked the style of the writing too, which combines biography, interviews, history and a good appraisal of the Beat Generation of writers and of music – Jazz, swing and bebop. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
It is clear that, in those early days, drugs were sold fairly openly. Bernie Brightman recalled smoking joints in Harlem dance halls, while there were even famous sellers, such as Mezz Mezzrow. Along with the history of drug use, there is also – of course – the history of the music. Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others. This book not only brings the place, and the era, alive, but gives us biographies of the characters and the music. We then move on to the Beat Generation, with Herbert Huncke (hustler, writer and drug addict and like most of the people that populate these pages, he just has an amazing name as a matter of course), Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.
This book will appeal to music buffs, as well as those interested in history. It takes us through the professional success of many of those involved, as well as the personal cost – and cost there is. What begins optimistically and experimentally, often leads to abuse, addiction and all of the issues that go along with that. While marijuana often led to stronger drugs, such as heroin, the needle marks of addiction was often initially viewed as a declaration of being hip – of rebellion. However, they led to the pain of withdrawal, often combined with the problems of fame and alcoholism. Drug use over the years, which was initially viewed as something fashionable and, even romantic, later become viewed as a plague in the community.
I found this a really fascinating read. The author does a great job of explaining why drug use was so important to this group of musicians and writers. He does not romanticise drug use, but shows the influence it had and why it was so important. I liked the style of the writing too, which combines biography, interviews, history and a good appraisal of the Beat Generation of writers and of music – Jazz, swing and bebop. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
February 1, 2017
Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs is a rather large subject, but author Martin Torgoff soft pedals his main thesis — that drugs were an essential ingredient in the creation of bold new music and literature by black musicians and white writers — with a light touch. Instead of weighing his subject with burdensome cliches, Bop Apocalypse at its best provides is an anecdotal history. It’s a narrative that jumps through time, cutting between jazz musicians and beat writers, in a series of essays and recollections that seek the precise moment when the artists were introduced to drugs and, more emphatically, it attempts to explain how drugs motivated musicians and poets alike to challenge themselves to create new, nerve rattling work. Those expecting a continuous timeline will find this book a bit exasperating, as Torgoff prefers to present his history and his argument in something of a cinematic style, with jump cuts, flashbacks, and fast-forwards. There is the sense that he is attempting an impressionistic approach to how particular events are linked to creating the mythos that has brought about hip culture. It’s a fractured, frustrating but fascinating narrative. Early in the book Torgoff covers the details about the federal criminalization of marijuana, a action initiated by Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Needing a visible symbol of the threat to convince the country of the menace drugs posed, they portrayed African-American jazz musicians as deviants, criminals, and moral reprobates due their drug use. These were the perverts aiming to sully American innocence and lure youth into lives of moral degradation. Later, emerging white writers of the Post War Era discovered the same chemicals, many of whom indulged in them as a means of coping with the crushing conformity of the Eisenhower 1950s. Drugs, whether marijuana, heroin, or various forms of amphetamine, were seen as a means of self discovery that freed poets and painters and playwrights from their inhibitions, allowing them to capsize the old rules and create bold new work in their stead. Anslinger is revealed as the unwitting creator of the modern idea of hip, the aesthetic, the pose, the manner of being that artists have assumed for decades — the idea of artist as outsider, as outlaw, as iconoclast. The American avant garde now had a hook to hang its bulky coat on.
Readers familiar with Beat aesthetics — their emphasis on spontaneity, improvisation, a Zen mindfulness free of distortion and subterfuge — will be relieved as Turnoff goes lightly on the usual apologies made on the Beats behalf. Bop Apocalypse works best when the stories are told of central personalities in the period at crucial moments in their lives. The joy of the book is in the wealth of telling detail, such as those of writer Terry Southern (Candy, Blue Movie, Red Dirt Marijuana) when he discovered pot as a kid, which grew wild on his cousin’s Texas farm, or how saxophonist Charlie Parker was introduced to heroin, or Kerouac blitzing himself in clouds of marijuana while he rattled off On the Road in a spurt of super human productivity.
Miles Davis, Hubert Huncke, John Coltrane, Mezz Mezzrow, Billie Holliday, William Burroughs, Lester Young, and others have their tales told, some details well-known and others likely apocryphal, the scenes from their lives revealing a similar scenario, their respective introduction to pot, heroin, and amphetamines as a means of coping with their marginalized existence and of forcing their wits and instincts to the edge. What is obvious through the book is Torgoff’s premise of drugs being critical to the creation of art at the end of the chapter on Jack Kerouac, making the claim that the greatness many have given to Kerouac’s body of work would have remained unwritten had he not taken up the tea habit. As Kerouac remarks, “I need Miss Green to write; can’t whip up interest in anything otherwise.”
