Breaking Down Misconceptions Through Learning About History

Initially, I thought the history of jazz lay solely in New Orleans. Having visited New Orleans, I was perhaps mislead to believe that jazz was an entirely American, New Orleans invention, and I failed to see any connection of jazz to later forms of it such as Swing. In addition, I saw jazz as something that was present only in New Orleans and I completely disregarded major jazz cities such as Chicago, New York, and Kansas City- and disregarded those cities’ major contributions to the art of jazz. However, after taking a course about the history of jazz, I quickly learned that I was completely misguided.

From the very beginning, after reading Robert Thompson’s piece “African Art in Motion”, I quickly learned that jazz in its rawest, most original form originated from African elements of art, music, and dance. Blended with the melancholy of Africans’ new lives in the United States as slaves and their rich history and traditions of art, jazz emerged firstly in New Orleans- it is more African than anything else. This was the greatest, false assumption that this course has broken down for me while learning about the history of jazz.

I originally viewed jazz and swing as entirely mutually exclusive musical genres. I was correct in assuming that Swing emerged through the newly “sex-ed up” industry that was forming, as well as because of the fact that the days of Prohibition and the Great Depression left lasting impacts and created a need to “get loose” and dance the struggles away. However, I failed to see that Swing was merely a revised version of jazz in its original form. The same instruments were used, but in a new arrangement, combination, and with a new brand emphasis on the style of improvisation, as well as a more energetic, fast-paced rhythm to relate to the fast-pace of big cities like Chicago and New York. Furthermore, the original African elements that Robert Thompson presents in his article shine through the Swing Era. The elements of improvisation, fine form, and especially the “get down” quality of swing music are prevalent in swing and were the main elements that helped transform New Orleans into a more danceable, commercialized form of swing.

Overall, I was initially blind to the fact that jazz and other musical genres following jazz are all completely separate from each other- with no overlapping factors or influence, as well as no overlapping influences with locations other than the location in which that genre was first heard. Taking to time to learn about the history of jazz revolutionized the way I think of jazz and swing by opening my eyes to the fact that each musical genre is merely a revision of a previous art form or a summation of multiple cultural influences—even if that culture is thousands of miles around the world from the location in which the music first appears.

Colorblind

Thelonious Monk was perhaps one of the most keynote, revolutionary, and unique jazz musicians of all time. He is attributed for his unique, whimsical style of playing the piano (in terms of his body movements while playing), as well as his unique take on race relations and race in general.

Monk has said “there’s no reason why I should go through that Black Power shit now” (Gioia, 19). From first glance, one would think that Monk would buy into the Malcolm X-like Black Power belief system, since Monk faced harsh reality in his encounters with racist police officers who prolonged the racist tensions and divide. However, Monk was able to transcend traditional race politics. He did not view race as a dichotomy of blackness and whiteness. In other words, he did not view races in terms of a divide between Blacks and Whites. Instead, he saw race as a continuum and as a culmination of numerous, various ethnicities.

This way of thinking could be attributed to the fact that he grew up in San Juan Hill in New York, the epitome of an American salad bowl at the time. He states: “[E]very block is a different town. It was mean all over New York, all the boroughs. Then, besides fighting the ofays, you had to fight each other. You go to the next block and you’re in another country” (Gioia, 19). In San Juan Hill, each block had a different ethnicity; for example, there was a Jewish block, an Irish block, an African-American block, an Italian block, etc. Although traditionally, Jews, the Irish, Italians, and other Europeans were clumped under the white category, Monk was able to see past that misconception because he had lived in San Juan Hill in which each ethnicity had its subculture, directly competing with one another and each having its own set of rules and commonalities. However, despite these standards, Monk fell in love with a woman named “Nica”, of Jewish descent. In 1958, she was jailed due to their inter-racial relationship. Monk’s very relationship with her signifies his lack of race consciousness in terms of his genuine interactions with others- a new colorblind approach that was uncommon. The police’s continuation of racist policies never stopped or changed Monk’s beliefs or actions.

