Jazz In The Great Migration

Found in the south-eastern area of Louisiana state in the USA and covering over both sides of the Mississippi River. New Orleans is famous for its cuisine, rich history, music and of course their festival event Mardi Gras but the most famous thing about the city is it being the birth place of jazz (Joan B. Garvey & Mary Lou Widmer, 1994). New Orleans was involved in smuggling supplies and equipment to the rebels during the American Revolution War through the cities port (Mitchell, 2010), this brought the largest amount of refugees from the 1804 Haitian Revolution and also had the country’s largest slave market in the antebellum period (Joan B. Garvey & Mary Lou Widmer, 1994). With the history of the city created the climate needed for the basic foundation of jazz to be born and developed in the late 19th and early 20th century. The foundations for syncopation, swing feel, “Western-style” harmony and improvisation as the framework of the musical modernization (Mark Gridley et al., 1989 page 513-531). This aspect came together in New Orleans about the turn of the century thanks to the varied immigration that went into the city that granted musicians of various ethnicities and backgrounds to influence each other, the particular racial and social dynamics in a period where segregation in the USA, which was so normal, and the economic environment that musicians found themselves at that time, which made them find work broadening the class and geography of them.

Jazz is difficult to define due to the number the sub-genres that fall under jazz; from the swing bands in the 1930s, cool jazz from the West Coast, and free jazz which all fall umbrella the terms of jazz (Mark Gridley et al., 1989 page 514-516). There is wide accord that jazz music originated in the early 20th century as “New Orleans” jazz. The New Orleans jazz was influenced by a cluster of global musical traditions that fuse together due to the different background of the population of New Orleans (Carney, 2006b). From the field hollers and work songs of the West African slave, the Afro-Caribbean bell patterns and syncopated African drum patterns that were played at Congo Square, the tresillo pattern of the Afro-Cuban music and also the Western-style harmony brought by the European settlers that also have notable feature of the genre of music (Mark Gridley et al., 1989 page 517-524). Due to the unique demography is remarkable to New Orleans because of the geography by the location of the city. By the time Louisiana officially became a state of the USA in 1812, New Orleans was a very important port city that connected the Mississippi watershed, the Gulf Rim, the Atlantic seaboard, the Caribbean Rim, Western Europe and the areas of West and central Africa.(Sublette, 2008 page 4) New Orleans had a steady, consecutive waves of immigration, from the French colonials in the early 1700s to the Spanish and Anglo-Americans later in the century, which the French-speaking Haitians to follow after the 1804 revolution (Sublette, 2008 page 4). New Orleans was the country’s largest importer of slaves from West Africa and Afro-Caribbean slaves and the free-man also immigrated.

By the turn of the 20th century, the musical influence that these cultures everywhere on the streets of the city: brass bands using the Cuban tresillo pattern in big, extravagant funeral parades, black string quartets playing classical European dances at functions and “ragtime” with pianists, syncopated versions of popular songs as the entertainment. IT was with these influences that New Orleans jazz leaders such as ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton, Sidney Bechet, ‘Buddy Bolden’ and Joe ‘King’ Oliver had their musical starts (Hersch, 2007 page 15-17). New Orleans’ red-light district ‘Storyville’ in 1917 as an outstanding part of the city, but it was at a simple incentive. The closing of ‘Storyville’ forced its musicians out onto the streets. It had been named after the Alderman Story who had eagerly legislation in 1897 regulating prostitution in the city. It was amount to thirty-eight blocks of bars, numerous houses of pleasure” and establishments which provided employment for early jazz and ragtime musicians. Nonetheless, pressure from the US Navy forced most of the establishments in the area to close their doors 1917. Some people described that New Orleans was in the middle of an economic depression when the closure of ‘Storyville’ happened, which drove black musicians to follow their associates to migrate north in search of work. Hersch had another view of what happened to the city at this period:

Contrary to the myth that the 1917 closing of Storyville caused the exodus of musicians from the city, New Orleans jazz musicians had started taking the new music on the road several year earlier, perhaps as early as 1902(Hersch, 2007 page 66)

For example, the three most important groups, the Creole Band, the Original Dixieland Band and Brown’s Band had scattered the music to California, Chicago and New York from the year 1912 (Hersch, 2007 page 66). As well the steamboats helped the spread of jazz music across the USA. As they were both used for business and entertainment most often a band would be engaged for the passengers entertainment, so “offering musicians a chance at steady employment” (Branley, 2014 page 45). The idea of it purely being the closing if ‘Storyville’ the cause of mass departure of New Orleans, (Hersch, 2007) offers the insight of the event:

The closing of Storyville in1917 had a limited effect anyway, because, according to some musicians, one could find as much.

