Big Blog 1: American Roots

History of Jazz in NYC

How It Got To New York

    Jazz in America can be traced back to New Orleans with the Blues as early as the 1860s. The Blues were a combination of African American spirituals and work songs among other things. The roots of this music, therefore can be traced back through slaves to Africa and the people who oversaw those slaves from poor towns in Europe. It was an easy way to express yourself due to its 12-bar Blues progression and an AAB rhyme scheme. Popular instruments for this style of music were guitar, piano, and drums. 

    A turning point from the Blues to jazz was the location change. 1910 was the start of a mass movement of Black Americans from the deep south to up north; dubbed the Great Migration. The Great Migration lasted until about 1970 where approximately six million Black people moved out of the south. The some of the causes of the Great Migration was racial violence and Jim Crow laws in the south. Black people wanted to escape persecution and railroads made it easy to get out of the south. Another reason for leaving the south was for better economic situations. In 1917, Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans was shut down. This closed many of the clubs and bars where Blues musicians played at giving them another reason to look elsewhere for work. 

    In search of more work, many musicians moved to Chicago. In the late 1910s, the "Dixieland" style of Blues was developing in Chicago from New Orleanian musicians. This style of music featured a 2/2 or cut-time time signature; solo instruments were commonly clarinet, cornet (or trumpet), and trombone; a banjo or guitar as the chordal instrument; anywhere from a shaker to full drum set as the percussion; and sousaphone or upright bass for the bassline. Another aspect of Dixieland jazz is polyphonic improvisation. Whereas other styles of jazz usually have instruments taking solos in turn, Dixieland utilizes collaborative improvisation. 

    When those Dixieland jazz played in New York, it blended with ragtime to create the jazz of New York. This development of jazz was a part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. The Harlem Renaissance was also known as the "Golden Age of Jazz." It was a time when black artists, mainly out of Harlem, focused on themes of the Black identity and community. This created a huge influx in African American jazz in New York City and other art forms as well.

Along with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, there was the prohibition. The 18th amendment, banning the sale and production of alcohol, was added to the Constitution in 1920. However, it did not stop everyone from consuming alcohol. As soon as that amendment was ratified there was the illegal sale of alcohol in private clubs called speakeasies. Those clubs became one of the prime places in New York for jazz musicians to play in. These were places where white people came to listen to jazz. Jazz was considered to be music made by Black people and it created weird dynamics in the clubs. Almost all of the musicians would be black whereas the clientele would be all White.

Outside of speakeasies, jazz was also featured in Carnegie Hall as early as 1912. Some of the big names in jazz, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and Louis Armstrong played in Carnegie Hall. Once the prohibition ended in 1933,  jazz became more widely available to the public. This pushed it's popularity even further. Now that jazz was easier to go listen to jazz clubs gained more money and more jazz musicians were being paid to play their music in these clubs. 

Some popular jazz bands of the time were: Duke Ellington's Washingtonians and

Armstong's Hot Five. These were the staple of jazz music. Many other bands based themselves around the set up that these bands had. It was the start of jazz big bands and trios, quartets, etc..

The Cotton Club

The Cotton Club was an all-white club themed around a plantation in the south. The entertainment was mostly all black. It was open from 1923 until it was closed temporarily in 1936. The club was extremely racist, serving as a sort of zoo with black dancers and musicians on "display" for white clientele. Female dancers had to be light-skinned, at least 5'6", and under 21. Some of the musicians included Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, and Nat King Cole. It was a popular spot for white celebrities with rare exceptions for famous black people. Langston Hughes, one of those exceptions, was very against the Cotton Club saying, "[White] strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo." When the club was set to reopen, after being shut down for a few months, the leader of the jazz orchestra there, Duke Ellington, advocated for the club to become integrated and allow black clients. However, the club was not open for long and close in 1940 after 4 years of reopening.

Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train"

Birdland

Birdland, named for the great jazz alto saxophonist, Charlie "Bird" Parker, was opened in 1949. During it's early phases the headliner for the club was Charlie Parker, but they featured many great jazz musicians over the years such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, and John Coltrane. Many of these musicians also recorded music at Birdland. Birdland had a very large number of musicians that it would book. This made it a popular spot for a lot celebrities, among them being Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe. Although the original Birdland was closed in 1965, a new Birdland was opened in 1985 and is still open to this day. Some of the musicians from the old Birdland played in the new establishment. 

After the reopening is has included many artists such as Oscar Peterson, Pat Metheny, Diana Krall, Roy Haynes, Michel Legrand, Dave Brubeck, Pat Martino, Tony Williams, Hank Jones, Michel Petrucciani, Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Marian McPartland, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Michael Brecker, Clark Terry, Ron Carter, Jon Hendricks, George Shearing, James Moody, Yellowjackets, John Scofield, Phoebe Snow, Dave Holland, and Tito Puente, as well as the big bands of Chico O’Farrill, Duke Ellington, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Maria Schneider. 

Charlie Parker ft. Dizzy Gillespie: "Bloomdido"

Characteristics of Jazz

At this time jazz was characterized as music with complex chords, syncopated rhythms, and improvisation. It also made use of various styles including blues, swing, bebop, and more. Common instruments were the trumpet or cornet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone(s), drums, piano, electric guitar, and string or electric bass. 

Jazz was also used by some classical composers to create fusions with classical styles or instrumentation. One of the most famous examples of this is George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. It was extremely popular when it debuted in New York's Aeolian Hall in 1924. His contribution elevate jazz and changed it's course of development for the better.

Bibliography

“A Brief History of Jazz in New York City.” 2018. NYC’s Best Wedding Music and Event Bands | Alex Levin Music. July 2, 2018. https://alexlevinmusic.com/a-brief-history-of-jazz-in-new-york-city/.

Club, Birdland Jazz. 2018. “How New York Became the Jazz Capital of America.” Medium. December 26, 2018. https://medium.com/@birdlandjazz/how-new-york-became-the-jazz-capital-of-america-c4495fc34c67.

Lotero, Juan. 2022. “Duke Ellington Statue.” Blogs.shu.edu. April 27, 2022. https://blogs.shu.edu/nyc-history/2022/04/27/history-of-jazz-in-nyc/.

Winter, Elizabeth. 2019. “Cotton Club of Harlem (1923- ) • BlackPast.” BlackPast. January 30, 2019. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/cotton-club-harlem-1923/.

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