Blog 5

Before enrolling in this course, in my uninformed opinion, jazz was simply a music form created from brass instruments. If I thought of jazz I would imagine one of two things. I may imagine a sullen scene from a movie involving seduction or defeat; or I could depict an ensemble of instruments decorating my middle school cafeteria. To my surprise, jazz has proven to be a relentlessly diverse and modern music. From its African roots and perpetual migrations to its prominence amongst American pop culture, jazz has survived as a continually improvising art form. However, it’s curious as to how an African derived art form became a pop culture phenomenon in the mid 1900’s in a country that maintained segregation until 1964. It can be argued that white appropriation of black talent led jazz to flourish as an American music.

            My assumption that jazz corresponds to seduction was partially correct. From its blues infused roots in New Orleans to its hot natured tempos in Chicago, jazz has evolved to emote a feeling within the listener.  Fletcher Henderson agrees that jazz, but more specifically Swing creates a Dionysian dialogue, “Someone once described swing as the quality which not only makes people want to dance but would also cause them to fall over in a heap if the music stopped unexpectedly.” (Henderson 112). Oppositely, Billie Holidays’ song, “Strange Fruit” forlornly protests lynching. Also, Robert Johnson unashamedly utilized his musical talent for seduction (Gioia 15). White appropriation of jazz, which was predominated by black music at the time, evoked hate in Miles Davis’s heart. (Davis 44) Thus, my assumption of a sensual nature of jazz was correct in that jazz can emote sensuality.  Through this course however I’ve learned jazz can convey a multitude of emotions.

            My alternative assumption that jazz corresponds to an assortment of instruments in my middle school cafeteria was also partially correct. Jazz has evolved to be a dialectical art form between the musicians, the audiences, and the conductors. Bebop is dependent upon a musicians’ individual perspective and interactions with other musicians’ perspectives through musical embrace (Stewart 2.17.15). Contrastingly, the hot nature of Chicago jazz evolved as a parallel to racial tensions between subjected black musicians and their predominately white audiences. (Chicagoans 157) With the development of “cool jazz”, where Davis embodied a new “cool” hipness following the swing era, Davis’ genius and perspective as a conductor was made evident to his audiences. Miles Davis’ genius exemplified the conductor-ensemble harmony in which he gave musicians minimal instruction to let them create music from one another. Davis explains how he only subtly conducts an ensemble until “the music is talking to them [the audience] when everything's right.” (Davis 356) Thus, my assumption of a middle school jazz ensemble was correct in that jazz directly corresponds to a culmination of sounds harmoniously interweaving amidst slight conduction. Through this course however, I’ve learned that jazz is comprised of much more than a conductor-musician dynamic, but an improvisational all-encompassing dynamic between seemingly anyone with ears. 

            From the implemented “plantation system” in Chicago to the appropriation of Duke Ellington’s talent by Irving Mills’ co-ownership, white appropriation of black talent for economic benefit has remained a clear theme throughout the history of jazz. (Travis 43, Stewart 2.3.15) Davis refers to the white aesthetic dilution of jazz, as heard in swing, as, “half-assed hipness” (272) and goes on to proclaim that record companies would keep “black stars on the music plantation so that their white stars could just rip us off.” (334) This course has taught me that jazz has been plagued by circumstantial, both social and economic, hegemonic appropriation throughout its history. More importantly though I’ve learned that jazz has survived and thrived as a culturally mottled, and therefore universally familiar, dynamic music.

Commented on Dalton Klock's and Matt Hirning's

            

Blog 4

     In the early 20^th century Thelonious Monks’ family migrated from the North Carolina to San Juan Hill, New York. The vastly diverse community of San Juan Hill maintained a violent reputation, plagued by hegemony-induced race riots and federal drug raids. (Kelley 19,31) Cultural partitioning within the severely condensed housing districts stimulated hostility amongst its diverse, well-defined subpopulations, and inevitably caused Monk to develop a pugilist demeanor amongst his peers. (Kelley 17, 33)  However, through vigilante enforcement of intolerant rules of conduct, the Columbus Hill Community Center served as an epicenter of social life and community service for all youth in San Juan Hill. (Kelley 28) The center was where Monk formed his first band with Charles Stewart, a fellow black, and Morris Simpson, a West Indian, and was home to the Friday night dances that the trio performed. (Kelley 35) Maintained through an adored all black staff, the community center served as a second home where Monk could experience freedom from the anxieties of San Juan Hill adversity.  

