The Big Cities and Their Contribution to Jazz

Jazz music's evolution was shifted and influenced by every big city it passed through. Although New Orleans and Chicago, in turn, added their own flavor and culture to the growing hodgepodge that was jazz, it was the racial blending, commodification, and need for entertainment present in diverse New York City that most profoundly affected the revolutionizing of jazz.
The origins of jazz lie deep within the historical blurring of racial lines, eliciting a transformation in the musical style every time it encountered a situation where cultures mixed together. Musically, jazz is known as the amalgamation of native African call-and-response style and classical European waltzes, a combination that laid an irrefutable foundation for blacks and whites to come together over shared taste in music. The proximity of the white upper class to impoverished black musicians in New York parallels that present at the birth of jazz in Congo Square and during slavery. Where Chicago pushed jazz forward, encouraging increasingly wilder interpretations of the style, New York pulled it back towards its essential roots. However, the relationship between the two races in New York was much different than in the Antebellum South, providing yet another opportunity for jazz to transform. Unlike their enslaved, downtrodden ancestors, blacks found prominence and significant importance in the “two Harlems” of New York (Gioia 94). Yet again, a mixture was essential to the rise in popularity of jazz, as the Harlem Renaissance, born out of the drawing together of the “cultural elite” coexisted with the harsh realities of living in an isolated slum. Rent parties arose from a combination of poverty and bursting creativity, and were very important in not only jazz as a whole but partly in the popularization of the piano as part of the musical style. “The instrument represented conflicting possibilities—a pathway for assimilating traditional highbrow culture, a calling card of lowbrow nightlife, a symbol of middle class prosperity, or, quite simply, a means of making a living,” (Gioia 96). Because of this, the piano became essential to the modern 20th century home, and, because of its crowd-pleasing nature, to jazz. Like the brass bands of New Orleans, jazz’s incorporation of the piano offered a middle ground to its audience that would be absolutely essential in the economization of the music.
Chicago, although not as important in the overall history of jazz, laid an important foundation for the hot economic commodity it would become in the city of New York. The bustling, culture-rich city made the wild and crazy music bred in the slums of New Orleans and nurtured in the nightclubs of Chicago into a marketable, widespread musical phenomenon using a combination of dirty money and interracial relations. Artists like Duke Ellington and Fletcher Hendersong found their voices here, often very driven, fame-crazy musicians who were willing to “take the low road” to achieve success (Lecture 10/26/10). Similar to the environment in New Orleans that so gently nurtured jazz music, New York had a historically diverse community that allowed for partnerships not possible in segregated Chicago. For example, Duke Ellington worked with a Jewish agent in order to get ahead in the jazz game, using his connections with willing members of the white community to get the best bookings and venues. New York was where jazz became about entertainment again, falling back into the historical routine of morphing however necessary to please its audiences, be they black or white. Although an incredible form of music, jazz was most importantly a commodity, both in New York and New Orleans, and released some of the most memorable records under the pressure of economics. The fact that the New York culture was able to bring jazz full circle highlights its importance in the history of jazz, a style of music that needed strong cultural mixing, economic importance, and a lot of soul to maintain it.

New Orleans and the Emergence of Jazz

           The city of New Orleans allowed for the incorporation of true urban life into jazz composition. As America progressed into the 19^th century, depression brewed amongst the decay of the once booming Deep South river town. As Giola argues, music and dancing not only maintained the little vitality left in New Orleans, but also provided a necessary distraction from the heft of every day life. “Festivities allowed them to distance themselves from the suffering and pestilence of the here and now,” (Giola 31). As partying became a part of living in the ghettos of New Orleans, grit and grunge intertwined with the heavy beats of the music. It was born out of music played in night clubs and dirty brothels. Impoverished New Orleans needed jazz. Suddenly, the entertainment value so engrained into the performance of the music allowed it to be manipulated. Because of the overwhelming aura of the city, jazz music began to morph into those entertained by it; the music was a part of them, and they were part of the music. The development of jazz was more of a social construct that the brainchild of just one man, although many like Jelly Roll Morton claimed credit for the distinctive style.

Any city is the perfect breeding ground for deeply cultural music like jazz, and because of its definitive melting pot atmosphere, inspiration is everywhere. Giola argues that the unique sound of jazz resulted from combining music from the brothels with choir songs from church, a blend of two completely different spheres of city life. However, the unpredictable amalgamations that precluded blues, ragtime, and jazz are far more deeply rooted in history. Before it was famous for jazz, New Orleans was famous for being a racial mixing bowl, incorporating White, Black, Spanish, French, slave, and master into its midst. The city was about combining polar opposites, housing huge numbers of Creoles and Mulattos and propagating its own unique social stratification, so naturally, a genre of music comprised of European, South African, and American Creole styles, stirred together over the decades, emerged from the mishmash.

 Most importantly, I believe that it was the sincere activism against jazz that propagated its emergence so successfully. Songwriters like Buddy Bolden promoted the spread of jazz more than any District night club could have. “Bolden pushed the limits as few of his contemporaries dared, no doubt enhancing the allure of his quasi-forbidden music in the process,” (Giola 36). The fascination with the underground and illegal was already prominent in the ghettoes before jazz emerged and aggravated the delicate hierarchy of the city. The police force getting involved with jazz did little more than further popularize the style amongst the wide variety of people. The fascinating grunge, lawlessness, and diversity New Orleans life contributed to the soul that is still present behind modern day jazz, a music powerful enough to transcend social stigmas, racial barriers, and state lines.