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Excerpt from the forward
of Such Melodious Racket:
The Lost History of Jazz in Canada,
1914-1949. By Mark
Miller. Toronto: The Mercury Press,
1997.
The sacrifices which Canadian jazz
musicians have made to devote themselves
to this captivating and uncompromising
means of self-expression are
astonishing. But the pursuit of
excellence took a heavy toll on the lives
of some of them, the details of which make
for shocking reading. In chapter 12,
for instance, Miller relates the story of
Ollie Wagner, a gifted Swing-era
tenor sax player who was born in Wichita
ca. 1907, but spent his career in
Canada. Wagner had a busy life in
jazz, working mostly in western Canada as
a trumpeter, pianist, arranger, and singer
in addition to playing the
saxophone. His contemporaries did
not hesitate to place him in the same
league as the great American jazz players
of his day.
Nevertheless, Wagner sometimes had to ride
the rails to get from gig to gig, and on
at least one occasion he spent time in
jail when he got caught. Later in
life, to support himself financially, he
shovelled coal for the CPR, worked as a
roofer, and at one point had to shine
shoes for a living! Sadly, Wagner
made no recordings, so it is only through
the testimony of his contemporaries that
his memory lives on. Wagner's is
just one of dozens of such compelling
stories that Miller tells in this
important publication, a book that will
forever inform and fascinate anyone with
even a passing interest in jazz or music
in Canada.
Robin Elliott
University College Dublin
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