For myself, I’ve always found Kerouac’s fiction and poetry problematic at best, a writer who often mistook breathlessness for beauty, Torgoff’s association of being stoned with quality sounds more than a little day dreamy, likening the author’s body of work as that which would be considered to be “…likened to Proust’s, Melville’s and Shakespeare’s.”This brings to mind something I’d read years ago in a Downbeat magazine interview with jazz guitar virtuoso Joe Pass, talking about his drug addiction and eventually getting clean. The interviewer asked if he thought he was actually better and more imaginative when he was high. Pass offered a cautious answer all the same — that while he couldn’t say he definitely played better, he certainly thought he was playing brilliantly while he was high. I kept this in mind while reading this otherwise engaging and well-researched book and remain convinced that the gift to create music or to write poetry are aspects of a personality that exist separately from drug use.
That someone can produce chorus after chorus of hard bop jazz a la Parker or compose a monumental poetic masterwork, such as Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, has more to do with the talent that’s already in place, not because the drugs aided these artists to their particular style of genius. Torgoff does us the favor, though, of presenting the polemic evenhandedly, although there are times when hyperbole gets the best of him. Raising Kerouac’s literary value to Shakespeare and Proust is an example, as is an incident related in a section about Charlie Parker. An intriguing chapter overall, with the sort of telling details of clubs, cities, characters of interest on the risks they took to pursue an art form on the outskirts of what was considered the American mainstream, Torgoff relates the tale of jazz producer and promoter Norman Granz and his organization of a series of concerts billed as “Jazz at the Philharmonic” in Los Angeles, in 1946. At this period in his brief life, Parker’s behavior was erratic due to the complications of his heroin habit. Parker had barely managed to make it to the West Coast from New York. He quickly disappeared — looking to score drugs in a city where he had no connections — and arrived late for the concert, which had already started. Torgoff writes:
“…having found what he was looking for, he showed up 28 choruses into ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and stepped on the stage to play a chorus that brought the music to a whole new level and the audience to its feet, then he stayed on to play alongside Lester Young on ‘Oh Lady Be Good’ …Bird’s choruses astounded musicians and jazz fans everywhere. Everything he played that night would become part of the basic syntax of jazz…”
This is the kind of over praise even the most ardent admirer winces at, as curious readers are given soft-shouldered platitudes and proclamations instead of colorful, clear, and precise explanations of what the artist is up to, an idea of the tradition that a musician is breaking away from and how he’s creating new music based on the traditions he’s learned from. This is a gift jazz critic Stanley Crouch and Gary Giddens, vividly highlighting artistry and contribution over sensationalism, a subtler approach that Turnoff does not take on. Worse for Bop Apocalypse is the not-so-subtle idea that the artists who matter — the artists who break tradition, create new forms, innovators whose avant garde experiments command respect and influences generations many decades after they’re deceased — have to be chemically deranged in order to have that latent genius become activated and find its fullest and fatal expression. It should be noted that not everyone covered died tragically or fell prey to the foul clutches of permanent addiction — as the biographies of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Ginsberg, and Burroughs attest — but Bop Apocalypse provides a constant suggestion that it’s not enough for committed artists to engage their craft to the best of their ability, but that in doing so one must knowingly risk their lives to achieve a genius level of expression the merely sober amongst us cannot. Torgoff’s underlying premise crystallizes much of what is afoul with the contemporary notion of romanticism, that the kind of lethal idealization of the drug-related deaths of writers and musicians creates an allure that is seductive and wrongheaded. It is, on the face of it, irrational to consider an early and preventable death of an inspired creator as confirmation of their genius.
Torgoff, though, brings a wealth of research to the subject and, despite the periodic wallowing in cliché and unexamined proclamations, creates an entertaining mosaic through an electric period of American history. What the book lacks in supportable thesis or in establishing how these artists actually influence each other’s work is made up for by Targoff’s storytelling skills. Imagine this as a film by Robert Altman at his best, a diffuse but alluring tour of the rich details of an aspect of our legacy we must continue to engage. One does wish, though, that the author avoided the unintended irony of writing about artists who changed the way we think about the world with old ideas that merely reinforce our worst habits of mind.
Martin Torgoff’s generous gifts as a storyteller are superb when he remains with the tale; he is nearly cinematic in his ability to set up a scene and follow the action through. It’s unfortunate that his stories, one after the other, are too often hobbled by his pet theory, an idea that cannot be made compelling regardless of how many times it gets repeated.