            The community center was similar to the Monk household in that it promoted strong morals. Thelonious’s propensity to deviate from the ill-mannered social norms of San Juan Hill was attributed to virtues engrained in Monk and his siblings by their mother Barbara. Through a “quiet, dignified strength” Barbara inspired her children to live a free-spirited, vocal, and opinionated life, all the while remaining respectful. She also encouraged her children to embrace the rich cultural life of the city by taking them to Central Park in the summer to hear Edwin Goldman’s orchestra perform classic European and American compositions. (Kelley 22) Furthermore, Barbara helped foster a whole-hearted community within the Monk apartment, through music, by always welcoming her children’s friends into her home. Marion, Thelonious’s sister, fondly remembers dancing in their front room with her friends at impromptu jam sessions between Thelonious and his friends. (Kelley 22) This openness allowed Thelonious to flourish and express individuality amongst diversity. The qualities bestowed on Thelonious by his mother influenced his development as a musician and a man, but the community outside of his home also contributed to his genius.

            Kelley remarks, “The neighborhood was full of jazz sounds.” (27) Monks’ first piano teacher, Simon Wolf, was an Austrian-born Jew and a well-trained classical pianist and violinist. (Kelley 26) After his skill excelled past Wolf’s ability Monk further developed his talent through observing and absorbing different forms of music played by the jazz community of San Juan Hill. This included, but was not limited to, Arabic, North African, calypso, salsa, and stride piano. (Kelley 23, 236) At the dinner table the Monk family quartet often sang sacred music of the black Baptist Church. Thelonious would also accompany Barbara, who emphasized regular church attendance and family rehearsals, during holiday performances at the church. (Kelley 27,32) The cultural diversity of San Juan Hill paralleled the motley aesthetics Monk exuded as his musical genius matured. This conglomeration of cultural influence is what some mean by “Jazz is New York, man?!”

            The San Juan Hill that the Monks experienced is analogous to the Leimert Park community. After race riots had disheveled the Leimert Park community cultural hubs like the Coffee House and World Stage emerged as public violence intolerant forums on which the community could express itself through dialogue and art. Similarly in San Juan Hill the Columbus Hill Community Center and the Monk apartment served as sanctuaries for the jazz community that surrounded Thelonious. In my opinion, artistic dialogues help create harmony within the communities in which jazz musicians grow up.

Commented on Matt Ortenberg’s and Matt Hirning's

The “Swing Era” of the 1930’s, through the embodiment of Swing music, germinated unprecedented musical thirst that spanned the entirety of the American population.  This new fiery form of jazz got people moving, “but would also cause them to fall over in a heap if the music stopped unexpectedly.” (Henderson 112) Through the gradual necessitation of the household radio, this “swing fever” became a national pop culture phenomenon. (Gioia 137) In the 1930’s the increased popularity of integrated ensembles increased accessibility of Swing music, and fundamental values of swing music propagated racial discussion.

The works of bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman, the broadcasted “King of Swing”, and his integrated ensembles demonstrated the intertwined nature of race and swing music. Goodman played hotter music than the Henderson orchestra and his music, combined with his prickly personality, eventually brought swing to the center stage.  Many jazz enthusiasts praised the upbeat change, while others saw Goodman as exploiting black musicians for the fame. (Gioia 132) Inversely, another important bandleader, Duke Ellington, was set on transforming jazz into a “serious art form”  (Gioia 170) and was criticized for showing racial insensitivity by directing his music towards white culture. John Hammond, a jazz critic, commented that Ellington, “disguised a willingness to tolerate racial indignities for the sake of commercial success.” (Stowe 51)

The commercial success of jazz musicians in the 1930’s began with the conclusion of the Great Depression. A nation-wide market force was propelled by the invention of the radio, which allowed for a certain kind of integration to occur amongst the American people. The radio provided an imagined space in which people couldn’t see the color skin of the musician recording, but nonetheless the listener could feel the musician playing. (Stewart 02/12) The public acted as “passive receptors of entertainment” and was coincidentally soaked in the racial impartiality of the hot music to which they moved. (Gioia 129) Thus, the radio subliminally encouraged listeners to rearrange any prior white-over-black hegemonic ideologies in which they may have partook.  A new idea, that black jazz musicians maintained undeniable rhythmic aptitude, spawned in its place.

