Tag Archives: concert jazz

On Copland’s View of Jazz

Posted on by
Reply

Aaron Copland, born November 14, 1900, is a composer best known for his incredibly accessible works, with pieces such as Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, and Fanfare for the Common Man being written in the 1930s and 40s. He was an American composer, although he studied in Europe for a good portion of his early career, and returned to America around the 1920s, where he lived in New York during the height of the quest to define what ‘American’ music was.

Copland composed in a great deal of styles, ranging from piano passacaglias to full symphonies. He was part of several jazz bands while in New York, as well as the League of Composers, and was well-known and respected, writing articles for their local magazine. One such piece was about George Antheil’s Jazz Sonata for piano, written in 1922, and was not well-received by the composer, although the original article perhaps did not warrant such a response. Copland wrote a letter to Antheil, perhaps to diffuse the situation,  in which he notes:

The idea of writing that article came to me as a result of the reception given your Jazz Sonata at a concert earlier in the season. All the music critics took the stupid attitude that you were a mere bluff, trying to scandalize the musical public…1

Considering that Copland was part of several jazz bands, it can be assumed that he is referring here to the negative perception afforded jazz and similar genres, even when written by white composers, something prevalent surrounding the time of the early Harlem Renaissance, when such music was to be confined to night clubs only. Copland’s view of jazz seems to be very positive, demonstrating that he was open to a variety of music styles, especially considering that this piece was most likely performed in a concert with other works, that is to say as an art song rather than a dance number or similar. This may demonstrate the shift from jazz being considered a ‘scandalous’ genre to something worthy of a concert, something with legitimacy.

Copland’s view of the actual makers of jazz, that is to say the black community, has to be extrapolated from several different letters, as he says nothing explicit about his ideas about black musicians and performs. In one letter to Carlos Chavez, a Mexican composer of renown, he notes that “Kids are like Negroes, you can’t go wrong if they are on the stage.”2 This was in discussion about his opinion of the opera The Second Hurricane, and the child actors playing several roles within. A footnote in the Correspondence collection states that “Copland may have had in mind Four Sains in Three Acts, which sustained Gertrude Stein’s modernist libretto and Virgil Thomson’s music by means of its black cast…” which although not part of his actual letter gives some insight into Copland’s surroundings at the time of writing. Taking his sentence literally, he certainly seems to have a positive view of black performers, a view that is supported further by his thoughts on the ‘Negro Voice’:

What a music factory it is! Thirteen black men and me – quite a piquant scene. The thing I like most is the quality of voice when the Negroes sing down here. It does things to me – it’s so sweet and moving. And just think, no serious Cuban composer is using any of this. It’s awful tempting, but I’ll try to control myself.3

Although this excerpt comes from a letter to Leonard Bernstein from Havana, Cuba, written in 1941, it still is useful in giving insight into Copland’s views. He views the ‘black voice’ as something to be used more often in songs, something that is ‘sweet and moving’. Granted, this is in Cuba, not New York. There are different politics in play, and indeed, an entire different musical style. However, I believe that this is indicative of a general appreciation that Copland has for music, without much consideration for who is behind it. He has previously noted that the consideration of jazz as ‘scandalous’ is stupid, he has noted that ‘you can’t go wrong with Negro performers’ and then 20 years later goes to South and Central American and enjoys partaking in their musical traditions. In this way, a sliver of his view: that music should be appreciated and recognized, comes through.

Works Cited:

1 The Selected Correspondence of Aaron Copland, ed. Elizabeth B Crist and Wayne Shirley (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 48. Accessed November 2, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.

2 Ibid, 118.

3 Ibid, 141.

Duke Ellington “Got It Bad”

Posted on by
Reply

Samuel A. Floyd Jr. ‘s “Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance” quotes that “The white show world of downtown New York, where a few black musicians performed and where black shows were also presented, was active, but after hours everyone, white and black, went to Harlem to hear black music.”1

Duke Ellington began his claim to fame starting in 1923, when he moved from Washington D.C. to New York to build his musical career. Within just one year, Ellington became the leader of his own band, which regularly performed at the Cotton Club. By 1930, Ellington and his band were playing all over the country and the world, winning countless awards, including 13 grammy’s and the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1999.2

George Redd’s observations imply that it was the more educated jazz musicians who helped to bring the two camps (white and black musicians) together. He points out that Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and others presented an image that was acceptable to the intellectuals. Ellington’s dignified bearing, his aristocratic flair, and his self-assurance in any company exemplified the New Negro, in and outside the jazz world.”1

And that is exactly what Ellington did. By the mid 1920s, Duke Ellington already established himself and his jazz orchestra as highly successful contributors to black music. But how could black composers further expand their brand while continuing to experience the inequalities of living compared to white people? One way that Ellington did so was by composing for a predominantly white profession: symphony orchestras, operas, and theatrical productions.
“Ellington and his peers used jazz not only to satirize white culture but also increasingly to parody the music itself thus shifting its direction from swing to bop.
Ellington reflected through his music the social and cultural changes that occurred as more African Americans were able to gain greater personal autonomy free from interference by white society.3

Ellington’s three-movement suite titled Black, Brown and Beige“ presents historical narratives of the nation. Black, Brown and Beige, a “tone parallel” to black history as Ellington describes, “uses sounds and themes associated with jungle style but recontextualizes their musical and racial meanings in ways that transform the style’s primitivist codes. The work’s three movements represent the monumental moments and movements in African American historical memory: slavery, emancipation, and urbanization in the northern metropole.4

During the same time period, a man by the name of Harry T. Burleigh was also a leading contributor to bridging the gap between black society and musicians to the white society and classically-trained musicians by composing and intertwining spirituals into the classical music tradition. Burleigh’s new ideas, however, got loads of backlash, as segregation still played a major role in American society at the time.

