Misconceptions about Jazz

What were your assumptions about jazz and its history coming into the course? How have those assumptions been changed, revised, or reinforced by what you have learned in this class?

From my experiences listening to jazz, I always had the idea that jazz was a style in which rhythmic complexity and experimentation were emphasized. In addition, I was well aware that live jazz performances were largely improvised, and that the best musicians pushed the limits when it came to spontaneous phrasing within the song structure to make it uniquely tailored for the moment. These assumptions have been reinforced in this class, especially after bebop and more avant-garde styles of jazz were introduced.

In addition, I was aware that the majority of the founding fathers of jazz were black, but I had not seriously considered the ramifications of this in regard to their musical creations. I was unaware of the fact that jazz musicians saw their lifestyles as a macho alternative to the suit-wearing suburban man, and I found this concept to be quite interesting. These musicians were attempting to maintain a sense of manhood while simultaneously indulging in their desire for creative work.

I also had a sense that jazz was a conglomeration of a lot of different styles, but I did not ponder the specifics before this class. The combination of an African performance ethic with Western music styles allowed jazz to develop as a live art which was spontaneously crafted for the moment. Miles Davis especially reinforces the idea that the most successful jazz musicians had to be able to adapt to their environment if they wished to remain a success. Due to the competitiveness of jazz musicians, they had to become well versed in many different styles including the blues, classical, Harlem stride, etc. in order to please a wide variety of audiences.

While I had a sense that African music emphasized percussive rhythms which were perfect for dancing, I had not traced this style's migration from Africa to the American South to the North. The African performance style was transported to the North when Southern blacks moved for factory jobs and brought their baptist church music with them. Willie "the Lion" Smith emphasized the ring-shouts of Baptist gospel music in teaching him how to improvise the rhythms for Harlem stride piano.

Thelonious Monk's Cosmopolitan Ideal

Thelonious Monk's attitude toward race can be traced to his upbringing in San Juan Hill. This community was familiar with harsh police brutality and violent race wars in addition to the typical segregation of the times (Kelley, p. 18-9). As a result, Monk was familiar with the attitudes associated with racial empowerment groups and recognized that it was not in his best interest to be belligerent when discussing race. In addition, San Juan Hill was a racial melting pot with black, white, and immigrant cultures intermixing, and Monk would have found it difficult to create his eclectic style of jazz without integrating all of these influences into his playing. Even in youth Monk was above racial conflict, as Kelley describes his collaboration with Morris Simpson, the son of West Indian immigrants (p. 35). His lessons with classical piano teacher Harry Colomby and his education at Juilliard fused with the stride piano he played with Alberta Simmons and the latin dance styles he learned from the West Indian, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants. In transcending racial politics, Thelonious Monk was attempting to create a cosmopolitan "Bohemian" culture that fused the best aspects of all cultures. Patronage by upper class families such as the Rothschilds supports the claim that bebop artists such as Thelonious Monk were attempting to create music which could be appreciated by everyone regardless of upbringing.

It is difficult to believe that Monk was able to maintain his enlightened racial attitudes in spite of segregation and discrimination by whites. Perhaps his experiences with the police and other whites in San Juan Hill prepared him for this discrimination, but Monk was victimized by a legal system which gave the racist police officers too much discretionary power. They used this power to hassle black bebop artists and to arrest and fine them for drug possession or some other non-violent crime. Monk in particular has his cabaret card revoked by the police, and without this card Monk would be unable to play in New York clubs.

Monk's ability to avoid racial conflict, however, allowed him to create a community that was above class distinctions in the interest of good music. This community was only judgmental when it came to the music, and as a result Thelonious Monk and the bebop musicians at Minton's and the Five Spot were able to draw an audience which ranged from poor immigrants to rich whites such as Nica de Koenigswarter. Bebop is considered one of many modernist styles which has begun a movement toward a cosmopolitan "Black Bohemianism" in culture, toward music and art which can be enjoyed by all regardless of class distinctions.

Race during the Swing era

Given that race had always been a discourse in the history of jazz, why did race become explicitly written and talked about in the 1930s during the “Swing Era?”

Race became an important issue to talk and write about during the 1930s swing era because of the acceptance of jazz as the popular music by mainstream Americans during this period. Before this time period, jazz was mainly consumed live in clubs in cultural melting pots such as Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, or New York, where race was not as big of an issue. With the rise of the radio, Americans could listen to music in their homes for free, which was especially important due to the Depression. As a result, people had to listen to music while being unaware of the racial characteristics of the musicians, and many Americans must have been confused by the similarity of white jazz to black jazz, especially if they were racist and believed that whites were better than blacks at everything, even playing music. John Hammond is an especially interesting jazz patronizer and critic during this period, who actually flipped this stereotype onto its head by saying that blacks were racially superior to whites in playing music.

In addition, growing acceptance and consumption of black culture, especially by the younger generations who loved swinging music to dance to, must have made the older generations uneasy. Many efforts were made to frame the African Americans as Godless Communists, often because the Communist Party had fought for their rights, and as a result many people accused jazz of being evil and unapproved, causing your body to gyrate in Satanic revelry.