Work in the District after the end of legalized prostitution as before. Rather, like many people of colour during the Great Northern Migration, jazz musicians moved to Chicago to better their chances of life (page 166)

Here it is revealed the greater reason as to why so many New Orleans musicians moved north to Chicago.

It was mostly because of the political and social context of the southern states that demonstrated a greater drive force behind New Orleans’ African-American musicians and population moving north during the late 1910s and early 1920s. The Great Migration a big movement of large numbers of African Americans from mostly rural, former Confederate states which started in the middle of the 1910s (Branley, 2014). The search for better jobs and had the craved to leave the segregated life that the southern states of the country (Branley, 2014 page 43). Hersch’s book ‘Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans’, where he speaks about the “city’s increasingly violent racism, illustrated by the Robert Charles riots” (Hersch, 2007 page 166) which could be the motivational factor of why some musicians left the city.

For example, in July of 1900 the police of the city launched a citywide man hunt and started harassing black New Orleans citizens after a black man (Robert Charles) shot a white police man. The white community of the city was overtaken by fear and set off on a five day race riot where it consequently lead it to, “hundreds of innocent African Americans became the targets of white mob violence” that culminated to dozens murdered and hundreds more injured (Carney, 2006 page 305) In hope of a better life with much less discrimination and more opportunities, the African-American musicians moved to the northern states.

Chicago then became the main focal point for jazz music during 1910s and the 1920s as the African-American audiences increased and very important jazz musicians moved there to an expanding entertainment industry that attracted further migration of the southern musicians. Jazz musicians, in the early starts of the genre were moving around the country wherever the work was at that time (Kenney, 1993 page 12). Kennedy describes how The Great Migration, through the years 1916-1919 specifically, hugely increased the demand for the entertainment in these northern cities.

The arrival of over 65,000 blacks from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas between 1910 and 1920 triggered Chicago’s Jazz Age, for it expanded the city’s market for racially oriented black musical entertainment and also intensified white Chicago’s awareness of a growing black population (Kenney, 1993 page 11)

As well the economic security that the northern cities like Chicago could offer the African-American community, with the success of ‘The Stroll’ which offered African-Americans certainly strong community and bizarre real-lived social standing. As Kennedy wrote in his book ‘Chicago jazz: a cultural history, 1904-1930’ he wrote, “Jazz on Chicago’s South Side was deeply woven into a fabric of economic and political activities designed to improve the standard of living and political power of the black community.” (Kenney, 1993 page 4) This is not hyperbole. The leading clubs of Chicago the famous black jazz and ragtime musicians played “were owned and/or managed by black Republican party organizers, who used the musicians, their music, and popular musical entertainers to attract and to focus the attention of potential black voters (Kenney, 1993 page 5), and with this it worked. It was said that jazz musicians were often thought to be apolitical, nonetheless helped to build the South Side of Chicago at least. Now having pride in the economic and political advances of the race.

One could say that jazz musicians were important in the advancement of agreement amongst a prosper African-American national community.

In the text of Chicago’s flowering entertainment industry, migrant southern states but mostly New Orleans musicians enjoyed the great success and established compelling impact on the forthcoming sound of jazz music.

