Impact and influence of The Harlem Renaissance - Research Paper Example

Impact and influence of The Harlem Renaissance Introduction The Harlem renaissance was as a result of rejection and abolition of slavery after its inception in the African American communities which happened at the peak of World War I. The great migration of African Americans in search of employment in industries in America increased the population hence increasing the chances of a stable movement. These African Americans triggered the rise of new mass culture which could not be brought down by any opposing force (Southern 1997, p 409). The anticipation of the Negros in the American economy gave rise to own collaboration as they came together in a new force to shun racism. They helped each other in coming up with better ways of living to benefit their way of living to better standards. The Harlem Renaissance was a culture that cropped up in the early 1920’s and 1930’s, centered in Harlem neighborhood of New York City (Rampersad 2002, p 48). The group had many French speaking black writers from the African continent and some hailed from the Caribbean colonies. The black people had a considerable huge influence to the composition and recording of the music that was connected to the Harlem renaissance in the hood. At a point in time, the Harlem renaissance was also recognized as ‘new negro movement’ named after an anthology by Alain Locke. He was very influential and responsible for the smooth running of the association that made him be rewarded posthumously (Huggins 2007, p 37). There are plausible of the Harlem renaissance have lived longer after and extended its influence to today’s life especially in the music industry. Previously, the crew had been involved in theatre plays that revealed utter opportunities that the people could use in expressing themselves in complex human emotions and characters. The plays were initiated majorly to give an outward and influential reasoning to the whole world to reduce the highly incumbent stereotype nature against the blacks and Negros. The Harlem renaissance went ahead to write poems that were especially linked to the way of life in the contemporary world that linked the behavior of Negros and their way of life in America. The African Americans developed a notion that they should help each other as they had been suffering for lots of years in slavery and forced labour. This idea made them look out for ways of deluding from the negativities in the society by discovering and enhancing their talents. Many people were talented in different aspects in their living and had to come up with ways of nurturing talent in different ways as long as it could better their living standards. This idea was psyched up by developers selling the Harlem rentals to many black people (New York times 1997, p. 931). Black people started owning real estates and in turn rented exclusively to fellow black people. They developed institutions and businesses to support themselves in their living. This in turn would develop their arrays of talents and ambitions, as they would use their interactions to increase their productivity in the music sector. The advocate of Harlem renaissance for racial equality created an advanced epicenter for their celebrity and became widely known in the whole region as it was among the largest known civil rights group in their headquarters. The movement discussed the problems facing the black community and in collaboration with prominent African American activists developed ways to face their challenges. Impacts of Harlem renaissance First of all, the Harlem renaissance helped in establishing a sense of community and empowerment for African Americans in New York and extended to other parts of the United States. The group created avenues of exposing the African Americans to people in the region who had a vast experience in the different aspects and walks of life. The group transformed the largely segregated and racial American community and influenced meetings of black people with the white’s community. The black community could now interact with white people in many field which included intellectuals, social activists, educators and artists which improved the whole community as it gathered experience in different sectors in the community (New York Times 1987, p 24). The created avenues influenced the African American positively as it reduced the distance of interaction between them and the whites who had a wide perspective in different professions. It also reduced the perception of white people to the blacks as they could now interact freely. African Americans in the Harlem renaissance reduced the use of political activists and satire that was created to relieve the racism in the American community. They incepted the use of cultural artists and writers of the black origin to establish the goals and missions of the black community. The cultural writers and artist in the Harlem renaissance were destined to work on their culture, equality and civil rights in the country as they had been given a better platform to express their views on the treatment that was accorded to them. The cultural writers and artists in the group were given the utter responsibility to assist in educating the African American community Jazz music, African-American fine art and black literature. The professions were to be absorbed in the African culture for appropriate behavior and conduct to the black people to avoid negative actions from whites. The absorption of the culture, jazz music and African-American fine art gave the blacks a brighter influence to the American economy as a whole as they could be linked to certain responsibilities that helped in the improvement of the economy. The impact of these activities and professionalism was extended to the music sector as they could produce a wide range of entertainment to the people. This influenced the people in America and in fact attracted the whites to liking the music, especially jazz music that they became royal listeners and devoted to supporting the endeavors. The diverted attention by whites to the jazz music produced by majorly African Americans brought a unified nation together as they had a specific area of attention that united them. This was experienced by the increased interaction of the people in the nation and reduced conflict of ideas. Similarly, the reduction of activism and activities relating to activism indicated that the segregation between the two groups had reduced, giving a better and conducive living environment in the country (Patton & Honey 2001, p 8). The adaption of the American-American culture in the country and the