New Orleans Jazz: The Celebrations of a City in Decline

Prosperity and Decline in 19th Century New Orleans

• Economic Boom (1803–1850s): Following the Louisiana Purchase in $1803$ and the lifting of trade restrictions on the Mississippi River, New Orleans entered an era of unprecedented prosperity. The population doubled within a decade, and in $1812$, the first steamboat—the New Orleans—entered service, transforming the city into a major commercial hub.
• Cargo Growth Statistics: Between $1801$ and $1807$, downriver cargo averaged $\$5\,\text{million}$ annually. By $1851$, the value of goods reached almost $\$200\,\text{million}$ per year. Cotton shipments accounted for nearly half of these receipts, alongside grain, sugar, molasses, tobacco, and manufactured goods.
• Post-War Economic Decline: This geography-based boom subsided after the Civil War. Major factors included:
  • Infrastructural Shift: During the closing decades of the $19\text{th}$ century, railroads gradually replaced steamboats as the primary transportation industry, causing New Orleans's relative importance as a gateway to wane.
  • Political Corruption and Insolvency: By $1874$, the state of Louisiana was insolvent and unable to pay interest on its $\$53\,\text{million}$ debt.
  • Capital Flight: Investment capital moved toward natural resources and oil fields outside the city, specifically to other parts of Louisiana and toward Texas.
• The Paradigm of Decline: Contrary to boisterous popular histories, New Orleans was already a city in economic decline by the time jazz was birthed.

Geography, Sanitation, and the Psychology of Celebration

• Geographic Challenges: Historian Ned Sublette described New Orleans as "a terrible place to build a town." It has the lowest elevation of any major U.S. city, and $41\,\%$ of the continental United States’s runoff flows through the Mississippi past the city. It is prone to tropical storms once every $3 \text{ or } 4 \text{ years}$.
• Public Health and Pestilence:
  • Epidemics: In $1878$, a yellow fever epidemic killed $2\,\%$ of the city’s inhabitants.
  • Sanitation: The city had no sewage system until $1892$. The damp, warm climate made it a breeding ground for mosquitoes and vermin; bassist Pops Foster recalled wearing mosquito nets during performances.
  • Mortality Rates: In the $1880\text{s}$, mortality rates were $56\,\%$ higher than the average American city. The average life span for a Black native in $1880$ was only $36\,\text{years}$; for white natives, it was $46\,\text{years}$. Black infant mortality was a staggering $45\,\%$.
• Culture of Revelry as Defense: The city’s obsession with parades, parties, and the "funeral for the dead" (combining festival and mourning) served as a psychological self-defense mechanism. Similar to the revelers in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Masque of the Red Death," these celebrations allowed residents to distance themselves from the suffering of the present.

Beyond the Storyville Legend: Influences of Church and Community

• The Myth of Storyville: While jazz lore often identifies the red-light district of Storyville (created October $1,\,1897$, and closed November $12,\,1917$) as the birthplace of the music, research by Donald Marquis suggests Buddy Bolden and other jazz musicians did not actually play in the brothels. Most bands performed in nearby cabarets and dance halls in the "District," as the players called it.
• Prostitution as Business: Prostitution was a major industry, involving roughly $2,000\,\text{women}$ and over $200\,\text{brothels}$ at its peak, but the link between the music and the trade has been criticized as being based on "tawdry tabloid sensationalism."
• The Church Influence: Jazz had deep ties to the Baptist church. Paul Barbarin noted that pastors were "singing rhythm" more so than jazz bands. Johnny St. Cyr and Kid Ory confirmed that Bolden went to the "Holy Roller Church" on Jackson Avenue and Franklin to get musical ideas rather than for religious purposes.

