Harlem Jazz Revolution Research Paper

The Harlem Jazz Revolution No trend in the ever changing world of art has ever lived up to the rich symphonies brought to our nation during the 1920’s Harlem jazz revolution. Many take for granted the elaborately drawn out notes and passionate saxophone of their music today, remaining completely oblivious to the humble roots these musical aspects have. If you were to trace back their lineage, you’d end up in the poverty-stricken black communities of New Orleans in 1900. Drawing upon their ancestors’ days between rows of cotton plants and vegetable fields, these descendants, now sharecroppers, combined European and African styles and meshed them with the work songs and African chants of their history (the people history). Thus, jazz blues

Southern African American men actually found most of their work in Chicago and other parts of the midwest, and their music followed them there before it ever hit New York (jazz standards). As word spread about the brilliant new style of music emerging in Chicago, many white musicians actually moved there to get in on the action. What they found astounded them: a rich mosaic of dozens of sounds and beats they had never heard before. Jazz quickly spread to New York, being that it has always been the center for art and music, and jazz soon became known incorrectly as a product of the Harlem Renaissance. America’s entire culture then began to shift to suit this new soulful way of life; clothes, dances, even moral standards began to loosen up to the rhythm of jazz (the people history). But it wasn’t all flappers and fringe for everyone-- many African Americans in New Orleans believed that as jazz reached white audiences, it lost the very spontaneity and unconventionality that made it so alluring. They felt it had to be made more “polite” to suit its new listeners, which ultimately, in their minds, defeated the free and untamed purpose of jazz. On top of that, clubs in the north began being segregated into “White Clubs” and “Negro Clubs”