European culture especially in the worlds of art and music was highly influential that it gained the name ‘the Harlem renaissance’ The Harlem renaissance specialized in jazz sounds in their interaction and hence became widely influential in the music sector, hence the popular line “jazz was the sound of Harlem renaissance music” in the society. It concentrated fully in developing jazz music and dominated in full swing. This unified effort towards production of jazz music made it clear that jazz was the people’s music in the society. It only faced an inferior atrocity as it had serious trouble being accepted by some whites who deemed it a black culture. Contrary to deeming it black cultural music, jazz music that was produced by Harlem renaissance increased its popularity in the society as more people accepted the tunes. Jazz music written and produced by Harlem renaissance gained a wide popularity and increased the degree of acceptance in the whole society (Kelley and Earl 2004, p 12). It remained very popular with most of Harlem’s citizens as they had more time listening to the tunes. The popularity of jazz music record4ed a rapid increase in its popularity in the society as it had attracted a tremendous audience that could buy their compositions in the market. The popularity of jazz and Harlem’s production extended to the whole world as they experienced a reputable audience from other parts of the world outside America. It is historically recorded that the club euphoria was developed by jazz music from Harlem renaissance a they had the original idea in the early 1920’s. Due to the high demand of jazz music in the society, many people flocked performances of the Harlem community making the places crowded and full. This overcrowding and full capacity attendance made the Harlem family to come up and construct innovative strategies that would encompass a larger audience in attendance. This fact created a special passion of the community as the people were influenced to start attending night clubs and rent parties as they were popular zones that played quality jazz music. The Harlem community started to display vibrant jazz music to the audience as they recorded constantly improving audience and attendance. This improved a high regard to priority of listening to jazz music in the whole community and triggered the inclusion of night clubs in the investments to provide a constant supply to loyal customers. This explains how the jazz family and Harlem community introduced the passion of taking jazz bands and music into nightclubs and parties. The inception of jazz music in this venues proved a success and has since then been used as an opportunity to display music in all aspects. Inversion of jazz music and arts attracted an amazing group of Middle class and upper class black families in the American society. This was initiated by their arguably decent understanding of the changes that had taken place in the American community, brought by undeterred actions by African-American activists. These African-Americans had the attraction of embracing their past cultural experience and getting to be taught the new cultural affiliations in the community. They also had the sole opportunity of getting to meet with friends who loved their culture hence a socializing opportunity to people who loved meeting new friends in their culture. The Harlem renaissance came up with the idea of expressing people’s culture in jazz music in their various expressions. Well-to-do with blacks in the American community had extended desire and character of being identified with their ancient culture. The avenues of exposing this culture was rare and the best way of getting a clear glimpse of this cultural affiliations was through involvement in the jazz music and Harlem community. The increase in the demand for jazz music that displayed culture affiliated with Africans influenced black people into investing in the white business culture in the American cities. These activities were given a boost by the universal acceptance of black culture as many people deluded the fact that blacks were inferior beings. The Harlem renaissance community adopted a superior and advent way of playing the piano commonly referred to as the Harlem stride style. The style was a major attraction to the jazz music and art as it was magnificently different and influencing as compared to the other forms of playing the piano. The piano style reduced the incumbent distance of interaction between low life Africans and the high life Africans as they had an avenue of socializing and exchange of ideas. The exchanging of ideas and interactions improved the development of the low life Africans to improve their living standards. This illustrates a major transformation that the jazz music has received from the Harlem renaissance. Were it not for the Harlem renaissance, jazz music would not have created a notion of socializing and people having a quorum in exchanging ideas while having fun brought by music. The Harlem renaissance in the American community improved the perception of jazz music in the American north cities especially New York, Chicago, Detroit and Saint Louis. It influenced the black social elite in the community as it improved the communication interaction between blacks and blacks, blacks and whites universally. The communication lines between the two different communities are getting better in every day that passes and through the years they have been improving. This improvement has been attributed to the fact that the Harlem community introduced peaceful avenues of communication through introduction of jazz music. This aspect of peaceful interaction is still going on as many people, who are not of the same race and affiliations meet in jazz sessions to exchange ideas and have a good time. This whole idea makes people to deviate from racial discrimination in the whole world as they embrace change brought by development. The Harlem renaissance came up with a piano and developed its construction and design that created a symbol of affluence in the minds of many people. The piano displayed individuals who were devoted to change in positive ways. This meant that people and households were to be improved economically, physically and emotionally by spending stipulated time in entertainment particularly in jazz music. This influence increased the number of people who sort entertainment from jazz music as they could get array of information and ideas in development. The affluence of jazz music has made it possible for some organizations to come up with jazz music events that focus on having influential and successful people in the whole world. The