The history of jazz in America before the 1900s - Research Paper Example

?The History of Jazz in America before the 1900’s The American people value and respect the development of jazz as a form of music. This is because they consider it as a form of expressing their national and cultural identity. This form of music has its roots in the early slaves from America. These slaves suffered a great deal in the hands of their masters. Since they had a diverse music heritage from Africa, they turned to music as an expression of their daily struggles. With time, the Rest of America adopted this form of music as it developed into jazz. This paper will extensively discuss the roots and history of jazz in America before the twentieth century. Introduction The main reason of referring to jazz as improvisional music is that it draws its musical and rhythmic styles strongly upon the ragtime, blues, gospel and other African-American styles. Jazz originated from New Orleans amongst the black population as the bequest of slave trade that mainly found the city the first port of call1. The Eurocentric ladder of cultures instituted at the turn of the nineteenth century disparaged the new American music known as jazz. There was denunciation of jazz as discordant, overly accessible, uncivilized, and subversive to reason and order since it contradicted the complex, harmonious, exclusive culture. It was not until the Second World War that the jazz musicians were able to reverse these attitudes. They helped transform the view of culture by outdoing the adjectival cultural categories and insisting that there were no boundary lines while at the same time showing that their art was an important vibrant part of American culture2. Jazz is also a repertory, which formalizes its different stages of development into classical styles, which express the American feelings and thoughts musically. It is therefore, an American way of creating music. However, there has been a continuous evolution of written literature of jazz hence the formularization of the musical aspects and devices that describe each of these classical styles. Besides the printed scores, there are videos, pictorial records and other sound recordings of nearly every style of jazz from its initiation to the present. Moreover, it has enjoyed the fact that no other indigenous music shows so clearly the American ideal of the individual’s right to private freedom of expression. Consequently, jazz is in many ways a symbol for the American idea of democracy3. The cortex of jazz comprises of numerous layers, varying from hard and soft, in that it is complex in structure and hard to take apart. However, the history appears displaced and the styles contradictory because one experiences a puzzling series of shifts in place, person and style. Those who mostly dominated in the music include important but actually unrelated figures in New York, Negroes in New Orleans and white musicians in Chicago. Although there is a disastrous split in jazz launched by the swing era and increased during the days of bebop with the alleged progressive jazz, upon looking and listening closely there is appearance of both order and continuity4. Therefore, jazz is a new genre of music with distinct rhythmic and melodic character, one that regularly involves improvisation of a minor type in changing tune’s phrases and accents but of a major sort in creating music ex- temporaneously, instantly. Consequently, there is alteration of melody or underlying chords in the course of creating jazz. In addition, according to a standard scheme the rhythmic valuations of notes may be syncopated or not, lengthened or shortened, or there may be no steady pattern of rhythmic variations provided a steady beat remains understood or clear. The beat which serves as a solid rhythmic base for the improvisation of soloists or groups playing eight or twelve measures, or some multiple or dividend thereof is mainly four quarter-notes to the bar5. The History of Jazz in America Before 1900 In British North America, almost 240,000 about 20 percent of the population people were enslaved Africans. Although there was slavery in the Northern colonies, most of them lived in the Southern colonies. However, there existed a small population of free blacks especially in Maryland. By the 1790's, the British slave ships were bringing as many as 50,000 enslaved Africans to the New World because the money to fund England's industrial revolution was the profits from the British slave trade and from colonial America's slave-produced sugar and tobacco crops6. By the end of the nineteenth century, jazz had emerged as an identifiable music. Jazz grew out of a fusion of African and European musical forms that started long before 1900 despite the American Negroes being the first to play it. The slave trade in West Africa across the Atlantic started as early as the sixteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth century, the average number of slaves sold annually to English, French, and Spanish owners in different parts of America was 70,000. Majority of the African culture did not survive in America except certain religious practices including the vodun or the voodoo ceremonies and ritual music. The call and response brought over by the slaves, happens throughout the whole of jazz where the preacher or leader sang one line and the worshippers responded to him7. Music was an important part of the society in West African countries as it perpetuated cultural continuance, cemented together a society, helped an individual to adjust to group