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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