Blog Post 5: Reflections on Jazz

I first encountered jazz in middle school, when I took an improv class so that I would have something to do after school on Thursdays.  (It was an interesting experience, considering the fact that I played the oboe, which is not usually associated with jazz.  There is a very good reason for this.)  My teacher and band director was a short, blond, white lady.  She had a signed poster of Maynard Ferguson on a wall in her classroom.  Despite the general whiteness of these influences on my first few up-close encounters with jazz, I still had the impression of it as a primarily black art form.  I carried this impression with me into this Jazz History course.

The things I have learned have complicated this impression quite a bit.  Jazz got its start in the black community and was influenced by other forms of music, such as blues and work songs, which also originated and were popular within the black community.  Most of the people who laid claim to inventing jazz, including Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton, were black to at least some degree (Jelly Roll Morton identified more with New Orleans’ Creole population, separating himself from the label “black” because of the lower social status associated with it).  The first group to make a jazz record, however, was exclusively white.  This is where the complications in the racial aspect of jazz lie: even though it began in the black community, it did not stay there.  Through its development, white people have exerted a considerable influence.  When jazz first moved to Chicago from New Orleans, it was altered by the white-owned record companies and clubs who wanted to tailor it to fit a primarily white audience’s tastes.  White musicians, in general, had an easier time getting gigs by virtue of their skin color, even though much of what they played was coopted from black musicians.  Band leaders like Benny Goodman gained popularity over those like Fletcher Henderson.  When bebop started developing in the 1940’s, it was partially an attempt by black musicians to break out of the mainstream white influence and create something that could be considered high art, and because of its complexity was difficult for white musicians to copy.  Who knows if bebop would have veered so far off of the grid if jazz hadn’t been hemmed in by white opinion?  (I’m just speculating here—it’s impossible to actually answer this question.)

Miles Davis certainly had a strong opinion about race relations in his autobiography, which he expresses as follows: “I hate how white people always try to take credit for something after they discover it” (page 54).  There is evidence that this very thing happened quite often throughout jazz’s history: the all-white jazz band who took credit for creating the first jazz recording even though others were playing the “hot” sound before them, the fact that Benny Goodman was called the King of Swing even though swing had roots in Louis Armstrong’s style, especially from his time with Fletcher Henderson’s band, and the white music critics who claimed that having “discovered” bebop meant that they deserved credit for it.  I don’t think it is fair, however, to say that this is always the case.  White musicians, such as Bix Beiderbecke, who were interested in the music for its own sake have been able to make positive contributions to it.  Thus, the most accurate thing that can be said about the race relations revolving around jazz is this: it’s complicated.

Commented on Shadee Barzin.

Blog Post 4: Thelonious Monk, Jazz, and Community

            Thelonious Monk was heavily influenced by the community in which he grew up, a neighborhood in New York known as San Juan Hill.  According to Robin Kelley, San Juan Hill had a reputation for being a dangerous place with rampant violence between different racial groups.  As he states, “a reporter noted that the police in the vicinity ‘expect at least one small riot on the Hill…each week’” (page 17).  Black schoolchildren travelled in groups by necessity, and even at schools with a primarily black population they were bullied by white students and teachers alike.  The need to band together in order to protect themselves from others instilled in black residents “a strong sense of community” (page 20).  Geraldine Smith, another resident of the neighborhood, describes it as “a little village” in which “everybody knew everybody” (page 20).  Finally, music was an important aspect of life in San Juan Hill, so much so that residents “recalled hearing music constantly in the hallways and in the streets” (page 19) and “every household had an instrument” (page 20).  Leimert Park had a similar set of circumstances, from the violence to the tense racial landscape to the strong sense of community and importance of both music and community gatherings to everyday life.

            Monk was influenced by each of these aspects of his community.  From the time he and his family moved to San Juan Hill when he was a very small, he heard the music played by his neighbors, and it is likely that this is what sparked his passion for music.  In addition, he was surrounded by the blended culture of Southerners and West Indians and thus absorbed the musical traditions of both the American South and the Caribbean.  Kelley states, “One can certainly hear explicit Caribbean rhythms in some of Monk’s original compositions” (page 23).  In other words, Monk’s particular musical genius was spawned in part from unique a combination of diverse musical traditions and was informed by his experiences growing up in such a rough environment, which allow him to explore dissonance and more complex harmonies than many mainstream musicians would venture towards.

            Thelonious Monk did not exist in a vacuum, and neither does jazz.  Art forms such as jazz provide a way for members of a community to express their experiences and emotions, and in doing so connect with others with similar experiences; they a form of communication.  Jazz came out of a community which valued spontaneity, creativity, and originality.  This community was in a constant state of oppression—as it was allowed very few outlets for creative expression, those that it did find it attacked with incredible passion.  For this community, music was an essential part of life; it was integrated into almost every social occasion.  Without this unique condition, jazz never would have been able to blossom and grow in the way that it did.  It is a product of the life experiences of those who make it, on which the community they belong to has a huge influence.  It is also a product of those who listen to it, as they have considerable sway over which trends die and which innovations endure simply by choosing which records they like best.  It is like a conversation, in which the musicians hold their hearts out to the audience saying “how do you like that?”  and if they audience says “hallelujah” they keep on playing that way, but if the audience says “hell no,” they tweak it a bit before throwing it back.  Since every musician and every audience on Earth is different due to the incredible variety of life, every musical conversation will have a different outcome.  Only New York could have produced what eventually came out of Thelonious Monk, and Monk could only have come from New York.

Commented on Mark Samet