The Pendulum Swings

With jazz's transition from New Orleans to Chicago and New York, from bordellos to dance clubs, black culture assimilated into the mainstream of American popular culture. As a largely untapped and unexplored form, musicians saw in jazz an opportunity to gain financial rewards and cultural respect. However, informal and formal racial segregation stifled opportunities for black musicians to grow (in both financial and cultural aspects), while many white musicians prospered. This tension underlined much of the discourse of swing as it developed from jazz.
Formal segregation, where blacks were limited to visiting black-only venues, allowed white jazz bands (such as Austin High Gang) to rip-off black musicians' sounds and styles (Gioia 55). While this band and other all-white bands prospered for a short time on record sales, the invention of the radio changed everything (2.12. Lecture). Gone were many racial barriers; black performers gained more attention, popularity, and respect because listeners judged them on one factor: the music itself (you cannot tell the ethnicity of a performer by their music alone).
Still, this new opportunity did not end the racial tensions of the Swing Era. Duke Ellington recognized the importance of an agent who could advance his career: a white agent, Irving Mills. Where other talented musicians such as Fletcher Henderson were poised for success in the same way as Ellington, many did not see or instead opted out of having a white agent. Mills was able to get Ellington gigs at venues dominated by white audiences, better record deals, and high radio play. As a result, Ellington's band went on national tours, generating them more renown and profits from their records (2.12. Lecture). Though Fletcher Henderson was also an incredibly talented musician and big band leader, he never appreciated the same success as Ellington did, largely because he worked and performed in a segregated black community.
Ellington was criticized throughout the Swing Era, with some critics claiming that he was not being sensitive to the struggles of "his people" (2.14. Lecture). This criticism emerged during the Great Depression, and Ellington was essentially in a place of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" racial sensitivity. His music did not discuss race directly, but was rather implied in some of his song titles ("Black and Tan Fantasy", "Black Beauty").
As jazz and swing reached broad American audiences it became a more respected cultural form. However, white musician Benny Goodman is regarded as the "King of Swing", despite having challengers to that title. Goodman was the first swing musician to play Carnegie Hall in 1938, and though he hired black musicians to play in his band, the primarily white audience in attendance accredited him with being the first master of the form. Competitions between white and black swing leaders (Goodman and Chick Webb at the Savoy in 1937) further encapsulated feelings of racial tension, with Goodman "winning the competition" despite accounts that portrayed the two leaders as comparable (2.14. Lecture).

Chicago: Lord of Jazz

            Quantifying a city’s influence on a cultural form such as music is challenging because the debate hinges on a variety of factors: the social, economical, and political climates of the area, the legendary figures of that scene, and the development of the music itself. While New York may have produced more figureheads than Chicago—Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Art Tatum—New York seems a sidestep in the evolution of swing and jazz.

            Jazz’s move from New Orleans to Chicago began with King Oliver, who sparked the first wave of innovation on the jazz formula. He took the group-performance ethos of Storyville jazz and, upon bringing it to Chicago, made it an individual’s medium (1.31 Lecture). King Oliver’s sound transformed the softer, brothel-oriented New Orleans style with a sound that was bigger, brassier, more aggressive, that prominently featured the soloist, and was engineered for Chicago’s decidedly livelier dance pavilions. Improvisation was encouraged, as bands would play well into the night, and the range of jazz was broadened and deepened. Though stride piano, developed in New York, encouraged improvisation, I believe stride acts as an amplifier of previously existing forms, rather than as a brand new element that existed outside of ragtime or jazz (as Gioia suggests of New York on page 106). However, I do acknowledge the dialogic aspect of stride piano as a reaction to and addition to jazz.

            The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 had social and economical ramifications for the following decades, which defined how jazz spread both within and without the city. Segregation between blacks and whites applied to music venues, allowing blacks access to black-only music venues, while whites were allowed to attend any performance they pleased (Gioia 55). The Austin High Gang, a popular all-white jazz group, copped their style from watching King Oliver and Louis Armstrong play in a black neighborhood. The kids lacked the musical maturity or clarity of their influences (Bix Beiderbeck being one of them), their jazz hit “Nobody’s Sweetheart” became a huge hit, selling thousands of records (The Chicagoans 158). As a result, white audiences began listening to and actively seeking jazz, which was previously associated with vices (Lecture 1.31). Thusly, the jazz scene took hold of Chicago and transcended racial boundaries.

            Both Chicago and New York were controlled by the mob scene in the late 1920s, but Chicago ultimately favored jazz musicians. Mobsters controlled jazz musicians in terms of their wages, where they would play, and when they would play. This mutated form of slavery, though highly restrictive, tended to favor Chicago’s jazz musicians more than New York’s, in a roundabout way. Duke Ellington’s received heavy radio play because he signed away fifty percent of the rights to his music to his manager Irving Mills, thereby losing much of his profit (2.12 Lecture). Also, New York had a much higher concentration of Italians, many of who were mobsters that controlled jazz performers (The Jazz Slave Masters 49).