Racial Discussion in Swing

     Following the 1920's, the “Jazz Age”, jazz music had it's breakthrough into mainstream culture. This was great for many of the starving musicians in many ways. Finally they were getting consistent gigs and acknowledged for their talents. This brought the need for music agents and also brought people of many backgrounds to the scene. These two factors contributed to the discussion of race more so than ever before. Although race has always been discussed in relation to jazz music, it was never so prominent as it was in the 1930's.
     When black musicians first began gaining popularity, they found difficulty in establishing themselves outside of mob controlled venues such as The Cotton Club. Some artists such as Duke Ellington adapted his style to what the people at these segregated clubs wanted. This lead to a spread in popularity and to him eventually hiring a white music agent, Irving Mills. By hiring a white agent, Ellington was soon able to get jobs that most black people were unable to. Mills not only put Ellington's name all around, he was a white face in front of a black musician. This was a huge step for black and white relationships (Gioia 153). Between Ellington and Mills, and Ellington and the public. Ellington was later criticized by white critic, John Hammond, for this style. He was said to have essentially turned his back on his own people and their struggles to advance his own career (Lecture 2.14.13). This was another huge step in the relationship of jazz and race. For the first time, white people were criticizing jazz musicians not for their art form but for what they were expressing with their music. These critics were primarily white, which was a sign of the extent jazz had infiltrated homes and popular culture around America (“Swing Changes,” 52).
The spread of jazz music to white people was happening for many years before the 1930's, with bands like the Austin High Gang (Lecture 1.29.13). However, in the 1930's some white musicians were considered the best jazz musicians and brought jazz to places it had never even been considered, such as Carnegie hall (Lecture 2.14.13). This increase in white musicians brought the already competitive art form into the dance halls and brought race with it. The best example takes place on May 11, 1937 in Harlem. At the Savoy, a regular named Chick Webb and his band competed against Benny Goodman's band. This brought people of all kinds to the integrated jazz club. The two battled it out, in front of many white and black fans. There was no announced winner, but the final result was bringing white people to listen to a high performing black jazz band. Competitions tend to bring out race issues, people siding with one band due to their race and not their musical abilities was very common at this time (Lecture 2.14.13).
    With the spread of jazz, came a spread of competition between races. Which race played the best swing, blues, or ballads. The white people were the agents and the critics of black musicians. For the first time, black and white people's lives intertwined through jazz. Both race's lives could completely revolve around the music. The 1930's was the beginning of the integration of jazz, which lead to an all around change in racial relationships throughout the country.

When Jazz Took New York

   New York and Chicago were two major players in shaping jazz music in the 1920's. Both became home to some of the biggest names in jazz, such as Louis Armstrong. Although Chicago is extremely important to jazz's development, New York played a greater role in the 1920's. M.M. Bakhtin states, “The third party is a constitutive aspect of the whole utterance, who, under deeper analysis, can be revealed in it”. This quote is perfect to describe the jazz scene in New York during this era, by bringing attention to how jazz music is not only a conversation between artists and music, but also between the music and audiences. New York was most important due to it's demographics and the way people used jazz to communicate. New York jazz was performed by mostly black musicians for white, high brow, and low brow communities. At the time, New York was the most heterogeneous city in Northern America (Lecture 2/14/13). This meant it had to bring all these cultures together.

    In Chicago, jazz musicians were restricted to perform in the South side, where white people would go to “learn” the styles (“King Oliver”, 37). These white audience members were rare but a few still came to borrow styles from their black competitors (Lecture 1/31/13). New York offered a much more integrated scene for jazz music. Although still separated, black musicians performed for white audiences in common places. This is a huge step in the progression of jazz because for the first time, people were proud to listen to jazz and appreciate the music openly. Venues like the Cotton Club became famous for this concept. By separating the two races, and applying a jungle theme and advertising “Jungle music”, people didn't feel there was so much of a stigma in listening to it (Lecture 2/4/13). Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson both performed at the Cotton Club which was a huge step in both their careers. While Fletcher did not move much further past the Cotton Club, Ellington used it as a stepping stool to his much more publicized and larger musical career. Not only was Harlem split by the races, within each race there were divides. Gioia states there were two Harlems, a low and high brow. The high brow was made up of black citizens who considered themselves above the other black people. These people were more likely to prefer “Cool jazz”, which tended to be more structured with less improvisation. over the “Hot jazz”. High brow citizens wanted to escape the black stigma by becoming more educated and associate themselves with people of higher intellect. Low brow citizens have more of the untold story of Harlem in the early 1900's. This community consisted of what could be considered slums, although those who lived there enjoyed it and lived there by choice. Low brow black people would hold rent parties where their love of the hot jazz was demonstrated. These competitions became large gatherings where musicians tried to show their best skills to make enough money to pay their rent. People would come together and dance and perform to help one another (Section and Lecture 2/7/13). Having this combination of people in the audience, the music naturally adapted to better suit the audiences demands.

    Not only was New York is credited with being the place where piano met jazz, it is the birthplace of stride piano playing (Lecture 2/4/13). Stride piano was coined by James P. Johnson when he began performing on Coney Island for mixed crowds of people. He combined European music with the music he learned from his time in New Orleans. In New York, ragtime was a the most popular genre at the time so James P. Johnson combined ragtime, jazz, and other styles to better fit all his audiences demands (Gioia, 96). Stride piano became an essential part of Harlem style jazz. It involved the left hand playing more complex rhythms than traditional piano playing, such as arpeggios, trills, and syncopated beats. Stride piano brought lovers of all music together to upbeat, danceable songs. This style was performed by Fats Waller and Willie “The Lion” Smith who helped spread it through New York (Gioia, 97-98). Stride brings truth to Bakhtin's quote, by demonstrating how the musicians took into consideration their audiences. Unlike Chicago style, which focused on individual musicians and soloists, Harlem style artists performed music that reflected both the conditions and experiences of the musician, as well as the tastes and experiences of their audience members, the third party (Lecture 1/31/13, 2/4/13).