Jazz: More Than Just Background Music?

     My assumptions about the history of jazz were relatively simple compared to what I know now having taken this course. Before this class, I assumed jazz was only the smooth, cool, modern jazz that we usually hear on the radio today, and I suspect it is a common misconception that others have who did not grow up with much exposure to or appreciation for jazz.

     Growing up, my parents would have the radio permanently turned to the local jazz station; this was not because they were particularly fond of jazz, but because the music (at least on that station) was mellow and calm enough for their sensitive temperaments. My parents did not tolerate noise, so to me, jazz seemed like the most subdued and unobtrusive kind of genre, purely background music and not something you really had to pay attention to. I would be a lazy and oblivious student if I said that this course did not change my perception about jazz. I have learned that the history of jazz was a series of movements that began in New Orleans with traditional African influences as well as original, American creations, like the blues. Jazz then molded and transformed into new styles as it travelled from New Orleans to Chicago, Kansas City, and New York, where the environments of the cities would stimulate innovation. Now that I have taken the course, my previous assumption that jazz was homogeneously “cool” and “smooth” has been proven false; the different genres of jazz, like swing, ragtime, stride, and bebop are distinct and diverse.

     Even though I was exposed to jazz through the radio, I was unaware at how fundamental it was for popularizing jazz, especially in the Swing Era. According to Gioia, “The creation of a truly nationwide mass medium in the form of radio catapulted a few jazz players to a level of celebrity that would have been unheard of only a few years before” (136). Jazz broadcasts over the radio were also an important early step towards desegregation; music played by black artists was being broadcast in white homes, exploring a new audience that perhaps did not even know they were listening to black musicians.

     My previous presumption of the radio was that of something universally accessible, or at least in the US, so it was different to think that it was a new technology and that the radio actually played a big role in the popularity of the artist. In fact, it became the main marketing tool and source of advertising in the entertainment industry during the Great Depression (Stewart, lecture 2/12). Of course, the radio is still prominent, but I would argue it has declined in use. Personally, I only listen to the radio in the car and use my iPod or computer to play music, and I would say that record sales, tours, music video views on YouTube, and social media are better methods to assess the popularity of an artist than the radio. Honestly, I do not think jazz is as popular a genre today; although you can see jazz influences in pop songs (take the swing effect in Justin Timberlake’s “Suit and Tie” for example), it is not played on pop radio or Hot 100 stations, but rather seems reserved for high culture tastes or, in my parents’ case, background music. However, it was interesting to learn about the Swing Era in which it was the height of American entertainment and was widely broadcasted on the radio.

Thelonious Monk

     When Thelonious Monk said, “There’s no reason why I should go through that Black Power shit now. I guess everybody in New York had to do that, right? Because every 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” (Kelley 19), he demonstrated his belief that racial conflict was a given, natural to urban life in America. This was especially true in San Juan Hill, the area of New York City where Monk grew up. There, racial tensions, though at times culminating in violent break outs, contributed to Monk’s musical upbringing. As a result, Monk used music as a way to vent frustration from the racial discrimination he would face all his life, especially with his 1958 arrest in Delaware.

     Not only was San Juan Hill an unsanitary disgrace, riddled with “tuberculosis, flies, […] high infant mortality rate among blacks, and alcoholism” (Kelley 16), it also had a reputation for violence. The neighborhood, named after a famous battle in the Spanish American War (which reflects its history of fighting), was known for its race riots. There were many instances of police brutality against blacks; as Monk recalled, “It looked like the order of the day was for the cops to go out and call all the kids black bastards” (Kelley 19). Racial conflict was not limited to blacks and whites, however. Caribbean blacks fought with Southern blacks, Chinese with blacks, and Spanish, French, Italians, Germans, and Jews amongst each other.

     The positive side of all these contentious cultures being crammed together in such a small space was that they offered a diversity of influences that are reflected in Monk’s music. For example, he learned piano from a Jewish teacher, Simon Wolf (Kelley 26) who taught him European classical music from composers like Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Rossini, Strauss, Chopin, and Liszt (Kelley 22). San Juan Hill also contributed to Monk’s general multicultural identity; “With the music, cuisine, dialects, and manners of the Caribbean and the American South everywhere in the West 60s, virtually every kid became a kind of cultural hybrid” (Kelley 23). The neighborhood’s ethnic disjunction is manifested in Monk’s Dionysian style of music, which involves scattered, erratic piano notes, improvisation, and atonality. This is significant in terms of the broader scope of jazz’s trajectory and the rise of Bebop; New York, where all these diverse cultures intertwined and clashed, is where a more modern style of jazz developed, one that was a “more angular, more dissonant, more complex kind of beauty than that of swing” (Stewart, lecture 2/26).

