Jazz and America: A Century of Interrelationships

Sung-Min Kwon

Everyone knows what America is. Everyone knows what music is. And everyone knows what American music is. If there is any style of music more American than jazz, the world has not seen it yet. Although it is becoming a global genre of music in the present world, it has its roots firmly in American soil. For most of the previous century, it has had an immense impact on the culture of America, the very land that created jazz. Like soul mates, jazz and American culture would not have been the same without each other.

There are many theories on the origins of jazz, but there is a general consensus that jazz began from the chants and dances which Africans brought to the New World as they were sold into slavery. The chants and dances, as one can imagine, had no real order; they were wild and spontaneous, unrefined and coarse. They were the paragon of disorder. This is quite surprising, considering that most people now view jazz as a very sophisticated art. The enslaved Africans were also proselytized into Christianity. This conversion was so effective that in today’s America, African-Americans are the racial group most devoted to God.

The mix of this chaos and Christianity created a unique culture that could be found nowhere else in the world. This culture was characterized by a new way of worshipping that was much noisier and livelier than previous ways of Christianity. In these new services, people made all sorts of noises – all sorts, mind you – during service, no doubt caused by their frenzied piety. This was a direct descendant of their chaotic chants, and is still characteristic of black worship. This unrefined chaos was given order, to some degree; it slowly evolved into a call-and-shout pattern, also a part of black worship today. Some anthropologists say that this pattern was also derived from Africa. In addition, enslaved Africans sang spirituals to make the burden of their tiring labor seem less. They carried these songs with them into the church after they were emancipated at the end of the Civil War. These songs made up an essential part of the music that was to become jazz.

During the late 19^th century, America fell on hard times. The presidents were “forgettable,” and railroad owners made the law, not politicians. And most of all, racial discrimination was still rampant in many parts of the country, especially in the Deep South. These made life difficult for blacks, and many fell into depression. They then sang different kinds of songs, songs that we now call the “blues.” Mostly slow and mournful, the blues really reflected the atmosphere of the times. Very popular in the South, blues were called “Dixieland” at first, with New Orleans as its capital. Dixieland reached its peak around the turn of the century. Ironically at that time, although blues were derived from African-American culture, the ensembles that performed the music at national level were entirely made up of whites. Nevertheless, the blues achieved moderate popularity and paved the way for an entirely American genre of music.

Meanwhile, a style of music for the piano was flourishing in Harlem of upper Manhattan. Characterized by a stride-style left hand accompanying an elaborate right-hand, this was the famous “ragtime.” Thanks to pioneers such as Scott Joplin, rag music became the centerpiece of parties in Harlem, even into FDR’s presidency. Although less popular with the general population compared to the blues, the exciting style of the ragtime was much closer to the jazz that was to come.

After World War I, a new style of music was growing out of the blues and ragtime. It still retained the shuffle feel of the blues, but had a happy and swinging mood to it. They even called it “swing” because it grooved so much. It also borrowed some elements from the chaotic chants of African slaves, incorporating spontaneous improvisation into the music. Swing jazz went on to achieve success in unimaginable proportions. During the 1920’s, young people in America danced the night away in clubs with live bands playing their favorite swing tunes. Famous dances such as the “Charleston” all had their popularity thanks to the addictive rhythm of swing jazz. Concerned parents saw jazz as an evil, apparently making their children crazy enough to dance night and day; some people even went as far as to call it “orchestrated sex.” Even after the passing of the prohibitive 18^th Amendment, swing jazz remained popular into the Great Depression. Now let us ask ourselves a rhetorical question: how would the 1920’s and 30’s have been if swing jazz were not extant? The answer is hard to pin down, but there is little doubt that it would have been boring. For swing jazz marked an era, one of renewed interest inside one’s own country.

During the 1940’s, jazz did not exactly flourish, because of World War II. Nevertheless, a new style of jazz arose, attaining moderate popularity among a small group of people. Called “bebop,” it was characterized by seemingly unending phrases and unusual harmonies. Perhaps bebop was born as a child of the impending war. Or it could have been a group of musicians’ attempt to break away from conventional ordered jazz and pursue a style of music similar to those of their ancestors in Africa. We might never know.

During the 1950’s and early 60’s, a new style branched out from bebop. Some jazz artists tired of the endless run-ons of bebop jazz pursued something much more economic and serene. This was the birth of “cool” jazz, set apart by its openness and brevity of phrases. This did not reflect the feelings of the era very well; the country fought a war in Korea, and was preparing to do the same in Vietnam. It was preparing itself to face turmoil that would scar American history forever. While Americans were paying money to buy and listen to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, they were also paying taxes that would support Eisenhower’s “send guns, not sons” campaign. The country itself was becoming contradictory.

