Didja Notice?
As the episode proper opens, Indy is working
as a waiter at Colosimo's Restaurant as he puts himself through
college at the
University of
Chicago. This was a real restaurant at the time, owned by
Big Jim Colosimo (1878-1920), who was a real world
Italian-American Mafia crime boss in
Chicago.
Whether Colosimo's was actually known for the best food,
service, and jazz in the city as Old Indy claims in the opening
bookend, I've been unable to confirm.
The restaurant sign seen here is very much like the
original at 2128 South Wabash.
|
 |
 |
Colosimo's in this episode |
The real Colosimo's circa 1930 |
Often playing at Colosimo's while Indy works there is Sidney
Bechet (1897-1959), an African-American jazz clarinetist,
saxophonist, and composer. He went on to fame in the 1940s.
One of the patrons at
Colosimo's complains that Indy brought him the wrong dish, fish
instead of osso buco. Osso buco is Italian for
"braised veal". This is a dish of
veal braised with broth, vegetables, and white wine.
Indy tells Bechet that he heard King
Oliver play in
New Orleans when he was 12. Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver
(1881–1938) was an African-American jazz cornet player and
bandleader who taught and mentored the legendary jazz trumpeter
and singer Louis Armstrong.
It takes a while for Bechet to warm to Indy, with one of
Bechet's bandmates remarking, "He talks to people he likes."
Although I've not been able to confirm how talkative or not
Bechet was, he was known for having an erratic temperament.
The band member playing piano for Bechet is portrayed by Damon Whitaker,
brother of famed actor Forest Whitaker.
Indy's roommate in this episode and the next ("Mystery
of the Blues") is Eliot Ness. Ness (1903-1957) will go on to become
a famed and incorruptible agent of the U.S. Bureau of
Prohibition in 1926, leading the team of agents popularly known
as the Untouchables. He actually did attend the University of
Chicago at this time and was known for practicing jiu-jitsu.
Indy begs Eliot to go to the Royal Garden club with him to catch
a set of jazz. This appears to be a reference to the
Royal Gardens Cafe, an important jazz club in Chicago at the
time.
When Eliot tries to beg out of going to the Royal Garden with
Indy, Indy retorts, "Just don't ask me to keep you company at
another one of your aunt's dinners." In "Mystery of the Blues",
Eliot's aunt is said to be named "Bessie". PopApostle has not
been able to confirm whether Ness actually had an Aunt Bessie; our private detective is still investigating.
At 6:30 on the DVD, an advertising sign on the side of a
building for Fontella Cigars is seen. This was a real world brand
at the time.
As they enter the Royal Garden club, Indy
points out to Eliot that Baby Dodds is playing drums and his
brother Johnny is on clarinet. Warren "Baby" Dodds (1898–1959) and
his brother Johnny Dodds (1892-1940) were both important early
jazz performers.
The woman on stage is singing "I'm a Little Blackbird
Looking for a Bluebird" when Indy and Eliot sit down. But
that song was not published until 1924, lyrics by Grant Clarke
and Roy Turk.
As they sit, Eliot remarks the place is not like the
Rosemont cotillion. He may be referring to the village of
Rosemont,
Illinois, not far from Chicago. He goes on to say that the
music is not better than Mozart or Puccini, referring, of
course, to the classical music and opera composers by those
names.
When Indy orders water for himself and Eliot at the club and are
served glasses of gin, Eliot freaks out, hissing, "You know my
brother-in-law works for the Bureau of Investigation. It would
not look good for him if somebody saw me here." Ness'
brother-in-law was Alexander Jamie, who did work for the
Bureau of Investigation (which became the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in 1935).
Indy tells Bechet and the band he grew up listening to Tom
Turpin, Eubie Blake, and Jelly Roll Morton, that he has all
Scott Joplin's music, and when he went to New Orleans his parents
had to drag him away from Preservation Hall. He also mentions
Liberty Hall and Pitman's. The people named are all historical
jazz and ragtime performers.
Preservation Hall is a venue for jazz music in the French
Quarter of New Orleans, but was not established until 1961.
There are a number of music venues called Liberty Hall in the
U.S. but none called Pitman's that I'm aware of.
When Bechet opens the saxophone case at 11:21 on the DVD, a
"King" emblem can be seen on the inside lid.
King was a manufacturer (and now just a brand) of musical
instruments founded in 1893.
Bechet and his band take Indy to the Four Deuces to hear them
play. The Four Deuces was a brothel and speakeasy opened by Big
Jim Colosimo and his second-in-command John "The Fox" Torrio at
2222 South Wabash, Chicago.
At 13:28 on the DVD, Goldie arrives at the Four
Deuces in a Ford
Model T.
The song
Goldie sings at 14:57 on the DVD is "My Handy Man"
by Andy Razaf, but it wasn't written until 1928!
The exterior of the dorm building where Indy & Ness room is
actually the
Languages Building at
Duke University
in Durham, NC.
Indy and Eliot go to a party at the
Sigma Chi
fraternity house. The house seen here does not appear to be an
actual Sigma Chi frat house in Chicago. The exterior is the
historic Honnet House in Wilmington, NC.