norms and enforced the moral and spiritual order-allowing one to express oneself. Therefore, despite the stripping off material things, degraded and dehumanized Africans carried their artistic traditions, their experiences and their memories in expressing themselves through well-established musical methods and devices, which accompanied and described all the events in their lives. On the other hand, other transplanted people who were not of African origin, also came with musical traditions, memories, musical instruments, customs, songs and attitudes from their original place. However, they were to express themselves in ways meant to keep their own traditions, in order to sustain and maintain their musical heritage without external need to change8. Jazz was important to black musicians because it gave them a sense of meaning and direction, a sense of power and control in a world that regularly looked radical. According to autobiography of Sidney Bechet concerning the difficulties of his life, he concluded that the only thing he had ever been sure of how it goes was music; that is something a man can make himself if he has the feeling. However, the main effect of jazz was not as a form of revolt but it was as a medium of culture and a style of music. The Guardians of Culture, however, claimed that the best description of this music was vulgar at best and harmful trash at worst, although largely those on the margins of American society only appreciated this for a long time. This kind of music became the most widely recognized and imitated symbol of American culture throughout the world although it seemed to be firmly established on the American cultural periphery. By the mid-20th century, it was one of the more attracting ironies of modern American history. The Keepers of the Flame had foretold in so many decades that when Europe took an interest in their expressive arts and in machine shops, that when Europe looked to the United States for technology as well as for culture9. It is a long-established fact that New Orleans was a dancing city but the African Americans involvement in the business was the most interesting end. In addition, there is a belief that most of African Americans calling themselves musicians were making most of their money playing dance music. According to a study, of the 222 musicians, practitioners of the music trades, and teachers of music counted in the 1870 census. Forty four percent were of Austrian, Swiss, or German birth, 15 percent French, 10 percent Italian and in all, including some smaller groups, a varying 80 percent were of foreign birth and only 20 percent were born in the United States. Moreover, of this small fraction, seven were mulatto, three black, and one is a white, known to be African American. The African-American musicians make up about a quarter of this native-born contingent although they made a poor showing overall10. The music of Jazz materialized from the desire of African Americans to express themselves in terms of music. This need for articulateness accrued directly from the African musical legacy. In the African traditional societies, music addressed various aspects of life including music for working, for playing, for hunting and other domestic activities and rituals. This indicates that these Africans applied some forms of music in all the activities that they performed. In this regard, music accompanied all these activities. This however became difficult when they got in to America as slaves. In America, there were several laws that prevented these Africans from exploring their abilities and experience in music. Moreover, as slaves, they did not enjoy life to the fullest hence did not explore their traditional musical heritage. It became very difficult for them particularly because they received brutal opposition whenever they tried to lead al life different from that of a slave. Their masters believed that slaves ought to live and follow orders. Furthermore, these Africans endeavored to be very productive and innovative in order to deal with the harsh conditions of life as slaves. Because music had always been very vital and significant in the daily lives of most of the Africans, who came from diverse tribes, nations as well as different backgrounds, they speedily utilized it as a tool for communication and a relief from both physical and spiritual burdens11. In the French-conquered city of New Orleans, established in 1718, slavery however took a somewhat different cultural twist. In this city, there was a free integration between the colored people called the creoles and their white counterparts. Most legends believe that jazz music grew much more and developed substantially in this city of New Orleans. Creoles were the ethnically miscellaneous offspring of French slave masters and became liberated when; according to tradition, French slave owners would liberate their slaves right away before their own death. With such freedom, the creoles were able to attain a level of education, opportunity and wealth that estimated the status and rights of white people. With this, the development of jazz music was possible since there was a clear integration and the town was enormously growing12. The development of jazz in the 18th century also grew from church music. For instance, there were talented and winning choirs in the mid- eighteenth century in New York and in the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Moreover, there was a St. Cecilia Society after 1762, which developed a pop group and supported internal and open-air performances