The
United States of America has been charitable in the arts as well. We’ve given
the world break-dancing, the cakewalk, the Charleston, and the Cupid Shuffle. Georgia
O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, and Norman Rockwell have enriched the world of art. And music?
Ah, what would the world be like without jazz? At many times during the last
century, jazz has been rumored to be on life support, but Dave Brubeck
recognizes its immortality. “Jazz isn’t dead yet. It’s the underpinning of
everything in this country. Whether it’s a Broadway show, or fusion, or right
on through classical music, if it’s coming out of the U.S., it’s not going to
survive unless it’s got some jazz influence.” And what an influence it’s had.
With
roots in New Orleans, combining the rhythm and feel of African music, the
harmony of classical music, and an emphasis on improvisation, its impact on the
wider culture began to take hold as radios and records became accessible to American
across the country. Not only did the average Joe begin to listen, but jazz
began to have cultural impact as well. Dancing the Charleston – that’s jazz,
popularized by Arthur Gibbs and His Gang. When prohibition came along in 1920,
the popular jazz bands, both white and colored, simply moved underground to the
speakeasies, and then the music was rescued by its inclusion on Broadway, as
well as in the “talkies,” with “The Jazz Singer” being the first feature film to
be released with sound in October 1927.
If
art is how we decorate space, then music surely is how we decorate time. Jazz
helped us through the Great Depression, and accompanied us to the war to end
all wars (WWII) through Glenn Miller and his orchestra, and the Andrews Sisters
and their boogie woogie bugle boy of company B. By the 1960s, we entered the decade of the Cold War and Vietnam,
along with hippies, bell bottoms, mini-skirts, and the Pill. Just as much as
the culture seemed all over the place, so too did the music of the 1960s, but
jazz still flowed through the veins of its musicians.
While the Civil
Rights Movement is historically a part of the 60s, the work of integration had
been taking place for a much longer time. Like the schools, lunch counters,
buses, churches, and neighborhoods of the United States in the first part of
the twentieth century, music and musicians were segregated by skin color, but
in 1935, Bennie Goodman added Teddy Wilson, an African-American piano player, to
his band, twelve years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in
baseball. Stanley Crouch notes, “Jazz predicted the civil rights movement more
than any other art in America.”
The
influence of jazz on integration was recognized by Smokey Robinson as he spoke
of the segregation of southern audiences in the early days of Motown. “Then
they started to get the Motown music and we would go back and the audiences
were integrated and the kids were dancing together and holding hands.”
The
music-makers of our country tend to be responsive to what’s happening in the
broader culture, but the culture itself is often pushed and prodded along by
its musicians. Thousands of words can be written about this entwined history of
jazz and culture, but as Ashland resident Neil Ebert knows, it’s a history
better experienced than read. To give our local community a feel for jazz’s
long history and far-reaching influence, Ebert is coordinating an evening of
jazz through the past one hundred years. On Saturday, October 21st,
listeners will be transported to “the sunny side of the street” with the Kroc
Center Big Band, a number of local vocalists, and hosts Matt and Melanie
Miller. [Contact The Salvation Army Kroc Center for ticket information].
Branford
Marsalis understands jazz as “the musical dialect that embodies the spirit of
America.” Next Saturday, our handle on “speaking American” will be much
improved by the time the music fades into the night.
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