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,

. . .
w Orleans jazz men faced hard times as the Depression caused widespread poverty which was particularly devastating to the African-American community. Key figures such as Armstrong, Morton, and King Oliver had departed New Orleans and, to make it in jazz, a black New Orleans musician faced many challenges. It would not be until the 1940s that jazz enjoyed a new revival in the city where it was born. McDonough (1995, p. 39) has stated that the jazz music of New Orleans reached its prime just ahead of the recording industry that might have documented it. It did not become famous or worthy of recording until after it left New Orleans. McDonough (1995, p. 40) asks the question of why the musicians who created jazz left New Orleans and answers it as follows: Not because the whorehouses closed, as myth tells us. They left because they were part of the same Great Migration that uprooted thousands of other blacks (and many whites) in the greatest population transfer in American history--a migration driven by the availability of factory jobs in the North, a 1915 plague of boll weevils, and a succession of floods in the Delta that destroyed cotton crops in the South. And jazz did not really come north on the Mississippi River. Mus
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Buddy Bolden, Hugh Rawson, Jason Berry, Danny Barker, Orleans McDonough, Louis Armstrong, Illinois Central, Orleans Times-Picayune, French Quarter, King Oliver, louis armstrong, orleans jazz, buddy bolden, mcdonough 1995, berry 1996, french quarter, rawson 2004, jazz funeral, jazz music, laborde 1995, louis armstrong orleans, oliver louis armstrong, buddy bolden played, red light district, mcdonough 1995 39,
Approximate Word count = 2122
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

More Essays on New Orleans and the Development of Jazz