in Charleston. In Philadelphia, Francis Hopkinson, who signed the Declaration of Independence, was a delegate for New Jersey in the Continental Congress, and as chairperson of the Navy Board, became the first recognized Native American composer of jazz. His lovely song, "My Days have been so Wondrous Free," was very famous in 1759 and it provided the leeway for other musicians to try the same. For instance, two years later, Newark-born James Lyon gathered psalm tunes for the Presbyterian Church of which he was a clergyman, and included some of his individual composition in the tunes. That collection, named ‘Urania’ was growing in popularity13. There were very many Africans taken forcibly as slaves to America, a phenomenon that enabled the diverse musical heritage to generate in America. Estimates indicate that there were approximately 600,000 Africans sold into slavery in North America by 1807. These slaves practiced music in the form of Folk music while they attended to their daily routines. The growth of African folk music based on African patterns that gave rise to the development of jazz music in America14. The slaves, mostly from West Africa played music and sung through memory and ear since they did not have any written music. As the singing became more entertaining, the people attending worship would invent new tunes in addition to new rhythms. Consequently, the music would turn to be polyphonic with numerous people singing diverse tunes simultaneously. In addition, these slaves carried their own methods of singing and incorporated it in to the new singing method, which eventually produced the popular jazz music. In this new blend of music, there was the field cry (holler) which served as a greeting or merely as an expression of isolation. In addition, the holler is present in work song, the spiritual and the blues. Furthermore, the characters of the African voice have centered the use of all instruments used in jazz. These African musical models endured in the southern states of North America since the Negroes were obliged to live as a detached society. These Africans herded together as slaves, and after gaining liberty, in 1865, although technically free, they were still discriminated from the rest of the American population. Nevertheless, the Negro folk music started to mingle rapidly with European musical varieties and the story of jazz is the effect of this combination15. The music and style of Jazz was the new system of a new age throughout the eighteenth century. In this era, jazz produced a special and typical culture that flourished throughout this period in America. However, Jazz was very different from the traditional culture of the time. For instance, jazz was rough, dissonant while culture was pleasant, exemplifying orderly and reasonable. In addition, Jazz was reachable and impulsive while culture was restricted, multifaceted and only accessible through hard study and training. Moreover, Jazz was candidly an interactive music in which the listeners played a significant role, such that the line between audience and musicians was frequently unclear. On the other hand, culture instituted those lines thoroughly, creating restrictions that downgraded the audience to a chiefly inactive role of listening to, or looking at the formations of true artists. This means that culture enlarged the gap between the composer and the audience while jazz contracted that gap. In this regard, Jazz often appeared in the midst of noisy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, dancing and gyrating audiences16. In 1764, when the Spanish conquered New Orleans, the Creoles lost their social and economic status, a transformation that compelled them to search for work. As a result, due to their rich heritage of music, many of them became traveling musicians, an occurrence that caused the development and growth of jazz music. These Creole performers and their offspring became the principal creators of early jazz. They travelled in many parts of America performing this new form of music that saw many performers turning to it. The new performers added special tunes and dance moves to the music to make it more sophisticated17. The period from 1835 to 1885, slaves would congregate in Congo square on Sunday to sing, frequently using African-style drums. This was possible due to the mass availability of brass instruments in the late 19th century in New Orleans. The major reason for the availability of these instruments was due to military bands presence in the city. In this regard, there was massive decommissioning of military bands in the city of New Orleans after the civil war. This generated a surplus of brass instruments that were formerly for military purposes. In effect, these kinds of instruments were very functional especially in the marital-like lines accompanying both festivals and funerals. The city of New Orleans provided a very fertile ground for the development of jazz music. As a port, New Orleans had several gambling houses and brothels, causing the city authorities to build a 38-block area, Storyville, in 1898, as a selected red-light region where prostitution was legal. Due to this, there was a lot of demand for entertainment in Storyville. As a result, many performers went to this area to perform and mostly they performed jazz music. This made jazz music to flourish in an enormous way. This is because many people in who came to Storyville demanded music that addressed the present situations especially in the gambling areas and the brothels. This continued for at least two decades