Dissertation

How did New Orleans Jazz challenge inequalities in the south of America in the early/mid 1900’s?

Introduction

During the course of this dissertation, we will be going over what aspects of jazz and the community associated with it may or may not have helped question the rights of minorities and those segregated against in the early/mid 1900’s. Furthermore the growing popularity of jazz at the time, could easily be a major contributing factor to making black people be less discriminated against and more accepted into America as a community There are ideas that due to jazz and other genres heavily influenced by black people becoming so popular throughout America, made Americans more open to black people and their culture. In addition we will also discuss what helped form jazz and make it into such a powerful genre that would help shape America into a more accepting country. Moreover we will also go over the fact that New Orleans was one of America’s slave ports, and even after slavery was abolished quite blatant discrimination was still lingering, this encouraged races of all kinds to interlink. Additionally I would also like to cover that there are ideas that black people mainly influenced the creation of jazz, for example the improvisational feel, it also has its fair share of European input, for example the composition and harmony. However there are also ideas ‘jazz does not owe its existence to any one race’. Another topic I would like to discuss is the fact that quite a few black people at the time felt Americans were gaining a lot more fame then themselves, this angered them mainly because a lot of black people felt that they were the pioneers of jazz, but were not being credited properly for there contributions to the genre.

The birth of Jazz

The birth of Jazz is quite largely believed to have started in New Orleans, there are ideas that Jazz started as far back as slaves being brought from Africa to America but there are also beliefs that it was formed from songs slaves used to sing about going back home whilst on the plantation. Furthermore we will be following the ideas of those who believe it to have started in New Orleans, from a mixture of slaves and ‘free’ people. To fully explain the birth of Jazz we will have to go back as far as the 1800’s to the parent of Jazz, which is Blues. Blues is said to have come from the south of America by African Americans expressing their pain, hardship and experiences as a slave. It’s thought to start on plantations, whilst slaves worked to keep morale high and was viewed as an escape from their harsh reality. In addition to explain the creation of Jazz we would need to talk about the French and Spanish speaking black people (creoles they were called at the time) who were under the French then Spanish rule but were then freed, and the newly freed slaves who lived on the west side of town who were less privileged than the ‘Creole’ people as the majority of the newly freed slaves had all but no education and were poor, which was a huge contrast to the Creole people, as they had been around European people for a number of years, they had worked in opera houses, lead their own bands and were able to read music. These two communities joined together musically, which was a spectacular thing as the newly freed slaves knew almost nothing about reading music and composition whereas the Creoles did, the newly freed slaves knew more about the improvisational side since they often song/played blues and gospel. So in short the west side bands (the newly freed slaves) brought the improvisational side to jazz, where as the Creole bands brought more of the composition and sight reading to jazz. To summarize the idea goes as such, in the early 1900’s African American musicians would gather in New Orleans and share their songs, experiences and ideas, which would then become to be known as jazz, this played a huge part in spreading Jazz on a national scale, yet people still only knew jazz as the “New Orleans Sound”.  After flourishing in New Orleans Jazz then moved to Chicago, It was still called New Orleans Sound, but was said to be less wild than it was originally in New Orleans. However one of the main reasons Jazz then swiftly moved to Chicago was due to the fact that discrimination against African Americans and the Creole people had re-emerged. Whilst the Chicago and New York received most of the jazz migrants from New Orleans, Jazz influenced Kansas City the most out of the three options, as after Jazz artists started moving there the genre stayed popular for the longest amount of time compared to Chicago and New York. 

