I am writing a paper and doing a PowerPoint presentation on A Brief History of Jazz, with an emphasis on the Great Depression and WWII. What are some of the key points to hit that mostly music-illiterate people will understand? mate,
where to start
well particularly in the depression and WWII the point that made jazz at the forefront of popular music at the time was prohibition. because of this rule the amount of bars or "speakeasys" more than doubled. because drinking was taboo more and more women drank in private "public" bars. this in turn made a lot of work for jazz musicians.
also just prior to the depression the invention of recording technologies allowed the recording of jazz bands. the first was "the Dixieland Jass band"
(yes spelt jass as this was thought to be an African American slang term for the sexual act)
for the best source of information about jazz in this era try and get to a local library and get the films
"History of jazz, a story by Ken Burns"
or something to that effect. or try this site
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/
this is the same site that is linked to the large documentary.
for a brief time line check out
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/timeline.htm
hopefully that might get you started.
good luck You could do a bit on how the society was changing and jazz also changed at that time. Big bands etc were coming to the fore. Jazz has often followed the trends set by a society too you could explore that. I'd write a bit on what they were coming from and where they were going to. You have hindsight to help you there. Try to find a link or cause for the change too. Use plenty of musical examples in your presentation of both past and the future of where they ended up. Go to a music library and see if any one has written a similar essay, Remember to quote all your sources too. Good luck mate.
Technological advances often mean changes in what was played and how it was played. There are many great time lines to be had both in books and on the net.
Good luck.
Let me know what you end up doing and what mark you get please. 1) Louis Armstrong (Great Depression) 2) Glen Miller (WW2) 3)Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie/Miles Davis 1945-1955 1. Jazz coalesced in New Orleans in the 1890s, as a blend of whorehouse piano music, blues, spirituals, gospel and ragtime. Early references to Jelly Roll Morton and Buddy Bolden call it a Hot Blues style of music that made blacks dance.
2. Louis Armstrong born into this milieu in 1901.
3. Whites discover jazz by 1915 from riverboats, where jazz musicians travel up and down the Mississippi.
4. The Storyville district of NOLA is shut down in 1917, closing houses of prostitution and sending out of work musicians outward from Louisiana. Many key figures, including Armstrong, travelled north to Chicago.
5. Roaring Twenties. Along with Al Capone and other Chicago greats, King Oliver and Armstrong were the speakeasy masters of the era. Also in New York, the music took root. Duke Ellington enters the scene in the 20s.
6. 1930. The stock market crash of 1929 ushers in the Great Depression. One of the effects is that musicians find very little work, except in places like Kansas City, where Tom Pendergast ruled the city and allowed for wide open entertainment to keep his power structure happy.
7. Mid-1930s. Benny Goodman's big band broadcasts from L.A. nationwide and turns white teenagers on to big band jazz as a popular dance music. The big band era is born nationwide.
8. Early 1940s. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie formulate a way around copyright laws and white influence in jazz by playing a hypercharged small combo version of jazz in Harlem nightclubs. The music they form, combined with the prevalent swing style and the blues, is the parent form of mainstream jazz from then onward: small group, bebop-based, extended improvisations. In the 1950s this would evolve into what's called hard bop and played by men such as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Art Blakey.
9.. WW2 sends noted big band leader Glenn Miller overseas, where he is lost in a plane accident in 1944 over the English Channel. This is the unofficial end of the big band era, although bands of Ellington, Count Basie and Woody Herman would continue well into 1970s. Big bands would survive in nightly popular entertainment into the 1990s in such venues as Johnny Carson's Tonight Show Orchestra led by Doc Severinsen. |