According to Gioia, “the black residents of San Juan Hill established a strong sense of community” (20). This community was expanded by Simon Wolf, whom served as a friend, mentor, and teacher of classical music to Monk. Importantly, Wolf was a Jewish Austrian immigrant. Wolf as well as the San Juan Hill community and structure as a whole played a key role in the musical compositions and stylings of Monk- he was introduced to a competitive yet compassionate community, as well as rich diversity of each culture. The concept of community was crucial in understanding Monk’s impact on music and art of his generation. He was able to transcend skin color to team up and create a safe space for open self-expression and for open advocacy for change in racial relations. He helped create a sort of “bohemian” community that rebelled against the norm and against the way of life at the time that even persists today, one that embodied dissonance in its art forms as a means of rebelling against conformity. He fostered a community (comprised of both Blacks and Whites) in which tolerance was key; thus, a sort of free-spirited musical and artistic revolution followed, due to Monk’s influential nature. His unique rejection of “Black Power” aided him in remaining positive and open about learning new styles and new things musically, whether he was learning from a “White” man or an African American man.

Racial Discourse of the 1930s Swing Era

The 1930s decade all throughout the United States, but especially in industrial, heavily commercialized cities such as New York and Chicago, was marked by the Great Depression. This mass financial downturn prompted a surge of financial competition in all industries- especially in the music entertainment jazz business. These changes thus led to race becoming more explicit in the 1930s, giving birth to the “Swing Era”, defined loosely as the time period in which swing and jazz music began to become commercialized and commoditized. The discourse about race had always been present; however, with financial and commercial changes occurring, the topic of race appeared at the forefront of jazz.

David Stowe’s book “Swing Changes: Big-Band Jazz in New Deal America” helps highlight keep points of the Swing Era and its relation to race. Stowe writes: “Racially, jazz was perceived as uncouth and primitive, a variety of music associated with African-Americans… [I]t stood for… elements associated with Prohibition speakeasies and brothels… this reaction was not limited to whites, but was felt among the black middle class as well” (Stowe, 53). The pre-existing socially and culturally influenced set of values were challenged, with each race challenging one another and bringing race into the equation.

In a time of continuous segregation between Blacks and Whites, jazz musicians, both White and Black, struggled for competition in respective opposing worlds. Blacks were forced to find means within a segregated Black entertainment world, or succumbed to performing at the mob-run, popular but racially disputed all-White nightclub, The Cotton Club.

Although night club and other live performances were color-transparent, the only place in which race was hidden was the radio. The radio was the only place in which music can be heard colorlessly- listeners would not know the race of the musician that authored the music, and thus Black musicians were able to earn extra income through the radio. Duke Ellington was an example of a musician that took the radio to his advantage, as well as collaborated with a white Jewish entrepreneur, Irving Mills, to bypass the financial and commercial hardships of a racially segregated jazz industry for Blacks. Duke Ellington was faced with a challenge of staying within his limits whilst pushing against them to become as omnipresent and powerful in the music industry. Racial dissonance and racial residue was outlined not so subtly in many song titles: such as the musical numbers “Black Beauty” and “Black and Tan Fantasy” of Duke Ellington.

John Hammond, a wealthy White man, had a significant role in race discussions. He actively sought after “The Next Big Thing”, and was cited for discovering talent such as Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, and Bennie Moten. Hammond came in conflict with Ellington and other reputable players in the industry for his outlandish, zealous, and politically motivated beliefs and publishings, such as his quote: “[t]he best of the white folk cannot compare to the really good Negroes in relaxed, unpretentious dance music” (Stowe, 60). Ellington criticized Hammond for “’freely condemning and condoning’ bands in which he had no financial stake, a ‘right’ Ellington believed he had ‘forfeited’ as a result of his activities as a producer and talent scout” (Stowe, 59). The de-segregation as well as integration of “Black and White economies”, alongside growing tensions and competition for financial security and fame and influence in the music industry led to race becoming more explicit in the 1930s “Swing Era”.

Chicago Jazz Era

            Although New Orleans is often cited as the original birth place of jazz, Chicago played a significantly more crucial role than New York in advancing and shaping the art of jazz in the 1920s. According to Liz Cohen, “Chicago was the jazz capital of the nation for much of the 1920s”. A particular style of jazz emerged out of Chicago, for reasons influenced by the social, racial, and economic conditions present at the time.

