Chicago Jazz

The following is another simple class assignment based on a chapter from a cultural history of jazz in Chicago. The main purpose of the short assignment was to summarize a reading and offer some questions or different interpretations. The one thing I learned from this book, as well as several articles and texts on Chicago's jazz scene, is how detailed and important "jazz studies" can be.

“The Evolution of South Side Chicago Jazz,” from Kenney’s Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-1930, overviews the shifts in jazz music and performance in 1920s Chicago. According to Kenney, jazz music was increasingly professionalized through cabaret performances, stylistic expectations of dress, specialized musical training through formal or informal means, new repertoire that included more popular songs, the rise of a star system instead of folk anonymity, and instrumental virtuosity, perhaps best exemplified in the skills of Louis Armstrong. 

The movement of jazz musicians to Chicago led to performing for mixed audiences, absorption of Anglo-American musical culture, exposure to formal music theory, and “calculated primitivism” to appeal to some of the tastes and expectations of white audiences. Furthermore, African American composers, performers, and songwriters contributed to the standardization of twelve-bar blues, in addition to adopting faster tempos. In short, jazz’s evolution on the South Side contributed to a professionalization of jazz musicians and a commitment to music and instrumental virtuosity. 

In addition, the regional diversity of Chicago as well as its black population’s heterogeneity appears to have been a major factor in the evolution of jazz. Lil Hardin, for instance, did not come from New Orleans, and brought with her piano skills a formal music education background. Earl Hines also did not come from Louisiana, and black migrants to Chicago who were natives of the North or possessed a formal musical education, assisted in the professionalization of jazz, musical talent, and performance. 

Moreover, the diversity of Chicago’s white population similarly contributed to jazz. Armstrong, for example, studied with a German teacher, plus other jazz artists of the studied clarinet under Franz Schoepp, who also taught Benny Goodman. Chicago, though segregated, proved conducive to music education and a blending of musical cultures.