Jazz in the 20th century slides 1-3

Syncretism

The blending together of cultural elements that previously existed separately.

Congo Square

-An open space within Louis Armstrong park in New Orleans

-Famous for its African-music and historical African dances

Congo Square was an act of

-will and resistance

-real time and place of an actual transfer of an entirely African ritual on American soil

-Western view of audience and performer was erased

-Broke down barriers between secular and spiritual impulses

-In African culture, separation of song and dance is

eradicated

Congo Square Dance

-interruptions of dances occurred during the Civil Warr until 1885

-Coincides with first jazz bands in New Orleans

-Dances carried on in other ways (funeral marches)

Charles Martel

-helped lay the groundwork for African-American contributions in jazz (salsa, calypso, tango, Cubia)

-took over the the Moors of Arab at the "Battle of Tours"

Spanish Tinge

An Afro-Latin rhythmic effect that influences more conventional rhythms in jazz and popular music

Latin Catholic Church

-large impact on development of jazz in New Orleans

-more tolerant than English-protestant ideals

Under Spanish law: slaves could be

set free without official permission, and could own property

-this atmosphere helped shape attitudes and behavior patterns in New Orleans

2 African Cultural Elements

Music and Folklore

Dr. Issac Watts

-Christian minister and hymn writer

-Tried to convert African-Americans to western music practice resulting in the "Africanization of American music"

Lomax

-africans sang polyphonic, africans quavered the text

-originally were unison

-Alan lomax: singers improvise together and contribute to ongoing affect (common in African-American tradition)

Minstrelsy

-decades before civil war, had impact on early jazz

-white performers and black face

-black imitation of a white caricature of black music

Work Songs

-song that is sung, encouraging music making when it contributed to the productivity of labor

-Call and response

-More purely African

-Field hollers,-Levee Camp Hollers-Prison Work Songs-Street Cries

Five characteristics of early African music

-Call and response

-Integration of performance into the social fabric

-Cross fertilization between music and dance

-Focus on sound

-Richness of rhythmic content

Dionysian

The spontaneous emotional aspect of life

Creoles

-People of mixed European, Spanish, and First Nations people decent

-proud, well mannered, educated, segregated African American culture, eventually had conflict due to language, religion, etc.

2 African diasporic communities

-creoles of color

-english speaking slaves and their descendants

Racial politics between creole and black communities

-jazz tendency represent "blackness" in America

-Scholars struggle with "whiteness" in jazz. The participation of non-African Americans within something that's understood as "black music"

Founding Fathers of Jazz:

Buddy Bolden, Joe "king" Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Louis Armstrong

First jazz recordings were made by

Original Dixieland Jazz Band

The New Orleans Jazz style of the 1910s and 20s encompassed both

black and white performances

Code Noir (Black Code)

-Spelled Out the rights, responsibilities, and rules of conduct regarding the interactions of free persons and slaves in France's new world colonies

-liberal

-opportunities for freed groups of people of color

-skin tone did not fully determine social status

Turn of the 19th century

-group of free, french speaking creoles come to New Orleans

-creole ownership of slaves

-shows a more prosperous group of Afro-diaspora community in the region

-social status: between European American adversities and English-speaking African population

After Louisiana purchase

-Increased enforcement of code noir's article

-Anyone having any degree of African blood was culturally considered black

-creoles found themselves forced without elevated status, forced into African American arena, decided to emphasize cultural differences, a psychological confirmation

Two black musics

-Canal street split (dividing line between these two cultures)

-blacks=uptown

-creole= downtown New Orleans

Uptown African-American Culture

-bad reading music

-blues inflicted slurs and growls

-improvisatory

-More of a demand for their "hotter" style

Performance practice in New Orleans

"ragged"style, "growls", "scoops", "spirituals"

Spirituals

religious song associated with black Christians of the south

In creole culture, it was frowned upon to participate in

jazz

Average musician pay in New Orleans

-$1: riding on a truck and playing for 5 hours

-$2.50: play a ball/dance for 8 hours

-$1.50-$2.50: house party for 5 hours

Jelly Roll Morton (pianist, composer)

-antagonized by family

-Grandmother explained receiving "social humiliation"

- "hesitation blues"

Uptown Black Community

-went outside social norms created by Creoles

Uptown community(African Americans):

-Attracting different people

-creating a possibility for a new kind of community

The Blues

-sequence of chords to create harmonic structure

-created a camaraderie between different cultures

-for oppressed musicians: gave sense of identity, affirmation

-Lived an underground life in African American communities

-early traces back to 19th cent

Country Blues (Delta Blues)

-Vocalist with guitar accompaniment

-Most traditional form of blues

- some connections linked to African traditions

-stringed accompaniment of the kora (21-string harp lute) which is a characteristic of griot music

Griot

A West African storyteller

Griot music

A wave preserving historical and folkloric stories for tribal units

Classical Blues

-Closer tie to jazz

-Singers would front bands

-More female singers (nature of love, became blues ethos)

-growth in recording market (female vocalists)

-Musicians stuck to a 12 bar form

-Draws from other forms: Tin pan alley, Minstrel Shows, Circuses, Vaudeville

Tin Pan Alley

Collection of New York City music publishers, and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the U.S. in late 19th/early 20th century

Vaudeville

-A theatrical genre

-Made up of a variety of entertainment

-separate, unrelated acts grouping together on a common bill

Classic Blues Construction

Intro-Solos-Call and response

-More like a formula

-Easier for listeners

Race Records

-78 rpm record marketed towards African Americans between the and 20s and 40s

-Blues, Jazz, gospel, comedy

Ma Rainey

-Mother of blues

-song "black bottom"

-Brought trunks, props, lighting, etc

-Influenced by that of a minstrelshow

Bessie Smith

-Slower tempos

-Emphasis on "feeling"

-Used sexual themes(positive & negative)

Jazz as folk music

-early N.O. jazz musicians were progressive and were not playing the music of their people

-their music was a merging of different ideals and attitude regarding racial and musical identity

-Both African diasporic cultures experienced actions outside their given "birth" cultures

Blues was

-the parent of jazz

-could not have existed if Africans did not become American captives

-religious component

-slavery and the emancipation did dictate certain aspects of the blues (did begin during slavery)

First generation slaves sung

African references in American fields

-their children, sung American references in American fields

because Africans were not Christian and there was little opportunity for religious syncretism in America

-work songs

Western Africans

-Mostly farmers

-Sang agricultural songs

-Traditional African song: Forbidden to sing (in new world)so they continued singing....but with different context

African to afro-american music

Misunderstood (Westerners)

-Weren't using a diatonic scale which was absurd to Western musicologists in the 18th-20th century

African music rhythm

-Most surviving aspect of African music and Afro- American music

-Used for communication as a phonetic reproduction of words themselves

-pitched drums for harmony

-Use of multiple rhythms under melodies(polyrhythms)

Northern industrialists combined with southern agricultural community

Disenfranchised blacks & whites: A threat to Northerners, white design and an undermining of black rights as new citizens