The 1920's was a pivotal time for music in the United States. Recordings were becoming more available, the economy was flourishing, and as a result music was spreading rampantly across the country. Citizens were no longer confined to regional or local music, and musicians were being influenced by music recorded from parts of the country that were normally out-of-reach if not for these recordings.
Picture of an Okeh label record (famous for race records)
As a result of this, the music industry discovered "black" (southern) music. This new music (classified as Race Records) caught on contagiously to the music industry record labels, however, due to current racial segregation at the time, labels would not dare publish a black artist. Instead, labels had whites cover the "Race Records" and sold them to the market without much credit, if any at all, going to the original black artists and performers. Even great artists, such as Mamie Smith (who performed songs such as Harlem Blues shown live below), were sometimes completely forgotten in the mix of things.
Mamie Smith performing Harlem Blues
Nonetheless, the result of Race Records and white covers was monumental. Even if people did not realize they were being exposed to music from other cultures, they undoubtedly were which paved the way for the path of the music scene in the future. Some even say that these Race Records had the unforeseen effect of birthing Rock and Roll, along with artists like Elvis Presley.
Cited Sources:
"Race Records." Race Records. America.gov, 29 July 2008. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2008/July/20080812224517eaifas0.2327234.html>.
"Mamie Smith and the Birth of the Blues Market." Npr.org. 11 Nov. 2006. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.<http://www.npr.org/2006/11/11/6473116/mamie-smith-and-the-birth-of-the-blues-market>.
"Race Records." Race Records. n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/sgo/texts/racerec2.html>.
The Roaring 20's brought about much social conflict to the American culture. America's values were challenged as "the Jazz Age" was born along with the prohibition of alcohol. The nation had to adapt to a wide variety of changes that made this era one to be treasured and remembered.
Jazz was developed by African American musicians in New Orleans. With the great migration of African Americans from the south to the north and with the Harlem Renaissance, the appearance of black culture increased. This was a "time when African Americans became prominent in American culture," spreading the development of jazz and blues music to whites. Although this style of music was attractive to some whites, this also upset many white Americans causing them to join the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan during this era used terrorism not only to target blacks, but the organization also "turned its wrath against Catholics, Jews, Latinos, and Greek immigrants." They wanted to redefine the values of America that the Roaring 20's was trampling over.
Prohibition greatly affected the music industry in the United States. Jazz was the most popular music style during the Prohibition. With the ban of the manufacture and sale of alcohol, people attended speakeasies to drink and to dance and listen to jazz. Speakeasies were illegal bars that sold smuggled alcohol; they quickly outnumbered the bars or saloons that formerly sold legal alcoholic beverages. This was a way for Americans to secretly rebel against the Prohibition.
While jazz became progressively notorious, there were positive and negative effects of jazz. Those that objected it believed it was an "influence for evil in society," whereas those that enjoyed it embraced the spontaneity and boldness it gave them. Jazz sweeped the clubs, and although the older generation criticized jazz music because of its "vulgarity" and "immorality," those in the younger generation loved the feeling of freedom they had on the dance floor.
Works Cited
Blivin, Jamai. A Reality Check for Children. 4.19 (2012): 15. U.S. News Digital Weekly. Print.
Drowne, Kathleen. Spirits of Defiance: National Prohibition and Jazz Age Literature. Vol. 12. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2005. Print.
Pegram, Thomas R. One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. 258.27 (2011): 56-57. Publishers Weekly. Print.
The Roaring 20's was a time of great economic prosperity and great change in social and cultural features. Technology seemed to have no limits, the end of World War 1 brought unity, and jazz music took over the landscape. Racial discrimination however was at its peak in the United States. Fortunately, during this time period blacks were able to distinguish themselves through the Harlem Rennaisance. "During those same mega lopolitan 1920s, some of New York's most powerful ethnic minority writers bravely claimed the city-at least, their neighborhood microcosm of the city-as a home for the transient outcasts of American society. Like the Jewish immigrants croded into the Lower East Side before them, Harlem's African American newcomers constituted a critical mass large enough to sustain a subculture and to achieve high visibility. Harlem, too, had its own cultural resources of language, folkways, and ritual aesthetic forms" (Bremer 48).
Some of the important black musicians of this era include Duke ellington, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jellyroll Morton, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald. All of them combined basically accounted for all the jazz influence of the nation for blacks, and also importantly the whites. The following clip shows each of these musical legends performing.
