Hazel told us about the death of Tad Jones, a biographer of Louis Armstrong.

He fell in his pool, at home.

The police do not suspect foul play.

But his biography, which was near completion, and has not been published yet, sought to de-mythologize Armstrong.

Jones spoke at gatherings like Satchmo Summerfest and the International Salzburg Association's Satchmo Meets Amadeus.

What he had to say was not appreciated by the people who run the Armstrong estate, Phoebe Jacobs and Phil Leshin.

And of course, if you depart from the Stanley Crouch line, you are a racist, or clueless.

Hazel said the body of a dead man was found on the sidewalk outside their house and the New Orleans police did not come to the door and ask them if they had heard or seen anything, or knew anything, about it.

Was Armstrong involved with criminals, in his business dealings? Was he himself a hoodlum? Did he just associate with bad companions?

Armstrong played in nightclubs 300 nights a year.

Nightclubs supply bookleg liquor, narcotics, prostitution, gambling.

Nightclubs are run by gangsters, frequented by gangsters, and the pop culture recording executives, motion picture executives, and book, magazine, and newspaper executives are as venal and unprincipled a bunch of people as one is likely to find. If they're not criminals they have to behave like criminals to function in a milieu where there are so many criminals. They are indistinguishable from criminals.

Armstrong's manager, Joe Glaser, from Al Capone's Chicago, was a friend of Capone. He handled all of Armstrong's affairs. Armstrong didn't want to know. He just wanted to play music, eat red beans and rice, take laxatives for his health, and smoke marijuana.

He smoked marijuana every day of his life. But he was around heroin and cocaine and was never tempted by them, nor did he drink too much. Nor was he ever accused of domestic violence.

Except for smoking pot and having connections with organized crime through his manager, and the places he earned his living in, he was a model citizen.

Read Nich Tosches's Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.

It's a dirty business. Nightclubs, film, recordings and radio play, television.

Marilyn Monroe said she was going to be a movie star no matter who she had to fuck to become one. And that included John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

Was she a criminal? The poor, sad, son of a bitch.