The Swing Era denoted a musically derived national paradigm shift. Before the coming of swing music jazz was associated with and sustained a sense of low culture, often being the featured music in brothels and gangster run nightclubs. (Stewart 02/12) Swing music however stormed through households across the country and imbued the American people with its ideologies of liberty, tolerance, and equality. (Stowe 41) During the Swing Era jazz music transformed from having a sense of low culture to dominating American pop culture and in the late 1930’s swing even served as a unifying morale booster of World War II. Swing music disregarded skin color and epitomized a more widespread feeling of both rebellion and equality compared to the previously severely white hegemonic America. (Gioia 136)

Therefore, race was explicitly discussed throughout the Swing Era as a direct result of monumental hegemonic paradigm dissolutions, commercialization of an essentially “colorless” music, and propagation of a new ideology of what it meant to be American.

Commented on Matt Hirning

Commented on Ethan M: 

New York Jazz

     At the close of the 19th century the railroad gradually replaced the steamboat as the major transportation industry. Thus, the economy of the Mississippi river adjacent cosmopolitan trading center of North America, New Orleans, began to decline. (Gioia, 142)  This industrially induced failing monetary state of New Orleans depleted the opportunities for the New Orleans black community, and jazz musicians, to climb the social ladder. Inhibition of vertical social realignment led to The Great Migration of 1910-1930 and corresponded to an extensive dispersion of southern black culture throughout the northern states.  Of the northern states, Chicago and New York distinctively absorbed and embodied southern black culture through jazz. Both cities were important to jazz in the 1920's, but New York's newly surmounted diversity within the black population perpetuated an explosive polarizing atmosphere and could be paralleled to that of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. (Johnson, 29) Jazz triumphed in New York as a result of diverse dialectical interactions between black jazz performers, their business associates, audiences, and communities.

     As jazz flooded American pop culture the best jazz musicians, who were black, became increasingly prized valuable possessions. Major nightclubs such as New York’s Cotton Club and Paramount Theater were run and owned by racially diverse white men of the mob, which complicated the relationships between the performers and the employers. The club owners ran a “plantation system” in which the performers were held both under contract and physical threat by the varying mobs of both Chicago and New York (Travis, 43). Propelled by opportunity for vertical economic mobility this life-objectifying fiscal tension coupled musicians' survival with their musical talent and popularity.

     The life threatening popularity contest put on by the mobsters fueled a rapid evolution of jazz in New York from the solo jazz performer, to the jazz band, such as Fletcher Henderson’s’, and to the stage. Almost entirely black casted productions such as “Hooray for Love” and “Hot Chocolates” depicted jazz as more than just music, as a dialect. In “Hooray for Love” a homeless woman was reminded that she has running water, a leaky fire hydrant, which played with the idea of the elegant savage.(1) Unlike Chicago, which perpetuated mainstream jazz, New York finessed jazz into something more than just another mainstream audience phenomenon. Broadway contributed several elements to New York jazz including dancing, tapping, vocals, instruments, and most importantly visual narratives of black life in the city. Through these productions, the majorly, if not entirely, white audiences gained access to an imagined community. (Stewart, 02/03/15)

     The communities depicted in stage productions were similar to that of Harlem, which was monumental to the development of the New York style jazz. Johnson mentions that due to the Great Migration Harlem underwent a metamorphosis from a small Dutch village to densely populated ghetto. (p.28) In order to survive, and thus out compete other musicians, pianist James P. Johnson absorbed the rich southern culture that was transplanted into Harlem and in response he changed his music to best represent the New York subculture in which he partook. Johnson used his knowledge of European popular classics and his experience with the less formal Eastern style of ragtime to provide “lowdown music, tinged with blues” that both the white-emulating Creole’s and the “ring shout” southern black immigrants of New York could enjoy. (Johnson, 30) This 'gutbucket' element incorporated from the southern black culture eventually infiltrated the most respectable of black performances. (Henderson, 101) Johnson eventually improvised this tantalizing mix of aesthetics  and developed the New York style of jazz, the Harlem Stride piano, in which the left hand played a two-beat seesaw and the right hand played counter-rhythms. 

