Jazz and Equality:
During the Jazz period, African American communities were still an unacceptable society because of their past title of slaves yet that didn’t stop them from being creative. They were able to capture the attention of different racial societies in USA and in Europe too by producing melodies using the Western instruments. When African Americans performed, they only had a black audience but the tune played using the instruments, saxophones, trumpets and trombones, were creating bridges around African, European and Native American cultures, which helped to attract a diverse audience. It didn’t take much time to attract a large audience as people fell in love with this zing in this music and soon white people appreciated this talent.
During World War II, women created a new space to enter this industry. They showed they too could learn to play those instruments and created amazing music. The Andrew Sisters, an all- female band, who visited the military base camps and hospitals around the world, became very famous around that time. Their music rekindled hope among the people in those crucial times elevating the status of both women and the African Americans internationally.
Jazz and Social Life:
Black Americans did not only create a new genre but a new society. Lewis Erenberg, Professor of History at Loyola University, uses “interracial musical vocabulary” to describe the creation of Jazz music. What he meant was that Black Americans intelligently infused the music of different cultures to create Jazz music. The combination included a blend of European, African and Native American music.
Beginning from 1920, Black Americans stole the spotlight to deliver their magnificent performance on stages. As the black jazz musicians blended the music knowledge of different cultures, such as the blues and soul music, into one genre, they also pulled the different communities and tied them together into what we now call a mixed culture. Despite the various ups and downs of each community, they all came together under one roof to enjoy beautiful jazz music.
On the other hand, there is a research that presents the nature of the society in the Jazz Age to be harmful. Russel Johnson has a PhD in U.S History and his researches cover the period of late 19th and Early 20th Century. In his book “‘Disease is unrhythmical’: Jazz, health and disability in 1920s America,” he presents the viewpoint of critics who claimed that African American created a “disabling” music with the instruments that were used by others to produce melodies, which contributed positive health effects (3). The music in Jazz was disabling in the sense that “First, it was syncopated: jazz musicians removed the musical accent from its traditional place on the first note of the bar and allowed it to ‘occur anywhere in the bar’. Second, it was polyrhythmic: jazz ‘superimposed [an] accompanying rhythm’—a one, two, three—‘on top of the underlying tempo’ of one, two, three, four.” (17). According to them, Jazz historians ignored the stress related view of the music. This rhythm has negative effects on our brains. They also claimed that the dance moves associated with jazz are also disabling. In other words, they are saying that the activities of the jazz performers and the audiences have led society to become uncivilized. Although they proved their claims with sufficient evidences of biological effects from the music, the problem is the effects of music are not directly related to people’s responses. Western dance style is sophisticated and organized yet Western people found the musical culture of Africa to be primitive.
Moreover, Bruno Repp, an expert in the field of psychiatry, has explained the results of a research which measured brain activities that responded positively toward fast tempo beats (592). However, prolonged beats can cause damage to the individual. Nevertheless, these dance moves hyped up the experience of the night life during the jazz era. Jazz music was spreading like a contagious disease in the major cities of the United States of America. People were attending clubs and parties to become social butterflies.