New Orleans Jazz

           Jazz, as an entity, is reflective of city culture. New Orleans, as a city, had the most to offer a developing creation like jazz. Because New Orleans was originally established by France, they followed a different methodology for treating the Black population. This allowed more freedom among Black citizens as well as for a distinct middle ground to arise with the Creole, who were mixed race and attempted to separate themselves from the Black populations by considering themselves superior. This class conflict between Creoles and Blacks, the freedom offered to them both, the French ideals that were already in place, and later, the Spanish influence that came, were all major reasons why jazz was able to emerge in New Orleans.

            In this city developed a culture of celebrating death, "New Orleans parade for the dead, that extraordinary combination of funeral and festival" (Gioia, 28) which created second line music. A first line would be made of family of the deceased, but this second line would be made of musicians. Events like these helped to ingrain music into the very foundation of the city. Another part of this foundation was grounded in the commerce that New Orleans saw after the Louisiana Purchase. Due to its location, it became the most important trading center in the country until the 1940's (Stewart). This helped it to become the cosmopolitan center of the South, with cultures from French, Creole, Black, Indians, Greeks, Serbs, Chinese, Finish, and ever greater amounts of diversity (Stewart). Having this unique foundation of music and diversity exist so deeply and profoundly in a way unseen anywhere else in the world is a major contributing factor to the emergence of jazz.

            New Orleans also produced an environment from which the first jazz artists were able to appear. These musicians may have never come to be had it not been for the nurturing capacity of the city from which they came. This included musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, who produced a more abstract approach to looking at music (Gioia, 38), and Louis Armstrong, who helped to create the solo within large groups (Gioia, 48). New Orleans offered them the collectivist culture that was needed to form the paradoxical environment necessary for soloists to exist, by having an interesting dichotomy between large groups and the persons within them. Only a place like New Orleans- which provided a mass culture while also nurturing individuals could generate this.

            The potentially greatest factor to consider, however, was the Spanish influence in New Orleans. New Orleans was a center of trade with Mexico and Latin America. This created a huge intermingling of ideas that occurred from trade. Beyond mere trade though, was the influence of the Mexican national band. In 1884, the World's industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition was held in New Orleans (Johnson, 225). The Mexican national band was sent to perform, and afterward, many of the members stayed. Even though they were classical performers, they became the music teachers who taught many of the great jazz musicians how to play. They popularized the use of woodwind instruments, such as Florencio Ramos introducing the saxophone (Johnson, 229).  Their mentorship and guidance led the way for many talented musicians. And without the use of  woodwinds, such as the saxophone, the essence of jazz would have been unknowably different. Without these contributions, jazz may have had a very dissimilar existence- one with a disparate history and a great amount of stylistic divergence from what is now understood as jazz.

Commented on Jacob Weverka