By Demetrius Dillard
Jazz is much more than a musical genre. It’s a pure reflection of Black intelligence, creativity, artistic skill and cultural expression.
Virtually no Black musical genre would exist without jazz. From James Brown and the disco/soul groups of the 1960s and 70s to De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, J Dilla and many more hip hop groups of the 1990s – and the countless R&B hits over the past half century – jazz has nearly shaped every Black-dominated music industry into what it is today.
Also serving as ‘elevator music’ and often the music of choice for live bands at cafes, in addition to background music in well-known movies, jazz has proven to be so influential that it can be heard or used in almost every segment of American society.
The overarching theme behind the historical significance and influence of jazz is the considerable effect that Black people have had on music globally, and as Steven Lewis puts it, “African-American influences are so fundamental to American music that there would be no American music without them.”
Lewis, a curator at National Museum of African American Music in Tennessee, mused on the global impact of Black musical contributions in an article headlined “Musical Crossroads: African American Influence on American Music,” which was published on Smithsonian Music’s website.
Black musical tradition’s most distinctive features can be traced back in some form or other to western and central Africa before making its way to the U.S. through the Middle Passage, Lewis pointed out.
“The music of African Americans is one of the most poetic and inescapable examples of the importance of the African American experience to the cultural heritage of all Americans, regardless of race or origin,” he wrote, going on to chronologically arrange the importance of the banjo and jazz music.
Lewis paid homage to Jazz icon Miles Davis. Other legends of the genre include Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, just to name a few.
“Jazz is another iconic example of African American musical hybridity that occupies a central position in the Musical Crossroads gallery. In the late 19th century, African American musicians combined popular songs and marches with African American folk forms like ragtime, sacred music, and the blues to create a new form of heavily syncopated and improvisatory music,” Lewis wrote.
“Jazz, as the music came to be called, today occupies such a central place in America’s cultural heritage that many fans and scholars call it ‘America’s classical music.’ The Musical Crossroads gallery tells the stories of jazz musicians through their music and through objects such as a suit jacket designed for jazz innovator and fashion icon Miles Davis.”
With deep-rooted connections to slavery, the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights Movement and other social and political movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, jazz also served as a form of expression in shaping Black pride and social change.
Furthermore, jazz has become a highly regarded academic discipline, acting as a subject matter for numerous research papers, novels and scholarly essays. Toni Morrison’s “Jazz” transfers musical elements into a stylistic concept, writes Elena Kramer in her research paper.
“In Jazz, jazz music is used as a metaphor for African American identity in its most productive form. The music successfully fuses African heritage and American tradition and is therefore an authentic expression of the African American self,” Kramer wrote.
Since its inception, jazz has played an essential role in the Black American experience. The rich history of jazz and its musical spinoffs epitomizes Black innovation, despite the harsh realities and adverse conditions inflicted upon Black people.
“Faced with racism, discrimination, and segregation, blacks have always found comfort and a sense of peace in their music,” wrote Zola Philipp in “The Social Effects of Jazz.”
“Despite the negative social conditions that blacks faced, some blacks were still able to benefit and gained respect, stardom, and recognition for being the inventors of jazz music.”
