Blog #5

            Right outside of my bedroom, in the hallway of my parent’s home, is a framed black and white photo of a young Miles Davis, sitting alone in a recording studio with his trumpet. The image always reminded me of a modern reinvention of The Thinker. And that was jazz to me. The heady and cool Miles Davis. You can tell that he’s got something on his mind, but he won’t ever explain it to you. No, you’ve got to listen to his music and try to figure out what he’s thinking. Growing up jazz always seemed like an unrelatable fringe subgenre of music led by these enigmatic personas such as Miles Davis. But after taking this course I can see now how naive that perspective of jazz was.

            For half a century, jazz wasn’t fringe at all. It feels strange to say, but jazz was American pop music. Jazz was dance music. Jazz was mainstream entertainment. It was a reinvention of classic music into something hip, modern, and most importantly alive. From the 20s through the 40s jazz was the backdrop of American night life. People weren’t sitting around snapping their fingers to it, they were crowding around the radio or lining up outside of clubs, excited to dance to the latest sounds. The jazz I knew, the cool jazz of Miles Davis, didn't come around until much later. It came once the musicians really started thinking and becoming self-aware of what they were doing. The jazz I was used to came once the musicians made a conscious choice to create art instead of entertainment.

            And by nature the persona of the artist needs to be more enigmatic than that of the entertainer. Especially with the context of black jazz musicians attempting to succeed in a racially heated society, the two personas diverge by necessity. In the early years of jazz, the black entertainer needed to fit a nonthreatening, Uncle Tom type of role. On stage they needed to laugh and grin and put their, often white audience and employers, at ease. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and other great jazz musicians of the day were savvy businessmen and knew that in order to keep their jobs as entertainers they needed to play into certain stereotypes and project a docile image of themselves. It’s smart. Could you imagine someone like Miles Davis, clearly smart as hell and with all the attitude that he carries with him, coming up on stage in a segregated Chicago nightclub in the 1920s? I doubt he’d be allowed to finish his set before the gangster club owners decided to “take care of him”.

            But in the 1950s and the 60s, society allows him to act the way he does. Sure racial tensions were still high, but the civil rights movement was in full swing, and attention was being drawn to racial issues. This was a transitional period in American history, and the attitude that Miles Davis projected was representative of where America was heading. A proud, talented, and smart black man, clearly disgusted with the discrimination of his people; this persona attracted people towards his music and provided a lens through which to view his artistic message. But after reading through his autobiography and learning about the history of jazz, Miles’s persona doesn’t seem nearly so enigmatic to me as it once did. He was a product of the jazz movement. His art, his identity, his livelihood, and his politics all becoming so intertwined that the only way to protect his ego was to become guarded, stern, and aloof. It’s hard to define jazz because it has evolved and changed so much over the 20^th century, but it seems clear that the musicians who pushed the movement forward didn’t just play jazz, they lived it.

Blog #4

Thelonious Monk perhaps epitomizes the stereotype of the jazz savant. He’s odd and appears obsessive to the observer. He sees the world differently than most, and that unique perspective comes through in his compositions, which are dominated by dissonance and unconventional harmonies. However, looking at the community he was raised in, it almost seems inevitable that he is the way he is.

In his biography on Thelonious Monk, Robin Kelley describes the San Juan Hill community in which Monk was raised. It’s a community dominated by racial tensions and contradictions. It was a small community of tenement buildings for working class families and every block was dominated by a specific ethnic group. As Monk described it, “you go in the next block and you’re in another country” (Kelley, 19). And every ethnic group was protective of their territory and ready and willing to use violence to defend their sub community. Within area, small race riots were expected weekly, and residents of the community were known to store “piles of bottles and bricks ripped from dilapidated chimneys” to retaliate with when conflicts arose (Kelley, 17). But at the same time that these sometimes fatally violent conflicts were frequently occurring, the San Juan Hill area still functioned as a community, albeit a highly dysfunctional one. Residents of the community remember that the majority of the merchants were Italians. So, when you needed to purchase something, you needed to go down one of the Italian blocks to the store. The Italians wouldn’t allow blacks to walk on the sidewalks in their neighborhood, so the black customers would shamefully walk along the street. At the store, the Italians would give you anything you needed in an “empty wooden box”. As one resident remembers, “they’re always glad to give you a box because they know you have a coal stove and you need the wood to start the fire.” However, after you get the box, “you break [it up]” and “run like mad down the street… [hitting] anybody you can” with the sticks (Kelley, 18). This is the kind of racial conflict-based contradiction embodied in the San Juan Hill community that is almost comedic in its excessive nature. In this example, the blacks and the Italians work together and are helpful towards each other in certain interactions, but before that interaction begins and after it is over, they revert back to racial discrimination and violence that seems based more on the community’s attitude and not on any personal disagreements. Growing up in a community like this, it only seems natural that Monk would express himself through highly unconventional harmonies in his music.