Van Vechten often made critical comments on Burleigh’s arrangements: “White singers have been attracted to Mr. Burleigh’s arrangements, because they include many of the ‘tricks’ which make any song successful, while the accompaniments are often highly sophisticated.”

Van Vechten claimed, when discussing the arrangements of Harry Burleigh, that Harlem Renaissance musicians should base their work on the twentieth-century music of the South. If they really wanted to preserve the spirituals, they should go to the South and do their own fieldwork. Philosopher, arts patron, and friend of Van Vechten also made strong jabs at people like Ellington and Burleigh, claiming that “the proper idiom of Negro folk song calls for choral treatment” and that Black musicians who were “in vital touch with the folk traditions of Negro music” were “in commercial slavery to Tin Pan Alley and subject to the corruption and tyranny of the ready cash of our dance halls and the vaudeville stage.” On the other hand, musicians (like Burleigh and Ellington), who had formal training, were in his opinion “divorced from the people and their vital inspiration by the cloister-walls of the conservatory and the taboos of musical respectability.”5

Regardless of the critics of the 1930-1940s, what Burleigh and Ellington did was create strides for racial equality through music. Ellington and his Orchestra will go down as one of the most influential musical groups in American history, not entirely for their catchy compositions, but for the impact they had on giving minorities a voice to make careers in whatever field they want, even with the backlash they often received from a predominantly white nation.

“What we could not say openly, we expressed in music, and what we know as ‘jazz’ is something more than just dance music.” – Duke Ellington3

Jazz: America’s Music

Posted on by
Reply

Manitou Messenger article by Allan Townsend 1956

In this article is presented a very enthusiastic and nationalistic view of jazz, which aligns with popular opinions today. The history of jazz has been quite romanticized over the past decades, but it hasn’t always been championed as the emblem of American music.   Jazz was a music that first emphasized the performer over the composer. It featured improvisation over conventional structure and overall was a very rebellious art form, both musically and socially. Racism at the time created a deep-seated opposition to jazz because its racial associations and untraditional aspects. Jazz went from an unacceptable and rebellious art form to America’s music. How did this happen? First there was a time where many people, including Oles thought that Jazz was an inferior and unsophisticated from of music. And a few decades later, it was celebrated as truly American music revering its original composers and performers.

Manitou Messenger  article by Soren Lura 1930

Soren Lura ’31, for example had a pretty popular opinion in his time towards jazz. His opinions reflect the opposition towards Jazz for its supposed barbaric and unconventional characteristics. He states that jazz is primitive and compared it to the music and dance of cavemen.  Oscar Overby, a guest speaker in 1931, also had a similar opinion to Lura with one exception.

Guest Speaker Oscar Overby

“Music develops the whole man physically, mentally and spiritually, and jazz only develops the physical…. However not all jazz is to be condemned. Some of it has good qualities which are being used in the modern school of composition.” ~Oscar Overby

Overby had an exception that jazz was not all that bad because certain qualities were being used in modern composition. This opinion reflected the racial prejudices and divide amongst people. So how did opinions of Jazz change from Overby and Lura to Townsend’s popular view? One explanation is exactly what Overby expressed. Many people might have become more welcoming to jazz as legitimate music when it was adapted for the concert hall. This again suggests that people were only accepting to what they thought of as the most prestigious and cultivated music and that there was a clear hierarchy in music.

George Gershwin composing

George Gershwin was known for his compositions to include jazz and blues idioms, however it was composed for an orchestra, or a small band, both already being established genres of music. Many of his compositions were highly regarded and became the symbol of truly American music. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue received much praise because if it’s unprecedented innovation in combining jazz and traditional styles, making it more palatable for white audiences. He of course received opposition as well, but over time, Rhapsody in Blue came to hold a permanent place in American music. It is interesting that as soon as a white man redefined black music for white audiences, it was celebrated.

Rhapsody Album Cover

In the recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, in the album, Rhapsody: Ferrante and Teiche and their Magic Pianos, there are elements of jazz and concert music. Firstly, the parts are written out, ignoring the improvisational aspect of jazz.  It was also meant to performed in a concert hall, instead of settings like speakeasies or rent parties, which ironically, Gershwin frequented. Based on its popularity and number of performances, Rhapsody in Blue popularized jazz for those who otherwise disapproved of it.

 

liner notes from album

Gershwin’s “cultivated” jazz also contributed to what people adopted as America’s sound. Gershwin’s work was so popular because he combined “low” music with modern music and provided America with a sound that was independent of European influence…even though we know it wasn’t.  This shows that even as people were struggling to define truly American music, they still turned to the belief that European styles were superior.  It is important to acknowledge these problematic issues because they contribute to the misrepresentation and erasure of a culture’s art and innovation.

Works Cited

ClassicFM. George Gershwin and the Art of America.

Ferrante and Teicher and their Magic Pianos. Rhapsody, Belleville, NJ. 1955.

Lura, Soren. “The Jazz Mania.” Manitou Messenger , 25 Nov. 1930, pp. 2.

“Oscar R. Overby Speaks on Jazz.” Manitou Messenger , 28 Apr. 1931, pp. 1.

“Rhapsody in Blue.” Nonesuch Records Inc. Nov. 1992.

Townsend, Allan. “An Introduction to Jazz.” Manitou Messenger , 3 Feb. 1956, pp. 3.