before jazz music spread to other parts of America18. Jazz was not born in New Orleans because there was fusion of American and European music taking place in other parts of America. However, since the jazz band developed in New Orleans it became the jazz’s cradle. New Orleans grew to be a great city making it the capital export port of the country’s cotton and the largest city in the South by the end of nineteenth century. In addition, it was the meeting point of three different European cultural traditions that is the Spanish, French and Anglo-Saxon. On the other hand, each of the group produced its own characteristics for the fusion of European and West African Music19. Since the jazz musicians used themes from classical composers, there was a comparable anger by the white musicians. Frank Damrosch, for instance, would frequently criticize the outrage on beautiful music carried out by jazz musicians who he believed were guilty of vulgarizing phrases they had stole from the classic composers. The jazz musicians received warnings to keep their dirty paws off other musicians’ work. At the early development of jazz music, people treated its practitioners like low-caste defilers of the clean and sacred classic music of both the white and the black societies they inhabited20. In addition, there were those who were looking for American especially Afro-American folk music, which represented the indigenous American musical tradition. Mark Twain in 1897 after hearing the Jubilee Singers wrote to a friend saying that he thought that in the Jubilees and their songs America had produced the perfect flower of the ages. He also added that he wished it were a foreign product, so that she would worship it, pour money on it and go crazy properly over it. These ideas flew directly in the face of the comfortable evolutionary tendencies of the day, which simply excluded the possibility that those at the top of society had anything to learn from the plantation melodies of Afro-Americans firmly established in the lowest level of society21. The two different styles of secular music grew from the blues, the spiritual and ragtime. There was a conscious organization and reconstruction of both African and non-African elements by the ragtime using a range of musical instruments together with the human voice to develop the first authentic jazz style and a vocabulary and repertory which described and defined it. While the blues were mainly a vocal idiom like the spiritual in the beginning. However, it developed its style and repertory nearly wholly from African musical concepts reshaping it to fit African American lifestyles and situations. The blues, however, in time, has generated and organized popular styles like rhythm, blues and rock and roll22. The first recognized jazz style, ragtime, grew up in the mid-west towns of Sedalia and St. Louis at the end of the nineteenth century. Although ragtime composition and playing was by both Negro and White pianists who trained in European music, Joplin who was the greatest composer of rags was a Negro. It was a solo piano music with an organization and form of its own, conceived in the European tradition of written composition. The African and European musical types were beginning to blend in many parts of America. The outcome of this combination was a secular folk and independent religious music or a commercial popular entertainment. Consequently, the instrumental music known as jazz and its band emerged in New Orleans by the end of the nineteenth century23. At first, ragtime came into focus as the leisure time music of slaves on southern plantations, the music of performers in taverns, barrelhouses and other places of entertainment and social activity. This provocative music involved singing, playing on pianos, banjos, harmonicas, clarinets, trumpets, and fiddles whatever other instruments that were available. In absence of any traditional instruments, the performers would substitute from materials like combs, washboards, animal bones and tissues24. The magical quality of ragtime's syncopated rhythm that won the hearts of millions of Americans. In addition, it spreads the music up and down the Mississippi River on the riverboats; it differentiated the new sounds of early jazz, which gave a bonus to the mobility of America's population. Apart from the riverboat, sheet music helped the spread of ragtime. In addition, millions of Americans especially women bought the sheet music to play it on their pianos in their homes25. It was in Kansas City and other parts of the mid-west and southwest that the blues and ragtime came closer together and enhanced the new emerging jazz style known as swing. There were two major pulses to a measure featured by ragtime rhythms while swing rhythms featured an even four to a measure basic pulse. On the other hand, there was drastic change in social dancing styles as a result to this change. Dances like the Charleston and the Bunny Hug were popular during the ragtime period, but abruptly everyone was jitterbugging to a new beat26. Jazz had the characteristics that made it abomination to those who criticized it. In addition, there were both praise and criticism because jazz was innovative and managed to break the tradition. Another reason that made it a subject of criticism is that it was a way of expressing the repressed or suppressed contrary to the belief of submitting to the organized discipline of the superego, which enforced the attitudes, and values of the bourgeois culture. It also received criticism for running away of the tight circle of curtsy