When Africans came to America by force, they had to adapt to oppressive conditions. This acculturation process caused African music to change from drum-based, rhythmic sounds to introspective, emotional compositions musicologists called “blues.” After several musicians added complicated rhythms and instrumentation that imitated human vocalizations to the blues, jazz emerged. This new sound eventually became America’s first mainstream music, but the country’s discriminatory racial policies and social perceptions about African Americans shaped the cultural status of jazz. The American cultural elite refused to recognize jazz composers, but composers of music that was not uniquely American received many awards. Furthermore, because prioritizing financial gain has spread insidiously throughout the country, Americans regard art as a secondary consideration to “materialistic values.” Consequently, the combination of a money-oriented mentality and racial discrimination has affected the development of jazz as a social art.
Work Songs, Spirituals Precede Jazz
African American work songs and spirituals are the foundations of jazz. These musical expressions emerged from the African experience in America. Work songs have their musical origin in West Africa, but in America they appeared simultaneously with spirituals. LeRoi Jones explains that this bi-genre development occurred because Western musicologists placed songs into religious and secular categories. West Africans, however, neither classified music nor separated it as an “art” in the Western sense. West African music was a natural function that existed as part of the whole-life experience.
Because Africans did not categorize music, the bi-musical phenomenon was part of their social-adaptive process. According to Jones, as Africans in America acclimated to Western culture, primarily second generation Africans, they produced music that was not genuinely African. No one knows for certain if Africans went through this cultural transformation consciously or unconsciously, but it probably occurred unconsciously because it was difficult for Africans to focus on the enculturation process at that time.
The Blues
To use a color that explains a feeling or a situation is common. A person, for example, may use a certain color to express meaning. Therefore, when musical authorities used the color “blue” to describe a musical form, they also attempted to explain the social circumstances that created the musical expression. Because the context of a social situation, like a color, has distinct shades, the “blues” conveys different meanings. However, musicologists utilized the term to describe the music that emerged as a result of the particularly gloomy African American social experience.
West African musical traditions were rhythmic and lively, so the blues most likely started when Africans arrived to America against their will. “Bluesologist” Gil Scott-Heron presents his version of the origin of America’s music in his Bicentennial Blues as he recites: “… No one doubts that America is the home of the blues… because… America provided the atmosphere and the blues was born - the blues was born on the beaches where the slave ships docked – born on the slave man’s auction block…” Gil Scott-Heron’s poem/song indicates that the blues started among African Americans, but the music and its social meaning eventually spread across America.
Blues technically developed when Africans in America did not follow the Western standard for music or the diatonic scale. As Jones explains, Africans had their own musical scale, but Western musicologists did not recognize it until the twentieth century. Therefore, as African American musicians consistently changed certain steps of the diatonic scale, musicologists called it “blueing the notes.” Although the blues has its musical roots in West Africa via work songs, it was not a purely African sound, but the new music eventually transformed into jazz, which became America’s classical music.
Jazz
Musicologists believe jazz started around the beginning of the twentieth century when certain bands added distinctive musical arrangements to blues songs. According to Jones, the incorporation of the blues into jazz happened as jazz performers utilized the instrumental techniques of blues musicians that imitated a human voice. In 1905, for instance, famous New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson made his instrument sound like the human voice. During the 1960s, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman did the same thing to accommodate his innovative “harmolodic” style, which featured improvisational harmony and melody interchanges.
Miles Fisher suggests that jazz originated at Congo Square in New Orleans where both captive and free black musicians played African instruments, which included drums, banjos, flutes, xylophones, trumpets, and harps. In addition to traditional African instruments, free blacks, often called black creoles, used European instruments such as clarinets, trombones, tubas, and saxophones. Although a musical tradition started in New Orleans with African and European instrumentation, Jones asserts that because African Americans lived in different areas, jazz, like the blues, could not have originated in one place. Nonetheless, except for hip-hop, all African American musical trends began in the South.
Jazz Moves
Although jazz became popular in the South, after W.C. Handy’s New York concert in 1918, the music exploded around the country. A Hard Road to Freedom details the development of different jazz sounds as African Americans moved to other regions. In Chicago, for example, Dixieland featuring King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band was popular because most of Chicago’s immigrants came from Memphis, the Mississippi Delta, and New Orleans. When Louis Armstrong joined Oliver’s band in 1922, it enhanced the Dixieland sound.
In contrast, Fletcher Henderson was responsible for creating a different jazz sound in New York. Henderson initially used a ten-piece orchestra, but by the mid-1920s he expanded to sixteen musicians. Horton & Horton explain that people referred to Henderson’s big-band music as the “New York sound.” His creative musical arrangements started a new genre of jazz called swing. Its popularity spread quickly after Louis Armstrong joined Henderson’s band in 1924.
Although prominent musicians Chick Webb, Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman led popular swing bands, jazz pianist William “Count” Basie created a different swing sound during the 1930s. With the combination of upbeat melodies, blues, and soulful solos, Basie’s band exceeded standard swing. Basie’s music was so touching that musicians called it the “Kansas City style,” and his unconventional techniques influenced the development of bebop in the 1940s. According to Ted Fox, bebop artists Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk were pioneers of this new sound. Similar to Basie, Dizz, Bird, and Monk rebelled against the tight harmonic structures of swing to create something new.
