Jazz and Racial Identity

I enrolled in History of Jazz with only a slight knowledge of the form, and most of this kowledge was merely circumstantial. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Duke Ellington--the obligatory classics that I'd learned of through surfing Wikipedia and word of mouth--were the extent of the jazz artists on my iPod; I was excited to expand my taste in music, maybe collect a few gems that I could share with some friends. Instead of getting a pure jazz survey course (which I had expected, and also received, to a certain extent), the readings and Professor Stewart's lectures highlighted the role that race played int he development of jazz. From jazz's roots in African music, to the New World shaping music into spirituals and the blues and then ragtime, and its evolution beyond jazz, race has played a huge role in every step of jazz's development. My knowledge of jazz--that it was born spontaneously, as if from a vacuum--expanded because of the historical context heavily emphasized thorughout the quarter, and proved the most interesting aspect of the class.

It had seemed that many of the most famous jazz musicians were African-American, but I was unaware of the African music tradition's entire influence on jazz. The slave trade brought Africans to New Orleans, and they continued their cultural traditions there. Sunday mettings at Congo Square illustrate principles of African dance and culture, as enumerated by Thompson's African Art in Motion: emphasis on propulsive rhythm and syncopation, lively yet controlled dance, and the call-and-response relationship between perfomer and audience (Thompson 7, 9, 13). The musical forms that jazz influenced--swing, rock 'n' roll, disco--all contain these elements. Eventually, these elements evolved into spirituals, and after the Civil War, into the first uniquely American musical form: the blues. While I had learned before this class that the blues was a distinctly African-American musical form, I was unaware of the historical and political context surrounding the melancholy sound, that "being black doesn't mean being free" (Lecture.1.13). Both spirituals and blues placed the call-and-response mechanic at the forefront of the music, wehre a singer would sing a line and the audience/participants would sing the same line, or a slight variation of it, in response. This emphasis on community plays a huge role in these forms, as well as later jazz and swing. With the passage of legislation in 1890 that claimed that any person with at least one relative of African descent was entirely black, ragtime and jazz emerged. The classically trained Creoles were forced to create relationships with the black community they previously discriminated against, thereby combining their musical knowledge (Creoles: classical; blacks: blues). This resulted in ragtime, based heavily on African principles, which eventually evolved into early forms of jazz.

Eventually, with jazz's migration to Chicago and the proliferation of radio as a means to listen to music, jazz became a cultural phenomenon. As with any cultural hit, jazz had many imitators, most of them white (such as the Austin High Gang). However much they attempted to copy the jazz/swing formula, the imitators never captured the authentic jazz sound, perhaps because they were unaware of the African music principles behind it (as mentioned by Thompson). Jazz gradually changed with the course of history--the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, the Harlem Renaissance in New York--becoming the modern sound we associate it with today. But the most interesting aspect of the course, and what I learned the most from, was its roots in African tradition.

Felonious Monk

The San Juan Hill community that Thelonius Monk moved to in 1922 was especially ethnically and culturally diverse, even for New York. Though whites and blacks lived in the same greater neighborhood, they were still segregated along streets and avenues, as well as internally by country of origin. Many of the whites lived along the avenues, and were mostly Irish, German, and Italian; forty percent of the area's black population came from the South and the Caribbean, twenty percent came from the British West Indies, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and thirty-five percent were born in New York (Kelly 18). Though there was some racial tension between the Southern blacks and West Indian blacks (Monk later recalled, "They used to call me, 'Monkey,' and you know what a drag that was,"), most racial tension stemmed from the Irish and Italian's mistreatment of blacks. Monk's quote that "There's no reason why I should go through that Black Power shit now," underscores the reality of the racially conflicted San Juan Hill community, where Southern blacks called West Indian blacks "monkey chasers", where New York-born blacks called Southern blacks "possum eaters", and where "It looked like the order of the day was for the cops to go out and call all the kids black bastards" (Kelly 19). Because the tensions between different communities were so high, it really seemed like "every street was a different town" Kelly 19).
Despite its numerous failings, the diversity of San Juan Hill informed and shaped Monk's music. His first piano teacher was Simon Wolf, an Austrian-born Jew that shaped Monk's naturally fine ear with classic and Baroque pieces. His two other main influences at that time were a black jazz musician named Alberta Simmons, who taught Monk stride and ragtime piano, and his mother, Barbara Monk, who occasionally sang church hymns with Monk's piano accompaniment (Kelly 27). These influences, along with the Tango and Rhumba popular among the Caribbean populations, shaped Monk's various musical ear.
Once he became an established musician, playing for nightclubs such as Five Spot, Monk garnered the attention of white bohemians: Frank O'Hara, Joan Mitchell, Jack Kerouac, and Alan Ginsberg (Kelly 228). Aside from the bohemians, the white community largely rejected the presence of blacks, or "spades". By that time, Monk had influenced another black musician named David Amram, who opened up doors for other black musicians to play in venues such as the Five Spot. Eventually, Monk played a gig at the Five Spot on July 4, 1957, but his history of drug use and emotional instability--bi-polar disorder--was a major cause of concern among his fellow musicians club promoters (2.26. Lecture and Kelly 228, 229). Despite his surroundings, Monk went to great lengths to de-politicize and take issues of race out of his music: "My music is not a social comment on discrimination or poverty or the like. I would have written the same way even if I had not been a Negro" (Kelly 229). Ultimately, however, his music influenced the community to be more open to issues of race and discrimination.