In Monk’s situation, I believe his music is a direct product of his abnormal upbringing. However, the opposite could also be true: an abnormal community can be the direct product of art and music. This seems to be the case in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. This is a community, of predominantly African Americans, located within the heart of LA. The surrounding areas are impoverished and dominated by gang violence, but Leimert Park is an oasis of art, music, and nonviolent expression. In Leimert Park, the residents came together, out of a mutual respect and admiration for the arts, and formed a true community. But Leimert park is very different than San Juan Hill. While Leimert park resonates with the idea that we can love and accept one another regardless of the differences between us, the San Juan Hill mentality is to focus on every difference between people and create conflicts because of that. But as different as these two communities are, music is still at the center of them. Monk was, and still is, a highly influential musician, and it seems unlikely that the jazz roots of the Leimert Park community could have been planted without the influence of Monk’s music, and it seems even more unlikely that Monk could have the same musical voice without his upbringing in San Juan Hill.

Jazz Blog #3

America in the 1930s. I think of the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the New Deal. I think of FDR, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. I think of backbreaking agricultural work, and I think of groundbreaking feats of engineering and infrastructure. I think of a country nostalgic towards the simpler and more prosperous days of the past, and a country ready to lead the world in science, art, and moral values. I think of swing.

            It’s hard to consider the impact swing music had on America because at first glance it seems inconsequential. The American economy collapsed, unemployment was at an all time high, people were literally dying of starvation and were willing to work ungodly hours of backbreaking labor in the hot sun just to feed themselves, yet even in the face of adversity, jazz survived. At the end of the day, a man might only have a quarter to his name and a belly half full from dinner, but that man would still be willing to spend that precious quarter at a music club and spend the night dancing to swing. Swing acted, not only as a distraction from the bleak lives most people of the time were enduring, but on a deeper level it embodied the contradictions embedded in American culture.

            Jazz had finally entered the mainstream, and America was comfortable with the idea of Jazz music, but nobody could afford to keep musicians around on a contract for nightly performances at their clubs as was popular in the 20s. In order to survive, musicians had to travel around, living gig to gig and hoping that there would always be one lined up after the next. Luckily the invention of the radio came around just in time to give an impoverished nation access to more or less free information, and savvy musicians (or more than likely their agents) took advantage of this resource to disseminate songs and personas all across the country. In this way, swing musicians like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman could book a gig anywhere in the country because even though they had never previously been to, or even heard of many of the small towns they performed in, they had fans there.

            Now I mention Ellington and Goodman not by coincidence. These were perhaps the two biggest names in swing in the 1930s. They were both exceedingly popular on the radio, but dealt with very different responses in their live performances. Ellington, a black man, dealt with racism across the country. Some venues would not allow him to perform because he was black, others booked him after hearing his radio singles and were surprised to discover his blackness only when he arrived. He was often disbarred from the very clubs and hotels he performed in and would have to seek lodging elsewhere when the show was over, and whether it was the realization that a black man could produce art or the dismissal of his work as art because he was black, his presence, and that of other black jazz artists, perturbed the social status-quo. Meanwhile, white musicians, such as Goodman, were reaching critical acclaim playing the same music that other were performing. In 1938, Goodman’s band finally brought Jazz into the realm of high culture and respectability by playing at Carnegie Hall. But it was not because they played any better than other Jazz musicians. In fact, Goodman conceded that many black musicians were more talented than himself. No, the issue lay in race. Goodman and his band were white, so their ceiling for success was much higher than other Jazz Bands. And in the 1930s, when Jazz had become well established as not only a central part of mainstream popular culture but as a respectable aspect of America’s contribution to art, the racial contradictions in Jazz became very apparent and even concerning. People like John Hammond were devoting their lives to Jazz in a critical way that before this time had never occurred and they realized that Jazz was more than just a musical genre but a social movement. I don’t think it can be said better than what David Stowe wrote in his book Swing Changes:

The contradictions of jazz criticism were a symptom of the difficult task with which these writers saddled themselves: explaining to America that swing was in a fundamental sense an African-American music, that somehow, for the first time since antebellum minstrelsy, black culture had become for many of its young people the American culture of choice (Stowe, 54).

Swing revealed some of the major contradictions in American society. In the 1930s, we wanted to lead the world in science, art, and moral values, yet our economy was in tatters, our society was racially segregated, and our main artistic contribution to the world came from the oppressed African Americans that were popularly considered to be inherently inferior to the white American. It was a tough time to live in and most people were too busy working to put food on the table to worry about larger issues race and class structures. But after the depression, the ideas that swing catalyzed would certainly be felt.

