Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I THINK THERE ARE ONLY THREE THINGS AMERICA WILL BE KNOWN FOR 2,000 YEARS FROM NOW WHEN THEY STUDY THIS CIVILIZATION: THE CONSTITUTION, JAZZ MUSIC, AND BASEBALL: So says cultural critic and frequent Ken Burns talking head Gerald Early. Yet while this blog has witnessed numerous discussions of the first and third items on Early's list, there's been relatively little conversation about jazz -- which is, according to PBS, "America's Music." So why the neglect of jazz on a pop-culture web site? Is jazz even "popular culture"? Was it ever?

When jazz first emerged in the early 1900s, it certainly wasn't "popular" in the sense of being widely disseminated. It began in black New Orleans, drawing on African American musical forms like ragtime, blues, and spirituals while also incorporating European influences in composition and instrumentation, and always spotlighting the interplay of individual performance and group collaboration. By the 1910s and 1920s, jazz musicians had migrated to Northern cities like Chicago and New York, bringing the new sound with them. Pioneers like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington attracted growing audiences, both white and black, through live performances, recordings, even movies.

Yet critics found jazz distasteful, vulgar, and dangerous. Racial stereotypes lay behind many of these attacks; in 1924, for instance, the New York Times declared that "jazz is merely a return to the humming, hand-clapping, or tomtom beating of savages." Still, white middle-class audiences found the new music vital and exciting, so savvy marketing minds once again took a popular black cultural form and domesticated it for general consumption. Bandleader Paul Whiteman proclaimed himself the "King of Jazz" while offering "sweet," refined dance music that was more Tin Pan Alley than Tipitina's. (Whiteman also commissioned George Gershwin's 1924 classical-jazz hybrid, Rhapsody in Blue.) By the mid-1930s, the most successful performers played "swing," a variant of jazz emphasizing bigger bands, tighter arrangements, and more tuneful melodies (often sung by vocalists). As David Stowe notes in his book, Swing Changes: Big-Band Jazz in New Deal America, swing did encourage some more progressive possibilities in American life, especially as several prominent bands began integrating their ranks. At the same time, though, swing bandleaders like Glenn Miller made their mark less as musicians and more as businessmen, using corporate sponsorship, saturation radio broadcasting, and the new promotional opportunites of the jukebox to turn themselves into pop-culture celebrities.

Obviously, after World War II, jazz lost its place atop the pop-music heap to rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, and their descendants. But this doesn't fully explain why, over the past few decades, jazz has become almost "highbrow." Today, jazz seems to live on primarily through public radio, elite cultural organizations, and yes, PBS and Ken Burns. So, is jazz still "pop culture"? Why or why not?

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