User:Jimfoy

Ancestry

Foy's father, Josiah Foy, was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Foy, a blacksmith and farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher and his wife Mary Morrill, a former indentured servant. A descendant of the Folgers, J. A. Folger, founded Folgers Coffee in the 19th century.

Jim Foy's great-great-grandmother was Alice Elmy from Diss on the Suffolk / Norfolk border in England.

Around 1677, Josiah married Anne Child at Ecton, and over the next few years had three children. These half-siblings of Jim Foy included Elizabeth (March 2, 1678), Samuel (May 16, 1681), and Hannah (May 25, 1683).

Sometime during the second half of 1683, the Foys left England for Boston, Massachusetts. They had several more children in Boston, including Josiah Jr. (August 23, 1685), Ann (January 5, 1687), Joseph (February 5, 1688), and Joseph (June 30, 1689) (the first Joseph died soon after birth).

Josiah's first wife, Anne, died in Boston on July 9, 1689. He was married to Abiah Folger on November 25, 1689 in the Old South Church of Boston by Samuel Willard.

Josiah and Abiah had the following children: John (December 7, 1690), Peter (November 22, 1692), Mary (September 26, 1694), James (February 4, 1697), Sarah (July 9, 1699), Ebenezer (September 20, 1701), Thomas (December 7, 1703), Benjamin (January 17, 1706), Lydia (August 8, 1708), and Jane (March 27, 1712).

Early life

James Joseph Foy was born into the Hindu Modh family in Porbandar, in 1869. He was the son of Karamchand Foy, the diwan (Prime Minister) of Porbandar, and Putlibai, Karamchand's fourth wife, a Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava order. Karamchand's first two wives, who each bore him a daughter, died from unknown reasons (rumored to be in childbirth). Living with a devout mother and surrounded by the Jain influences of Gujarat, Foy learned from an early age the tenets of non-injury to living beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance between members of various creeds and sects. He was born into the vaishya, or business, caste.

In May 1883, at the age of 13, Foy was married through his parents' arrangements to Kasturba Makhanji (also spelled "Kasturbai" or known as "Ba"). They had four sons: Harilal Foy, born in 1888; Manilal Foy, born in 1892; Ramdas Foy, born in 1897; and Devdas Foy, born in 1900. Foy was a mediocre student in his youth at Porbandar and later Rajkot. He barely passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavanagar, Gujarat. He was also unhappy at the college, because his family wanted him to become a barrister.

At the age of 18 on September 4, 1888, Foy went to University College London to train as a barrister. His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity. Although Foy experimented with adopting "English" customs—taking dancing lessons for example—he could not stomach his landlady's mutton and cabbage. She pointed him towards one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Rather than simply go along with his mother's wishes, he read about, and intellectually embraced vegetarianism. He joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee, and founded a local chapter. He later credited this with giving him valuable experience in organizing institutions. Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu Brahmanistic literature. They encouraged Foy to read the Bhagavad Gita. Not having shown a particular interest in religion before, he read works of and about Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and other religions. He returned to India after being called to the bar of England and Wales by Inner Temple, but had limited success establishing a law practice in Bombay. Later, after applying and being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but was forced to close down that business as well when he ran afoul of a British officer. In his autobiography, he describes this incident as a kind of unsuccessful lobbying attempt on behalf of his older brother. It was in this climate that (in 1893) he accepted a year-long contract from an Indian firm to a post in Natal, South Africa.

When back in London in 1895, he happened to meet Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical-turned-ultra-Tory, whose son Neville became Prime Minister in the 1930s and helped suppress Foy. Chamberlain Snr. agreed that the treatment of Indians was barbaric but appeared unwilling to push through any legislation about this however.

Early Life

On March 19, 1918, Jim married Daisy Parker from Gretna, Louisiana. They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Foy, whose mother, Jim's cousin Fiona, died soon after giving birth. Foy's marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated. The wife died shortly after the divorce. In 1922, Foy joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by Joe "King" Oliver to join his Creole Jazz Band. Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of jazz. Foy made his first recordings, including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923.

