Historians Recount

Leroy Mason, ca. early-1950s.

Roland Lavallée, ca. late-1940s.

With more than a thousand entertainment venues to choose from on the island of Montreal alone, audience expectations at the peak of the city’s boom years were high. Stage performers required a combination of confidence, novelty and swing to hold patrons’ attention, with ad-libbing and various tricks of the trade kept in reserve for when situations demanded them. In this SHOWTIME Part 4 episode about the heyday of Montreal jazz, tenor saxophonist Leroy Mason, vocalist Jean Dorsey and pianist Roland Lavallée tell of the versatility that helped them succeed at the time, especially when the unexpected would arise and challenge the smooth flow of their showmanship.

Milton Sealey, ca. mid-1950s.

Oscar Peterson in his early Montreal days.

While Montreal offered plentiful opportunities for musicians during the “Paris of North America” years, there was still considerable competition for the best jobs from out-of-towners, primarily Americans who had gravitated north thanks to the city’s relaxed liquor laws, military staging point, and a comparatively relaxed racial-mixing atmosphere. Camaraderie was the ticket for many jazz players who, unable to afford formal musical training, collaborated with their colleagues to learn and master theory, sight reading and other essential skills.

Join us as Montreal legend Vic Vogel talks about the texture and character of the scene out of which Montreal’s most gifted performers — including the Sealey Brothers and pianist Oscar Peterson — rose to prominence at the time.

Show girls backstage, ca. 1940.

L to R: interviewees Olga Spencer Foderingham, Tina Brereton, and Bernice Jordan.

Night life flourished in Montreal throughout the Prohibition era (1920-33) and for decades afterwards. Attracting hordes of tourists that created a market for countless after-dark satisfactions in the city's hundreds of bars, cafes, restaurants and supper clubs, competition between touring entertainers and local acts was fierce at times, especially for black women who were routinely denied prominent performing jobs in theatres and nightclubs. Depending on the establishment, women faced multiple challenges in their occupations, ranging from long working hours, various forms of abuse from their bosses, unwanted harassment from male patrons, and more.

But the old saying that “the show must go on” was as true then as it always has been, and it certainly did go on in “The City of a Hundred Steeples” during those years. Determined show girls displayed their talents in floorshows, on stage, and at times even off-stage, accepting invitations to join single men at their tables for conversation and a drink as part of their job description. The prolonged and strenuous late-night hours of dance, song and curtain calls seldom deterred Montreal show girls from pursuing their essential quest: providing support for their families and for themselves.

A then-unknown Billie Holiday performing at Montreal's Terminal Club, 1933.

Café Montmartre, Montreal, ca. 1960s.

Rockhead's Paradise, Montreal, ca. 1960s.

For Montreal, it was an honour being called "The Paris of North America," a moniker earned through the ongoing influx of people from the U.S. and elsewhere drawn to the city decade after decade by the siren song of booze, fun and hoppin' music. The city's nightlife encouraged stepping-out as a natural calling, and droves of jazz musicians, vocalists and other performers gravitated to the city and its many uptown and downtown nightclubs operating from dusk to dawn. This episode's interviewees, native-born Montrealers all, describe the entertainment-industry phenomenon their town was for so many years, and how its nightlife established the city's multicultural flavour so vibrant to this day.

Odissi Dance Performance for the Raga Mala Society by Debamitra Sengupta and Troupe.

Pandit Rajeev Taranath Performs for the Raga Mala Society in 2015.

Improvisation, whether performed by musicians, dancers, actors or others, pays tribute to history and to cultural literacy. Many newcomers to Canadian shores have been proficient in these arts, filling Canadian venues from concert halls to humbler basement settings with rhythm and song as a means of telling about their history. Canadian holidays and music festivals have offered additional opportunities for music makers and entertainers from all cultures to improvise and highlight their unique talents and artistic achievements. Valuing self-expression as a teaching vehicle has roots in Canada's various Native cultures, where generations have preserved and promoted history through song and dance.

The Raga Mala Music Society presents performers versed in northern Hindustani and southern Carnatic genres of music, with traditional Indian music and dance as well as Western classical music events scheduled throughout the year in Calgary and elsewhere in Canada.

Charlie Parker playing live.

Louis Metcalfe's International Band

Uptown and downtown nightclubs in the city became legendary starting in the 1920s and 30s, creating atmospheres with their featured big band music and small jazz combos that drew tourists and locals to club-hop, dance or just look on. Historians Recount introduces listeners to the first in a series of unforgettable stories about when the good times rolled in Montreal as jazz music played and the fun went on into the wee hours of the morning.

Potlatch Mask.

Alert Bay elder and children in Potlatch regalia

From 1885 to 1951, Potlatch, both a ceremony and a complete way of life for the Native People of Canada's northwest coast, was prohibited by the federal government. The ban threatened a tradition of cultural gathering in which dance, song, rituals and the wearing of traditional regalia were used as a means of remembrance, of gift-giving and for other social functions. A revival to preserve Potlatch emerged after the ban was lifted, and this Historians Recount episode tells of how it was preserved and how the retrieval of its ceremonial artifacts such as symbolic masks, headdresses, costumes and totem poles was brought about.

Canadian Sleeping Car Porters, Circa 1957.

The working conditions faced by Black sleeping car porters hired by Canada's two railroad companies were far from glamorous, presenting challenging situations that often caused humiliation and even resulted in loss of employment and the ability to support their families. This Historians Recount episode tells of the situations Black sleeping car porters faced, how they maintained their dignity in the face of adversity, what made them laugh, and how they fought to gain respect for themselves and all railway workers.

 

Sylvia Stark, circa 1940.

Raised among the Leopold slaves of Clay County, Missouri, Sylvia Stark knew Harriet Tubman. Harriet, a teenager at the time, was a strong worker, but found it hard working under Mrs. Leopold. Eventually, Harriet was sold to a slave breaker whose job was to make slaves submissive to their masters. Disobedience was in Harriet's nature, however, and it motivated her to save her parents and hundreds of other slaves through the underground railway network, thanks to the help of both white and black people. After serving as a scout for the Northern Army during the Civil War, Harriet built a home for the aged in New York.

Sylvia Stark also remembered that six black families were living on Salt Spring Island when she arrived there in 1860. Among them were a Grandpa and Grandma Jackson, who Sylvia said were 114 and 112 years of age.

American soldiers kill time on one of the barges used to carry pipeline supplies down the Slave River, across Great Slave Lake and down the Mackenzie River as part of the CANOL Project during the Second World War. Photo courtesy of PWNHC.

During the 1940s, Black and white American military battalions were stationed together in the Northwest Territories, one of the coldest and most desolate parts of Canada. The soldiers’ interactions across racial lines generated friction and hostility, in sharp contrast to the nurturing attitude offered by the Aboriginal peoples of the region. This episode of Historians Recount tells of the surprising events discovered by playwright Ben Nind when he investigated the origins of the evocative photo above—a story in which all of the protagonists were defined, when all was said and done, as human beings.