Difference between revisions of "Sp19. Jazz and Race"

Discussion

Introduction

Jazz and race is a complex topic area. There is no question that the earliest musicians who created jazz as a musical genre were generally of Afro-American origin, but not exclusively since musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton and Sydney Bechet were Creoles. Any history of jazz acknowledges that the vast majority of early jazz performers were non-white players. Still, there remains a problem because even in its earliest history non-black players were involved in jazz music production and in helping to make jazz a cultural phenomena.

It is often claimed that the very first recorded jazz in 1917 was done by the all-white group The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , but see John Edward Hasse's Smithsonian article for possible black musician precursors.^[1]

Jazz has been in Europe since at least World War 1 (1914–1918), when James Reese Europe's (1891–1919) 369th Infantry Regimental military band played throughout the European continent.

“During World War I, [James Reese] Europe obtained a commission in the New York Army National Guard, where he fought as a lieutenant with the 369th Infantry Regiment (the "Harlem Hellfighters") when it was assigned to the French Army. He went on to direct the regimental band to great acclaim. In February and March 1918, Europe and his military band travelled over 2,000 miles in France, performing for British, French and American military audiences, as well as French civilians. Europe's "Hellfighters" also made their first recordings in France for the Pathé brothers. The first concert included a French march, and the "Stars and Stripes Forever" as well as syncopated numbers such as "The Memphis Blues," which, according to a later description of the concert by band member Noble Sissle " . . . started ragtimitis in France."”^[2] (bold not in original)

After originating in America, jazz disseminated around the Earth, predominantly first in Europe and then everywhere else. Jazz is now played on every continent and country by that country's inhabitants. Is it reasonable to think that at the current time in the 21st century jazz remains only a black music phenomena? Granted that jazz began as a predominantly culturally black music, should one continue to believe that it remains an exclusively black music genre?

Reasons why jazz remains a predominantly black musical phenomenon

In his Music: A Subversive History, American jazz critic and music historian, Ted Gioia (b. 1957) attests to and argues for the general claim that musical innovations typically derive from the underclasses of societies.

Music critic Robert Christgau (b. 1942) in his Los Angeles Times review reports that Gioia's music history book was “dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched labor of cultural provocation” regarding the global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions.^[3]

The blurb for Gioia's book reports that he argues for the claim that musical innovations, such as new music genres, almost always start by musicians at the margins of any society.

“Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a four-thousand-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how outcasts, immigrants, slaves, and others at the margins of society have repeatedly served as trailblazers of musical expression, reinventing our most cherished songs from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day.^[4] (bold and bold italic not in original)

Did what Gioia report happen to jazz? Yes, it did.

“The whole story is very similar to the rise of black music in the United States, where the elites recognized at a very early stage the expressive power of the songs of the African-American populace, and were torn between their desire to repress it and their even deeper desire to listen to it. In fact, this same phenomenon occurs at almost every crucial moment of innovation in the history of music—you can find in ancient Rome, China, the Islamic world, and in many other settings.”^[5] (bold not in original)

Music journalist, book reviewer, essayist, and critic Robert Christgau (b. 1942) was not as impressed as Gioia about musical innovations coming from repressed people in his review "The history of music—all of it—in 400-plus pages."

“He’s [Gioia] also rather too impressed at how the history of music is dominated by innovators who are first shunned by establishment tastemakers and then absorbed by them. That’s how human progress works, especially in the arts.^[6] (bold not in original)

We will get to more on this in a moment. But first it would seem that Ragtime may have been somewhat the exception. Ragtime composers were perhaps an exception to their music getting watered down for a mainstream audience since the composed Ragtime music had been written down on score sheets and often the music was played through a player piano. A player piano is a mechanical device that uses punched paper rolls to program the piano as to how to power the keyboard hitting the wire strings inside of the piano. This produces an unvarying reproduction of the composer's, or the recorded performer's, main intentions for how to play that particular piece of music.

