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