Black and White: The Rising Role of Race in Jazz

 Jazz had always been a music form intrinsically linked with the African American identity – its originators (James P. Johnson, Buddy Bolden) and famous figures (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington) were black, and many of its basic elements such as call-and-response and syncopation are rooted in African song and dance. However, with the dispersal of jazz from New Orleans to New York and especially Chicago, white Americans became increasingly more involved in the hot new music form. White “students” went to music clubs to watch King Oliver and his band, and white musicians such as the Austin High School Gang and Bix Beiderbecke began making names for themselves in the scene. With this swell of support for jazz came increased commercial interest, and with more money involved the jazz artist soon came to need agents to book shows and critics to evaluate their musicality. The vast majority of these third-party players were rich, white and socially savvy entrepreneurs. John Hammond gained fame and notoriety as a supporter of jazz and became one of the most well-respected critics of swing. This catalyzed a conversation over race that had been taboo before due to the relative exclusivity of the jazz world to the black individual. Comparisons between black and white artists, spurred on by the pseudo-academic critics like Hammond, soon took center stage in the world of swing.

Jazz in New Orleans was an almost exclusively African American enterprise, played by black artists and consumed by black dance-hall and bordello patrons. Rooted to mostly black musical traditions such as African song and dance, the blues and ragtime, the biggest influence from the white world on the music was the Latin-Catholic emphasis on spirituals and the Creole assimilation of many European musical styles. Jazz only reached Chicago and New York after the Great Migration, along with the millions of black migrants leaving their fields for the Northern metropolises. Race had always played an integral role in the genesis and spread of jazz – its color just tended to be darker. However, the introduction of jazz to the North, especially Chicago and New York, added a new dimension to the role of race in swing.

The spread of jazz to Chicago and New York changed jazz into a multiracial phenomenon, with white players such as Bix Beiderbecke, white critics like John Hammond and all-white clubs with black performers like the Cotton Club. The rise of white players of jazz had a profound effect on the dialogue over race, creating debates over whether they could ever compete with their black counterparts. This was spurred on by jazz critics, especially the staunchly pro-African American John Hammond. Duke Ellington, his professional adversary, asserted that Hammond “consistently identified himself with the interests of... the Negro people” (Swing Changes). Hammond even went so far as to censure artists like Ellington, who he accused of “shut[ting] his eyes to the abuses being heaped upon his race” (Swing Changes). The issue of loyalty to one's race became especially salient with the advent of locales like the Cotton Club, where all-white patrons listened to jazz music played by black musicians while being served by a black waiting staff. Even just the name Cotton Club conjures negative images of slavery and racism, and the décor – which included pictures of slaves in their fields – did little to dispel these impressions (Gioia, 125). However, by exposing white patrons to jazz, these clubs spurred on the increasingly insatiable desire for danceable swing music held by members of all races. These interactions between white and black members of the jazz community are a main cause of the increased importance of race in the dialogue of swing.