Was jazz a music promoted by an underclass of musicians in America 🇺🇸? Undoubtedly. There are several reason supporting such a conclusion. First, professional musicians are in the entertainment business. The entertainment business in America from 1890 until 1920 was considered a less than noble profession. Entertainers are associated with a more sleazy side of society—sex, booze, drugs, and music. Second, slavery ended in America in 1865. People of color were suppressed by the prejudiced elite white society power-holders and government officials. Jazz began by 1895 with Buddy Bolden mixing multiple genres of music with syncopation, improvisation, and technical brilliance. In Bolden's case, one of his areas of technical brilliance was his capacity for playing extremely loudly. Improvisation is a freedom to create and express oneself musically.

Reasons why jazz DOES NOT remain a predominantly black musical phenomenon

We saw above that jazz began just at the turn of the 20th century in the United States as a cultural musical melange combining Ragtime, blues, Latin music, rhythms influenced by African rhythms, popular tunes, call and response, and even military/brass band influences. Jazz enabled musicians to individually and idiosyncratically express themselves. Jazz musicians hybridized two musical scales (diatonic and pentatonic), improvised and created new melodies, incorporated big-time syncopation, and combined musical instruments in novel combinations.

If post-structuralist critiques emphasize the problem of finding definitive boundaries for culture, race, class, and so on, then the categories of blackness, black music, or black category-X are all, at best, fuzzy categories with overlapping boundaries. If you have overlapping boundaries then white will be on the boundaries of black and any claim thst jazz is only a black music oversimplify the reality.

There have been plenty of non-black (other than Afro-American) jazz musicians, all of whom contributed to the history of jazz throughout its history, as seen in the list below.

The list below leaves out the many contributions from jazz vocalists of any race but see the relevant table below. For an incomplete list of female jazz musicians, some of whom are non-black, see PoJ.fm's Sp7. Women and Jazz; also see the table below of the non-black Jazz Vocalists from 50 Best All-time.

● Jelly Roll Morton (1890–1941) — American (New Orleans) pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader.

● Paul Whiteman   (1890–1967) — American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist.

● Sydney Bechet   (1897–1959) — American (New Orleans) jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.

● Tony Parenti       (1900–1972) — American (New Orleans) jazz clarinetist and saxophonist.

● Wingy Manone   (1900–1982) — American (New Orleans) jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader.

● Leon Roppolo    (1902–1943) — American (moved to New Orleans at ten) early jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, guitarist, and best known for his
                                                        playing with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

(The New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922: (left to right) Leon Roppolo, Jack Pettis, Elmer Schoebel, Arnold Loyacano, Paul Mares, Frank Snyder, George Brunies)

● Santo Pecora              (1902–1984) — American (New Orleans) jazz trombonist.

● Bix Biederbecke         (1903–1931) — American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer.

● Sharkey Bonano         (1904–1972) — American jazz trumpeter, band leader, and vocalist.

● Frank Teschemacher  (1906–1932) — American jazz clarinetist and alto-saxophonist, associated with the "Austin High" gang.

● Bud Freeman              (1906–1991) — American jazz musician, bandleader, composer, tenor saxophonist, and clarinetist.

● Louis Prima                 (1910–1978) — American (New Orleans) jazz singer, songwriter, bandleader, and trumpeter.

● Stan Kenton                (1911–1979) — American pianist, composer, arranger and band leader who led an innovative and forward-looking
                                                                  influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. A pioneer in the field of jazz education,
                                                                  creating the Stan Kenton Jazz Camp in 1959 at Indiana University.

● Dave Barbour             (1912–1965) — American jazz guitarist.

● Gil Evans                     (1912–1988) — Canadian pianist, composer, and bandleader.

● Woody Herman           (1913–1987) — American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, singer, and big band leader.

● Bobby Hackett            (1915–1976) — American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, and guitarist with the bands of
                                                                  Glenn Miller (1904–1944) and Benny Goodman (1909–1986) in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

● Howard Rumsey         (1917–2015) — American jazz double-bassist known for his leadership of the Lighthouse All-Stars in the 1950s.

● Shelly Manne              (1920–1984) — American jazz drummer.

Manne is most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, and known for his versatility in any musical style, including Dixieland, swing, Bebop, avant-garde jazz and fusion. Manne contributed to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood films and television programs.

● Dave Brubeck             (1920–2012) — American jazz pianist and composer, and one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz.

(Paul Desmond on left with Dave Brubeck seated)

● Jimmy Giuffre             (1921–2008) — American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger; best known for encouraging
                                                                  free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation.

