Justin: Oh, there were lots of thugs in the biz--Joe Glaser, Armstrongs' later manager, was one of the nicer ones, thugs that is; the clubs tended to run by gangsters, etc. But that is different from saying that the musicians were thugs. I hadn't heard the story about the Paris shotting. It's not characteristic of Bechet. He was a difficult man, but not a brute. --jks
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CB: Well, not thugs, but certainly jazz and blues musicians were bad ( as we say).