to Eurocentric cultural ways and giving expression to indigenous American attitudes expressed through indigenous American creative structures. In short, it received praise for being almost totally out of phase with the era's concept of Culture27. Since there was a rapid spread throughout the south of the folk music created by the slaves, it became spiritual. In addition, spirituals were group expressions of many features of the slaves’ lives. The spiritual thought often handled the religious subjects and they used to teach, convey messages, scold, speak of escape, and to express the desire for deliverance from bondage. Spirituals differed according to the time, place and inclinations of the singers. However, they have over years formalized and emerged as the first new music through which slaves could publicly express their collective feelings. It is in the spiritual that the first formalization of the musical elements led to the creation of jazz rhythms based on the memory of tribal chants and drums. On the other hand, it occurred in the African concept of timbre, call and response, improvisation, syncopation and other devices taken from cries, calls, and field hollers and the African approach to melody and harmony28. It was in New Orleans in the 1890's that the earliest forms of jazz began to emerge. New Orleans was a multi-cultural and multiracial French-ruled city with a social order that demanded music and revelry. Creole musicians combined different elements of slave spirituals, West African work songs, minstrel and vaudeville shows, and rural blues expression with the European brass band instruments and harmonies. Every occasion in New Orleans portrayed this newly born hybrid music from parades to funeral marches. Between 1900 and 1911, ragtime developed and was the most popular music in America29. It is very clear that at the beginning and for decades, following jazz was functionally music for dancing. Nothing was clearer to Henry Kmen than this phenomenon, and certainly, it was the reason why he commenced his work with chapters on dancing. However, he communicates practically no features regarding the contribution of African-American performers in what, finally, would have been the “bread and butter” of the competent musician. Kmen finished his history at 1841, a regrettable fact owing to the great modification in social dance style-and its associated music-which occurred in the 1840s and 1850s throughout urban Europe and America, North and South30. It is however critical to note that the musicians who were performing in the city of New Orleans did not know that their music was jazz until they went to perform in the North. Two researchers Russell and Allen conducted some interviews with some of the prominent musicians in New Orleans. In their responses, they gave mixed reactions towards the kind of music they performed. For instance, Tom Albert, a violinist born in 1877, asserted that in old days the musicians called it ragtime rather that purely jazz. In actual sense, there was no any definite disparity between jazz bands and ragtime bands although the term Jazz described this music in recordings and writings31. In America, most people consider jazz music as their classical music. It has developed as a musical language from the solitary expression of the African American heritage and identity to an expression of nationalism. As a national music in America, jazz articulates Americana to Americans and to the people from other nations who live and work in America. In addition, jazz has been a principal influence on the international music for over one hundred years as a classical music with individual principles of form, density, literacy and superiority. Moreover, the Congress of the United States recognizes jazz as a national treasure. In this regard, this special American phenomenon stipulates the national identity and the national culture. Jazz music reflects the identity of the American people in their history32. It also appears that for a long time jazz music received rejection in its homeland for the longer part of its history. Many people have really misunderstood this kind of music throughout its history of development and existence. Moreover, many people have come to bully it and it has been subject to several bans. However, it was able to regain its popularity and eminence and many people came to appreciate it33. Cornetist Buddy Bolden was one of the most credited and respected jazz performer as added flavor and swing to the jazz. However, this great performer saw his life as a performer drastically decline when he became mentally unfit. Freddie Keppard was Another Cornetist, who blew his opportunity to be the first recorder of jazz. He generally feared that other people would copy his recording and ultimately exploit his style. Another cornet, Bunk Johnson failed to record until in early twentieth century. However, many of his peers esteemed and liked him so much. The modernizations of New Orleans jazz engrossed communities of the northern cities in to the jazz before the development of swing music replaced it34. Claiborne Williams was a jazz cornctist and an entrepreneur and was available for all events. Several musicians under his leadership would perform cotillion music for those Negroes who wished to copy white dances. Moreover, Cornetist, trombonist clarinetists, drummers, and bass players marched and performed the music of marching jazz also during his leadership. Still, there was another famous and skillful jazz Cornetist, William Daley. William’s band produced an