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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