![]() ![]() The broader context of these musical developments was the shift to modernism, as more and more Americans began to seek out new ways of connecting with one another. In addition, the vaudeville stage, with its connections to minstrelsy and instrumental proficiency, would help foster a diverse network of theaters and musicians located across the nation. The musical culture discussed by Morton had its roots in the late 19th century, and two entertainment forms in particular-ragtime and the blues-would have a major impact on the development of jazz. “I thought,” Morton succinctly told Lomax, “New Orleans was the whole world.” 2 With African, Caribbean, French, and Spanish connectors, New Orleans also had a complex demographic structure, with a racialized society fractured along white, black, and Creole lines. New Orleans-and Morton-figured prominently in this narrative, and the piano player posited the city as the essential element in the jazz story. “My contributions were many,” Morton wrote, “first clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies first glee club in orchestra the first washboard was recorded by me bass fiddle, drums-which were supposed to be impossible to record.” 1 This letter inspired Alan Lomax to seek out the piano player for a series of interviews, which would soon develop into an extended oral history of the first years of jazz music. By the Swing Era, countless articles had begun to sketch out the early years of jazz, and Morton was desperate to claim appropriate credit. ![]() In early 1938, the same year as Goodman’s Carnegie Hall success, Jelly Roll Morton, self-proclaimed “Originator of Jazz and Stomps,” wrote a letter to the jazz magazine, Down Beat, announcing that “New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.” Prematurely aged by bad health, Morton used the letter to center himself in the history of jazz music. ![]() The turbulent decade of the 1920s sat at the center of this musical and cultural transformation as American life underwent dramatic changes in the first decades of the 20th century. Regional cultures blurred as a national culture emerged via radio transmissions, motion picture releases, and phonograph records. By the end of World War II, however, a definable national musical culture had emerged, as radio came to link Americans across time and space. America in 1900 was mainly a rural and disconnected nation, defined by regional identities where cultural forms were transmitted through live performances. At the same time, there were massive demographic shifts as black southerners moved to the Midwest and North, and urban culture eclipsed rural life as the norm. Between 19, American musical culture changed dramatically new sounds via new technologies came to define the national experience. By the late 1930s, millions of Americans purchased swing records and tuned into jazz radio programs, including Goodman’s own show, which averaged two million listeners during that period.Īnd yet, only forty years separated this major popular triumph and the very origins of jazz music. In addition, Goodman’s concert coincided with the resurgence of the record industry, hit hard by the Great Depression. With its sprit of inclusion as well as its emphasis on the historical contours of the first decades of jazz, Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert represented the apex of jazz music’s acceptance as the most popular form of American musical expression. Compounding the historic nature of the highly publicized jazz concert, Goodman welcomed onto the stage members of Duke Ellington’s band to join in on what would be the first major jazz performance by an integrated band. Goodman played Carnegie Hall at the top of his jazz game leading his crack band-including Gene Krupa on drums and Harry James on trumpet-through new, original arrangements by Fletcher Henderson. In January 1938, Benny Goodman took command of Carnegie Hall on a blustery New York City evening and for two hours his band tore through the history of jazz in a performance that came to define the entire Swing Era.
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