Readers familiar with Beat aesthetics — their emphasis on spontaneity, improvisation, a Zen mindfulness free of distortion and subterfuge — will be relieved as Turnoff goes lightly on the usual apologies made on the Beats behalf. Bop Apocalypse works best when the stories are told of central personalities in the period at crucial moments in their lives. The joy of the book is in the wealth of telling detail, such as those of writer Terry Southern (Candy, Blue Movie, Red Dirt Marijuana) when he discovered pot as a kid, which grew wild on his cousin’s Texas farm, or how saxophonist Charlie Parker was introduced to heroin, or Kerouac blitzing himself in clouds of marijuana while he rattled off On the Road in a spurt of super human productivity.
Miles Davis, Hubert Huncke, John Coltrane, Mezz Mezzrow, Billie Holliday, William Burroughs, Lester Young, and others have their tales told, some details well-known and others likely apocryphal, the scenes from their lives revealing a similar scenario, their respective introduction to pot, heroin, and amphetamines as a means of coping with their marginalized existence and of forcing their wits and instincts to the edge. What is obvious through the book is Torgoff’s premise of drugs being critical to the creation of art at the end of the chapter on Jack Kerouac, making the claim that the greatness many have given to Kerouac’s body of work would have remained unwritten had he not taken up the tea habit. As Kerouac remarks, “I need Miss Green to write; can’t whip up interest in anything otherwise.”
For myself, I’ve always found Kerouac’s fiction and poetry problematic at best, a writer who often mistook breathlessness for beauty, Torgoff’s association of being stoned with quality sounds more than a little day dreamy, likening the author’s body of work as that which would be considered to be “…likened to Proust’s, Melville’s and Shakespeare’s.”This brings to mind something I’d read years ago in a Downbeat magazine interview with jazz guitar virtuoso Joe Pass, talking about his drug addiction and eventually getting clean. The interviewer asked if he thought he was actually better and more imaginative when he was high. Pass offered a cautious answer all the same — that while he couldn’t say he definitely played better, he certainly thought he was playing brilliantly while he was high. I kept this in mind while reading this otherwise engaging and well-researched book and remain convinced that the gift to create music or to write poetry are aspects of a personality that exist separately from drug use.
That someone can produce chorus after chorus of hard bop jazz a la Parker or compose a monumental poetic masterwork, such as Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, has more to do with the talent that’s already in place, not because the drugs aided these artists to their particular style of genius. Torgoff does us the favor, though, of presenting the polemic evenhandedly, although there are times when hyperbole gets the best of him. Raising Kerouac’s literary value to Shakespeare and Proust is an example, as is an incident related in a section about Charlie Parker. An intriguing chapter overall, with the sort of telling details of clubs, cities, characters of interest on the risks they took to pursue an art form on the outskirts of what was considered the American mainstream, Torgoff relates the tale of jazz producer and promoter Norman Granz and his organization of a series of concerts billed as “Jazz at the Philharmonic” in Los Angeles, in 1946. At this period in his brief life, Parker’s behavior was erratic due to the complications of his heroin habit. Parker had barely managed to make it to the West Coast from New York. He quickly disappeared — looking to score drugs in a city where he had no connections — and arrived late for the concert, which had already started. Torgoff writes:
“…having found what he was looking for, he showed up 28 choruses into ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and stepped on the stage to play a chorus that brought the music to a whole new level and the audience to its feet, then he stayed on to play alongside Lester Young on ‘Oh Lady Be Good’ …Bird’s choruses astounded musicians and jazz fans everywhere. Everything he played that night would become part of the basic syntax of jazz…”
This is the kind of over praise even the most ardent admirer winces at, as curious readers are given soft-shouldered platitudes and proclamations instead of colorful, clear, and precise explanations of what the artist is up to, an idea of the tradition that a musician is breaking away from and how he’s creating new music based on the traditions he’s learned from. This is a gift jazz critic Stanley Crouch and Gary Giddens, vividly highlighting artistry and contribution over sensationalism, a subtler approach that Turnoff does not take on. Worse for Bop Apocalypse is the not-so-subtle idea that the artists who matter — the artists who break tradition, create new forms, innovators whose avant garde experiments command respect and influences generations many decades after they’re deceased — have to be chemically deranged in order to have that latent genius become activated and find its fullest and fatal expression. It should be noted that not everyone covered died tragically or fell prey to the foul clutches of permanent addiction — as the biographies of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Ginsberg, and Burroughs attest — but Bop Apocalypse provides a constant suggestion that it’s not enough for committed artists to engage their craft to the best of their ability, but that in doing so one must knowingly risk their lives to achieve a genius level of expression the merely sober amongst us cannot. Torgoff’s underlying premise crystallizes much of what is afoul with the contemporary notion of romanticism, that the kind of lethal idealization of the drug-related deaths of writers and musicians creates an allure that is seductive and wrongheaded. It is, on the face of it, irrational to consider an early and preventable death of an inspired creator as confirmation of their genius.