● Chico Hamilton          (1921–2013) — American jazz drummer and bandleader.

● Bob Whitlock             (1921–2015) — American double bassist.

● Serge Chaloff             (1923–1957) — America's greatest Bebop jazz baritone saxophonist.

● Paul Desmond           (1924–1977) — American popular cool jazz alto saxophonist and composer, best known for his work with
                                                                  the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for composing that group's biggest hit, "Take Five."

● Shorty Rogers           (1924–1994) — American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, in demand arranger, and one of the principal
                                                                  creators of West Coast jazz.

● Louie Belson             (1924–2009) — American jazz drummer, composer, arranger, bandleader, educator, & pioneered using two bass drums.

● Art Pepper                 (1925–1982) — American alto saxophonist, occasional tenor saxophonist, and clarinetist, active in West Coast jazz,
                                                                coming to prominence in Stan Kenton's (1926–1982) big band, and one of the world's greatest altoists.

● Zoot Sims                 (1925–1985) — American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone,
                                                                first gaining attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's (1913–1987) big band.

● Bob Cooper              (1925–1993) — American jazz primarily tenor saxophonist and oboist.

● Russ Freeman           (1926–2002) — American jazz pianist.

● Herbie Steward         (1926–2003) — American jazz tenor saxophonist known as one of the "Four Brothers" in Woody Herman's Second Herd.

● Stan Levey                (1926–2005) — American jazz drummer.

● Bud Shank                (1926–2009) — American alto saxophonist and flautist.

● Stan Getz                  (1927–1991) — American jazz tenor saxophonist who helped popularize bossa nova in the United States with the hit
                                                                single "The Girl from Ipanema" (1964). He was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone.

● Gerry Mulligan           (1927–1996) — American jazz baritone saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist, composer and arranger.

● Lee Konitz                 (1927–2020) — American composer and alto saxophonist who played in a wide range of jazz styles,
                                                                including Bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz.

● Doc Severinson           (b. 1927)     — American trumpeter and bandleader of "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson from 1967–1992.

● Bill Holman                 (b. 1927)     — American saxophonist, composer, orchestrator, arranger, conductor, and songwriter.

● Bill Evans                  (1929–1980) — American jazz pianist, composer, and trio bandleader.

● Chet Baker               (1929–1988) — American jazz trumpeter, outstanding vocalist and innovator in cool jazz.

● André Previn             (1929–2019) — German-American pianist, composer, arranger, conductor, & celebrated trio pianist, accompanist
                                                                to singers of standards, and pianist-interpreter of songs from the "Great American Songbook."

● John McLaughlin         (b. 1942)   — English guitarist, composer, and bandleader who pioneered jazz fusion combining elements of jazz
                                                                with rock, world music, Indian classical music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues.

● Dave Holland               (b. 1946)   — English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader.

● Bob Moses                   (b. 1948)   — American jazz drummer.

● Lee Ritenour                 (b. 1952)   — American jazz guitarist.

● Kenny G(orelick)           (b. 1956)   — American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer.

● Russ Freeman             (b. 1960)   — American smooth jazz and fusion guitarist & founder and leader of The Rippingtons for over thirty years.

Chick Corea — American pianist, keyboardist, arranger, composer, and bandleader.

Al Dimeola — American jazz guitarist.

Maynard Ferguson — American trumpeter known for his powerful trumpet sounds.

Gerry Mulligan — American baritone saxophonist, arranger, and composer.

Terry Gibbs — American vibraharpist.

Bob Brookmeyer — American trombonist.

Joe Zawinul Austrian jazz pianist.

Bill Evans American jazz saxophonist.

Vijay Iyer American jazz pianist.

Poncho Sanchez American conguero and bandleader in Latin jazz.

Tito Puente .

Chris Washburne American Latin jazz trombonist.

Conrad Herwig (b. 1959) American Latin jazz trombonist.

Bob James American keyboard player.

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Japanese jazz

● Wikipedia: Japanese jazz

“All About Jazz: Do you find Japanese jazz musicians bringing a knowledge of their country's musical or cultural traditions to their playing of jazz? What forms might these incorporations take? Can you name some musicians actively involved in "Japanese jazz"?

