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