Chicago as well as much of the United States in the 1920s was in the beginning stages of the Great Depression. Regardless, people still needed entertainment in order to emotionally survive financial struggles, and so they turned to commercial jazz clubs to dance and sing the troubles away. This allowed for a more commercial stage for jazz to occur in Chicago. The Chicago Race Riots in 1919, in which a white man stoned a black man to death at a beach, set the stage for racial segregation of Blacks and Whites in the 1920s. This situation taught the Black community to rely on those within their community, thus a distinct Black culture emerges in Chicago. A sort of discrepancy occurred within the jazz audience- Whites were allowed to freely enter predominantly Black neighborhoods, whereas Blacks could not enter predominantly White neighborhoods. Black musicians’ innovations colonized American culture, and was commercialized in order to satisfy the White community.

A new kind of aggressive, upbeat style was rising in Chicago, predominantly introduced by King Oliver in his band, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. This new sound was distinct from the New Orleans style- “the Chicago horns often join together for brief written introductions and interludes, a technique closer to the big band idiom” (Gioia, 75). An authentic sound of brash, sparkling, upbeat trumpet playing formed, alongside a bluesy swinging rhythmic portion of the composition. Chicago-style music heavily involved and necessitated a feeling of dance, rhythm, and motion- in alignment with Thompson’s African art elements of motion, attack, and vital aliveness. Louis Armstrong is perhaps the most influential Chicago musician who left the biggest footprint in jazz history- all musicians that followed him merely attempted to emulate his style, thus leading to a new sound of jazz.

Chicago’s main contribution was the commercialization, or the commodification of jazz music into American society- which in turn affected the actual style of music that was produced. The Chicago jazz scene was controlled mainly by gangsters, under whom legends like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, and the Austin High Gang all worked for. These gangsters assumed their natural roles as bosses, thus putting a damper in the artistic, creative freedoms of the musicians themselves. The gangsters were solely interested in the profit nature of the jazz industry, and thus were responding to consumer tastes and preferences- squashing the musicians’ autonomy and say in what they were to play, when, and how.

Mikhail M. Bakhtin states that “each dialogue takes place as if against a background of the responsive understanding of an invisibly present third party who stands above all the participants in the dialogue... The aforementioned third party is not any mystical or metaphysical being - he is a constitutive aspect of the whole utterance, who, under deeper analysis, can be revealed in it” (126-127). Bakhtin makes the reference that art is a dialogue between the audience and the creator of the art; it is a relationship. He believes that art is “intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationship that is artistically expressed”. This concept is crucial in understanding how jazz, or any art form is shaped and altered. The identity of jazz is the culmination of the consumer’s desires as well as the musician’s credentials, with the addition of racial, societal, and economic conditions that prevail. Chicago led the way in innovation and reigned tremendous influence that led to the Jazz Age in the 1920s, due to its characteristic living conditions and main artistic figures that changed jazz indefinitely.

New Orleans: The Birthplace of Jazz

Jazz is the first original musical genre developed on American soil. New Orleans had much to contribute to the emergence of jazz at the beginning of the 20^th century, and has helped influence and shape future musical forms all around the United States. Congo Square and in particular its unheard of cultural tolerance put New Orleans on the map as the birthplace and contributor and producer of jazz music.

Situated in the deep South, New Orleans was comprised of mostly slaves brought in from West Africa and the Caribbean. These slaves brought with them a rich history and culture, including their musical and artistic traditions and styles. Gioia refers to the fusion of African culture into “American” culture as syncretism- African culture influenced and shaped American culture. Gioia also refers to New Orleans as a melting pot, or “cultural gumbo” due to its French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences.

For the most part, slave owners disallowed slaves from singing and expressing their arts while laboring in fear of slaves conspiring a rebellion. However, the New Orleans City Council approved a physical location in town, called Congo Square, in which slaves could congregate under the supervision of whites and perform and sing and dance freely. This was the first glimpse of the fusion of arts, since whites would get curious about the African arts and were impressed at what they saw.

New Orleans was the only city in which jazz could have emerged as opposed to other major American cities at its time. The cosmopolitan, port city nature of New Orleans, the Catholic Latin slave code, and the double consciousness for Blacks and Creoles all attributed to the uniqueness of New Orleans as the birthplace of jazz.

New Orleans’s geographical positioning warranted its cosmopolitan nature as a port city- it is situated in between the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River. Thus, the slave trade and trade of other goods was rich and plentiful in New Orleans. This consistent exchange of goods led to the exchange of ideas and culture in such a way that could only have been done in New Orleans and in no other city in the United States.