“Michael Pronko: Tricky issue. I think that Japanese jazz draws from Japanese traditions in a lot of ways. The arts are not so distinct traditionally in Japan. So, a poet was also a painter and a designer of teacups and a builder of houses and whatever else. Of course, that doesn't mean people didn't specialize. They did, even more so maybe than in the States; but they have a sense of different arts. I think that there are aesthetic concepts like "wabi" and "sabi" and "yugen" which influence, if only unconsciously, Japanese jazz musicians. I'm working on an article where I classify Japanese jazz styles according to religious patterns, Shinto or Buddhist, popular Buddhism or refined, esoteric Buddhism. I've been working on this for a while, but it's not so fully developed. Still, the idea of Shinto and street festivals is a raucous, joyous, drunken celebration. Esoteric Buddhism would lead to refined, sophisticated working with tones. Zen would lead to the feeling of being in the moment, extended, intense improvisations.

It's rare that Japanese jazz musicians work directly with Japanese musical forms. Yosuke Yamashita has a wonderful CD of Japanese melodies: "Sakura" is the name. There's a group of foreign musicians here, Candela is one, who combine shakuhachi with Latin rhythms and jazz arrangement. Mike Price, a trumpeter who lives here, has done that kind of mixing in the past. But there are not so many who try to mix it at that level.

I think the kind of training from martial arts is drawn on for inspiration, as are other meditative types of arts, even if a lot of musicians would not admit to that. They might not admit it because they would not want to openly reveal the sources of their inspiration, nor pay disrespect to the jazz tradition. They would not have to explain it to each other, but would not want to appear to be foolish to a foreigner. Japanese jazz now seems to me just to mean jazz made primarily by Japanese-born nationals, and not much more.”^[7] (bold and bold italic not in original)

“Japanese are also very literate, in the broadest sense of that word; maybe I mean very well read. It's a culture that rests on reading. They read all the time, so jazz is the kind of area that is augmented by reading, and is a kind of reading of texts, one huge intertextuality, if you will, that is appealing to the sophisticated urban consumer mindset. Also, jazz is free, open, wild within restrained limits. It has the right balance of incredible unpredictability, and careful, crafted control that fits with Japanese sensibilities. Jazz is rarely overstated, so it fits in with a kind of subtle set of aesthetic values, but is complicated enough to be infinite and unfinishable.”^[7] (bold not in original)

Jazz musicians from seventy countries

When professional baseball first started in America in 1869 the prominent teams were made up of exclusively non-black players. One might then be tempted to claim that because the original creators of professional baseball in the United States were of the Caucasian race that professional baseball should be considered to have white people as its foundation and get credit for many of the good things about professional baseball. Does this strike you as correct?

There are several reasons why baseball's story should not include only white players even in its origin story. First, kids play baseball and kids come in all sizes and nationalities. If young black children had not played baseball, then there could not have been a Jackie Robinson (1907–1962) who helped integrate baseball ⚾️ in 1947. Second, baseball's origins are other than what has been culturally promoted in the United States. Any one who believes that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday is mistaken—this is an American myth. Bat and ball style games had been around in England since at least 1750. Bat and ball games were brought by settlers to the United States from 1750 to 1850. Third, the reason why American professional baseball was exclusively white for sixty years was because colored people were either explicitly banned or there was a 'gentlemen's agreement' not to hire non-whites from 1887 until 1947.

Professional baseball in America specifically banned any Afro-American players in 1867. Even non-black Latin American players found it hard to break into professional American baseball teams until two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars in 1951. By 1953, only six of the sixteen major league teams had a black player on their rosters.

Fourth, modern baseball rules were stabilized by 1877. Did only white players play the game of baseball either before or after 1877? No. Wikipedia: History of baseball in the United States reports that “African Americans have played baseball as long as white Americans. Players of color, both African-American and Hispanic, played for white baseball clubs throughout the very early days of the growing amateur sport. Catcher Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856–1924) is considered the first African American to play at the major league level, in 1884. But soon, and dating through the first half of the 20th century, an unwritten but iron-clad color line fenced African-Americans and other players of color out of the "majors."”^[8] (bold not in original).

