History of Jazz – Blog Post
#1
As New
Orleans was major hub of commerce during the 19th 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 20th 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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