New York Jazz: Stride, The Big Band and Swing

New York constituted the most important Jazz center in the 1920s because it provided Jazz with the appropriate social, economic, and cultural factors to achieve its evolution to Swing. Swing was going to be the most important Jazz version that was widely distributed in the US after the 1920s. New York also fostered the development of an important sub category of Jazz, namely stride, which contributed to the development of Swing.

               In New York Harlem was deemed a slum, because it was harboring a majority of the city’s black community. The poor economic conditions created the so called “rent parties” (Gioia 90). Since many could not pay their rent with their normal income, they decided to invite people over and charge a fee for the parties. These parties contributed to a flourishing musical culture in Harlem and ultimately led to the development of stride, because the people enjoyed this style (Gioia 92). Furthermore, WWI resulted in a huge migration of blacks into Harlem and they brought with them the Southern traditions of the “ring-shout” and also the New Orleans and Chicago traditions of Jazz (Gioia 90). The city also provided European musical styles. Thus, rent parties, people’s taste in music, migration and cultural diversity combined to form the first major contribution of New York to Jazz, namely stride (Gioia 91). Stride was a piano Jazz style that was the most important development for Jazz in the 1920s as it paved the way for the emergence of Swing. It was played with “rhythm[…] and syncopations” and fused Jazz influences with classical piano (Gioia 92). Nobody would embody this new musical form more than James P. Johnson, whose talent was in combining the cultural influences into a product that the audiences at the rent parties were longing for (James P. Johnson 30).

               New York’s second most important contribution in the 1920s was laying the groundwork for the evolution of Swing. New York provided Swing with the adequate place of fusion of styles, cultural influences and a receptive audience (Gioia 101). No other contributed so much to the formation of the Big Band and to the development of Swing as Fletcher Henderson. He came to New York and soon lured Louis Armstrong from Chicago to New York (Henderson 109). Louis Armstrong and Don Redman then set Henderson’s band on the track to becoming a real Jazz band, but also infused into the band musical forms that would later lead to the development of Swing (Henderson 112, Gioia 103). Thus, Fletcher Henderson’s band was providing the groundwork for the move to Swing, or might have already played one of the first Swing songs with “The Stampede” (Henderson 112). Swing then went on to become the most commercialized and popular Jazz in the decades ahead and thus Fletcher Henderson embodies the most important Jazz musician in New York.

Additionally, Henderson “helped define the emerging Jazz big band sound in the 1920s” which would be New York’s third important contribution to the evolution of Jazz (Gioia 101). The social and economic pressures in New York forced musicians “to embrace the big band idiom” and thus laid the groundwork for the evolution of Jazz and Swing (Gioia 100). Furthermore, the social dancing norms were changing in favor of Big Bands which shows the influence the audience had in the evolution of Jazz (Gioia 101).

Finally, New York provided the competitive and commercial climate that would help musicians survive the Great Depression and rise up again in the new age of the radio. Swing, pioneered by Henderson and influenced by Stride, was the crucial catapult that some musicians, like Duke Ellington, used to thrive in the post-recording era (Gioia 126). The inclusion of Jazz on Broadway also marked a significant commercializing effect of New York on Jazz.

               In sum, New York helped create Stride, the Big Band, and Swing. Only in New York did the economic, social and cultural factors guide the artists to pioneer these great advances in Jazz. This also highlights that New York was more important than Chicago in the 1920s, as Chicago did not produce any distinct advanced styles of Jazz. Chicago was more important for providing a “sanctuary” for Jazz musicians. 

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Jazz Emerges in Cosmopolitan New Orleans

New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz. In this city the cultural, economic and social environment provided the perfect preconditions for the rise of Jazz. The city was a French colony, which was taken over by the Spanish and then bought by the US (Gioia 6). Thus, the French, the Spanish, the Caribbean and the African slaves shaped the city’s cultural and musical environment. As New Orleans grew to be an important trading center, many more people and cultures were integrated into this cosmopolitan city. Most notably, the Mexican presence at the Cotton Exposition in 1884 in New Orleans brought in their musical culture (Johnson 225). The Mexican musicians were classically trained and brought with them woodwind instruments and the saxophone, both of which were important in the formation of Jazz (Johnson 225, 226). Many of the Mexican musicians taught the first (Jazz) musicians classical music and thus enabled a mixing of their cultural musical heritage to create Jazz (Johnson 226). This was particularly important since Europeans refused to teach classical music to the Black community and, without the classical influence, Jazz wouldn’t have developed the way it did. 

The African people and Creoles created Jazz by transforming musical styles and “assimilating some of [their] elements” (Gioia 8). This technique was used with the various musical cultures present in New Orleans to create Jazz, blues, rock, ragtime and many more (Gioia 8). Thus, the cultural diversity and interaction between Europeans, Caribbeans, Africans, Mexicans and others was key to the formation of Jazz. There is often fierce controversy about how much each musical tradition contributed to the making of Jazz. I think that, even though some cultures might have contributed more or less to the formation of jazz, even the smallest input was necessary to create it. Therefore, in a sense, all contributions were equally important.

               Another crucial factor in the development of Jazz was the Latin-Catholic culture in New Orleans at that time (Gioia 6). Under this ideology slaves were treated much more benevolent and their expression of culture and music wasn’t violently suppressed. They were even allowed to practice, and thus preserve, their music in the Congo Square (Gioia 6). This more open society facilitated the expression and mixing of different musical cultures. It also gave space for “an attempt to reassess the worth of the black man within the society” and thus enabling the black man to be a subject in his actions, rather than a stigmatized object (Jones L. 96). He could step up and combine musical traditions to create Jazz and thus exert agency as a subject. This led to a psychological liberation. Therefore, in a sense, Jazz was a symbolic resistance and liberation of black people and New Orleans was the center of this liberation. Furthermore, in New Orleans a society developed that had an “extraordinary […] passion for brass bands” and music in general (Gioia 30). Music was played everywhere, even at funerals. Without this love for music, Jazz would have probably never been invented (Gioia 30). The musicians wouldn’t have had the support of the people, which would have hindered cross-cultural musical experiments and the overall development of new styles, like Jazz, that appealed to the public. 

               Finally, the most important reason why Jazz emerged in New Orleans is that it was uniquely situated to become a global trading city. The steamboat trade with South America, Africa, Europe, Mexico and other places enabled the crucial cultural diversity and exchange that was the basis for the development of Jazz. 

The Jazz that developed in New Orleans was quite distinctive from later forms in that it had a collectivistic approach, which means that it was based on ensemble, rather than on soloist, performances (Gioia 53). This working together to create the music is reflective of the diversity that was assimilated into Jazz. After the beginning era, Louis Armstrong “herald[ed] the new Age of the Soloist” and moved Jazz into the direction of soloist performances and away from the traditional New Orleans ensemble style (Gioia 53). 

In conclusion, Jazz developed in cosmopolitan New Orleans because it provided the crucial social, economic and cultural climate for artistic exchange and musical experimentation.

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