New Orleans and the Development of Jazz
Many years ago, Clay Smith wrote in Etude Magazine that "if the truth were known about the origin of 'jazz', it would never be mentioned in polite society (Rawson, 2004, p. 18)." The word, according to Smith in the 1920s and as described by Hugh Rawson (2004), was African-American slang for copulation, used both as a noun and as a verb; it may have been derived from some African language, but it was understood not only to refer to intimate sexual activity, but to capture such qualities as excitement, energy, and invigoration. Says Rawson (2004, p. 18), "The association of the world with the music is hardly surprising, considering that jazz flourished initially in the steamy atmosphere of New Orleans brothels." In fact, the association with this particular musical genre with New Orleans and with that city's African-American community is inescapable.
Without the special flavor created in the multicultural environment of this now-devastated city, jazz as we know it may not have developed. Today, old New Orleans "jazzmen" such as 92-year-old Lionel Ferbos and 81-year-old Peter Beatty continue to play the songs that they and their musical forefathers made famous around the world. Though filled with the debris of a major hurricane, the streets of the New Orleans French Quarter still resonate with riffs that capture the spirit of a place and a people.
Describing the relationship between New Orleans and Jazz, John McDonough (1995, p. 39) wrote:
New Orleans was the original multicultural city, and jazz would become perhaps the first enduring monument to genuine American multiculturalism. No race, language, or nationality holds true tide, emotional or otherwise, to the creation of jazz. Though the preponderance of its masters surely have been African American, Jazz's roots are entangled in the fusion of black, white, and Creole; African, European, and American; spirituals, rhythm, an...