Klarinet Archive - Posting 000100.txt from 1994/10

From: Josias Associates <josassoc@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Shoeless Joe Jackson
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 03:39:15 -0400

On Tue, 11 Oct 1994, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> As the kid said to Shoeless Joe Jackson after the black sox scandal, "Tell me
> it ain't so, Joe."

Dan,

I couldn't help commenting on your closing statement about
Shoeless Joe Jackson -- and not because I'm a baseball fan, which I am.
If I remember correctly, Jackson had not accepted money in that affair,
but because of his playing affiliation with the team members, his
career in baseball was killed just the same as if he had accepted a
bribe.

There was also another Shoeless Joe Jackson who had achieved some
notoriety, but that Jackson had nominally nothing to do with baseball
(and I'll bet that you know who it was, Dan). Beginning (as I recall)
in the late 1930s, a series of jazz recordings appeared on 78 rpm vinyl
discs with a hot clarinet player listed as Shoeless Joe Jackson.

I don't remember the exact reason for the use of the pseudonym,
but it was probably something like this: A group of musicians was
assembled informally for a recording session. The clarinetist learned
only after the session that the recording company that would issue the
recordings was not the one with which he was under contract. To avoid a
potential breach of contract with his recording company, he asked that his
name be dropped from the listing of musicians on the record labels and
that a pseudonym be substituted. I guess that the first name that came
to mind must have been Shoeless Joe Jackson.

The clarinetist was Benny Goodman, and for many years afterward,
some radio DJs (Fred Robbins of WOV in New York City was one notable
example) would frequently announce Goodman as Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Connie Josias

Conrad Josias
Engineering Consultant
4733 Hillard Ave.
La Canada, CA 91011
josassoc@-----.com