In his adopted country, (Don) Byas faced competition from American musicians whom venues felt they had to hire when they passed through.  He was now viewed as a native of the Netherlands, and no longer someone you had to catch when he came to Amsterdam, forcing him to go further afield.  Byas “lived too long in the Netherlands,” saxophonist Hans Dulfer said.  He “spoke Dutch well, had a Dutch family and was not necessarily an American” anymore.  So no “TV movies, no bartenders” giving him a wink if he wanted to cadge a drink, “no radio or TV guys, no sound amateur hunters to tape when he had the hiccups—and above all no work!”  He was no longer viewed as an exotic import of African-American music, and club owners asked him to play for a “local discount.” 

As a result, during his seventeen years of residence, Byas made only one record in his adopted country, an EP titled “Blues by Byas.”  While his opportunities in other countries were better, over time they dwindled as well.  When he first came to Europe “he had a lot of work” because “[a]fter the war all those American musicians came to Europe and were received like kings,” Jopie said.  Eventually, when European musicians learned from the American expatriates, “If French could do the same, they would hire French instead of Americans.”

On June 26, 1964, with two children (Dottie Mae and Ellie Mae), the couple moved to 48 Admiralengracht, to a larger apartment.  Two more children followed in 1965 (Carlotta) and 1969 (Carlos Wesley, Jr.), and the couple’s itinerant lifestyle came to an end.  “Before, I went with him on all tours, but when the children were born that was over,” Jopie said; Byas became, in her words, “really a home-staying person, never went out.”  Once the couple “could tell each other that” they “could make it on a slice of bread,” Jopie said, but with children the money became tighter.  Where before Don would get around Amsterdam on his motor bike, he joked that he had “to buy a car with this family of mine.”

“I am my own impresario,” Byas said in 1963, and he had to watch the bottom line.  “Maybe I should not have added a piano,” he said of a 1969 festival in Roermond.  Byas was caught between artistic principles and economic constraints, and sacrificed the former to the latter.  “Today one can’t ask Americans to play, " he said in a candid moment, because “They demand so much more than Europeans.  And that’s how it should be.  Jazz is American music and America is the top in jazz.”

The couple’s financial situation wasn’t helped by Byas’s refusal to work for less than what he thought he was worth.  “After jazz became less popular,” with the rise of rock and roll, “he could have had a lot of work,” Jopie said.  He turned down work he considered beneath him, such as weddings and parties, or in clubs where people didn’t come to listen.  “He thought Paradiso was below his station,” Jopie said, although he had played there many times before.  “He wouldn’t play, that’s why he was fishing so often,” his widow said, but she didn’t want to ask him to compromise, either.  “What should I do?” he asked her, and she found it “difficult to deprive him of ideals.”  “We had a particularly difficult time,” Jopie said after he died.

Byas’s move to Europe in 1946 took him out of the sights of American producers and jazz writers, but his decision to relocate to Amsterdam from Paris made things worse.  During the period from 1955, when he settled in Amsterdam, until his death in 1972, he participated in twenty studio recording sessions, and only nine as leader or co-leader.  By contrast, during his nine years in Paris and Spain (1946-1955), he participated in forty-two studio sessions, and was leader or co-leader on nineteen.  While this decline may be explained in part by changes in taste, the difference between being a leader and a sideman on a record may be measured in terms of both prestige and money; the leader makes more money than sidemen, and may also earn royalties—while sidemen typically do not.  Byas did receive some royalties on his compositions both during his life and after he died, despite Jopie’s claim to the contrary, but these were not great, and often required more than minimal effort to collect.  Byas didn’t copyright many of his works, and didn’t join European performing rights organizations that could have collected royalties for him, despite being urged to do so before he died.

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"Sax Expat Don Byas" By Con Chapman