The physical location of New
Orleans provided an extraordinary birthplace for jazz to emerge in America. It
was the culmination of elements that set the perfect stage—these included a
cosmopolitan atmosphere, the fact that it was a center of trade (especially the
fact that trade was via water commerce), its history of a more lenient Latin-based
slave system, as well as a high population of blacks and mixed-raced Creoles. Being
a trading port, there was a mixture of people coming to New Orleans from not
only the rest of the United States, but from the rest of the world! Other
cities in America may have had one or a couple, but definitely did not have all
of these elements. New Orleans became a mixing pot, filled with African,
American, African American, Haitian, Caribbean, Spanish and other influences,
and when this mixture was later poured out of the pot—jazz emerged. This introduces a commonly discussed term in both Gioia and our lectures—syncretism—the merging
of traditional African musical elements that began to combine with
European music styles.
Gioia’s main argument is that
the creation of jazz is partially due to the influence of African culture. I
agree with this; jazz was created from a mixed foundation, and African roots
definitely are a strong part of that foundation. And New Orleans, with it’s
incredible mixture of people and ethnicity, could add even more to this foundation.
To begin with, New Orleans had French roots, which is turn means latin roots. The Latin slave system was
much more humane toward blacks than the traditional (American) English system—allowing
them rights such as purchasing themselves, getting married, and being freed.
With a history of greater freedom for blacks, this resulted in later years in
them having more freedom and influence on things like music. According to Gioia
and our class lectures, the Creoles of Color created a barrier between themselves
and “actual” blacks by immersing themselves in European tradition and identifying
with their white heritage over their black side. However, according in Gioia,
in the very beginning of the 20th century the United States
government passed a law that basically said if you were of any colored/African
descent, then you were labeled black—and this applied to these Creoles of Color
(33). Now, these people who had tried so hard to focus on European culture,
were making music with ‘traditional’ black slaves who exemplified more of a
cultural African side in their music. The mash-up of these two musical styles,
this syncretism, was a factor that led to the creation of jazz.
Within the text, Gioia
mentions a huge number of musical artists budding from New Orleans. Some of
these sources of jazz include the works of Charles “Buddy” Bolden, Bunk
Johnson, King Oliver, Sidney Bichet, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. On this short list of greats includes one man
who ‘debatably’ fathered jazz. About him, Gioia states, “Certainly Bolden, even
if he did not invent jazz, had mastered the recipe for it, which combined the
rhythms of ragtime, the bent notes and chord patterns of the blues, and an
instrumentation drawn from New Orleans brass bands and string ensembles” (34).
This quote helps us as
readers see that jazz is the combination of many different things (such as
blues and ragtime, a new set of notes and chords, etc). If jazz was created
partially through practices taken from New Orleans brass bands and string
ensembles—and these things were influenced and molded by blacks and African
culture—then we can imply that jazz is also molded by Africa. Indeed, African
musical traditions such as attack, syncope, and multiple meters are heavily
prevalent in jazz. So, as stated by Thompson, there were now direct examples to
see in these new music styles that were directly taken down from past Western
African culture. The vital aliveness, the “get down” factor, etc.—these were
all around in past African music and now were elements of the new and evolving
musical genre of jazz.
After reading Gioia and
attending lecture, I would personally say that the most important factor on why
jazz emerged in New Orleans has to do with ‘freedom’ and energy in New Orleans.
New Orleans had freedom in so many aspects: people were free to come and go,
which meant different types of people were always bringing new influences to
the city. Because of the more lax Latin-based slave history, the black
population in general had more rights and more freedom to do things like create
music. Also, there was the freedom to change and create music any way one
wanted—and indeed, this did include mixing
in African conventions such as a call-and-response and the combination
of music with dance.
Buddy Bolden’s grandson
called his grandfather a true musician, explaining that “no one had to explain
notes or feeling or rhythm to him. It was all there inside him, something he
was always sure of”(5). I think his innate music ability, as described by his
grandson, is something that truly exemplifies his African roots. This is
something that’s been talked about extensively both in lectures and in The History of Jazz, and that is “vital
aliveness”. He brought his music to life—the vital aliveness that is so
prevalent in traditional Western African music had now also found it’s way in
this new form: jazz.