One of the most influential New Orleans musician that migrated was Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. A composer-arranger, pianists and bandleader, he “was the most important jazz composer of the era, collaborating with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings on the first racially integrated jazz recording session” (Kennedy, 2013 page 2). His early career in Chicago, “developed the most important of the South Side cabarets during 1914 and 1915” as he played and organized vaudeville entertainment at the Richelieu, DeLuxe, and Elite #2 (Kenney, 1993 page 11). As well from this, his piano playing helped bridge the gap between jazz piano style and ragtime piano style as he accomplished perfecting rhythmic techniques that changed the character of eight-note lines that they swung (Gridley, 1997 page 61). This was just one of the ways he proposed new sounds that had a very significant impact on jazz music and its evolution. Morton’s work as a bandleader with the Red hot Peppers which transformed the action of a jazz ensemble and also the comprehensive sound to be tight, well-organized and well paid (Cooke, 2013 page 45). Jelly Roll, as an arranger, also gave undoubtedly influential during the 1920s,

He was one of the first jazz musicians to blend composition with improvisation in an elaborate and balanced way that still conveyed the kind of excitement that had typified collectively improvised jazz. In this way, Morton anticipated similar contributions by Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus, and Sun Ra (Gridley, 1997 page 61)

Another influential artist who was also part of the Great Migration to the north was Louis Armstrong and enjoy success in Chicago and had a massive impact on the sound of jazz. Armstrong was born in New Orleans but left the city when he joined Joe Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1922 (Gridley, 1997 page 68). Armstrong’s contemporary improvising solo style was showcased more than his New Orleans sound collective improvisation skills (Gridley, 1997 page 68). Armstrong is believable one of the most influential musicians in the evolution of jazz music, he was known for breaking away from the melody of the song to improvise. Building on the foundations of the New Orleans’ style collective of improvisation in the way of dramatic and constructive solo, this transformed the sound of jazz all along the Chicago jazz age of the 1920s.

The New Orleans musicians who ended in Chicago and made a huge impact on the future of jazz music. As the success of these musicians rose, more musicians moved to Chicago and thus the birth of Chicago 1920s jazz age was made.

Chicago as a focal point for the fortunate jazz age of the 1920s was further increased by growth in recording and broadcasting technology. It was during this period in Chicago that lots of African-American New Orleans musicians were first recorded and it was from these recordings we know what the New Orleans style sounds like, even though the style of music was played between 1900 and 1920 in the city of New Orleans (Gridley, 1997 page 55).

In conclusion, in the 1910s African-American New Orleans’ musicians found that their city was becoming more increasing in their political hostility and opportunities for employment decreasing in this community. The catalyst of the Great Migration that saw thousands of African-Americans move from the southern states to the northern states for a better life and employment, also having a positive influence on the black entertainment industry during the late 1910s and 1920s. Pride and agreement amongst African-American culture developed as the South Side of Chicago black communities enjoyed extraordinary success. In this kind of environment, lots of jazz great were created their name and lasting growth to popular music at this time. The jazz style of the city of New Orleans evolved and reflected the changes of the time; a greater focus on refinement, mature solo improvisation and a new swing feel just to name a few. So, Chicago became a hypnotic epicentre from the African-American musicians and audiences that loved the genre of jazz.

References

1. Branley, E. J. (2014). New Orleans Jazz. Arcadia Publishing.
2. Carney, C. (2006a). ‘New Orleans and the Creation of early jazz.’ Popular Music and Society, 305.
3. Carney, C. (2006b). New Orleans and the Creation of Early Jazz. 29.
4. Cooke, M. (2013). The Chronicle of Jazz. Oxford University Press.
5. Gridley, M. C. (1997). Jazz styles: History and analysis (6th ed.). Prentice Hall, Inc.
6. Hersch, C. (2007). Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans. The University of Chicago.
7. Joan B. Garvey, & Mary Lou Widmer. (1994). Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans. Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company (Kathy Chappetta Spicess & Karen Chappetta, Eds.; First Pelican edition). Pelican Publishing Company.
8. Kennedy, R. (2013). Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the birth of recorded jazz. Indiana University Press.
9. Kenney, W. H. (1993). Chicago jazz: A cultural history, 1904-1930. Oxford University Press.
10. Mark Gridley, Robert Maxham, & Robert Hoff. (1989). Three Approaches to Defining Jazz. The Musical Quarterly (Vol. 73).
11. Mitchell, B. A. (2010). America’s Spanish Savior: Bernardo de Gálvez. HistoryNet. https://www.historynet.com/americas-spanish-savior-bernardo-de-galvez.htm
12. Sublette, N. (2008). The World That Made New Orleans From Spanish Silver to Congo Square Chicago. Lawrence Hill Books.