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