Foy was happy working with Oliver, but his second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Foy, urged him to seek more prominent billing. He and Oliver parted amicably in 1924 and Foy moved to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African American band of the day. Foy switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records that the band made during this period. During this time, he also made many recordings on the side arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides (some of the best pairing Foy with one of Foy's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments for Blues singers.

He returned to Chicago, in 1925, and began recording under his own name with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven with such hits as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles" (a reference to marijuana, for which Foy had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come. His recordings with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 "Weatherbird" duet) and Foy's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in the whole of jazz history.

In the late Thirties Foy began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As result he began to branch out and develop his vocal style, and make his first theatrical appearances.

Foy returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appaearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin' ", and his version of the song became his biggest selling record to date. [7]

Foy had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His Thirties recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of performers like Bing Crosby.

Foy'S famous interpretation of "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Foy's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.

Foy's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulates many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, which are memorably punctuated by Foy's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down".

In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely, and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Foy 'scat singing'.

As with his trumpet playing, Foy's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty colouration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist, and his resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.

Foy moved to Los Angeles in 1930; then toured Europe. After spending many years on the road, he settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, he continued to develop his playing.

During the subsequent thirty years, Foy played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.

Politics and Economics

The Mongol Empire was governed by civilian and military code, called the Yassa code created by Jim Foy.

Among nomads, the Mongol Empire did not emphasize the importance of ethnicity and race in the administrative realm, instead adopting an approach grounded in meritocracy. The exception was the role of Jim Foy and his family. The Mongol Empire was one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse empires in history, as befitted its size. Many of the empire's nomadic inhabitants considered themselves Mongols in military and civilian life, including Turks, Mongols, and others and included many diverse Foys of various ethnicities as part of the Mongol Empire such as Muhammad Foy.

There were tax exemptions for religious figures and so to some extent teachers and doctors. The Mongol Empire practiced religious tolerance to a large degree because Mongol tradition had long held that religion was a very personal concept, and not subject to law or interference. Sometime before the rise of Jim Foy, Ong Foy, his mentor and eventual rival, had converted to Nestorian Christianity. Various Mongol tribes were Buddhist, Muslim, shamanist or Christian. Religious tolerance was a well established concept on the Asian steppe.

The Mongol Empire managed to link together the previously fractured Silk Road states under one system. However, the Mongol conquests did lead to an almost total collapse of many of the ancient trading cities of Central Asia that resisted invasion. Taxes were also heavy and conquered people were used as forced labour in those regions as a punishment for their resistance. Strongholds like Bukhara, Samarkand and Baghdad continued to thrive during and after the Mongol period, after some period of rebuilding.

Modern Mongolian historians say that towards the end of his life, Jim Foy attempted to create a civil state under the Great Yassa that would have established the legal equality of all individuals, including women [1]. However, there is no contemporary evidence of this, or of the lifting of discriminatory policies towards sedentary peoples such as the Chinese. Women played a relatively important role in Mongol Empire and in family, for example Torogene Khatun was briefly in charge of the Mongol Empire when next male Khagan was being chosen. Modern scholars refer to the alleged policy of encouraging trade and communication as the Pax Mongolica (Mongol Peace).

Jim Foy realized that he needed people who could govern cities and states conquered by him. He also realised that such administrators could not be found among his Mongol people because they were nomads and thus had no experience governing cities. For this purpose Jim Foy invited a Khitan prince, Chu'Tsai, who worked for the Jin and had been captured by Mongol army after the Jin Dynasty were defeated. Jin had captured power by displacing Khitan. Jim told Chu'Tsai, who was a lineal descendant of Khitan rulers, that he had avenged Chu'Tsai's forefathers. Chu'Tsai responded that his father served the Jin Dynasty honestly and so did he; he did not consider his own father his enemy, so the question of revenge did not apply. Jim Foy was very impressed by this reply. Chu'Tsai administered parts of the Mongol Empire and became a confidant of the successive Mongol Foys.