8/9/2019 3. the USA, Not Africa

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The USA, not Africa

Jazz music had been, ultimately, the product of New Orleans' melting pot, and, in general, of thenegro culture of the southern states. The big difference between jazz and blues (or the spiritual orthe wor song! was that jazz was indeed an "#merican" phenomenon, not an "#frican" one. Theroots of jazz music were in the $outh of the %$#, not in &est #frica. There was little relationship

between the instruments of jazz and the original instruments of the &est #frican sla es. Theinstruments of jazz came from the uropean brass bands. )uite simply, jazz was the product of

blac s who had not been sla es, and, in most cases, couldn't e en remember the ancestors whooriginally came from #frica* they were, +uite simply, %$# citizens (albeit second class ones!. -ost

blac s were in fact e en more "#merican" than many of the uropean immigrants who werecrossing the #tlantic by the millions in the years before and after &orld &ar . Of course, thecondition of blac s in the %$# was one of great inferiority. /owe er, jazz was the product of urban

blac s from New Orleans, and then 0hicago and then New 1or * the blac s who li ed the leastsegregated life in the %$#.

n fact, most jazz musicians were stri ing to get accepted and integrated in the %$# society. They

wanted to be li e white people. They de facto repudiated the culture of their ancestors and wereeager to adopt the culture of the whites.

Jazz music was a %$# phenomenon and not an #frican phenomenon the same way that countrymusic was a %$# phenomenon and not a 2ritish phenomenon. The fact that country music was adescendant of 2ritish fol music does not ma e it any more 2ritish than, say, baseball (deri ed fromcric et!. On the other hand the fact that both jazz and country music were born in the $outh was

ery rele ant* the $outh was more prone to create the musical identity of the new country than theindustrialized North, with its close ties to urope. n other words, the brass bands of New Orleans'funerals were more important for the de elopment of jazz music than the rituals of &est #frica.

The lyrics told the same story. The lyrics of blues songs were emotional and documentary

representations of harsh conditions of life. Jazz music had no lyrics or lyrics that were as artificialas the lyrics of pop songs. Jazz lyrics were, ultimately, disposable. n fact, jazz would become amostly instrumental genre. 2lues music, on the other hand, was ery much about the lyrics*instrumental only blues music was almost an o3ymoron. Thus, in spirit, jazz was closer to pop thanto blues music.

Jazz was born as music to dance to. 2lues music was born as music to mourn to. #gain, jazz wascloser to dance music than to blues music.

4ast but not least, there were white jazz musicians from the ery beginning, whereas there were nowhite blues musicians until the 5678s.

#ll in all, the iew that jazz was "#frican" was a racist iew. &hite intellectuals claimed that jazzwas "#frican" simply because the ancestors of blac musicians had come from #frica. 2ut no whiteintellectual claimed that country music was 2ritish. The difference was that white society stillidentified blac s with a separate race. On the contrary, jazz probably represents better than anythingelse the historical moment when blac s stopped being an isolated, frozen culture, and became justone of the many ingredients of the melting pot, just one of the many groups of ( ery poor!immigrants9 the moment when blac s started contributing to molding the shape and the soul of thesociety. en when they rebelled against that society, they were part of it and wanted to be part of it.#fter all, few blac s desired to mo e bac to #frica. They wanted to impro e the society to reflecttheir alues, just li e any other member of that society.

Thus it is not surprising that it would be blues music, not jazz music, to send seismic shoc wa esinto white music, once it began to percolate into white society. Jazz would e entually be assimilated

by white pop music (from 2roadway show tunes to Tin :an #lley ballads! without causing anymajor uphea al. 2ut the assimilation of blues would cause a 0opernican re olution.

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arly jazz was more properly a descendant of ragtime than of blues. Jazz was about embellishing amelody, an old uropean paradigm. 2lues was more about rhythm than melody, thus remainingcloser to the original #frican paradigm. n its early phase, jazz was recognized by both white and

blac audiences as a close relati e of ragtime. Jazz initially had no name. ;or a long time, many people called it "ragtime" but they ne er called it "blues". There were white ragtime musicians, justli e there were white jazz musicians. 8s did jazz music begin to employ comple3 harmonies that went well beyond ragtime harmony.

4ast but not least, jazz was another stage in the ongoing process of blac assimilation of whitetechnology. -ost of the instruments were as "un #frican" as possible. #nd this was going to be thetheme of blac music for the rest of the century (from the electric guitar of rhythm'n'blues to theorgan of gospel to the drum machines of hip hop!. Jazz was, indirectly, also another stage in the

process of blac assimilation of white musical styles, because jazz was founded on ragtime, andragtime was fundamentally the grafting of uropean musical styles (such as marches and waltzes!onto &est #frican syncopated rhythms. #ll in all, jazz was a lot more "white" than it appeared to beon the surface.

The &est #frican element of jazz music was the emphasis on (syncopated! rhythm and thewidespread use of polyrhythms, or, from the iewpoint of instrumentation, the drums. ( n fact, thedrums remained a distinguishing feature of blac musical genres until 2ill /aley turned roc 'n'rollinto a white genre!. #lso largely &est #frican was the passion for timbral e3ploration* where

uropean music had always fa ored crisp tonality and harmonic rules (i.e., only some sounds andsome combination of sounds are lawful!, blac music tended to e3plore the whole range of timbraland harmonic possibilities (something that white academic music was beginning to doindependently and for different reasons at the beginning of the >8th century!. This also included the

prominence of blue notes (notes that are not part of the uropean pitch system!.