     Even though Monk was able to embrace the racial tension in San Juan Hill and inject its energy and dissonance into his style of music, he could not do the same with his 1958 arrest on the charges of “assault and battery on a police officer, […] breach of peace, resisting arrest, and narcotics possession” (Kelley 254). The incident, which started when an ill Monk wandered into a motel for a drink where the owners refused to serve him, ended with white policemen beating him severely and searching his companions’ belongings without a search warrant. The case would have a lasting effect on Monk’s psychological health and his career; the police seized his cabaret card for six years after a crime he did not commit. This is significant because even Monk, who was able to turn the racial disparity of San Juan Hill into a positive influence in his music, was not immune to racial injustice. Even though Bebop was a way for black artists to alleviate the frustration of living in a xenophobic society, it was not strong enough to curb racism altogether.

Jazz and Race in the 1930s

Jazz and Race in the 1930s

     In the 1930s, jazz was no longer simply a creative art form headed by the most talented musicians, but also an economic game in which a thorough knowledge of business was also necessary to be successful. Due to the Great Depression, the general public no longer had the disposable income they had in the 1920s to spend on entertainment. As such, jazz artists had to find ways to distribute their music and thus keep their status in the jazz world. The main way of doing this was through radio. “It became the main marketing tool for an entertainment industry in the Great Depression, and also the main source of advertising for a band” Professor Stewart said in lecture. Most importantly, it allowed a black artist to pass through a segregated barrier; a song on the radio was not so easily identified as black like it would be played live in a segregated club. Duke Ellington’s transition to the radio kept him alive as an artist, unlike his contemporaries Fletcher Henderson, King Oliver, and Bix Beiderbecke.

     It was not only Ellington’s smooth transition to radio that kept him relevant, but also his practical knowledge of the industry’s economics. First, he had a more aggressive personality in confronting this shift to better technology in music. He worked with his agent Mills to get the best bookings, venues, recordings, and radio outlets, even if it meant sharing profits with Mills.

     Because Ellington became business savvy, he could now compete for the top spot in jazz culture with white artists who did not have to endure the disadvantages of the times. According to Swing Changes, segregation made sure that “of the five major sources of big-band receipts−record sales, one-night engagements, theater shows, hotel location jobs, and commercially sponsored programs−black bands were essentially restricted to the first three.”  Even worse, swing was becoming so popular that a growing number of white bands actually became more popular than the black bands led by Ellington, Calloway, and Moten, so much so that the latter were pushed out.

     Why had swing become so popular among whites? Both black and white jazz musicians lacked high culture respect−black jazz musicians were not included in the intellectual Harlem Renaissance, and white jazz musicians were also not accepted by the rest of white culture because of jazz’s black origins. However, this all changed when Benny Goodman, a white orchestra leader, performed at Carnegie Hall in 1938. The concert made jazz a high culture art form; but it was only accepted as such because Goodman was white, and therefore only white jazz was high class.

     Another racial divide in jazz was the relationship between musician and critic. John Hammond, a critic from a white privileged background, condemned Ellington’s catering to white audiences and overlooking the injustices of his race. He had formed his music in response to white tastes, and he also knew and accepted the fact that he could not be successful (like headlining at the Cotton Club, for example) if he disregarded white influence. Hammond wrote, "Ellington's tact and suave manner disguised a willingness to tolerate racial indignities for the sake of commercial success." Ellington dismissed this, asking how a white critic (and in Hammond’s case, an upper class citizen too) could have any insight into the sacrifices a black artist made in order to be successful.

     In terms of jazz, race became explicit in the 1930s because perhaps for the first time, white musicians shared the same caliber of respect and popularity as blacks (as seen by Goodman’s Carnegie Hall performance), the advances in technology such as the radio, and the Great Depression’s impact on the entertainment industry. Blacks had to adapt to the economic game of jazz, whereas previously they needed only their talent to be successful.

Jazz: Chicago Style

     Jazz’s transposition into Chicago from New Orleans was more of an evolution than its growth in New York. Even professor Stewart has said that when we talk of the Jazz Age, we are predominantly referring to Chicago style jazz. In Chicago, the solo artist emerged from the brass bands of New Orleans, the genre transcended class and race more so than in New Orleans, and it became a modern art form born out of a Southern tradition. In contrast, its’ development in Harlem, New York was mired by a fragmented Black community split into the highbrow Harlem Renaissance intellectuals and the lowbrow “slum” dance halls and intimate rent parties, as well as the restrictions on artists as imposed by the mob and racial segregation. Jazz in Chicago was unifying medium for all of the black community, but the same cannot be so strongly said about jazz in New York.

    Out of Chicago emerged arguably the greatest jazz musician in history, Louis Armstrong. Although he migrated to Chicago like many New Orleans musicians, it wasn’t until he was pushed by his wife Lil Hardin to seek individual fame that the solo jazz artist was brought to light. Armstrong paved the way for a more emotional and personally connected genre that Chicago allowed. Along with the solo artist, Chicago jazz featured a bluesy swinging rhythm section and a brash, sparkling, and upbeat trumpet (as opposed to the centerpiece being the piano in New York), according to lecture.