Identity Politics

Once Jazz had moved to the other cities, many African Americans and Creole people were a bit disappointed and annoyed, they were disappointed and annoyed due to the fact that in places like Chicago where Jazz was deemed as more popular, it was said that the Jazz sound had changed, it had changed from a less wild, primal, sound to a more classical sound. In addition people believe this was done to change the audience from the former slaves who were now free people and were able to express their emotions and past through song, to a white audience making it more polite. This infuriated many ‘founders’ of Jazz, but others saw the plus side. With the style being changed, this meant that Americans would now come to Jazz clubs and events allowing the genre to grow. It also meant that Americans would have to go to African American neighbourhoods to listen to this genre. However with this birthed another issue, with there being two styles of Jazz, it segregated the Jazz community, there were now clubs for ‘negroes’ and clubs for ‘whites’. The New York style of Jazz was different to both the Chicago style of Jazz and the original New Orleans style of Jazz, whilst it still was similar to the New Orleans style, like the Chicago style it lost it’s primal ways, but not changing so much to attract a whole new audience. In fact this simple changed attracted and “appealed to people from every echelon of society”  (http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/upriver.html). Kansas city was where “jazz flourished for the longest” (http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/upriver.html). Unlike Chicago African American Jazz artists were wanted in both white clubs and African American clubs. Furthermore sexism was also a big issue around this time, many jazz artists and musicians were male, there were few ‘canaries’(female jazz vocalists), and even fewer female musicians. It was acceptable for canaries to be in bands but mainly on the occasion they were attractive. Females had it roughest in the jazz industry. “Not even great talent could shield female jazz musicians from sexism’ (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/771665/Jazz-helped-break-down-US-racial-barriers.html).  An interesting opinion I found was “one could argue that racism made jazz seem forbidden therefore irresistible across all ethnicities in the 1920’s in America”, (https://www.quora.com/How-did-racism-influence-jazz-music-in-the-20th-century). This opinion is interesting because it’s playing on the idea that humans want what we can’t have so for Americans making going to African American jazz clubs socially taboo across their community may want the younger generation to rebel and go to them, which would ultimately surprise them and they would enjoy it. Jazz music was completely interracial; there were African American, Creole and European bands all across the south of America. Whilst many ‘pioneers’ of Jazz felt cheated by the Chicago style of jazz it was still a hub for Jazz musicians nationally.

The Harlem Renaissance

From the south of America a lot of jazz artists and fans would venture to Harlem where they would hear African American jazz artists play in segregated clubs. The Harlem Renaissance also played a huge part in combatting racism in America. With the Jim Crow Laws and numerous amounts of hate groups in the south of America, many African Americans ended up in Harlem. The African Americans brought jazz with them; this is what formed Harlem’s cotton club. The Harlem Renaissance allowed African Americans to portray their memories and experiences as raw as they could. Due to the Harlem Renaissance Harlem was then viewed as a hub for African Americans, their culture, music and their art. It was portrayed as a celebration or an acknowledgement of the hardship African Americans had been through. The Harlem Renaissance was a result of world war 1, many of Americans had gone off to war so there were quite a few vacancies in the factories in the north of America. African Americans saw this as an opportunity to better their lives as many of them were uneducated, poor and had no real sight of what to do next. With Harlem becoming a hot spot of culture for African Americans, which was originally quite a white area, it’s thought that this made it easier for white people to be more accepting of African Americans, this is thought due to the increase of white people attending African American jazz clubs and also less clubs being only for white people. Furthermore The Harlem Renaissance did not last for long, it ended in the 1930’s once the aftermath of the Great Depression, caused the Harlem Race Riot.

Swing

In the 1930’s a variation of Jazz was created, Swing. The common components to Swing, was quite a large band, written music and solos from individual musicians rather than the whole band playing an improvisational part. This became to be the forefront of the Jazz genre. However it only remained one of the more popular forms of Jazz for around 10 years, in the 1940’s its popularity fell and the genre gave way to bebop. 

Conclusion

I believe that Jazz helped challenge racism in the early/mid 1900’s for the better. I believe this because, Jazz is almost like the retaliation to the years of oppression the African American and Creole people served as slaves and the discrimination they deal with to this day, this brings me to believe that without the African Americans and Creole people expressing their culture and emotions, through Jazz which, even though was watered down at one point, appealed to Americans, they might still be alienated and not viewed as human. Jazz did not eradicate segregation in a flash but I do believe it was a starting point and allowed Americans to be more understanding and question the past choices they made to enslave people of colour. Furthermore it didn’t only allow Americans to understand Jazz culture it also allowed them to enjoy it, this would make both people of colour and Americans to be more welcoming to each other’s society. In addition, the fact that Americans were able to adopt Jazz into their own style means they at least acknowledged the genre and although not every American jazz artist did this at the time, many American artists worked with jazz musicians and artists who were of colour. However I don’t believe Jazz helped challenge sexism in the mid/early 1900’s, this is because, within the jazz community women were sexually harassed, quickly fired, taken advantage of and were not given the same opportunities as the men. Being a female African American or Creole artist or singer, would have been more challenging at this time, than being a male. As stated earlier there was a criteria you had to fit to be accepted into a jazz band and even then you were mistreated. Whilst people were making strides in earning rights around this time, I don’t believe Jazz had a part to play, that’s not to say that there weren’t many popular female jazz artists around this time, but if they were men with the talent they had then their careers may had risen higher. Furthermore I don’t think it helped that sex and drugs surrounded the Jazz scene, this would have made it more difficult for women involved to try and escape the stereotype that they would be easy to manipulate.