Journalist, screenwriter, and New York Times bestselling author TJ English chats with Trey Elling about DANGEROUS RHYTHMS: JAZZ AND THE UNDERWORLD. In the second of a two-part conversation with TJ, topics include:
- Jazz thriving through the Great Depression (0:15)
- How gangsters “mobbed up” jukeboxes during the Great Depression (2:40)
- Frank Sinatra as the main figure in the book’s second half (4:40)
- Sinatra’s mom providing him an ‘in’ with the Hoboken, NJ mafia (6:16)
- Frank using the mob to help settle a disputes with a fellow, and former, band members (7:36)
- How the mafia had pay those favors back (12:21)
- Why heroin became so popular with jazz musicians at the start of World War II (19:33)
- The Times Square joint Birdland as perhaps the most mobbed up club in history (23:56)
- How 1950s Havana, Cuba was different from other mob-run jazz scenes (29:45)
- Miles Davis reinvigorating US jazz in the late 1950s (32:50)
- Sinatra having the mob give JFK a boost in the 1960 presidential election (38:44)
- When and why the relationship between jazz and gangsters fizzled (44:25)