What was life like for a heroin addict playing bebop in the late 1940s?

Life was precarious for such musicians and would-be musicians. Their life expectancies were short. There was very little work for musicians who wanted to play that kind of modern jazz. If they got work as musicians, they were usually forced to play other kinds of music such a Country-Western and what they called "Businessman's Bounce," that is, night club music. When they played be-bop it was after hours when they would get together in some...

Life was precarious for such musicians and would-be musicians. Their life expectancies were short. There was very little work for musicians who wanted to play that kind of modern jazz. If they got work as musicians, they were usually forced to play other kinds of music such a Country-Western and what they called "Businessman's Bounce," that is, night club music. When they played be-bop it was after hours when they would get together in some back room and play for nothing. Even some of the famous jazz musicians like Charlie Parker had a hard time getting by. Outside of New York, be-bop was not popular. The aspiring be-boppers naturally imitated musicians like Charlie Parker and Lester Young. Charlie Parker was addicted to heroin, so the younger be-boppers developed heroin habits, thinking this would make them play better, which was a bad mistake. Billie Holiday was also heavily into drugs and widely imitated. Young jazz musicians lived in the cheapest places they could find. They were often in a criminal environment and got involved in criminal activities such as selling marijuana and heroin. The life of be-boppers in those days was not much different from what Mezz Mezzrow describes in his very interesting book Really the Blues (1946), which was about a much earlier era in the 1920s and 1930s. The Forties and Fifties were a time of great prosperity for Americans--but not for be-bop musicians!