Bringing Home The Bacon

 Photographs of a couple of newspaper clippings for sale recently on eBay tell the interesting story of Louis bacon's travails on the continent of Europe as war clouds continued gather throughout 1939. I thought the clippings and a write-up of the text, were interesting to post here.

Bacon played in the Ellington Orchestra for about a year from 1933 to 1934 returning, according to Tom Lord's discography, for a one-off date with a group led by Rex Stewart on 20 March, 1939. bacon's brush with fascism was perhaps not too dissimilar from Ellington's own. The Ellington band toured continental Europe not too long after this small group date. As Thomas Cunniffe recounts in his review of Riding on Duke's Train by Mick Carlon, "... the orchestra did not schedule any concerts in Germany, but they were forced to travel through that country to get to their gigs in Sweden. The orchestra's train was held by the Gestapo for several hours in Hamburg beforebeing allowed to pass through."

From Downbeat, Autumn, 1939:

Chicago – Ivie Anderson, singer with Duke Ellington’s band, was in a gay mood during the band’s Sherman Hotel engagement here. After waiting in vain for news of her husband, Louis Bacon, the trumpet player, she received two letters from him in which he said all was well and that he was ready to return to the United States.

Bacon, a former horn artist with Ellington, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter, left Carter’s band in July of 1939and went to Europe, where he played with Willie Lewis’ band in Holland. According to Ivie, Louis worked up until May 10 of this year, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in a brutal blitzkrieg which destroyed Rotterdam and damaged other cities. Then for months Ivie had no word from her husband until two weeks ago. His letters were dated July 19 and August 16.

“Louis wants to come home,” said Ivie, “but he can’t find a w ay to get here. He says he has only worked tow or three days since the Nazis took over Holland. His letters were mailed from The Hague.”

Ivie and Bacon were married in 1934 shortly after he joined the Ellington band. Ivie has been sending him money since the invasion and believes he will get transportation home before Thanksgiving.