Baseball is played all over the world, but especially in North America (U.S. 🇺🇸 and Canada 🇨🇦, parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan 🇯🇵, South Korea 🇰🇷, and Taiwan 🇹🇼.

The history of baseball is not just about any one race dominating every aspect of the sport, even when for sixty years non-white professional baseball players were excluded. If this is true, it seems to run parallel to the history of the creation and development of jazz. Although many jazz musicians were Afro-American, not all were, and throughout the history of both baseball and jazz the disciplines ultimately attracted people from all races and nationalities.

Encyclopedia Brittanica: "Ten Greatest Baseball Players of All Time" has three Afro-American players in the top five at positions #2 (Willie Mays), #3 (Barry Bonds), and #5 (Hank Aaron), and this is after being excluded from professional American baseball for sixty years. Is professional baseball such that the white race should be credited with founding, promulgating, and influencing how baseball is played? If not, then similarly the same judgment should be made that jazz was never an exclusively black phenomenon, and now with its global impact must include other races in its history.

● Fourteen non-black jazz accordionists

Post-structuralist Critiques and Their Implications

➢ Do these post-structuralists positions prevent the possibility of having coherent, reasonable categories?

Reason to believe post-structuralist critiques destroy all coherent categories

Reason to believe post-structuralist critiques DO NOT destroy all coherent categories

Internet resources on jazz and race

• Norman Michael Goecke, What is "Jazz Theory" Today? Its Cultural Dynamics and Conceptualization, M.A. Thesis, Graduate School of The Ohio State University, 2014.

• Norman Michael Goecke, What Is at Stake in Jazz Education? Creative Black Music and the Twenty-First-Century Learning Environment, Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Program in Music, The Ohio State University, 2016.

• Catherine Parsonage, The Evolution of Jazz in Britain 1880–1935 (London & New York: Routledge, 2005).

NOTES

1. ↑ Read about The Original Dixieland Jazz Band at these websites:
   🔲 John Edward Hasse, "The First Jazz Recording Was Made by a Group of White Guys? A century ago, a recording of the startlingly novel “Livery Stable Blues” helped launch a new genre," Smithsonian, February 24, 2017.
   🔲 Emily Bonnell, "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the origins of the ‘first’ jazz recording," January 1, 2020.
   🔲 Jimmy LaRocca (son of original founder Nick LaRocca), The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, with discography.
   🔲 J. Stutler, "The Legends of Jazz – The Original Dixieland Jazz Band," December 16, 2018.
   🔲 The Red Hot Jazz Archive, "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band," SyncopatedTimes, with downloadable song hyperlinked discography.
   🔲 Discogs.com, "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band," with ninety-five entries discography, including album cover icons.
   🔲 Scott Yanow, "Original Dixieland Jazz Band Biography," AllMusic.com. Accessed June 24, 2022.
   🔲 Dave Radlauer, "Original Dixieland Jazz Band," JazzRhythm.com. Accessed June 24, 2022.
   🔲 Rate Your Music (RYM) (a community-built music and film database where you can rate, review, catalog, and discover new music and films), "Original Dixieland Jass Band," biography and discography with album covers. Accessed June 25, 2022.
   🔲 Listen to tunes at Riverwalk jazz, "A Tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band: Live from the Stanford Jazz Workshop, text based on Riverwalk Jazz script by Margaret Moos Pick © 1997. Accessed June 25, 2022.
2. ↑ Wikipedia: James Reese Europe — Military Service. Accessed June 25, 2022.
3. ↑ Los Angeles Times.
4. ↑ Publisher's blurb on Music: A Subversive History.
5. ↑ Ted Gioia interviewed by Steve Provizer, "An interview with Ted Gioia on Music: A Subversive History, SyncopatedTimes.com, November 24, 2019. Accessed June 25, 2022.
6. ↑ Robert Christgau, "Review: The history of music—all of it—in 400-plus pages," Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2019. Accessed June 25, 2022.
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Wayne Zade, "A Choice Of Openness: Michael Pronko On Jazz In Japan," AllAboutJazz.com, July 3, 2004. Accessed June 26, 2022.
8. ↑ Wikipedia: History of baseball in the United States#The Negroe Leagues. Accessed June 30, 2022.

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