Torgoff, though, brings a wealth of research to the subject and, despite the periodic wallowing in cliché and unexamined proclamations, creates an entertaining mosaic through an electric period of American history. What the book lacks in supportable thesis or in establishing how these artists actually influence each other’s work is made up for by Targoff’s storytelling skills. Imagine this as a film by Robert Altman at his best, a diffuse but alluring tour of the rich details of an aspect of our legacy we must continue to engage. One does wish, though, that the author avoided the unintended irony of writing about artists who changed the way we think about the world with old ideas that merely reinforce our worst habits of mind.
Martin Torgoff’s generous gifts as a storyteller are superb when he remains with the tale; he is nearly cinematic in his ability to set up a scene and follow the action through. It’s unfortunate that his stories, one after the other, are too often hobbled by his pet theory, an idea that cannot be made compelling regardless of how many times it gets repeated.
March 20, 2021
40 pages in and if something doesn't change soon I may give up on this book. The writing isn't great and while I haven't made it to the jazz and beat connection, I'm close to done. The writer seems far too interested in supporting his premise--weed is cool and the hip cats all smoke,--rather than creating an actual piece of nonfiction. This book may end up on my "finish one day" shelf.
That's it, I'm done, at least for now, which is a shame because I didn't even get to the beats. The problem with this book is two fold. Torgoff may be a strong writer, but it isn't on display here. His attempts to be historically "cool" with his style wears quickly and his attempts at vignettes come off as corny. The second problem is his belief that weed makes good musicians great or great musicians genius. I've already read too much about how it was weed that provided the magic and put the performer in the right pocket. To be clear, I'm no prude. Jim Morrison is one of my favorite singers, Charlie Parker one of my favorite sax players, the Beats are my favorite writers. In each of those cases though, their experiences were real. Torgoff wears his for effect. I may come back to this book some day, but it won't be for quite awhile.
That's it, I'm done, at least for now, which is a shame because I didn't even get to the beats. The problem with this book is two fold. Torgoff may be a strong writer, but it isn't on display here. His attempts to be historically "cool" with his style wears quickly and his attempts at vignettes come off as corny. The second problem is his belief that weed makes good musicians great or great musicians genius. I've already read too much about how it was weed that provided the magic and put the performer in the right pocket. To be clear, I'm no prude. Jim Morrison is one of my favorite singers, Charlie Parker one of my favorite sax players, the Beats are my favorite writers. In each of those cases though, their experiences were real. Torgoff wears his for effect. I may come back to this book some day, but it won't be for quite awhile.
February 28, 2017
Winding through the jazz clubs and teahouses of postwar Manhattan, with side trips to New Orleans, Chicago, and California, Martin Torgoff magnificently ties together the jazz and beat scenes through their shared vices, particularly marijuana. It's an incredibly evocative portrait of two distinct milieus with a great deal of crossover, one inspiring the other both personally and artistically, that also lucidly situates this particular time and place within a greater national, historical context.
Torgoff structures Bop Apocalypse like an epic jazz performance, successively introducing the likes of Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs and then bouncing back and forth among them like soloists trading verses; sometimes their narratives overlap in harmony, other times they simply play similar melodies with their own unique variations, but the cumulative effect is that of a rich tapestry of artists living and working outside the law and pushing themselves -- their bodies and their creation -- to the very edge. As harder drugs, particular heroin, infiltrated the scene, some tipped over, while others, like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, were able to extricate themselves from the grip of addiction.
One of the most affecting stories in Bop Apocalypse , however, is that of Ruby Rosano, an Italian American prostitute who frequented the same straight houses as Holiday and Parker and who had a knack for ending up on the wrong side of town, the law, the mafia, and the needle. That there must be hundreds of untold stories just like hers makes Rosano's that much more poignant.
Torgoff also spends some time unpacking the career of Harry Anslinger, exposing the history of marijuana prohibition and demonstrating the race-based ideology that helped to fuel it. By targeting predominantly black jazz musicians for their perceived licentious, drug-induced moral turpitude, Anslinger set in motion a pattern of draconian drug laws and racial profiling that continues to this day and which does more harm than good, especially to people of color.
Entertaining as well as informative, Bop Apocalypse is one of the best works of nonfiction I've read in a while, combining sociology, biography, pharmacology, and literary criticism into a vivid and enthralling portrait of a scene of midcentury life that coalesced in the New York underground, but which reverberated powerfully across the nation and the globe.
