How Black is the Cool Black?

Jazz, like many new art forms, became a symbol of rebellion and the new social ere. It may have taken till the 1930’s for the US to fully embrace Jazz, but once it did Jazz artists became celebrities. What do American’s love more than creating drama involving their celebrities? Race was a hot button topic then, it had been ever present in American culture and had been a common theme in the development in Jazz. Jazz was strongly identified as “Black” music, even when white bands played the music. Despite being labeled as “black” music Jazz created fluidity between racial boundaries creating a sliding scale of blackness. Black artists who played Jazz more similarly to how white bands played it and displayed themselves as less colorful of characters where ridiculed for not being black enough. Black artists who sang songs about black history, and who played in the more “black” style, where ridiculed for being too black. The public focus on Jazz was made more prominent by the Depression and Nazi scare.

John Hammond was one of the main forces driving the debate of blackness in Jazz. Hammond dominated the industry of Jazz critics. He promoted artists, demolished them, and even talent scouted bringing new artists to fame. “Hammond’s opinions, expressed with the frankness of a man who has nothing to lose by an reaction his words may arouse, are conned eagerly by jazz ‘critics’ and college boys from coast to coast, thereafter to reappear almost verbatim in their own periodicals when they review records or discuss jazz performers to be heard on the air.” Hammond’s writing brought extra attention to the racial debate bringing it to the minds of all Americans.

The political turmoil of the 1930’s combined with Jazz’s continuing rise in popularity made Jazz perfect for racial debates. What was an underlying fact in American culture became commonly discussed ideas for the first time. Writers wrote about race as they couldn’t before and the ever-growing popularity of Jazz made American’s hungry for the opinions of the writers.  
Commented on Ethan Reul

Chicago and New York, Armstrong and Ellington

Chicago and New York played very different rolls in the development of Jazz. IN Chicago Black Jazz musicians pushed the race barrier, they developed their own subset of society within Chicago. They had their own business district and their own economy, also jobs paid more in Chicago so people had extra money to spend on leisure. However, the mob controlled much of the Jazz clubs and took control of the artists to the extent that they can be compared to the plantation owners. In New York Jazz could reach a much larger audience with its it’s presents in Harlem and it’s induction into theater. During the 1920’s Harlem saw a transition from the piano and ragtime to the big band. This big band still put an emphasis on the soloist and improvisation. (Gioia) The Cotton club was a prime example of this. In the Cotton club affluent white audiences and employed Black bands playing the hottest dance music behind a group of dancers. The Cotton club was Mob owned similar to the hottest cubs in Chicago. The theater aspect of Jazz was unique to New York. The music differed from that in the clubs because in the clubs you get up and dance and in the theater you watch performers dance. During one show on Broadway, reviewers praised Lewis Armstrong’s singing so highly that he was invited onstage to sing during the show. Just as Jazz has done since its beginning, it pushed racial boundaries. With the theater and the boom of the radio, Jazz progressed further in New York at this time than it did in Chicago. Although both Chicago and New York had huge impacts on the development of jazz, New York fostered the next step for jazz during the 1920’s. In New York, besides Lewis Armstrong’s spring to the spotlight on stage, Duke Ellington embodied jazz of this time. Ellington had a self-promoting nature parallels jazz of this time: Reaching wider and wider audiences and spreading around the nation. (Gioia) Duke Ellington is unique in the way that he used his connections with his Caucasian agent to further his career. In the past it was always white’s taking advantage of black artists, and in this case it went the other way around.

 Commented on Matthew Oldcorn