inspiring multifaceted drive, and the fine consistent sound of its leader's cornet. The Williams bands thrived in the 1880’s and towards the end of the nineteenth century35. During the period of the 1890’s, the most significant innovation of the jazz dance was the two-step dance. Moreover, in the restricted number of New Orleans dance strategies; there is a near sequence from the Carnival balls of the Twelfth Night Revelers. In 1896, there was a significant progression of waltz, lanciers, and polka, and the consequent development of another name for the two-step dance. The 1897 innovations begun with a royal march and a lancers with a continuous alternation of waltz and two-step take over. This progression in the dance styles led to the development of a more sophisticated and complex jazz style just before the beginning of the twentieth century36. The vilification of jazz did not confine to white critics. Jazz music and performers’ bounded too strongly upon the ethnic typecasts of rhythmic, vivacious, uninhibited blacks for numerous race leaders. Maude Cuney-Hare, the music editor of The Crisis condemned the ordinary mixture of unlovely tones and evocative lyrics that exemplified much of jazz. He said, “Music should sound, not screech; Music should cry, not howl; Music should weep, not bawl; Music should implore, not whine". In addition, Dave Peyton, the music critic for the politically militant Chicago Defender, told aspiring pianists to secure two or three hours daily to stay away from jazz music. Peyton protested constantly that most orchestras have incarcerated themselves to hot jazzy melodies37. All through the history of jazz, there have been numerous stylistically diverse forms to the same musical material. The major aspect of this stylistic diversity has frequently been the manipulation of rhythm. For example, when the fundamental pulse of a piece occurred in a lively, violent or dynamic manner the result was a “hot” style of jazz of playing. On the other hand, when the fundamental pulse of apiece occurred in a quiet, delicate, more peaceful way, the result was a “cool” style of jazz38. Several critics praised jazz as an ideal idiom for expressing individual feelings. In one of the initial books dedicated completely to jazz, Henry Osgood termed as it a complaint against the uniformity of life and an effort toward personal expression. In addition, the American people also considered jazz as a national expression and identity. For instance, the “Literary Digest” deemed jazz as a native product and wholly American". In addition, most writers considered jazz as a cultural expression, which emerged to agree with those who regarded it as the only native music worth listening to in America. In addition, most of these writers praised black Americans for maintaining a very special kind of music39. From its roots, jazz was both a means of generating music and a speedily expanding repertory. Consequently, jazz performers had to speedily attain the aptitude to communicate with others using impulsively generated music as a tool. In addition, the music of every period of jazz entailed the manner, which the fundamental elements of music extended or otherwise modified to accomplish the needs of the generation using it. All through this musical development, the there was refining of the African concepts of rhythm and the resultant application to the music generated in a different way40. Jazz appeared exclusively American, a cultural form that, if Frederick Jackson Turner and his devotees had only known it, might have strengthened their ideas of indigenous American development and deviation from the Old World41. Conclusion The development of jazz in America was rather a slow process but ultimately growing in to the current famous jazz music. It has its roots from the African slaves taken from their homes to America. These slaves had a rich diversity in African Folk songs that they highly appreciated. Unfortunately, when they arrived in America, they were under very strict laws and regulations. Their masters did not allow them to practice any other culture other than that of slaves. They did not allow these Africans to explore their music diversity. As they suffered in the hands of their masters, these slaves turned to music as a form of relief. This music developed for a long time and eventually became the popular jazz music. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the American people considered jazz as an important form of music. This is because it became a way of expression and national identity. Although there were several critics against jazz, the American people continued to embrace it as a very vital form of national and ethnic identity. References Gushee, Lawrence. “The Nineteenth Century Origins of Jazz.” Black music research journal, Vol, 14, No, 1 (1994): 151-173. Levine, Lawrence. “Jazz and American Culture.” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 102, No. 403 (March 1989): 6-21. Taylor, Billy. n.d, “Jazz, America’s Classical Music,” http://www.billytaylorjazz.com/Jazz.pdf (accessed July 4 2011). Trail, Sinclair. Jazz. Landon: Taylor & Francis, 1963. Ulanov, Barry. 1955, “A History of Jazz in America,” http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofjazzina030270mbp/historyofjazzina030270mbp_djvu.txt (accessed July 4 2011). Unterberger, Richie, et al. Music USA: The rough guide. London: Rough Guides, 1999. York, Vincent. 2002, “Jazz History Timeline,” http://content.bandzoogle.com/users/BaliDali/files/Handout_-_Visions_of_Jazz.pdf (accessed July 4 2011). Read More