In reality, however, blacks and their culture were making progress toward being accepted as equal by average American, and the popularization of jazz is only one piece of evidence. While it may have been due to his submissiveness to stand up for his rights, Duke Ellington was able to book his black band at the all-white Cotton Club from 1927-1931. John Hammond put a black pianist into Benny Goodman's white band, and this in addition to the controversial remark won more ground toward the equal acceptance of black culture. Ultimately, I believe that the American public had begun to realize a fascination with foreign cultures and more specifically African American jazz during this period of time.

Harlem Stride in New York, Hot Swing in Chicago

Which city was most important to jazz in the 1920s—Chicago or New York? Why? What role did social, economic, and racial conditions play in creating the particular climate for jazz in that city? Was there a Chicago or Harlem style of jazz? If so, what was it, who played it, and what distinguished it from others? Whose (band or individual) art best represents the culture and community of the city you chose? Why? Please provide references.

While New York's contribution to all styles of jazz in the 1930s is unsurpassed, the 1920s were a time when New York and Chicago had distinctly different types of jazz. New York jazz, usually for respectable middle class consumption, mainly followed the European vein of big band melodies and harmonies, thorough composition, and cool, tight playing. The big bands of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson epitomize the typical New York jazz scene, with strict leadership and guidance within a larger band. Chicago jazz, by contrast, designed for dance halls and dens of vice, was hotter and much more unhinged, allowing for creative energy which was much more experimental and avant-garde. The Austin High Gang is the clearest early example of this style of competitive, showy instrument playing within a loosely structured composition. While such a simple assessment of the two cities might lead one to believe that Chicago was putting out the more creative and superior jazz, the development and evolution toward Harlem stride piano which was taking place within New York at this time provided the syncopation and improvisation which allows me to say that New York was the more important site of the evolution of jazz in this period.

The most monumental figures in the development of creative phrasing within New York were James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller. Gioia captures the immense importance of Harlem stride piano in the development of jazz when he states that Johnson would use musical devices as various as classical interpolations, counterpoint exercises, and he even experimented with jazz combos (p. 97-8). Without the evolution of ragtime and boogie-woogie into stride piano, New York jazz would only be a representative of thoroughly composed, tightly performed European music, and would have been lacking the improvisational energy of African American dance music. While Chicagoans such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa developed a hot dance style nearing swing while they performed in Chicago, the Harlem stride piano greats also captured this rhythmic energy, while supplementing a much tighter big band style which satisfied the harmonic and melodic tastes of upper class consumers of European music

New Orleans: adaptating to diversity

What did New Orleans contribute to the emergence of jazz at the beginning of the 20th century? Why did jazz emerge in New Orleans instead of other American cities? What were some of the sources of New Orleans jazz as mentioned by Gioia? After considering the evidence that Gioia presents, what do you believe was the most important factor that explains why jazz emerged in New Orleans?

The importance of New Orleans in the development of jazz cannot be overstated. In addition to being a melting pot of the Spanish, French, African, and English cultures, New Orleans was a place where inter-cultural exchange was a widespread and accepted practice. In addition to having opera houses and symphony orchestras which played the composed music of European culture, New Orleans was home to Congo Square and other sites of African musical display which performed a more spiritual and spontaneous style of music. European and African cultural fusion would create musical styles in which planned musical movements could be combined with spiritual spontaneity and a unique style which arose dialectically from the input of the other performers on the spot. The African culture encouraged performances in which everyone in the group would participate organically, and as a result New Orleans residents and the New Orleans diaspora cannot be overvalued in the development of jazz as style which values group interplay as much as individual excellence.

As the most obvious progenitor to jazz, ragtime added syncopation, typically a "swung" or "ragged" piano chord, which infectiously makes the group want to move to the music. This musical style, which evolved in the dance halls of New Orleans and St. Louis, also incorporated Western melodies and composition, as Scott Joplin created a ragtime opera. Along with ragged piano, African and Creole culture also brought to jazz large, rich-sounding brass bands which were popular in New Orleans and incorporated catchy melodic counterpoint into a style which I believe is fundamentally defined and characterized by rhythmic syncopation and an improvisational performative style.

Ultimately, the cultural integration and adaptation which was so common and valuable in the music of the red light district of New Orleans created a competitive musical culture based around live performances which were completely unlike the written sheet music which was so valued in traditional European musical styles. Storyville was a melting pot within the melting pot of New Orleans, and when audience reactions and input encouraged musicians to compete with each other to win over the audiences and possibly steal each others venues and gigs, live performers had to adapt their music around the style of both the other band members and the audience. Playing in such a diverse environment, musicians had to incorporate the large variety of tastes of the entire group into their playing, or else popular opinion would cause them to lose paid work. In a city where music was incredibly popular and in such high demand, jazz was conceived as an art focused around spontaneous and adaptive live performances which were suited to the situation and to the movements of the other members of the group, and could never be replicated or truly expressed as composed sheet music. Syncopated phrasing and impromptu counterpoint could create live music in which a loose composition was colored and flavored by the sudden whims of the musician on the spot during his musical meditation.

Progspot: Monday mornings at 4AM on KCSB

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