The Birth of Jazz

Image via Wikipedia

In his recent, and controversial, book Subversive Sounds, Charles Hersch argues that ethnic and social issues were crucial for the development of jazz in New Orleans. He instances the growth of tension between white people and African-Americans over blue-collar jobs towards the end of the nineteenth century, using statistics showing how the latter lost considerable job share in a number of occupations, even though the population of African-Americans in New Orleans grew by 50 per cent in the last twenty years of the century (Hersch, 2009). The huge growth in African-American –and also white – numbers migrating to the city from neighboring rural areas is also mentioned by Horn and Cooke (2002). Hennessey further suggests that much of this migration was due to farm mechanization eliminating rural jobs.

However, jazz was not simply a creation from the consciousness and memories of slavery held by the African-American community. While it is true that at some time around the late eighteen-eighties African-Americans began to develop a new musical form – blues music – from the gospel music and the work songs of their slave forebears, another influence seems to have been essential. Hersch suggests that as the blues sound permeated through the swollen Downriver quarters, classically trained black Creole musicians proved a quick study at absorbing and improvising the new melodic lines.

Another influence, from the 1890s, was rag-time. This musical form had a brief vogue, lasting in its pure form for only twenty years or so, is mainly characterised by syncopation. Ragtime fused certain characteristics of African-American music, such as improvisation. Also worth noting is the growth of rag-time through a booming sheet music publishing industry in a period before music could be electronically recorded. Many homes had either a piano or harmonium, and many people could play these instruments. It has also been argued (Busciglio, 2009) that at the end of the of the Spanish-American War a flood of other instruments from military bands became accessible to local musicians. Gathering friends and family around the piano or harmonium and singing the popular music was a major form of entertainment in this period. That habit also began to spread the new music in the white community.

Among the elements that made New Orleans the seed bed of the new music were its habit of public popular celebration, stemming from a vibrant communal life in the African-American community; the city’s mixture of races, which, while not always co-existing in harmony, led over time to a degree of cultural fusion – in cuisine, for existence, as well as in music; and a rich musical tradition, which included influences from the classical European orchestral tradition, the field songs and Gospel music formerly sung by slave labor, and the synthesising effect of Creole music.

Jazz itself bears testimony to its heritage: performers of jazz improvise some of the music as it is played, adding their own notes to music that is written down. Jazz musicians ambush listeners by breaking up traditional rhythms, a legacy from the syncopation that characterizes rag-time. Yet, it is commonly agreed, jazz music at its best is classically pure.

References

Busciglio, Rick. Louis Armstrong and the Birth of Jazz. Online. Available at The Birth of Jazz. Accessed 17 March 2009.

Hennessey, Thomas J. From Jazz to Swing: African-American Jazz Musicians and their Music, 1890-1935. Jazz History, Culture, and Criticism Series. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.

Hersch, Charles. Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Horn, David and Mervyn Cooke. The Cambridge Companion to Jazz. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.