Torgoff structures Bop Apocalypse like an epic jazz performance, successively introducing the likes of Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs and then bouncing back and forth among them like soloists trading verses; sometimes their narratives overlap in harmony, other times they simply play similar melodies with their own unique variations, but the cumulative effect is that of a rich tapestry of artists living and working outside the law and pushing themselves -- their bodies and their creation -- to the very edge. As harder drugs, particular heroin, infiltrated the scene, some tipped over, while others, like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, were able to extricate themselves from the grip of addiction.
One of the most affecting stories in Bop Apocalypse , however, is that of Ruby Rosano, an Italian American prostitute who frequented the same straight houses as Holiday and Parker and who had a knack for ending up on the wrong side of town, the law, the mafia, and the needle. That there must be hundreds of untold stories just like hers makes Rosano's that much more poignant.
Torgoff also spends some time unpacking the career of Harry Anslinger, exposing the history of marijuana prohibition and demonstrating the race-based ideology that helped to fuel it. By targeting predominantly black jazz musicians for their perceived licentious, drug-induced moral turpitude, Anslinger set in motion a pattern of draconian drug laws and racial profiling that continues to this day and which does more harm than good, especially to people of color.
Entertaining as well as informative, Bop Apocalypse is one of the best works of nonfiction I've read in a while, combining sociology, biography, pharmacology, and literary criticism into a vivid and enthralling portrait of a scene of midcentury life that coalesced in the New York underground, but which reverberated powerfully across the nation and the globe.
August 26, 2022
There is definitely something of interest in this ragbag of junkie anecdotes & cracker-barrel history, but it certainly doesn't come from the author's own imagination, whose waxings-poetic are intrusive & every bit as tiresome as when you're forced to hear them from a real-life dopehound viva voce.
I'll call it noble that he makes no secret of where his sympathies lie (that is, with the users & jazzmen as opposed to the Man), but I still get annoyed by all the pussyfooting. He loves, as all romantic victims & whiners do, the sort of language that abstracts, that puts the entirety of the fault on the mystical drug-ghoul, but forgives the very willing hand of the shitheel holding the needle. Ecce homo (pun intended, but no offense):
Above all else, addiction is a thief. It can rob those who suffer from it of family, friends, health, jobs, opportunities, resources, peace of mind, sometimes life itself.
Hey, man, like, no argument here. But, like, what about all those middle-class white cats who, like, shot up for the first time because they are gregarious know-nothing assholes & had nothing better to do? Are they, like, also poor flies caught in the Man's sinister web, or are they maybe, like, irresponsible shits who provide fodder for the beatnik stereotype?
Well, let's be businessmanly & leave these opposing caricatures (if you need an example, think 'Doc' & 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen from Pynchon's Inherent Vice) & drug-induced visions to the pros, shall we? In the meantime, we allow the facts to speak for themselves.
I'll call it noble that he makes no secret of where his sympathies lie (that is, with the users & jazzmen as opposed to the Man), but I still get annoyed by all the pussyfooting. He loves, as all romantic victims & whiners do, the sort of language that abstracts, that puts the entirety of the fault on the mystical drug-ghoul, but forgives the very willing hand of the shitheel holding the needle. Ecce homo (pun intended, but no offense):
Above all else, addiction is a thief. It can rob those who suffer from it of family, friends, health, jobs, opportunities, resources, peace of mind, sometimes life itself.
Hey, man, like, no argument here. But, like, what about all those middle-class white cats who, like, shot up for the first time because they are gregarious know-nothing assholes & had nothing better to do? Are they, like, also poor flies caught in the Man's sinister web, or are they maybe, like, irresponsible shits who provide fodder for the beatnik stereotype?
Well, let's be businessmanly & leave these opposing caricatures (if you need an example, think 'Doc' & 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen from Pynchon's Inherent Vice) & drug-induced visions to the pros, shall we? In the meantime, we allow the facts to speak for themselves.
May 26, 2017
A beautiful book that explains how drug hysteria has forever been linked to racism, while at the same time explaining the Beat Generation and telling the stories of most of the major jazz players of the first half of the 20th century, from Armstrong to Coltrane.
"Holy the bop apocalypse!" - Allen Ginsberg.
"Holy the bop apocalypse!" - Allen Ginsberg.
May 17, 2017
Excellent historical review of the intersection between drugs (hard and soft) with jazz (mainly bebop) and the Beat literary movement. Contains lots of fascinating historical anecdotes and seems very well researched.