     The overly apparent segregation within the New York jazz culture was overcome by the survival instincts of the New York jazz musicians. Competition fueled the evolution jazz and the creation of a distinct style of jazz within New York.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MGuYHS8rY

commented on Matt Hirning's: 

You present great ideas regarding the importance of Chicago to jazz. I think contrasting New York and Chicago through the "for whites only" policy was an effective way to illustrate the inherent difference in culture between the two cities. Although I think the jazz performers mentioned in paragraph 5 were important figures in jazz, I believe it may be of benefit to merge that paragraph with the latter, or not include it. Overall great job though!

commented on Dalton Klock's: 
Great intro. It made it clear that you're aware that Chicago was not the only significant influence on jazz during the 1920's. That being said, you argued that Chicago became a hallmark of diversity after the Great Migration, which undoubtedly is true, but it would have been nice to know more specifically how this induced diversity contributed to the development of Chicago's 'hot' jazz

Blog Post #1

            In the early 20th century New Orleans served as a cosmopolitan trading center of North America. Staged at the Mississippi River drainage basin, New Orleans exchanged goods with South America, New York, and Europe, which in turn cultivated the exchange of culture with African, French, American, Mexican, Mixed, Choctaw and Natchez Indians, Greeks, Serbs, and other peoples (Gioia, 22). This fiscally induced cultural diversity catalyzed increased social integration and cultural tolerance in New Orleans, which allowed multiple cultures to simultaneously thrive, blend, and influence New Orleans culture. The overwhelming cultural heterogeneity led to a blurring of cultures, goods, ideas, and musical genres. Gioia notes, “This blurring of musical genres was, as we shall see, central to the creation of Jazz music."(p.104)

         Although New Orleans was very culturally diverse, the vastness of the Trans-Atlantic West African slave trade led to a West African cultural majority. During the slave trade these “unwilling immigrants” (Gioia, p. 26) clung on to the most resilient elements of their culture, the aliveness of West African music and folktale. This aliveness was innately incorporated into their agricultural work through improvisational instrumental craftsmanship and work songs (Stewart, 01/08). Gioia speaks on rhythm being incorporated in African day-to-day life, "Here we perhaps come to realize the hidden truth in the double meaning of the word instrument, which signifies both a mechanism for altering the natural world and a device for creating sound.” (p. 36) The West Africans' need to alter the natural world did not end with the abolishment of slavery however. According to Jones the Africans underwent a “psychological realignment, an attempt to reassess the worth of the black man within the society as a whole” (p. 96). Blacks found their place in New Orleans society by embodying their cultural aliveness through music. This aliveness, as demonstrated by the dances of Congo Square and New Orleans second line traditions, formed the foundation of jazz in New Orleans.

In New Orleans the presence of the Latin-Catholic culture, which was sympathetic to discrimination, and Spanish law, which had lenient slave laws, eased tensions between social classes and encouraged increased cultural expression. Gioia mentions, “indeed, it is hard to imagine the dances of Congo Square taking place in the more Anglicized colonies of the Americas.”(p.23). In 1884 the classically trained Mexican national military band was sent to New Orleans to play at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Expedition. When the expedition closed many of the band members stayed in New Orleans for various reasons (Johnson, p. 229). Black musicians did not face discrimination when finding classical training with Mexican instrumentalists. Mexican musicians were welcomed into an alive and welcoming culture in New Orleans and black musicians acquired classical training. Symbiotic relationships like this among borderlands across the country led to great depth, creativity, and improvisation within jazz music. Johnson writes, “Eddie Durham remembers that his father created his fiddle from a cigar box, using a willow branch and hair from a horse’s tail as the bow. He amplified his instrument with rattlesnake rattles, making the fiddle itself like two pieces, which gave it a percussive sound”(p.229) to illustrate the immeasurable creativity and improvisational skills imprinted on children raised in borderlands. The immigration of Mexican musicians to New Orleans allowed many more black musicians to become classically trained, which appealed to the European (white) ear and allowed blacks to find their place in society as musicians. The classical training and social recognition emboldened by the Mexican instrumentalists “left unquestionable imprints upon jazz and blues in New Orleans” (Johnson, 229).
           New Orleans jazz was distinct in that it maintained immeasurable cultural influence. African culture at least provided aliveness and rhythmic intricacies and Mexican culture at least contributed classical training and woodwind instruments (Johnson, 229); but to say that is the extent of cultural influence exhibited on jazz by New Orleans would be a severe understatement. Jazz emerged in New Orleans due to an unprecedented accumulation of cultural diversity, embodiment, and acceptance.

commented on Leah Bleich's blog

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