Making America's Music: Jazz History and the Jazz Preservation
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Making America’s Music: Jazz History and the Jazz Preservation Act Jeff Farley Department of American Studies University of Glasgow A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2, 2008 c Jeff Farley 2008 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to investigate some significant examples of the process by which jazz has been shaped by the music industry and government and their ideas of the place of jazz within American culture and society. The examples demonstrate that the history and traditions of jazz are not fixed entities, but rather constructions used to understand and utilise issues of race, national identity, cultural value, and musical authenticity and innovation. Engagement with such issues has been central to identifying jazz as America’s music, as it earned this status from its worldwide popularity and its identity as an inno- vative black American art form. Recognition for jazz as American music, in conjunction with its improvisational nature, consequently led to the identification of jazz as ‘demo- cratic’ music through its role in racial integration in America and in its representation of American democracy in government propaganda programmes. The different histories of jazz and its status as democratic, American music have all been especially important to the development of House Concurrent Resolution 57 in 1987, referred to as the Jazz Preservation Act (JPA). Authored by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, the JPA defined jazz as a ‘national treasure’ that deserved public support and inclusion in the education system. Few in the industry have criticised the recognition and public subsidy of jazz, but many have found fault with the JPA’s definitions of jazz and its history that have dictated this support. While the JPA has essentially continued the practice of shaping jazz through ideas of its place within American culture and society, it has provided immense resources to promote a fixed history and canon for jazz. Specifically, the JPA has promoted jazz as the American music, taking a particular stance on the histories of race and discrimination in the industry and the definitions of authentic jazz that had been sources of disagreement, competition, and creativity since the release of the first jazz record in 1917. i Contents Abstract i 1 Making America’s Music 1 2 Shaping jazz through its history and tradition 12 3 Identifying jazz as a uniquely American music 50 4 Equating jazz and democracy 80 5 Definitions of the Jazz Preservation Act 114 6 Impact of the Jazz Preservation Act 137 7 The impact of making jazz America’s music 168 A Jazz Autobiographies 172 ii Chapter 1 Making America’s Music In 1924 band leader Paul Whiteman had twenty-four orchestras that were touring the United States and abroad under his name, each playing a style of music that the press referred to with names such as symphonic jazz, classical jazz, or symphonic syncopation.1 As the names implied, Whiteman’s music mixed the cultural stature and musical refine- ment of the symphony orchestra with the ‘hot’ dance music of jazz that had become a popular genre seven years before. In the process, Whiteman distanced his orchestras, musically and socially, from the black creators of the music upon which he had based his career. Paul Whiteman, along with many supporters in the press, saw classical jazz as a truly new, American, artistic form of music and suggested that the music played by the pioneering black musicians from New Orleans ‘was so outrageous that most musicians were nauseated at the very thought.’2 It was only a year later that Whiteman, one of the most popular musicians in America, started advertising himself as the ‘King of Jazz.’3 Paul Whiteman’s immense critical and popular success in the 1920s and 1930s has been viewed in many recent histories as a sort of coup against the creators of the authentic 1Susie Sexton, ‘Paul Whiteman Made Jazz Contagious’ American Magazine (June 1924) in Jazz in Print (1856-1929, ed. Karl Koenig, (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2002), 320; Rudy Vall´ee, Vagabond Dreams Come True (New York: EP Dutton, 1930), 16-17. 2Paul Whiteman, ‘What is Jazz Doing to American Music?’ Etude´ (August 1924) in Jazz in Print, 340-341; Clarice Lorentz, ‘Jazz–the Newest Musical Phenomenon’ Melody (July 1924) in Jazz in Print, 327. 3Lee B Brown, ‘Jazz: America’s Classical Music?’, Philosophy and Literature 26 (2002), 160-161. 