     In New Orleans, jazz was played in the brothels of Storyville and the lower class black community. However, with the rise of the middle class as facilitated by the Industrial Revolution, respectable middle class blacks found entertainment and leisure in listening and dancing to jazz. Therefore jazz transitioned into the more suitable dance pavilions where blacks could get dressed up and have a nice distraction from the grinds of everyday industrial life. In this way, jazz became an art form for all classes to enjoy. In contrast, jazz was only enjoyed by the lowbrow black community of New York and effectively ignored by the Harlem Renaissance intellectuals.

     Chicago Jazz was enjoyed by both blacks and whites as well. According to chapter six of An Autobiography of Black Jazz, white jazz artists would go to the black jazz clubs to learn from the true masters. “Alberta Hunter, the South Side’s favorite singer during that period, said, ‘Sophie Tucker came to see me do “Some Day, Sweetheart” at the Dreamland. Later she sent her maid, Belle, to ask me to come to her dressing room and teach her the songs. I would never go…’” (Travis 68). Chicago jazz was not only recognized by all classes as a significant musical movement, but people of different races as well. Even if whites only visited clubs like the Dreamland to steal material, it was still an accomplishment for black jazz musicians’ skill to want to be copied.

     To return to Louis Armstrong, he epitomized the Chicago style of jazz. A virtuoso trumpet player, he shined at the head of the band. He also recorded numerous tracks that would go on to be jazz standards; his recordings symbolize the modernization of the Chicago jazz movement.

Black Studies Blog 1: New Orleans

     New Orleans, with its status as a port city where the cultures of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the heartland of America coming down from the Mississippi River all came together, as well as its more liberal Latin Code of practicing slavery, was the perfect storm for jazz to be created.

     The area of New Orleans was first colonized by France, a catholic country. They practiced slavery under the Latin Code, which allowed more freedoms than the English code practiced in the North. For example, slaves could marry, and even more important, intermarry, they could buy their freedom, be freed by their masters, and own personal property. However, perhaps the greatest freedom in terms of the creation of jazz was the freedom to dance and play music. In the North, just the use of drums was prohibited because whites feared they were used to signal a rebellion. In the South however, whites would even come to hear the music of the black folk. The center for this artistic expression was Congo Square, a square in New Orleans that was designated on Sunday as a place for slaves to practice forms of music and dance carried over from Africa. Congo Square was a crucial way to preserve African traditions that were suppressed in other colonies.

     Because the city was a connecting point between various cultures, its cosmopolitan population contributed an array of ideas, particularly in regards to music. From Europe came the technical and high society classical music, from Africa came performance elements like vital aliveness and the get-down quality, and from the Caribbean came a light, Latin rhythm. However, it wasn’t until the passing of the Louisiana Legislative Code of 1894 that these elements were thoroughly mixed together. The code forced any people of African descent to be considered Negro; this meant that the Creole (mixed race) people, who for so long had identified with their European heritage and strove to distance themselves from blacks, were forced to come into close contact with them. It also meant that the European style of music that the Creole class practiced could comingle with the blues and ragtime genres of blacks, combining technical skill with emotion to create jazz.

      Besides the city itself, there were many figures who contributed to the birth of jazz. The first of which was Buddy Bolden, a composer and cornetist who is credited as the inventor of the “Big Four,” a key rhythmic device characteristic of jazz. Considered the father of jazz, he also combined elements of ragtime with the raw emotion of the blues, which is essentially the definition of jazz. Perhaps his most important contribution to jazz, however, was his commentary on the current situation for blacks. His bold lyrics were a critique of the police brutality, unjust judgment, and general discrimination against blacks. Another contender as the creator of jazz was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, an all-white band that was the first to commercially record jazz standards. But the only figure to claim himself as the creator of jazz was Jelly Roll Morton, who played in Storyville, New Orleans’ Red Light District. Like Bolden, he too fused ragtime and the blues together to form jazz.

     Of all these contributors to the genre’s creation, the most important was its position as a port city. The flow of ideas allowed for the innovation, influence, and improvisation that is so important to creating a new form of anything. That jazz was born from multiple cultures is a way for blacks to reconcile with double consciousness; even though blacks did not identify wholly with the African continent since they were so far removed from it, nor did they identify with whites because they were constantly reminded of their own inferiority, they could find solace in making America their foster home. And that jazz is a purely American creation (albeit a creation out of different cultures) is something that encourages and affirms the worth of African Americans. Because the most important aspect of jazz is its fusion of different cultures, it only fits that it should arise out of such a cosmopolitan city as New Orleans.