The Panorama of Local Music and Vernacular Performance

• Fish Fries and Lawn Parties: String trios (mandolin, guitar, bass, violin, banjo) played at Saturday night fish fries. Lawn parties on Mondays and Wednesdays served as private fund-raising ventures similar to Harlem rent parties.
• Sunday at Lake Pontchartrain: Residents would gather at Milneburg, where $35 \text{ to } 40$ bands of varying styles would perform.
• Functional Music Settings: Music was found in milk dairy stables (cleaned for nighttime parties), restaurants, saloons, assembly halls, rallies, athletic competitions, and holidays like Mardi Gras and Easter.
• Spasm Bands and Street Culture: Youngsters played homemade instruments—cigar boxes, pipes, gourds—to cadge money from passersby. Wandering vendors, such as the "rags-bottles-and-bones men," would play "low-down dirty blues" on cheap horn mouthpieces, according to Jelly Roll Morton.

The Brass Band Enthusiasm and Tradition

• Social Ubiquity: While post-Civil War brass bands were common across America, they reached a peak of social necessity in New Orleans. Key ensembles included the Excelsior Brass Band and the Onward Brass Band (formed in the $1880\text{s}$).
• Traditional Line-up (Baby Dodds's Recollection):
  • Front: Trombones.
  • Second Row: Heavy instruments (bass, tubas, baritones).
  • Third Row: Alto horns (two or three).
  • Fourth Row: Clarinets (usually one, often E-flat).
  • Fifth Row: Trumpets (two or three).
  • Rear: Drums (one bass drum, one snare drum).
• Funeral Etiquette: For funeral marches, snare drums were muffled by removing the snares, creating a "tom-tom" sound. Snares were not muffled during general parades or the return from the cemetery.
• Repertoire: Ensembles played quadrilles, polkas, schottisches, mazurkas, two-steps, and marches, eventually developing into "ragged" syncopated versions of traditional pieces.

Highbrow Culture and the Creole of Color Contribution

• European Tradition: New Orleans had a vibrant formal music tradition, including the Théâtre d’Orléans ($1813$), the $4,100\text{-seat}$ St. Charles Theatre ($1825$), and the French Opera House ($1859$) at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse Streets.
• Creoles of Color: Defined as people of mixed African and French/Spanish descent. Many were freed before the Civil War under the Code Noir ($1724$). Toward the end of the $19\text{th}$ century, Louisiana Legislative Code No. $111$ ($1894$) legally designated anyone with African ancestry as "Negro."
• Clash of Styles: Classically trained Creole musicians (like the John Robichaux ensemble) who used studied arrangements were forced to compete with less-schooled, "hotter" Black bands from uptown. This forced association merged European musicianship with the boisterous, improvisational "hot" sound that defined early jazz.

Buddy Bolden: The Elusive Progenitor of Jazz

• Biography: Born in $1877$, the year Reconstruction ended in New Orleans. His father died in $1883$ and his sister Lottie in $1881$. He was a plasterer by trade and listed himself as a "music teacher."
• Stylistic Innovation: Bolden shifted from string ensemble work to a wind-based instrumentation (cornet, valve trombone, two clarinets, guitar, bass, and drums).
• The Blues Focus: His biggest contribution was integrating the moaning, slow sensibilities of the blues into ragtime rhythms. He mastered the recipe of jazz before the blues became widely recognized in the mainstream around $1903$.
• Signature Song: "Funky Butt" (also known as "Buddy Bolden’s Stomp" or "Blues"). Sidney Bechet noted the police would arrest people for singing the daring, Bite-filled lyrics associated with it.
• Tragedy and Death: By $1906$, his career declined due to heavy drinking and mental illness. He was arrested for assaulting his mother-in-law in March $1906$ and committed to a Jackson asylum in $1907$, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He died on November $4,\,1931$, at age $54$.

