A successful jazz musician, like any successful artist, must strike a balance between artistry and appeal. Jazz that is too progressive and artistic will not resonate with the public, but jazz that is too popular and appealing will not satisfy the musician’s artistic desires. And in New York and Chicago, jazz was able to deftly balance artistry and popularity. In both cities, jazz was developed in an environment that had the cultural and financial means to support jazz artistry. However in New York, not Chicago, jazz became a legitimate form of entertainment, an accessible form of entertainment. It, at times, transcended the trappings of race and social class to become the music of America. The unique environment and characteristics of New York in the 1920s made it the jazz city. New York was the jazz city because it was the birthplace of an endemic style of jazz and laid the foundation for jazz’s commercial success and popularity.

The demand and pressures on jazz creation were different in Chicago and Harlem. Chicago was an importer of New Orleans jazz acts with artists coming into a controlled, white-dominated setting. Perhaps the greatest irony in jazz is that New Orleans jazz developed and flourished in Chicago (Gioia, 45). Yet in Harlem, jazz was free to meet the tastes of the people. In 1920, the already established black middle class and migrating southern blacks controlled 70 percent of Harlem’s real estate (Gioia p.94). Much like the blacks in Chicago, this collective living in Harlem was set on self-improvement and self-sufficiency. But despite this apparent unity and directed intellectual movement, there was a constant tension or “ambivalen[ce] about embracing vernacular elements of African-American culture” between Harlem’s established middle class and the southern, country migrants (Gioia, p. 95). The piano, with both a deep European classical tradition and ragtime roots, was able to balance the appeals of the established and migrating blacks.

In Harlem, the piano gave rise to a new style of music. At rent parties, in which small admission fees were charged to cover the month’s rent, jazz became the music of the people, free from the oppression and constraints of the rich and privileged. Rent parties had a distinct dialogue between the performer and audience. The performer knew exactly what appealed to the audience and was able to adjust his styles accordingly. Clasically trained musicians like James P. Johnson, Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller and Art Tatum re-interpreted ragtime to appeal to the emerging culture desperate and hungry for entertainment. The Harlem Stride Piano combined the ragtime traditions, a new rhythm, progressive syncopation and European “method, system and style (Gioia, p.97).” The music at rent parties was accessible to a population of poor African-Americans, while jazz in Chicago was accessible to wealthy African-Americans at a number of South Side clubs. Despite its accessibility, stride piano lacked the refinement to appeal to the middle class. It had not yet distanced itself sufficiently from the southern vernacular. Yet, the stride pianists’ impeccable, dapper style influenced the eventual rise of a new, wider appealing style of music.

Duke Ellington bridged the racial and social divides with a distinct style of New York jazz. Duke, elegant and articulate, was enamored with stride piano as a youth, but in order to develop into a successful musician, he had to ensure he appealed to a wider audience. Without compromising his artistry, Duke created a sound which resonated with the poor and the rich, the white and the black. Duke’s leadership prowess resulted in an eclectic group that “offered little in the way of virtuosity… but boasted an excess of character (Gioia 120).” The “novelty of the new sounds (Gioia p. 120)” spoke to a variety of conditions. Duke utilized the abundant resources New York offered, e.g. recording studios, radio, diversity and wealth in unique ways to reach a black and white audience. Duke was New York jazz because was able to balance the diverse tastes of a diverse city with his innate artistry. Ellington, who is still culturally relevant today, pioneered a transcendent style of music which resonates even today.

I associate jazz with a sense of freedom, freedom in expression and freedom in form. However, after spending some time learning about the origins and roots of jazz, I realized that jazz was not always so freely structured and spontaneous; there was a time when jazz was structured around rigid musical forms and techniques. Some of the earliest jazz ensembles were focused on cohesion and unity as opposed to focusing on soloists and improvisation. Despite the organized nature and sound of early jazz, I still hear and feel a degree of freedom, and I think that this freedom was the most important factor in the emergence of jazz.

In the 18th century, the Atlantic slave trade brought Africans, of widely diverse and unique backgrounds, to New Orleans. In 1764, France ceded New Orleans to Spain, and in 1800, France regained New Orleans. In 1791, the Haitian Revolution brought thousands of white, French refugees. So at this time in New Orleans, there were Spanish, French, African, German, Italian, English, Irish, Scottish, and Caribbean people present. In “perhaps the most seething ethnic melting pot that the nineteenth century world could produce (Gioia, p.9),” the stage was set for a melding of cultural and artistic traditions. This syncretism heavily influenced the emergence and subsequent development of jazz.

A common theme throughout the history of jazz is the emergence of the oppressed. States like Georgia and South Carolina can forbid musical instruments, but the slaves will still sing. States can prohibit slaves from meeting in large groups, yet in New Orleans’ Congo Square the people will congregate. Louis Armstrong can be forced into the background of ensembles, but his horn will still resonate, even today. Intellectual and artistic liberties can only be suppressed for so long.

New Orleans was unique in the amount of personal freedom slaves and residents had. In 1817, the New Orleans City Council established an official site for slave dances, while at the same time South Carolina was banning drums and Georgia was forbidding horns, drums and any loud instrument. In Congo Square, the African principles of song and dance, e.g. attack in sound and motion, call and response, and propulsive rhythm, were exposed to non-African eyes and ears. These forms persist in jazz today, however the transformations of jazz took place gradually.

The freedoms and liberties that New Orleans offered cultivated, in the early 20th century, a culture of celebration and an inseparable relationship to music. New Orleans residents were hearing music in parks, at parties, at fish fries, on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, in restaurants, and at almost every major event (Gioia, p.32). These bands played wide varieties of music, and a notable shift occurred in the gradual “ragging” of traditional works. Musicians and artists exercised their freedom to push the boundaries of jazz.

Jazz could not have emerged in any other city. New Orleans and the musical arts became inseparable due to the freedoms the city allowed. The preexisting cultural diversity and richness of the area combined with the relatively lax slave-related laws led to a meshing of African and European artistic traditions which eventually amalgameted into jazz.