From the Basement to the Penthouse

Jazz, as soon as it emerged as an art form was immediately associated with the dregs of society.  It was born in the Red Light District of Storyville in New Orleans, moved north to the dance halls and speakeasies controlled by the mob in the south side of Chicago, accompanied rent parties in the slums of Harlem, and kept the patrons spending money in the brothels and casinos of Kansas City.  Since the genre was considered simply the music of the criminal, the young, or the black, it was largely dismissed which left musicians to struggle for legitimacy, regardless of color.  The Charleston, the shimmy, the Black Bottom, and the jitterbug, inseparable from the music that accompanied these dances, brought jazz from the margins to the mainstream(Gioia).  This exposure to popular culture created financial opportunities that had not existed before.  With the potential for economic advancement, came fierce competition between bandleaders and musicians.  Agents, publicists, and record companies all sought to profit as jazz was nationalized in visual arts, theater, movies, and music.  With more at stake bandleaders attempted to keep others from profiting from their creativity, and the differences in reward structure between black musicians and white musicians created a discourse of racial tension.  This new hot version of jazz, swing, created an environment of social miscegenation which made many in the older white community incredibly uncomfortable(p53, Stowe).

While riding on a train in Scottsboro, Alabama a white woman, when faced with a potential prostitution charge, accused several black boys of rape.  The Communist Party of the United States came to their aid and eventually led to their conviction being overturned by the Supreme Court in 1931.  A transition toward political radicalism was ushered in as white organizations criticized black organizations for taking too many concessions from the whites that were in power.  The 1936 competition between Benny Goodman, a white bandleader, and Chick Webb, a black bandleader, at the Savoy further exemplified the racial tensions of the times.  The Savoy was a racially integrated theater in Harlem, where the audience expected a certain level of professionalism and creativity.  If this level was not met, the audience would speak their minds and the performer would pulled from the stage.  Goodman and his all white band were no match for Webb and his all black band.  The performers were in conversation with the audience, and the audience felt that Webb had emerged triumphant that evening(Lecture 2/24).  

Goodman would later become vital in making a jazz a legitimate voice with his performance at Carnegie Hall in 1938.  Carnegie Hall was a venue of high culture, where people would dress in their fanciest of attire, listen to European classical music, and get cultured.  While Goodman, being white, only further strengthened the racial tensions, he realized he was profiting from what was considered a black art form.  He created moments of inclusiveness during the performance when black pianist Teddy Wilson, and black vibraphonist Lionel Hampton performed.  Duke Ellington would take a very different approach from his peers at the time.  In order to further penetrate the mainstream and achieve commercial and economic success he conceded his beliefs on segregation and politics.  He took a job at the whites only Cotton Club and hired an agent(Gioia).  While he was much more successful with the access to a broader, higher paying audience, the experience was a racial sting to his pride.  This exposure also opened him and other black artists up to criticism from white music critics.  John Hammond a white, well to do socialite, felt compelled to critique Ellington after he covered the Scottsboro case for a newspaper.  He said Ellington was insensitive to the troubles of his people and shut his eyes to the abuse put on his race(Stowe).  Ellington tried to ignore the critique saying it was laughable, but it altered his willingness to discuss politics and his approach to music further along in his career. During the 1930s swing broke down segregation and led the overall trend towards more integration.  

At the onset of the 20th century, America underwent an enormous change in the overall social structure, as well as the geographical layout of communities and their respective cultures.  With the initiation of World War I, soldiers traveled overseas to fight, and vacated a large number of jobs in the industrial sector in the northern United States.  What followed was the Great Migration, as thousands of African-Americans migrated north to fill these vacated jobs, and pursue the American Dream (Gioia).  A unique environment developed, a middle ground between high brow, middle class attempts to assimilate, and the low brow, working class struggles to survive in the gutter.  While similar environments existed in both Chicago and New York in the 1920s, New York became an important center for jazz.  The middle and low classes interacted with each, unlike in the deeply divided north and south sides of Chicago.  A creative ground was established that would push the musical medium while it maintained a conversation with its audience and their surroundings(Lyttelton).

Jazz in New York began with James P. Johnson around 1912, before the Old Dixieland Jazz Band had formed, and before King Oliver and Louis Armstrong had moved to Chicago.  Johnson developed what was called the Harlem stride piano style, where the left hand would keep a rhythm and the right hand would play a melody.  It was a continuation of ragtime, but it further advanced the style by increasing the tempo, picking up the intensity, and allowing for more improvisation.  This reflected the living situation at the time in Harlem.  The influx of African-Americans from the south brought together a diverse group.  While they were all of African descent, there cultures were very different.  Many wanted to hold on to some of their roots, but they had very little nostalgia for the oppressive Jim Crow laws they were hoping to escape.  There were two sides to this developing area of Harlem.  An artistic, middle class black society that was part of the Harlem Renaissance movement in art and literature, and a working class society where multiple families lived in tight quarters and struggled to pay rent.  Both groups sought out a proud existence in this new, more free setting.  During the Harlem Renaissance, blacks began to participate in the high culture that was to match that of Europe.  They were hoping to be looked at as a productive human race as opposed to the more animalistic treatment they had received in the south.  The flip side was that at the same time, families were piling in on top of each other struggling to pay rent.  Rooms were rented out in shifts, and parties were held to try and cover the expense that was a much higher percentage, relative to their salaries than in other areas(Gioia).  

Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington followed Johnson, as they tried to respond to the environment that existed in Harlem during the 1920s.  They brought a largeness to jazz, with the beginning of the big band which reflected their urban surroundings as they played in places like the Cotton Club, and Club Alabam(Gioia).  The audience wanted a place to dance and let loose, and in order to keep their jobs band leaders were willing to give the audience what they wanted.  Russian philosopher Mikhail Bhaktin’s proposed that literary works are affected by works from the past as well as works in the future.  Similarly jazz bands used the stage as an outlet to communicate the struggles of working for white club owners and never quite feeling free.  This was shared by working class that simply punched the clock.  As the audience responded artists were pushed to explore those feelings further.  The instruments were described as sounding human which resonated with the audience, both black and white, bringing down walls of segregation and opening up the genre to a broader audience.