Duke Ellington
In 1927 Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington started working at the Cotton Club in Harlem where he instantly became a hit with his sophisticated swing orchestra. Although he was an excellent piano player, Ellington saw himself as a composer. Ellington composed and played songs such as It Don’t Mean a Thing (If You Ain’t Got that Swing), Take the “A” Train, Satan Doll, Perdido, Mood Indigo, Don’t Get Around Much Any More, Sophisticated Lady, In a Sentimental Mood, and Solitude.
Ellington was probably America’s greatest composer of jazz music, but he never received the recognition he deserved. After he had contributed to America’s music for more than 40 years, in 1965 the Pulitzer Prize advisory board refused to award Ellington the citation for long-term achievement in American music. Influential people recommended Ellington, but the Pulitzer Prize board still rejected him. Harold Cruse views the refusal to award Ellington as a continuation of the “ethnic-group war for cultural supremacy in American music.” Cruse makes an incisive observation because the social and cultural meaning of jazz came into question after the board snubbed Ellington.
Music Awards
George Crumb’s Echoes of Time and the River won a Pulitzer Prize for contemporary classical music in 1968. In 1985 the Pulitzer Prize board gave William Schuman a special award for his contribution to American music as a composer and an educational leader. Schuman composed “classical” music. Although Crumb and Schuman deserved awards, they neither played nor composed American music.
In contrast to Crumb’s and Schuman’s music, Fox thinks the board members did not give Ellington an award because they believed the social purpose of jazz was to delight an audience or “entertain.” The board did not view jazz as music that enlightens or educates. Miles Davis scoffed at this idea by playing his performances with his back to the audience. Furthermore, the board thought that the exploitation of African American jazz artists for the financial benefits of white elite groups and individuals was proper. Schuman, however, was not an entertainer or an exploited musician; he was a composer and a music educator.
American Music
When did European classical music become American music? As Jones indicates, American music is blues based, and America’s classical music is jazz. The unique development of music in this country is an attraction to people around the world. The country’s mainstream music evolved from its blues origins whether it is jazz, pop, gospel, soul, neo-soul, rock, rhythm and blues, country, disco, hip-hop, or funk.
With an acute understanding of American society, artists should not evaluate their efforts based on American awards. America will never let artists know how good or how bad they are because the priority is material accumulation and, in the case of African Americans, cultural negation. Nevertheless, it is blatant disrespect for America to disregard a composer of American music and recognize a composer of traditional European music. As Dr. John Henrik Clarke points out, this narcissistic view of cultural development is a way to deny that the culture of African Americans is “part of the legitimate culture of the United States…”
According to Nelson George, approximately every 10 years African Americans create a new music genre. For example, R & B started in the 1940s, rock & roll in the 1950s, and soul in the 1960s. George’s musical-development assessment starts with the 1940s, but it applies to jazz for most of the twentieth century. Ragtime began in the nineteenth century and lasted until the 1920s; Dixieland was popular throughout the 20s, but swing took over in the 30s; bebop started in the 40s and became popular in the 50s; cool jazz and fusion dominated the 60s and 70s. No one has created a new jazz genre since the fusion period, but a jazz icon emerged in the 1980s.
Wynton Marsalis
As jazz lost popularity during the 1980s, Wynton Marsalis and his smoothed-out trumpet hit the scene. Marsalis arrived at the right time because historical precedent indicated that he would create a new jazz sound, but, as it turned out, Marsalis only wanted Americans to acknowledge the importance of jazz. Unlike past jazz innovators such as Art Tatum and John Coltrane, Marsalis conformed to traditional jazz, so he did not push the music forward. However, he received many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for jazz and The National Medal of Arts. Marsalis deserves awards, but it is ironic that his conservative approach to music won him the Pulitzer Prize that eluded the innovative Duke Ellington.
Esperanza Spalding
Although Marsalis probably did not directly inspire new jazz artist Esperanza Spalding, his emphasis on the music created a jazz-friendly atmosphere. Spalding is a sparkling artist who does not seem to be in love with conventional jazz. Her stand-up bass, worldly musical influences, and soulful voice suggest that a new sound is on the horizon. Spalding’s refreshing musical perspective is an attribute that will lead her to the status of jazz pioneer.
Sources:
- Clarke, John H.Notes for an African World Revolution.Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1991, p. 372.
- Cruse, Harold. Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. NY: Quill, 1984, pp. 100,107,109.
- Fisher, Miles, Negro Slave Songs in the US. NY: Citadel Press, 1990, pp. 4, 5, 188.
- Fox, Ted. Showtime at the Apollo. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1983, p. 268.
- George, Nelson. The Death of Rhythm & Blues. A Plume Book, 1988, p. 188.
- Heron, Gil Scott. Bicentennial Blues from “It’s Your World,” Arista Records, 1976.
- Horton, James and Horton, Lois. Hard Road To Freedom. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001, pp. 234, 235.
- Jones, LeRoi. Blues People. New York: William Morrow, 1963, pp. 17, 18, 25, 71.
William Cook - Mr. Cook is a graduate of Hunter College of the City University of New York. He is pursuing a Ph.D in History and Education.