March 5, 2018
A really fantastic book. A fascinating, entertaining, moving and well-researched account of how the confluence of jazz, beat literature and drugs (both the mind-expanding variety as well as the more dangerous, narcotic ones) in the 1940s and 1950s combined to change American culture forever.
May 14, 2018
Bop Apocolypse by Martin Torgoff is a good book when it works. And it works brilliantly when tracing the history of drug use through the African American jazz and art underworld of the 1920's through the 1950's. It compared at the relatively healthy outcomes marijuana smokers, like Louis Armstrong, to the devastating effects of massively addictive heroin had on the scene in late 1940's through the 1960's, killing stars like Charlie Parker and rendering all-star talent like Lester Young and Billie Holliday among the walking dead.
Torgoff also tells perhaps the most triumphant story of jazz addiction and recovery ever: how John Coltrane locked himself into a room in Phillie, went cold turkey, and emerged to record A Love Supreme, perhaps the most powerful jazz spiritual ever recorded. And I love the way Torgoff integrates Coletrane's liner notes, dedicating the LP to the universal God of love at a time of social and political upheaval.
Another place Bop Apocolypse works is telling the story of Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Asslinger was the 'Drug Czar' responsible for the unintentionally hilarious right-wing freak-out movie Reefer Madness. But that movie was typical Asslinger. He made stuff up, created fear around weed by mixing those lies with anti-black racial attitudes. A fascinating introduction to a character I had never heard of before. I was struck by how similar Asslinger sounds to contemporary hard-right freak-out artists like Alex Jones.
HOWEVER, Torgoff often fails, especially when he moves from jazz to literature. He seems to make the case that junkies (heroin users) make great literature. And repeatedly equates Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs with Shakespeare and other literary luminaries. This stance seems dated, since strengths aside, a lot of contemporary critics are dismissing Burroughs's Naked Lunch as the dull, poorly written pile of adolescent potty humor, disgusting sex and cartoonish paranoid ramblings. And while Kerouac holds up better, since he tells a story of the American Dream of freedom chased and ultimately lost "on the road" instead of rambling and jotting down absurd hallucinations as Burroughs tries, well... he's no Shakespeare.
This egregious over-valuing the work of junkies is typical Torgoff throughout Bop Apocalypse. And he evidences similar fan-boy attitudes towards other folks notorious not for their talents, but for their drug use. These are junkies, thieves, and drug-pushers that Burroughs and Kerouac wrote about in their classics, like Named Lunch and On The Road.
I am not anti-drug.
But I am against people implying drugs create great art. When it seems to me that artists create great art DESPITE the drugs, which tend to enslave the users. Especially when that drug is addictive, like heroin, coke, and speeders.
That's what makes the Coltrane story so powerful.
Because of this flaw, which Torgoff may or may not have meant but reflects how I read Bop Apocalypse, I'm giving it 3-stars. Too bad to, because where it work's, it's easily 4 or 5 since it turns a window on the jazz world that I 'knew' about in the back of my mind but didn't contemplate in its entirety until reading this book.
Torgoff also tells perhaps the most triumphant story of jazz addiction and recovery ever: how John Coltrane locked himself into a room in Phillie, went cold turkey, and emerged to record A Love Supreme, perhaps the most powerful jazz spiritual ever recorded. And I love the way Torgoff integrates Coletrane's liner notes, dedicating the LP to the universal God of love at a time of social and political upheaval.
Another place Bop Apocolypse works is telling the story of Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Asslinger was the 'Drug Czar' responsible for the unintentionally hilarious right-wing freak-out movie Reefer Madness. But that movie was typical Asslinger. He made stuff up, created fear around weed by mixing those lies with anti-black racial attitudes. A fascinating introduction to a character I had never heard of before. I was struck by how similar Asslinger sounds to contemporary hard-right freak-out artists like Alex Jones.
HOWEVER, Torgoff often fails, especially when he moves from jazz to literature. He seems to make the case that junkies (heroin users) make great literature. And repeatedly equates Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs with Shakespeare and other literary luminaries. This stance seems dated, since strengths aside, a lot of contemporary critics are dismissing Burroughs's Naked Lunch as the dull, poorly written pile of adolescent potty humor, disgusting sex and cartoonish paranoid ramblings. And while Kerouac holds up better, since he tells a story of the American Dream of freedom chased and ultimately lost "on the road" instead of rambling and jotting down absurd hallucinations as Burroughs tries, well... he's no Shakespeare.
This egregious over-valuing the work of junkies is typical Torgoff throughout Bop Apocalypse. And he evidences similar fan-boy attitudes towards other folks notorious not for their talents, but for their drug use. These are junkies, thieves, and drug-pushers that Burroughs and Kerouac wrote about in their classics, like Named Lunch and On The Road.