Furthermore, "the achievement of The New Negro was real. In this way it reflects the mixed record of the Harlem Renaissance itself. In spite of the fact that the movement was short lived, and many of its works and talents of less than stellar quality, the Renaissance succeeded in laying the foundations for all subsequent depictions in poetry, fiction, and drama of the modern African-American experience; and the same claim can be made even more strongly of its music, in the compositions and performances of artists such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith. The central success of the anthology is its creation of a noble but credible portrait of black America just as black America was entering the modern world. The energy and joy in The New Negro have political purposes; they are subversive, and thus come tinged with a quality not unlike a thrilling psychological neuroticism, which serves to authenticate the modernist identity of the New Negro. Whatever one may say of the book, one does not find it antiquarian, or a period piece. Even today, it remains a reliable index to the black American sensibility at that point where art and politics meet, as well as to the events in Harlem and elsewhere among blacks in the 1920s" (Rampersad).
The following video is of the other side of the spectrum of jazz, orchestral music of the roaring 20's. This music during its time was more popular with the white population. Although orchestral, this music still consisted of vocals. Many of these listeners would end up converting to jazz which was "black music" at the time. (This jazz music they converted to is in the clip above.)
Although segregation was at a height, the jazz music that was played by blacks was enjoyed by all types of people, even the whites. This was made possible through movements like the Harlem Renaissance. Jazz was even the precursor to "crossover" songs that became popular in the 1950's. There is no doubt in my mind that jazz was a major influence in the unity of the different races.
The video below is a great resource the tells you everything you need to know about the Roaring 20's.
Works Cited
Bremer, S. H. (1990). Home in harlem, new york: Lessons from the harlem renaissance writers. PMLA.Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 105(1), 47-47. Retrieved from http://lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/214762772?accountid=7082
Rampersad, A. (2003). The book that launched the harlem renaissance. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (38), 87-87. Retrieved from http://lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/195546024?accountid=7082
I don’t know where jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You
can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens. —thelonious monk
Despite the fact that during the 1920’s blacks were
considered unworthy and therefore below the “sophisticated” white class for
most aspects of life, it seemed that the two races found similarity through the
growing era of Jazz. Between new and inventive ways of playing the trombone or
piano to mixing different cultures of music to make unique jazz sounds, several
big name artists in this time rose to fame and stamped their names in history.
Compared to
most of the heavyweight jazz players in the 20’s, Joe “King” Oliver was
considered to have the most popular jazz band. What differentiated him from the
crowd was his influence of Creole- a mixture of French and African folk music
styles that began to blend in the south during the Pacific Slave Trades. “This
embrace [of incorporating styles] has not always been comfortable, nor should
it expected to be since African culture was, and remains, multifarious. The
wide range of areas that Africans were taken from meant they were as different
as they were similar,” (Miller, 1) within the growing genre of jazz. Oliver
played the trombone as well as the cornet. He was most noted for playing the
cornet in Bill Johnson’s band in Chicago, where he first picked up the name Joe
“King” Oliver- king of the cornet.
A mentee of the great Joe “King” Oliver, Louis
Armstrong rose to fame during Oliver’s heyday. Armstrong took on jobs that
Oliver could not fit into his schedule. This allowed Armstrong’s name and
musical talents to become known across the nation. Many knew him for his
ability to improvise lines within an already written song, both rhythmically
and harmonically. He became known as the first real superstar of 1920’s jazz
music.
Different from most jazz stars during this era,
Paul Whiteman capitalized in the field of symphonic jazz. Whiteman enjoyed
hiring big-time jazz names to perform with his symphonic band, creating a
jazzier feel without becoming a full-fledged jazz band. This created a
modern jazz spin that took off later in the 1930’s.
Throughout the 20’s
jazz music grew to a new level and new faces had risen to a new level of fame
despite their race or personal musical talents. All of their musical
contributions made their own watermark on jazz as a whole, but no matter how
much it progresses, “jazz is bound up with a
pluralism that somehow reconciles these apparently irreconcilable trends.”
(Deveaux, pg. 486)
Bibliography
DeVeaux, Scott. "Constructing the
Jazz Tradition." Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography.
New York: Columbia UP, 1998. N. pag. Print.
Miller, Herbie. Syncopating Rhythms:
Jazz and Caribbean Culture. New York: Jazz Studies, 2007. Print.