audience gets to interact and share ideas while having a cool glamour of jazz music playing all the while. The organizations are able to collect the influential ideas and fuse with current situation that are happening for amicable solutions. The Harlem renaissance as a historic movement has had influential affects on the modern society to date. Even though the renaissance demised, its effects are far from getting finished as people are still using the ideology from the groups and organization. It influenced the American culture from its normal writing and expression to artistic and musical expression which is being felt to date. The Americans are now involved in writing music and other artistic expressions linking them closely to their culture. Compositions of jazz songs are made in ways that depict their cultural affiliations and how they treasure it. With close analysis, the jazz music is greatly loved for the diversity in expressing the culture it emanates from (Cotter 1998, p 17) The introduction of the broad way and unique way of playing the piano by the Harlem renaissance in the jazz music helped in blurring the obstacles that existed between poor Negros and elite Negros. This happened due to the composition of the music instruments in the jazz band. Primarily, the brass instruments in the band were linked to symbolize the south while the piano was considered an instrument of the rich and socially wealthy. The inclusion of these two genres of instruments gave a clear interaction of poor people from south and the exclusively rich people (Boland 2009, p 7) The Harlem renaissance came up with strategies of modifying their equipment s to give the audience a better music selection and entertainment. They modified some equipment and added them to the existing genres to improve the jazz music, to give improve acess to the music by more black people ass they had attraction to the many different equipment. The inclusion of the modified equipment in the jazz band increased the attraction of many people thereby increasing the popularity of jazz music. The availability of different instruments and equipment in jazz band is still an incredible attraction to this date as the music displayed is played in a wide variety. Activities of the Harlem renaissance still have a great impact to the way people rate American-African music. They improved the performance in jazz music and influenced an incredible liking for the African music fusion from all sorts of races in the American community. The attendance of all these sorts of races is still being experienced in all the genres of music emanating from the attraction that was created by the Harlem renaissance (Calloway & Ellington 2011, p 24).The impact was very positive to the whole audience and they appreciated it to high levels hence the full acceptance up to date. Conclusion The Harlem renaissance developed an innovative way of appreciating African talents in presenting it to people in various ways that attracted a favorable audience. The idea was brought into procession when composers, dramatists and novelists incepted utter exploitation of musical and acting talents from the African Americans in their works. The professionals in composition, dramatics and songs used poems and songs written by African Americans in their concerts, with keen attention on the rhythm, harmonization and melodious expression which had a massive attraction to the audience. The Negros in the compositions had an influential attraction to audience and was soon to be the talk of the town in their daily activities, due to the massive numbers. The merging of Negros with whites in concerts and classical music had a rather great increase in the number of people that were attracted to jazz music. The whites were attracted to the music since they could link themselves to one of their own. Similarly, the blacks were also appreciating the music as it had a racial affiliation common to them. The fusion of the two different races increased the almost popular popularity of jazz music. It also had a positive impact in the name it accrued to the Harlem renaissance as it was the brainchild behind formation of the different types of groups in the music industry. Fusion of the whites and blacks in the jazz music industry gave a wide recognition to the music industry as it travelled across the world in a short while since its formation. People across the world had access to many of the compositions composed by the jazz crew and music industries as it had a wider range of communal affiliations. The emergence of Negros in the industry stirred mixed reactions from people across the world. Many people appreciated their efforts towards talent exploitation while a few others overlooked their hard work. The Harlem renaissance in the American territory enhanced the jazz music industry, to a high level that it is still today. It is responsible for the history that reigns behind music origin and its innovation as there are many clubs and affiliations in the American states that still regard the Harlem community as the father of jazz music. For instance, the Harlem community is responsible for the formation of Apollo Theater which records more than one and half million visitors annually. It was re-known to be one of the most famous and popular club in the United States for jazz and other popular music, as it show casted many of Harlem’s talents and career builders. The legacy of Harlem renaissance still incorporates itself in the ame5rican industry from the existence of uncountable jazz and musical centers. Works cited Boland, Jesse. "Harlem Renaissance Music." 1920s Fashion and Music. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. Calloway cab & Ellington Duke Harlem renaissance: the music and rhythms that started a cultural revolution. 2011. Cotter Holland. ART; A 1920's Flowering That Didn't Disappear. 1998. Web. Huggins Nathan. Harlem renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA. 2007. Kelley, Robin D. G. and Earl Lewis (Ed.). To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. NewYork: Oxford University Press. (2004). New York Times. Harlem in the jazz age. New York Times. 1987. Print. New York Times. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York. Norton. 1997. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002. Print. Patton Venetria & Honey Maureen. Double- take: a revisionist Harlem renaissance reader. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. 2001. Rampersad Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: 1902-1941, I, too, sing America Southern Eileen. Music of Negro Americans a history. New York: Norton, 1997. Print. Read More