Jazz has shaped the world we know today. Jazz would have never been as popular without the help of the famous musicians: Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. These people helped spread the new genre through radio, railroads, and the records that they played. Where did this all start? The jazz age began in New Orleans where a certain King was born.
America's Greatest Gift There is no doubt that Jazz music is one of greatest things to come from American culture. It had sprouted up from cultural and spiritual hymns a global sound that has no restraints. From the early slave songs with their call and response style, to the later Swing and Bebop era tones, Jazz became the frontline for American music where it still remains relevant to this day. It all started in the later parts of the 19th with African slaves brought over from the Atlantic slave trade.
Jazz music has spread around the world. It has drawn on national and regional musical cultures. Jazz has been the most important social factor that black musicians were able to record the blues, gospel and more. These musicians lived through inequality and many discovered their freedom in jazz. It became African Americans freedom because jazz
Benny Goodman also pushed for a diverse band, being the organizer of an interracial group (Swing). In this instance, it was through this connection to music that black and white people came together. At the time that swing was popular, World War II was taking place. It seems legit that people would want to get their feeling out somehow. Swing music did just that.
Jazz music was and continues to be a form of entertainment, a lifestyle, and a distraction from the everyday hardships that are forced upon them. Works Cited Collier, James Lincoln. Jazz: An American Saga. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
What other events combined with the economic crash to make the Depression so harsh? Urban centers had turned into uninhabited areas. Grim shantytowns, bitterly dubbed "Hoovervilles," were made from crates and cartons. Meanwhile, a drought withered crops and made the Great Plains into badlands.
Popular Jazz musicians included King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Duke Ellington. No one had quite heard anything like it before in America. Dances were made to accompany the music - mostly to "take advantage" of the upbeat tempo's. Before Jazz became popular in America, it was considered "the devil's music" by some of the public. Some people, like Ernest Newman, "debunked Jazz" in a 1927 magazine article.
Since its early roots in New Orleans, Jazz has been essential part of American culture through its role in showcasing and contributing to America’s complex history. Throughout the years, Jazz artists have used improvisation and individuality, which are essential traits of the music, to keep the music celebrated and popular around the world. However, only few artists have used Jazz music to support social movements and used to influence people’s lives. Unlike others, I believe John Coltrane, was one of the greatest saxophonist, who portrayed his individuality through his belief in spiritual power of music and using his improvisation to change music style while influencing social issues. Coltrane was a deeply spiritual man who believed music was a vehicle for the
As difficult as the economic crisis of the Great Depression was for white Americans, it was even harder on racial minorities, including black Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, and Asian Americans. In 1933 the general unemployment rate in the United States was over 25 percent; at the same time, unemployment rates for various American minorities ranged up to 50 percent or more. Given the severe racial discrimination in almost every facet of daily life in America through the 1920s, it was hard for many minorities to distinguish much difference between the Great Depression and "normal" economic times. Nonetheless, for these groups the Great Depression was worse than "normal" economic hardships they had suffered.
By 1920, the Jazz age was well underway as a direct challenge to the prohibition of alcohol. Famous Jazz players of the 1920s where: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, and Joe Venuti. This was one of the first times in American history that the majority of non-African Americans accepted parts of African American culture. It was the moment that many African Americans were able to enter into the mainstream. Though African Americans lived under constant fear of death and pain in the Gilded Age, all was not pain and sorrow.
Despite Jazz being formed out of two cultures, the issues of social stratification and racial identity never had to be addressed in early jazz history. But as Jazz grew in popularity in a prewar 1930s America, the issue of racism started to form. As Jazz prospered within the economy and as a musical style, it’s roots revealed it’s racial identity. Jazz emerged from the music used formerly to entertain slaves and was a tool of rebellion against the white man, Jazz’z roots were very much embedded in slave culture. As free slaves moved north, they brought their Jazz influence to parts of the country such as Chicago and New York.
The Jazz Age was influential era of music, dance, flappers, and wild partying that forever changed America’s culture and normalcy for women.
The Jazz Age was a term used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to refer to the 1920s, but it was also a cultural movement that took place in America during this decade. It was also known as “the Roaring Twenties”. This movement coincided with the end of the World War I and the introduction of the mainstream radio. The era ended with the crash of 1929, which caused the Great Depression.
In life, there are few things as organic as jazz music. With its raw sound and scrappy roots, one cannot help but feel life head-on whilst witnessing players produce such a sound right before their eyes. Its origins and arch are a product of the United States’ national culture and identity. Jazz exists not only as a deeply rooted form of art but as a cultural marker, particularly during its commercial peak in the first half of the 20th century. Its impact transcends borders, and it is one of the most beloved musical genres worldwide.
For African Americans, jazz music, has always had a political undercurrent. Slave songs spoke of the “Israelites” enslaved by the Egyptians, such as in Go Down Moses, symbolising their own yearning for freedom. However, it took time for the assertion of the political message to develop in a more discernible way. Jazz’s status as a form of entertainment had effectively subdued the message for many years, because of the ostracisation of those involved and because of the early popularity of the white swing bands. The majority of jazz musicians were not political activists, rarely explicitly political in their work, however, they often expressed their political ideals, sometimes more subtley other times more overtly through their music.