#2

Blog #2

            Jazz in the 1920s presented a curious confliction in social cultural values in the United States. On one hand, America was still a very much segregated society, with a very low ceiling and few occupational options for African Americans. However, there was a large demand for black performers. It created an odd situation where black culture is acceptable, and even valued, by American society as long as it occurs on stage, but it is still disapproved of and hated in day to day life. For Jazz to gain mainstream success it would need to overcome this barrier. It did this in Chicago.

            In the early 1920s, Chicago was a rough, booming city run by the larger than life mob boss Al Capone. Everything was a business, and nothing went down without the mob getting a cut. It didn’t matter if you were black, Italian, jewish, or german, as long as you had cash, paid your respects to the mob, and were tough enough to stay afloat, you could rise to success in Chicago. This environment allowed for blacks to gain a degree of disposable income. They may have endured backbreaking labor all week, but come Friday night they had a bit of extra cash in their pockets and they wanted to spend it and have a good time. This is the moment where jazz musicians could take the stage and earn a livelihood performing. The mob caught on to this. Nothing happened in Chicago without the mob getting a cut and they quickly capitalized on these performers and their audience, bringing the top performers out of the underbelly of the city and into prestigious clubs. There were many negatives to the mob running the Chicago jazz scene. For one, jazz musicians were forced into binding contracts that limited their occupational freedom both legally and with the threat of mob violence hanging over their head, and as money talks they began catering to a predominantly white audience (Travis, 44-45). But with this change, also included more room for growth. Blacks could make a better living performing jazz than just about any other occupational alternative. This allowed for more musicians to enter the scene and for more of them to devote their time to their craft. This was the moment Jazz entered the mainstream. Jazz may have been born in New Orleans, but in Chicago it grew up.

            You can feel this sense of maturity in the music as well. New Orleans jazz is light, uplifting, and whimsical. Chicago Jazz is fast, “snappy,” “modern,” and almost arrogant in the way the ensemble components compete with one another in an attempt to emerge as a distinct voice (The Chicagoans, 162). This seems very much reflective of the attitude of the cities. Jazz emerged in New Orleans because it was a city that was intensely passionate about music as a form of expression, but in Chicago it I all about money, and the musicians that moved to play there had to become savvy businessmen in order to survive. 

Blog 1

History of Jazz – Blog Post #1

           

As New Orleans was major hub of commerce during the 19^th century, its population swelled with the heterogeneous streams of people coming and going from the city. This cosmopolitan history contributed to the diverse cultural setting from which jazz emerged. New Orleans held a deep appreciation for music, as bands performed at almost every social event. This coupled with the city’s local passion for brass bands made it a fertile musical soil, ripe for innovation. Remarkably, the city’s moral atmosphere played a role almost as significant as its musical one. The tales of Storyville, a red light district notoriously started by Sidney Story, purport its sinful influence as a breeding ground for hot style jazz. While these accounts often misalign with the facts surrounding the emergence of jazz, their notoriety and sensationalism produced a desire for the forbidden fruit of this new musical style.

However, the most important factor that explained why jazz emerged in New Orleans arises from the racial relations of the state. The transience of the city’s visitors coupled with the licentious nature of its residents resulted in a rapid racial mixing and the emergence of a distinct group: Creoles of color. “[In 1894], the passage of the Louisiana Legislative Code No. 111…designated anyone of African ancestry as a Negro. Slowly, but inexorably, these Creoles of color were pushed into closer and closer contact with the black underclass they had strenuously avoided for so long” (Gioia, 32.) The joining of these groups connected their previously juxtaposed musical styles – the Creoles’ skilled, classical approach and the “hot,” improvisations of black musicians – which established the unique amalgam of sound that constitutes jazz.

While the blend of European and African practices worked together to create jazz, the style largely grew out of a history of African American musical traditions. While jazz draws influences from several genres of music, it most significantly drew from ragtime and its major innovator, Scott Joplin. Gioia mentions that jazz pianists especially derived style and technique from ragtime artists. “A whole generation of jazz pianists adopted [the left-hand structures of ragtime], using a resounding low bass note or octave (sometimes a fifth or tenth) on beats one and three, followed by a middle register chord on beats two and four” (Gioia, 20). In addition to the appropriation of this four-to-the-bar pattern, jazz’s conjoining of European and African musical traditions mirrored Joplin’s opera, Treemonisha, which utilized a full range of European operatic devices.

The combination of international traditions that cultivated jazz thrived in the distinctive atmosphere of New Orleans. The mobile, ceremonial, and traditionally performative nature of New Orleans music held a special niche for the emergence of jazz in the early 20^th century. The transient nature of the city’s population also greatly contributed to the vast and rapid spread of jazz. While several of the top jazz performers permanently left New Orleans, the traditional “hot” styles of jazz, characteristic of its birthplace, remained widely intact outside the city, immortalizing its legacy. 


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