Jazz in Relation to Popular Culture

Jazz in relation to Popular Culture

Humans want to interact with each other, it is a basic desire of all mankind. But as customs change over centuries, the way humans communicate desires has changed, furthermore, the situations that we create to express our desires has changed. This has given way to the common dating and romance atmosphere. With the turn of the 20th century, jazz music became a popular standard for people to meet and become closer together via the medium of dancing. The evolution of dance in the early twentieth century gave rise to the creation and popularization of jazz music.

To look at the creation of jazz, one must first look at the inspirations and influences that jazz music took as it was created. Jazz music was originally inspired by the former popular music of the time, marches and other brass heavy, fast tempo, orchestral and marching band pieces. This style of march was popularized and primarily dominated by the american composer john philip sousa. At the time these marches were the most dominant music for dancing in the late 19th century, but jazz would soon change all that. Early Jazz tunes of the period were heavily inspired by, or just variations of existing marches. This style, called ragtime, consisted of the main melody of these marches being syncopated and changed in instrumentation as well as tempo. This change in style also represented a change in urban culture, instead of leading more individual lives, people in cities were coming together to convene in merriment, and more specifically, to dance.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band

Jazz originated from the deep south, specifically new orleans and other more culturally diverse towns of the time. This new style of music was far more appealing to people in the gathering and dancing communities, as it’s syncopated rhythms and fast tempo made jazz music easy to dance to. It was this innovation that caused much of the dancing world to begin to develop in the early 20th century, and especially the 1920s. The first band to officially record and sell jazz music was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which played and further advertised the variations of jazz at the time. Playing ragtime music, as well as blues and one-step, the Original Dixieland Jazz band created the first standards for jazz musicians and jazz as a style. While this band was not the first to create jazz as a music style, they were the first to mass market it to the public through recordings and performances all over the united states. With this influx of jazz into the everyday man’s culture, jazz became a popular topic and attracted the creation of many other jazz bands. After ODJB’s success and marketing across the country, jazz became more diverse, with other groups using the same techniques and styles, but changing the standards to fit their own bands.

Over time, the standards of jazz drastically changed, taking the regimented styles of ragtime and marches and changing it to a more improvisation heavy style that focused more on the players talents, rather than the song itself. Over the years, this change in styles shows how jazz fell out of step with popular dance culture, or more specifically, how dance culture became less and less prevalent to society. Much like the economic law of supply and demand, jazz, and all of popular music changed relative to what the masses wanted to listen to changed. At the beginning of jazz’ creation, and continuing into the peak of its popularity in the 1920’s, the people wanted fast, brass band music to dance to at gatherings, and that’s what the bands of the period gave them. As time moved on however, dances and clubs waned in popularity, and jazz became a different kind of art, paving its own may as a musician’s music, rather than music for the people.

As much as musicians would like to determine the fate of their own music, the choice of whether a song is a hit or not is left to the people, and what the people want to hear to suit their needs is what makes money, and thus what survives. A successful musician records what the people will listen to, and what will make him money, while less and less musicians are playing jazz. The explanation is the change in culture, as people become more docile and interconnected in other ways and through other means, the need to listen to a live jazz band waivers. The ideology that a singular person should follow the herd is what drives the populace to change along with culture, switching jazz for blues, blues for folk, folk for rock, and rock for pop as time goes onwards. It is also the capitalization on this idea which made the earliest adopters of jazz successful, and it is still the standard for successful artists today.

Works Cited

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Hilderbrant, Edith L. "Music Memory Contests." The School Review 30.4 (1922): 300-06. JSTOR. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.

Howard, Jr. John Tasker. "On Folk Music." Art & Life 11.8 (1920): 451-53. JSTOR. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.

"Jazz History: The Standards (Early Period)." Jazz History: The Standards (Early Period). N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.

Morgan, Russell V. "Music and Morale." Music Supervisors' Journal 6.3 (1920): n. pag. JSTOR. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.

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