I am not anti-drug.
But I am against people implying drugs create great art. When it seems to me that artists create great art DESPITE the drugs, which tend to enslave the users. Especially when that drug is addictive, like heroin, coke, and speeders.
That's what makes the Coltrane story so powerful.
Because of this flaw, which Torgoff may or may not have meant but reflects how I read Bop Apocalypse, I'm giving it 3-stars. Too bad to, because where it work's, it's easily 4 or 5 since it turns a window on the jazz world that I 'knew' about in the back of my mind but didn't contemplate in its entirety until reading this book.
September 12, 2018
I love jazz. I will admit that unashamedly. I do not like the reputation that jazz has. Typically when any young person aspires to be a jazz musician, the conversation will most likely evolve into a warning about the dangers of drugs. The jazz of today is a far cry from the bop era where it spawned from. Today, jazz is a sophisticated art form that is performed in concert halls and fine dining establishments. It wasn’t always like that, however. It was in the 1960’s that jazz became intertwined with the indelible reputation of drugs.
Martin Torgoff looks at this relationship between jazz, the beat generation, and how it helped the drug culture of the 1960s and beyond. What transpires is a plethora of anecdotes from all kinds of jazz musicians. Billy Holiday, Lester “Prez” Young, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and others. These pieces could be books all on their own. The unique strain that runs through all of them is tragedy. They are all minorities in a racist America trying to explore new forms of expression through music. Black musicians like Holiday suffered from poor management and, frankly, abuse from every level. She would trade drugs for gigs, pressured to have sex back stage by her manager, raped, beaten, and stoned.
Others, like Parker and Davis, helped fuel the drug craze of the 1960s. Louis Armstrong smoked weed perhaps every day of his life after his career picked up. Jazz musicians, seeing the influence that Armstrong made in the music community, sought to emulate his example. What happened was a careening dive into harder substances. By the time Charlie Parker came onto the scene, drugs were synonymous with jazz. Torgoff, in perhaps the most poignant section of the book, explains that for many black musicians, drugs were a way to deal with an ungrateful nation. Many young black men went off to war to fight for this country and came back to a culture that despised them and saw them as second class citizens. The coping mechanism in the all-black bars and bistros where jazz was played was drugs.
Torgoff explores the beat generation and their commitment to drugs as well. None of this was as interesting as learning about jazz musicians to me, however. This is a sometimes graphic book that delves into some of the lesser known connections of drug culture, and a good, if very sad, read.
Martin Torgoff looks at this relationship between jazz, the beat generation, and how it helped the drug culture of the 1960s and beyond. What transpires is a plethora of anecdotes from all kinds of jazz musicians. Billy Holiday, Lester “Prez” Young, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and others. These pieces could be books all on their own. The unique strain that runs through all of them is tragedy. They are all minorities in a racist America trying to explore new forms of expression through music. Black musicians like Holiday suffered from poor management and, frankly, abuse from every level. She would trade drugs for gigs, pressured to have sex back stage by her manager, raped, beaten, and stoned.
Others, like Parker and Davis, helped fuel the drug craze of the 1960s. Louis Armstrong smoked weed perhaps every day of his life after his career picked up. Jazz musicians, seeing the influence that Armstrong made in the music community, sought to emulate his example. What happened was a careening dive into harder substances. By the time Charlie Parker came onto the scene, drugs were synonymous with jazz. Torgoff, in perhaps the most poignant section of the book, explains that for many black musicians, drugs were a way to deal with an ungrateful nation. Many young black men went off to war to fight for this country and came back to a culture that despised them and saw them as second class citizens. The coping mechanism in the all-black bars and bistros where jazz was played was drugs.
Torgoff explores the beat generation and their commitment to drugs as well. None of this was as interesting as learning about jazz musicians to me, however. This is a sometimes graphic book that delves into some of the lesser known connections of drug culture, and a good, if very sad, read.
May 25, 2023
This book is an empty suit.
It's like walking through the Met but all the art is gone and in its place are just the sign plaques which read, "You shoulda been here boy it was a real hoot!"
There is no progression or arc to the story, just a shoots-and-ladders style quick rise due to talent then and an even quicker fall (and mostly death) due to the dope and poor life choices of the main protagonists.
If you are unfamiliar with the jazz works or writing mentioned in this novel, and you do want a guided tour of the beginnings of drug culture in America, then here's what I suggest: Whenever a song, album, or work of writing is mentioned -- stop reading this book and go listen to or read that --- otherwise it's like hearing an actual dope addict high on amphetamines try to tell you about his collection of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons without showing them to you... you won't get the actual good part of what this movement was about.
