The evolution of American Music: Africa and the Americas
America is a unique melting pot in every way with culturing mixing together to create a new culture and fashion that influenced fashion and entertainment world wide. When North American colonists began importing Africans to fill much needed farm labor, they could little imagine the far-reaching changes that the influence of the African slaves on American culture and lifestyle.
When world war I broke out in Europe a void was created in the labor supply for manufacturing in the Mid North West. African Americans who had been living in the post-civil war south where little opportunity was offered beyond a system of share cropping, eagerly migrated north to find employment in factory work in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. These opportunities offered a real chance to make income and
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With the invention of recording and eventually radio, Black influenced musical styles became available to the public and became fashionable as white audiences looked for new and more exciting experiences that challenged the norm. “Speak easy’s” offered illegal alcohol and access to jazz music and dance and risqué dance shows in the 1920’s. Film gave audiences glimpses into titillating lifestyles and behaviors never seen before and glamourized the idea of alternative behavior. “Jungle” shows and films gave people an interpretation of Africans that Americans believed existed, a portrayal of lands that few Americans, black or white, had seen firsthand.
The first jazz music combined elements of blues styles that grew from the harsh conditions of the Jim Crow South. but jazz was different because of experimentation, appeal to a larger audience and improvisation. Artists such as Duke Ellington indevoured to present a professional appearance that was not alien to white