Introduction

Introduction WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED JAZZ? is an intellectual history focused on African American musicians who have made names for themselves as jazz players. Although members of this community have devoted much of their intellectual energy to the creation and performance of the music itself, this study brings to the foreground the often-ignored ideas of musicians. It analyzes musicians’ writings and commentary in light of their personal and musical histories, as well as in relation to prevailing debates about jazz and broader currents in African American thought. The book also highlights the contradictory social positions of African American jazz musicians as intellectuals working both within and outside culture- producing institutions. Some might argue that what these musicians have had to say about jazz in words is less important than what they have had to say through their music. My response is that musicians’ commentary is both inter- esting and important in its own right and that it adds to our under- standing of the changing meaning of jazz in American culture. At a ba- sic level, the ways musicians have interrogated the word “jazz” and wondered about its relevance to their projects provide a guide for re- thinking the idea of a coherent jazz tradition. Beyond that, a focus on musicians’ ideas and identities as thinkers gives us greater insight into how they have assisted in the development of this music, the discourses surrounding it, and its role in American and African American life and letters. Social theorist Antonio Gramsci argues that almost everyone is to some extent engaged in intellectual activity, though only a few have the social status of intellectuals. He also describes how intellectuals participate in the creation and dismantling of social hierarchies.1 Gramsci’s expansive definition of intellectual life, his attention to power, and his distinction xiii INTRODUCTION / xiv between the everyday intellectual work of individuals and an intellectualism that is commonly recognized are all useful here. This study is con- cerned first with analyzing a group of people whose ideas are seldom acknowledged because they do not have the formal status of intellectuals. Unfortunately, African American intellectualism is still often seen as oxy- moronic; and jazz, as many of the musicians cited here point out, is commonly seen as a product of emotion or instinct rather than as self-con- scious activity. The book also explores how these musicians have been cast in intellectual roles and how they have embraced intellectual identities themselves. Even if musicians’ social status as intellectuals has seldom been acknowledged and has been contradictory, it is important to recognize that in their e¤orts to articulate their aesthetic visions and pub- licly address issues relevant to their lives, they have functioned as arbiters of cultural tastes and cultural politics and have had a significant impact on the meanings circulating around jazz. Beyond merely recognizing that musicians have participated in and helped to shape the jazz discourse, this study charts some of the partic- ulars of this conversation. A fundamental challenge for musicians has been that jazz is, in Thomas Carmichael’s words, “a field of both achievement and restraint.”2 Generally, this predicament has been rooted in the racial meanings associated with jazz and in the economic relationships that structure the music industry. Some African American musicians have celebrated jazz as a symbol of black accomplishment and have derived great pleasure and satisfaction from its status as such. At times, they have welcomed and benefited from the ways jazz has been written about and marketed as a mode of black virtuosity. Yet others have rejected the term “jazz,” in part because it has represented both limitations on their artistry and restrictions on their lives as African Americans. Some musicians have even tried to replace the word “jazz” with terms such as “cre- ative music,” “new world music,” “African American improvised music,” or simply “music.” Like other African American intellectuals and artists, jazz musicians have tried to cast o¤ the burden of race while nevertheless celebrating aspects of African American life and culture. At times, invoking jazz as a culturally, spiritually, or militantly black expression has seemed a personally redeeming or politically and economically expedient course of action. Yet at other times, claims of racial authenticity have come into INTRODUCTION / xv conflict with the dictates of the marketplace, the opinions of others, and musicians’ own aesthetic and social visions. One manifestation of this dilemma has been the tension between black nationalism and univer- salism evident in musicians’ thoughts. Some musicians have celebrated jazz as a racially or culturally defined black music, but many of these same figures have for various philosophical or strategic reasons also seen it as an articulation of a broader human community and consciousness. Musicians have also negotiated the fields of jazz and classical music, sometimes reifying the distinctions between them and at other times seeking to dismantle the boundaries that separate them. Their e¤orts have been rooted in their own aesthetic projects as well as in the politics of the music world. For musicians and commentators alike, jazz and classical music have symbolized separate spheres of African American and European (or white) artistic accomplishment. Many jazz musicians have been trained as classical players but have seen their ambitions in the realm of concert music stymied by racial discrimination. They have also been aware of jazz’s “second-class” status in relation to classical music. For some of these musicians, seeking to dismantle the divisions between the fields or defining their music as an alternative “classical” tradition has been a means of legitimating their own artistic projects. Yet for others, empha- sizing the distinctions between jazz and classical music has been a more a‹rming vision. A corollary to this discussion of jazz and classical music has been the conversation about improvisation and composition. Both improvisation and composition (traditional notation, alternative forms of writing out music, or “head” arrangements) are integral to jazz, but they have frequently been seen as discrete modes of artistic expression that correspond to the division between jazz and classical music as separate realms of black and white artistic achievement. Developing alongside these tensions between jazz and classical music have been those between jazz and popular music. On the one hand, creating music with popular appeal has represented the possibility of earn- ing a good living as a musician. And for some players who at various mo- ments have wanted to reach the masses (and particularly a black mass audience) for ideological reasons, playing popular music has been integral to the activist identities these musicians have embraced. On the other hand, popular music has sometimes been seen as a threat, on economic and artistic grounds, to those committed to creating art music. For many INTRODUCTION / xvi jazz musicians, popular music has come to represent a lack of musician- ship, the intrusion of market values into the arena of artistic production, or both. Another important theme involves the way musicians have understood creativity and their roles as artists through the lens of gender and, in par- ticular, a kind of masculine Romanticism. Most jazz musicians have been male, and it has generally been men (primarily black men and white men) who have defined the jazz discourse. African American male musicians, who receive much of the attention in this book, have often expressed their own masculinity, as well as a belief in the patrilineal development of the jazz tradition, when defining their artistic projects. In order to un- derstand the contours of the intellectual history of jazz, this study tries to come to terms with the centrality of masculinity in the formulations and interpretations of jazz artistry. Chapter 4, however, additionally explores the “womanist” implications of jazz singing. Musicians have also pondered the aesthetic components of their work from their vantage points as laborers. Most notably, they have protested the conditions under which they have had to perform and the accom- panying low wages. They have been attuned to the way that racism in- forms the operations of the music business. African American musicians have challenged what they have seen as appropriation, and sometimes theft, by white artists as well as the greater economic rewards and critical acclaim reaped by some white jazz players. Black musicians have re- sponded to charges of reverse discrimination when white critics and musicians have argued that they were receiving an inordinate amount of critical attention or economic support. Making sense of the political dimensions of this music is another important aspect of the intellectual life of the jazz community. While keep- ing in mind that commentators sometimes exaggerate the political meaning of jazz, the following chapters show how musicians have theorized the relationship between jazz and its social context. Indeed, the second half of the book focuses primarily on musicians who have defined activist roles for themselves and their music. Some have restricted such en- deavors to the personally therapeutic dimensions of music, while others have seen their music as ushering in broader social changes.

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