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.
Though I argued for Chicago in my post, I like the emphasis you put on race relations in this comparison. Like professor Stewart told us, the whole history of jazz can be described as a power struggle between races.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that you separated the musical styles of Chicago and New York by who danced to the music (patrons and performers, respectively). I'd offer the counter-argument that the genres that led up to New York jazz like ragtime and especially stride piano, the music was played in a social setting to facilitate dancing just like in a club. It would be interesting to see how the New York and Chicago styles grew so far apart as New York jazz moved on stage.