Soon, however, jazz caught up to its age. From the 1960’s onward, jazz went off in many, many directions. The first of such movements was “free jazz.” Named after an influential recording from 1960, free jazz seemed to offer another plunge to the untamed roots of jazz like bebop did 20 years ago. But it was more than that. Bebop still had some form that kept it coherent; free jazz really did not. To most people, it seemed like an experiment designed to produce discordant music as gimmicks. Free jazz was shaped by its time. Now the U.S. was starting to be heavily involved in the Vietnam War, sending sons as well as guns. The people of America, and the government later on, realized just how big of a mess they had gotten themselves into. The country experienced severe chaos, even more so than free jazz, trying to free itself from the muddy swamps of Vietnam.

The 1970’s marked the end of the Vietnam War, as well as the climax of the hippie movement. Jazz really divided here, between mainstream and contemporary. Mainstream jazz was quite similar to the swing jazz and cool jazz styles from earlier during the century. Contemporary jazz can be said to be a compromise between mainstream and free jazz, at best. It is a universally known fact that rock-’n-roll grew out from jazz. But it is not so widely known that in the 1970’s, rock music influenced jazz as well. A mix of jazz harmonies and rock rhythms created the style of music that we now call funk or acid jazz. However, the America of this time had now largely turned away from jazz, and embraced other styles of music. Strangely, this decade was marked with many problems that the country did not have to face previously. There were incidents such as Watergate, the oil shock caused by OPEC, and Iran guerillas holding Americans hostage for 444 days. Americans had denounced jazz as immoral 50 years ago. Strangely, the fact that jazz music was now falling out of favor did nothing to restore the country’s dignity; Nixon’s major blunder proved that point all too well. Even under these unfavorable conditions, jazz lived on.

The 1980’s and 90’s have seen jazz slowly disappear nationally. Jazz now only holds its own in its centers, such as New York, Chicago, and New Orleans. And even these places are now being threatened by invasions from other genres of music that jazz purists consider inferior to jazz. Other countries around the world are becoming jazz meccas as well. Many people call Japan the “second home of jazz,” and Paris, with its elegant and sophisticated atmosphere, is a haven for jazz lovers. In this sense, jazz is not something only for Americans anymore; it has now become a global art, penetrating even a hermit country like South Korea.

But the people of America have not forgotten the roots of their music. Jazz is becoming a bigger part of secondary school education everywhere, and some conservatories – such as the Berklee School of Music – deal exclusively with jazz. Jazz, in many hearts of Americans, are now on an equal level with classical music. Although no one can say with certainty that popularity in jazz is rising again significantly, it is not dying out yet.

It may be true that jazz was, but now is not, a big part of American culture. Many consider jazz as a sort of unapproachable art that only the stuck-up listen to. However, critics of jazz forget one thing; as long as these critics are American, they have no right to defame something that molded their very own culture. Would America have been the same without the poems of Langston Hughes, inspired by the jazzy nights of Harlem? Would America have been the same without the movies featuring Louis Armstrong, whose husky voice captivated the whole nation for decades? And would America have been the same without the dance clubs of the 1920’s and 30’s, fueled by the groovy rhythm of swing? I highly doubt it. Jazz has shaped America, and everyone living in it. As many other people strive to preserve their own culture, Americans need to hold onto their roots and let it ever grow deeper within them. Because this is true for anyone: lose your identity, and you lose yourself. Just as jazz has shaped America’s culture tremendously over the previous century, it will continue to take America forward in this century.

REFERENCES

Books

Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. London: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ward, Geoffrey C. & Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America's Music. New York: Knopf, 2000.

Articles

Cocks, Jay. "Fascinating Rhythms." Time. Jan. 18 (2001): 24.

Tassel, Janet. "Swing Jazz." Harvard Magazine. May-June 2000: 12-13.

Web Pages

Gioia, Ted. Washington Post: History of Jazz. Oxford University Press. 1997.  <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/historyofjazz.htm>

History of Jazz (Full Version). 2005. <http://ecr.lausd.k12.ca.us/clubs/Jazz/History.htm>

Morgan, Thomas. Jazz: The First Thirty Years. 1996. <http://www.jass.com/jazzo.html>

Payne, Rick. History of Jazz. Homepage. 2005. <http://i-way.co.uk/~rickpayne/jazzhist.htm>

Sabatella, Marc. Marc Sabatella's Jazz Improvisation Primer: A Brief History of Jazz. The Outside Shore. 2005. <http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/primer/ms-primer-2.html>