1 jazz of the period, such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.4 Yet, Whiteman’s accomplishments in both creating unique music and advertising it as the most progressive form of jazz have been definitive throughout its development in the twentieth century. Many in the music industry and also the American government have associated jazz with a wide range of concepts in an attempt either to reject or to promote certain styles, musicians, or traditions in order to identify an authentic, ‘real’ jazz.5 This has meant that people involved in radio, live performance, recording, music publishing, labour unions, promotion, managing, music journalism, scholarship, and book publishing, have all helped create the culture and music of jazz. The aim of this thesis is to investigate some significant examples of the process by which jazz has been shaped by the music industry and government and their ideas of the place of jazz within American culture and society. The examples demonstrate that the history and traditions of jazz are not fixed entities, but rather constructions used to understand and utilise issues of race, national identity, cultural value, and musical au- thenticity and innovation. Engagement with such issues has been central to identifying jazz as America’s music, as it earned this status from its worldwide popularity and its identity as an innovative black American art form.6 Recognition for jazz as American music, in conjunction with its improvisational nature, consequently led to the identifica- tion of jazz as ‘democratic’ music through its role in racial integration in America and in its representation of American democracy in government propaganda programmes.7 The different histories of jazz and its status as democratic, American music have 4Geoffrey C Ward, Jazz: a history of America’s music (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000), 99-101; Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: its roots and musical development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 192; Richard Hadlock, Jazz Masters of the Twenties (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1965), 96-97. 5Rudi Blesh, Shining Trumpets: a history of jazz (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1946); Sidney Bechet et al., Treat It Gentle (New York: Da Capo Press, 2002); Frank Kofsky, ‘The Jazz Tradition: Black Music and Its White Critics’, Journal of Black Studies 1.4 (1971). 6Alan Howard Levy, ‘The Search for Identity in American Music, 1890-1920’, American Music 2.2 (1984); Paul Fritz Laubenstein, ‘Jazz: debit and credit’, Musical Quarterly 15.4 (1929); Grover Sales, Jazz: America’s Classical Music (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1984); Penny M Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World: jazz ambassadors play the Cold War (London: Harvard University Press, 2004). 7‘Goodman Adds Noted Negro Pianist’, Down Beat 6.8 (August 1939); Robert Goffin, Jazz: from the Congo to the Metropolitan (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1944), 240-241; Peter Watrous, ‘Into a Democracy of Jazz’, New York Times (January 13, 1996). 2 all been especially important to the development of House Concurrent Resolution 57 in 1987, referred to as the Jazz Preservation Act (JPA).8 Authored by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, the JPA defined jazz as a ‘national treasure’ that deserved public support and inclusion in the education system. While receiving little criticism in the industry for the recognition and public subsidy of jazz, many have found fault with the JPA’s definitions of jazz and its history that have dictated this support. While the JPA has essentially continued the practice of shaping jazz through ideas of its place within American culture and society, it has provided immense resources to promote a fixed history and canon for jazz. Specifically, the JPA has promoted jazz as the American music, taking a particular stance on the histories of race and discrimination in the industry and the definitions of authentic jazz that had been sources of disagreement, competition, and creativity since the release of the first jazz record in 1917. During the twenty years since passage of the Jazz Preservation Act, its singular vision has come to dominate ideas about the performance, teaching, definition, criticism, and business of jazz. The JPA has led to the establishment of permanent institutions at the Lincoln Centre in New York and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., which receive millions of dollars of funding each year.9 It has fostered several major educational programmes for secondary schools that currently teach the social and musical history of jazz to over four million children.10 It has also provided material, financial support, and an artistic agenda for the longest and most significant documentary about jazz, Ken Burns’s 2001 film entitled Jazz, which spanned nineteen hours over ten episodes and was 8Conyers Jr, John, ‘House Concurrent Resolution 57, 1987: Jazz Preservation Act’ hURL: http: //www.jazzforum.blogspot.com/i – visited on May 1, 2008. 9Robin Pogrebin, ‘New Home For Jazz Gets Mixed Reviews’, New York Times (January 24, 2006); Richard Harrington, ‘Smithsonian Jazzmen–Federally Funded Orchestra to Debut’, Washington Post (April 25, 1991). 10Nate Chinen, ‘Jazz is Alive and Well. In the Classroom, Anyway.’, New York Times (January 7, 2007), 1; Smithsonian Jazz, ‘Smithsonian Jazz’ hURL: http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/i – visited on March 3, 2008; Public Broadcasting Service, ‘Jazz: a Film by Ken Burns’ hURL: http://www.pbs. org/jazz/i – visited on March 3, 2008; Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, ‘Jazz in America’ hURL: http://www.jazzinamerica.org/home.aspi – visited on March 3, 2008; Jazz at Lincoln Centre, ‘NEA Jazz in the Schools’ hURL: http://www.neajazzintheschools.org/home.phpi – visited on March 3, 2008.