At the frat party, Indy plays some sax with a frat band, the
song being "April Showers", but he gets the boot because they
don't like his jazz style. The "April Showers" song did not debut
until October of '21, in the Broadway musical Bombo
starring Al Jolson. After Indy is booted, the band starts
playing "Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!)", a song that was not
written until 1922!
One girl at the party tells Indy she liked his music and "...if
that square from Delaware weren't in charge, you could've really
shook the place up." "Square from Delaware" was a slang term for
someone of the most conventional sort, used mostly in the
1930s-50s.
At 22:25 on the DVD, half of an advertising sign for Shoninger
and Thompson brands of pianos is seen on the side of a building
as the L train speeds by. These were both actual piano brands at
the time.
When Indy fails at playing jazz during the Bechet band's song at
the Four Deuces, Bechet tells him, "You can play 'Happy
Birthday' in jazz or you can play 'St. Louis Rag' so straight,
it won't be jazz no more." "Happy Birthday to You" is a
traditional English language birthday song sung at birthday
parties. 'St. Louis Rag' is a 1903 ragtime song by Tom Turpin.
Bechet's band plays "Turkey in the Straw" in several different
ways to show how jazz's rhythm and
improvisation influences the mood. "Turkey in the Straw" is an
American folk song from the 19th Century.
At 27:42 on the DVD, Indy and Bechet walk past the Altobellis
Bros. Cafe and G. Barnes Millinery. These appear to be
fictitious businesses.
Millinery is the practice of hatmaking.
Bechet instructs Indy to play
"Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star" on his sax for as long as it takes for him
to know the tune backwards and forwards, then maybe he can think
about jazzing it.
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a 19th Century English
lullaby with lyrics from the 1806 poem "The Star" by Jane
Taylor.
I have not been able to identify the gospel song Goldie sings at
the church. If anyone knows, send it on to PopApostle!
During dinner at Goldie's house, Indy learns that her brother,
CJ, was in the war, a machine gunner in Second Division at
Marbache, France.
Marbache is a town in northeast France.
During dinner, Goldie's father tries to calm CJ's rhetoric with
the ideals of Booker T. Washington.
Washington (1856-1915) was a former child slave of the American south who
grew up to become the dominant speaker of the Africa-American
community, though controversial at the time among them (as it is
for CJ here) for what some perceived as his accomodationism to
the white establishment.
CJ and his father argue about CJ's participation in a riot that
took place in the not too distant past, apparently a race riot
provoked when a black boy who was swimming and got a cramp
reached out for a white family's boat on the lake and the family
began throwing rocks at him and the boy drowned. As far as I can
find, this riot is fictitious, but sounds similar to the Chicago
race riot of 1919, wherein a black teen accidentally swam into
the white area at a segregated public beach and was pelted with
rocks until he
drowned.
Indy accompanies Bechet's band to see King Oliver and Louis
Armstrong cut a session at the Pekin Inn. The
Pekin Inn was the first African-American musical and vaudeville
theater in Chicago, founded in 1905.
I have not been able to identify the tune played by King Oliver
and Louis Armstrong as Indy and the Bechet band enter Pekin Inn,
but when it ends, they get Goldie to come up and sing with them,
and that song is "I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me",
written in 1926.
The exterior building at the University of Chicago at 42:15 was
shot at the Sociology/Psychology Building of Duke University.
The class Indy is seen attending is presumably a history
course, as we hear the instructor lecturing, "And so we find
that the conditions of war and of the warrior classes remained
fundamentally unchanged in the 1,500 years that separate the
Trojan Wars from the battlefields of Charlemagne." There were at
least four
Trojan Wars during the 15th-13th centuries BCE. Charlemagne
(747-814 CE) was a European king and Roman Emperor who united
much of Europe and expanded the Roman Empire through numerous
military campaigns.
At 42:54 on the DVD,
Duke Chapel
is seen in the background as Indy practices sax on a bench in
the university yards.

As Indy and Bechet enter the Royal Garden club near the end of
the episode, Goldie is singing "Am I Blue", a song from 1929.
The "closing scene" of this "episode", with Eliot complaining
about Indy's four-in-the-morning entrance to their dorm room,
etc. seems to be an interstitial scene to (sort of) bridge the
two episodes that comprise the Young Indiana Jones and the
Mystery of the Blues TV movie, as it really adds nothing as
a denouement to Indy's jazz learning path seen in the story
leading up to it. The scene also doesn't add much to the
following "Mystery of the Blues" episode.
Memorable Dialog
you may know 30 songs but you play them all equally
badly.mp3
a bunch of cats on a hot tin roof.mp3
Grampa, not another story.mp3
he never talks to me.mp3
world's youngest stuffy old fart.mp3
fine
by me.mp3
why don't you practice a little bit.mp3
she
has taste.mp3
you were thinkin' that.mp3
you'd think they'd never seen a white person before.mp3
the rats in France could take over the world.mp3
I don't want a war.mp3
I'm equal Jonesy, so I want to be treated like it.mp3
Jonesy--sax man.mp3
Jonesy's big debut.mp3
the journey along the way is bound to be interesting.mp3
Back to Indiana Jones Episode
Studies