Blog 5

Coming into the course I had few assumptions concerning jazz especially the history behind the music. In regards to the musicians themselves, I visualized older, black men performing in low-lit jazz clubs for cigar smoking, wine drinking audience members. While there are some commonalities between my assumption and reality, I was mistaken by the fact that there is no atypical jazz musician. Jazz can be played by a Chicagoan in the heart of the city or by a white man in Mile Davis’s band. Miles discussed the struggle to break from the popularity of melody and predictability, and spotlight the diversity of performer and audience creating a diverse sound filled with life and creative expression.

The birth of jazz had never crossed my mind before this course. I had known that New Orleans fostered its growth; however, the breeding of different sounds, styles, and genres that created jazz were unknown to me. Professor Stewart has taught us that, “jazz is not a style or genre, but a creative process that had existed in other music.” Jazz grew from the inter-mixing of different musical genres. Cities such as New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, African musical tradition, and the contribution of musically gifted and brave individuals willing to push social and creative boundaries in the music industry all combined to create jazz.  Miles Davis speaks on the struggles he faced in breaking America’s popularity of rock music and the melody. He expressed how, “just a few years back the music [they] were playing was the cutting edge, was getting real popular and finding a wide audience, all that started to stop when the critics—white critics—started supporting the free thing” (Davis 271).  The “free thing…didn’t have no melodic line, wasn’t lyrical, and you couldn’t hum to it,” artists like Davis struggled to display the diverse and fluid characteristics of jazz. Jazz was not confined to rules or fossilized instead improvisation was key and the form was constantly evolving and changing (Davis 270).  The American audience failed to evolve past melody and embrace improvisation and evolving art.

Jazz’s connection to social growth, along with its ties to white and black controversy is another element that I was unaware of. I largely assumed that white artists did not contribute or participate in the growth of jazz, however their involvement can be greatly constituted to stealing and copying from great, black jazz artists.  As popularity for jazz grew, many white artists began to mimic the black sound catching the ear of record companies. This lead to a nationwide production and release of their recordings. Although black artists began to lay their songs on records shortly after, it was white privilege that allowed for white musicians to break these grounds easier and quicker.  Miles expressed his anger towards, “white people [trying] to take credit for something after they discover it” (Davis 55). There was a tendency for white artists to copy the evolving jazz sounds and because of their skin color they would gain greater access to bigger audiences and media attention grabbing the spotlight.

This class opened my eyes to jazz, not only as an art form, but as a social and cultural movement. Jazz is not based on fixed rules and notes, but instead is a living and evolving art that resurrects freedom to break restrictions and guidelines making each piece different than the one before.  Jazz is representative of African roots, musicians playing in back room clubs in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and the struggles, accomplishments and feelings that filled the minds and souls of black artists.