Early Jazz Recordings and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

• The First Recording (1917): The Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB), a group of white musicians (Nick LaRocca, Larry Shields, Eddie Edwards, Tony Sbarbaro, Henry Ragas), made the first commercial jazz recordings for the Victor label. Their hit was "Livery Stable Blues."
• Controversy: Nick LaRocca claimed to be the "Creator of Jazz," causing a fierce backlash. Critics often labeled their playing as a "raucous variant of ragtime" rather than true jazz. However, Larry Shields’s clarinet work was a major influence on later players like Benny Goodman.
• Impact: The ODJB were global ambassadors, performing in England for the royal family and in France during the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Jelly Roll Morton: The Architect of New Orleans Jazz

• Background: Born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe in $1890$ into a strict Creole environment. He famously denied his African roots, claiming his family came "directly from the shores of France."
• Bordello Apprenticeship: Unlike many jazz players, Morton worked primarily as a pianist in the white bordellos of Storyville, where he also engaged in pool sharking and procuring.
• Theoretical Approach: Morton was the first to think of jazz in abstract terms, providing commentary on dynamics, breaks, and the "Latin tinge."
• The Red Hot Peppers (1923–1926): This ensemble represented a peak of collective artistry. Morton used his "maximalist aesthetic" to prod musicians into sharing his vision. He famously once put a pistol on a piano to ensure trombonist Zue Robertson played a melody as written.

Case Studies in Morton’s Maximalist Aesthetic

• "Sidewalk Blues" (1926):
  • Structure: Begins with a roll call of instruments, followed by a $12\text{-bar}$ cornet melody over blues harmonies with a stop-time vamp.
  • Innovative Device: Morton used a three-clarinet arrangement for the interlude, a rarity in the New Orleans style, before returning to counterpoint.
  • Novelty: Includes a car horn blast at bar $16$.
• "Black Bottom Stomp" (September 1926): Features the band disappearing midway for a leader-only "two-fisted stomp" cadenza, followed by a Johnny St. Cyr conversation with the ensemble in syncopated time.
• Synthesis: Morton's work sat in the middle ground between the rigid structure of ragtime and the spontaneous improvisation of jazz.

The Impact of the Great Migration and the Diaspora

• The Great Migration (1916–1930): Approximately $1.5\,\text{million}$ African Americans left the South for the North. Musicians like King Oliver ($1918$), Kid Ory ($1919$), and Louis Armstrong ($1922$) moved to Chicago for escape from segregation and better economic opportunity.
• Interracial Sessions: The first interracial recording session in Chicago occurred in July $1923$ between Jelly Roll Morton and the white band the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (including Paul Mares and Leon Roppolo).
• Reputational Divide: Musicians who left New Orleans gained national reputations, while many who stayed, like cornetists Buddy Petit or Mutt Carey, remained largely unknown outside the city.

King Oliver’s Influence and the Collective Ensemble

• King Oliver (born c. 1881–1885): A veteran of the Onward Brass Band. His sound was defined by a "hot, dirty, swinging" quality and obsessive tone production using mutes to express human-vocal qualities.
• The Second Cornetist: In $1922$, Oliver hired Louis Armstrong for the Lincoln Gardens engagement in Chicago. This unusual duplication of roles allowed Armstrong to refine his skills in a collective setting, though his superior tone occasionally overpowered Oliver.
• Death in Poverty: Following a decline in his playing due to gum problems, Oliver died in Savannah, Georgia, in April $1938$, working menial jobs like a pool-room janitor. He was buried in an unmarked grave in New York.

Louis Armstrong: The Transformation of the Individual Soloist

• Early Life: Born August $4,\,1901$, as the illegitimate son of William Armstrong and Mayann (Mary Albert).
• The Waif’s Home: Arrested for firing blanks on January $1,\,1913$, he was sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys for $18\,\text{months}$, where he received formal musical training on tambourine, alto horn, bugle, and cornet.
• Stylistic Transition: Armstrong’s presence in Oliver’s band signaled the end of the collective counterpoint era. He shifted jazz toward the individual soloist focus.
• Technical Legacy: While Oliver focused on textures, Armstrong mastered the "Western" construction of melodic licks and phrases. He eventually transcended music to become a global cultural icon, comparable in fame to figures like Charlie Chaplin or Babe Ruth.