The slave culture was crucial to the city’s function and cultural and musical output. Two different “slave codes” or theories existed, the Latin and the English philosophies. New Orleans had a predominantly French Catholic population, thus the Latin slave code was favored and widespread. Unlike the English slave philosophy, the Latin version allowed slaves rights such as: owning property, purchasing themselves to freedom, and marriage rights. Slave owners were allowed to free their slaves, slaves were seen to have a soul and being, there was a less dehumanizing attitude towards slaves, and perhaps most important to cultural fusion: slaves were allowed to intermarry with whites. This led to the emerging Creole population of New Orleans.

            Creoles are the offspring of interracial marriages. Although New Orleans was seen as more liberal in terms of its conduct of slaves, these lighter skinned Creoles of color disassociated themselves from their African roots because Africans were still seen as second class citizens. Thus, Creoles practiced Eurocentric forms of music, focusing on rigid structure and composition. When strict segregation was ordered after the Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, Creoles were forced into Negro neighborhoods due to the discourse of whiteness by law. Creoles were no longer allowed to perform for whites, and had to realign themselves with their full-Negro counterparts. Creoles faced a double consciousness struggle- or an identity struggle between their European and their African roots. Despite this, integration continued in a time of segregation in the Negro community. Blues feelings reappeared, coupled with ragtime rhythms and Creole European musical fine form transcended the dead end of sadness during these times. All of these interactions between Creoles and Africans ultimately resulted in the emergence of jazz in New Orleans.

A few keystone musicians and particular places in New Orleans helped pave the way for the emergence of jazz and are claimed to be the founding sources of New Orleans jazz. The traditional African principles as outlined by Robert F. Thompson in his writing “African Art in Motion,” are present in all of these sources of the beginning stages of jazz.

Storyville was a part of New Orleans similar to the Red Light District of Amsterdam. The area was comprised of brothels, brass bands, and “sexy” music on nearly every corner. Sex appeal is a vital element of jazz, similar to rock and roll, and this principle was founded in Storyville. Storyville mainly displays the elements of song and dance and call and response in its culture- a sort of vital aliveness that shook New Orleans into the direction of jazz.

Buddy Bolden is referred to as the “elusive father of jazz” by many. He debatably was one of the first musicians to experiment with syncopations of ragtime and the blues. He was a part of a string band, was outspoken, and sang racially and politically based lyrics, so much so that those singing his songs were arrested. (Gioia, 36). His presence and skills were so sought after and created a buzz, as Thompson would call it, created a vital aliveness and brought a new level of power and intensity to the musical jazz scene. His musical genius furthermore highlighted the African value and principle of fine form.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB), originating in New Orleans, also brought attention to the jazz scene. This band was the first musical entity to ever commercially produce a jazz record. Their first record came out in 1917, creating a roar in the jazz business. In addition, this band was an all-white band, furthermore proving the fusion and participation of the entire New Orleans population, transcending all races and skin tones, in its role of being the “original creators” of jazz music.

Jelly Roll Morton was perhaps the most iconic father of jazz in New Orleans. Self-proclaimed “Inventor of Jazz”, Jelly Roll Morton was a prolific composer of music. He was seen as one of the very first musicians that utilized certain elements in his music that are prevalent in jazz music. He was a creole of color, and mixed his European musical style training with American ragtime and blues musical styles. He introduced spontaneity in jazz- incorporating different musical instruments unexpectedly into compositions and encouraging improvisation as a masterful art form. In modern jazz the audience expects the best, most talented musicians to be able to improvise with their instruments with different compositions, which provides that swing element into jazz music.

            The cultivation of jazz in New Orleans had many various reasons for its upbringing. Although each factor had a role in forming jazz, jazz could not have emerged without the most important factor- integration. The beauty of jazz is its culmination and mixture of different instruments, styles, and feelings- all made possible through the integration of the rich, vibrant cultures of New Orleans. New Orleans historically was swapped back and forth between the French, the Spanish, and the Americans. It was a slave trade hot spot where millions of slaves were sent from the West African coast as well as the Caribbean Islands. Without all of these cultures present and intermixing, jazz would never have emerged in New Orleans. The call and response feature of traditional African arts is emphasized in jazz, proving not only African roots in American jazz, but also the vital element of integration. According to Gioia, “the call-and-response format is as much a matter of social integration as an issue of musical structure” (9). Ultimately, the fusion of African and various European musical and artistic elements is the main factor for the birth of jazz in New Orleans.