TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I am Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.
John Henry Hammond, born in 1910, was a groundbreaking producer and promoter of Jazz.
Among many others, he played a role in organizing Benny Goodman's band and persuading him to hire black musicians such as Charlie Christian, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton. In 1933, he introduced a young Billie Holiday to Benny Goodman. Four years later, he heard the Count Basie orchestra broadcasting from Kansas City, bringing it national attention in New York.
He later turned his attention to the burgeoning folk music scene, lifting the careers of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Leonard Cohen.
In his memoirs, he wrote, "I heard no color line in the music... To bring recognition to the Negro's supremacy in jazz was the most effective and constructive form of social protest I could think of."
This has been Rapp On Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible in part by Layman Poupard Publishers, producers of the Literary Criticism Series and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.