Thumbs down for level of interest
Thumbs up for clearly researching the topic
Wish I hadn't spent an Audible credit on this...
It's like walking through the Met but all the art is gone and in its place are just the sign plaques which read, "You shoulda been here boy it was a real hoot!"
There is no progression or arc to the story, just a shoots-and-ladders style quick rise due to talent then and an even quicker fall (and mostly death) due to the dope and poor life choices of the main protagonists.
If you are unfamiliar with the jazz works or writing mentioned in this novel, and you do want a guided tour of the beginnings of drug culture in America, then here's what I suggest: Whenever a song, album, or work of writing is mentioned -- stop reading this book and go listen to or read that --- otherwise it's like hearing an actual dope addict high on amphetamines try to tell you about his collection of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons without showing them to you... you won't get the actual good part of what this movement was about.
Thumbs down for level of interest
Thumbs up for clearly researching the topic
Wish I hadn't spent an Audible credit on this...
July 5, 2023
Phenomenal book about an era that feels entirely lost to this once jazz-obsessed country. I read this book because I love bebop, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, etc. and I can never get enough of them. Reading about these tragic musicians always inspires in me a sort of horrible way. I am shocked and disgusted by the racism and general hard times these legends faced, which makes me appreciate their legend and success even more. This book is funny, catching, and quite ridiculous. It paints a picture of a very different America, where the counterculture is the driving force of creativity and yet also deeply addicted to drugs and disparity. If you love jazz and bop culture, this is a must-read for you.
April 28, 2022
Enjoyable read about the intersection of jazz, the beats, race and drugs/the war on drugs leading into the 1960s. I liked the author's method of telling this history through a mixture of vignettes revolving around different individuals and straightforward writing, but it could be disjointed at times. This book is full of gems here if you are interested in the subject matter.
February 12, 2017
This book really hit home for me on many levels. Help me fall in love with jazz and the counter culture of the 20s-40s, helped me realise my hatred for Harry J Anslinger, and brought me into the paradox of the simultaneous romance and despair of heroine addiction. Bravo.
September 30, 2017
Great introduction (for me) to an era slightly before my time. I struggled with the concept that such few individuals could engender national trends. Book was very engaging and perhaps my struggle was internal rather than with the book.
October 27, 2019
The book jumps around a bunch, but it's a nice introduction to some of the Beat writers and Jazz musicians of the time. I've read most of the Beat writers, but would hope that folks reading about this for the first time will go back and listen to some Bop and read the Beat classics.
February 7, 2018
This is a nice little history book, more about drugs than the Beats but chronicles the 50's counterculture better than most.
July 16, 2020
serious history on the early rise of the drug culture
April 5, 2022
Anslinger, Anslinger
Creator of farces
Anslinger, Anslinger
Kiss our arses
Creator of farces
Anslinger, Anslinger
Kiss our arses
Read
May 22, 2023Couldn't get into it
March 28, 2024
Doesn't shrink from describing the complexity of geniuses in pathos.
Occasional flights of prose but overall a story well researched and told.
Occasional flights of prose but overall a story well researched and told.
April 7, 2025
Bop/"jazz" musicians - the Beats - a variety of drugs = a fascinating book about dawn of the jazz era, 20s--60s. Great bios of the major figures of the era.
April 30, 2019
Fills in where the 2001 PBS Jazz series leaves off, highly entertaining with tasty Beat tidbits, but children, read all of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and many bios, and listen to decades of glorious jazz, because this is just a tantalizing appetizer--Martin Torgoff, terrific storyteller.
August 21, 2023
It's interesting seeing how the genesis of the jazz and beat generation scenes were both characterized by improvisation and literally catalyzed by the infusion of consciousness altered by drug-use. I appreciate detailed exposition of the beginnings of jazz and early jazz and bop stars like Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Lester Young (Prez), Charlie Parker, and more. I ordered a copy of Mezz Mezzrow's autobiography looking for the horse's mouth. I noticed something last night typifying my only objection to Torgoff's manner so far: Elitch Gardens amusement park (the beats' code-word for pot was "elitch") is in Denver, and NOT in New York City, as the author asserts with mock authority. I never knew Billie Holiday's history as a martyr/icon of U.S. drug policy before reading this book, never realized how important a figure in the history of marijuana legalization Allen Ginsberg was with his Drug Files nor how WSB was first to give Kerouac grief for ripping off Cassady's style, and good for him. Sorry, Jack, and nice work, all the same.
January 4, 2020
I loved this. It’s great from so many angles and takes a sweeping look across American jazz culture from bop to the beats as you’d expect from the title but with some interesting diversions into law enforcement and drug policy. Highly entertaining!
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