Pro: The genesis of jazz in the early 20th century was Black American musicians incorporating their musical traditions. It grew out of the blues, and was subsequently influenced primarily by Black American musicians. It still retains these traditions, and its roots continue to be evident in the swing rhythms, syncopation, blues influence, and plaintive improvisation that are hallmarks of jazz.
Con: Although jazz came from Black Americans and their musical heritage, over a hundred years later the genre has been embraced and influenced by people of all countries and ethnicities, particularly after 1970. Its roots are still evident but it has evolved into a modern genre that can no longer be claimed by any one racial, ethnic, or national group. In fact, it’s even difficult to objectively define what jazz is today.
This is about music but posed as a debate so I put it in GD instead of CS.
I suggest it is possible to be a music theorist attempting to define elements of jazz without disrespecting traditional music, and that it is possible to be a non-Black and/or non-American musician and be 100% jazzo, so I do not agree there is as much inherent tension as you suggest. That does not mean there will not be any argument about what counts as “real” jazz, but it seems people are content to talk about cool jazz vs bebop vs modal jazz or whatever distinctions they want to make.
I’m going to ask a silly question. What issue is up for debate here? That jazz has its origins in African American circles isn’t seriously questioned by anyone so far as I’m aware. That it’s been embraced by those who aren’t African American, aren’t even American for that matter, is also unquestioned so far as I know. Hell, my only jazz purchase was a song by a Dutch woman named Caro Emerald.
The debate was inspired by a discussion of this question on Reddit where there was indeed a lot of inherent tension. That doesn’t represent how everyone feels in real world but is a spirited discussion.
When Miles Davis attended Julliard (so the story goes), a teacher was talking about jazz roots coming from slave songs and the like. Davis listened to this, then stated “You’re a fucking liar!” and left Julliard. That doesn’t make his opinion the final word on things, but it points out that there is considerable opinion on what jazz is or is not. Davis was outspoken on many issues, including his statement that white musicians couldn’t play jazz properly because they are “always behind the beat.”
As the OP points out, jazz is of American origins, but now comes from everywhere and often draws upon local music traditions. I don’t really see a debate here.
I’ve had this debate about Rock and Roll (barely half the age of Jazz), and the most definitive answer is that there isn’t a definitive answer. Eventually, you’ll start arguing about who manufactured or even invented the instruments used. It’s a rabbit hole with no bottom.
And the OP of that thread wants to claim that “Jazz Is Black American Music” in the sense of equating jazz with Black American Music, not just saying that jazz is a type of Black American Music.
Of the two quoted sentences, I think the first is too silly to be considering, for obvious reasons. Of the second, I don’t know whether it’s true, but if it is, does it matter?
I would argue that most American music is Black music, in that each distinctly American genre owes something fundamental to African-derived musical traditions. Even bluegrass uses the banjo.
It’s trying to map it onto race that doesn’t work. Music crosses racial lines, and relies on multiple sources. Jazz was absolutely a creation of Black people, no question, and therefore is “Black American Music,” but has been shared beyond the original community. When Lutherans play jazz, they aren’t being Black, but are certainly taking the lead from Black traditions.
Now, whether this is cultural appropriation is another question. I think not because it was freely shared, but one could argue.
The debate similar to my question starts farther down the thread. Unfortunately, unlike SDMB, the posts are not strictly sequential and aren’t given reference numbers. I’m not sure how to you point you to any specific posts.
Jazz music is unquestionably part of African-American culture. And, like most cultures found in the Great Melting Pot of America, it has therefore found its way into the culture of the country as a whole.
That, of course, is obviously false, because there’s also a lot of African-American music that isn’t jazz.
The subject line isn’t a debate it’s a subject line. But maybe I’m growing into a cranky old pedant in my old age.
Same here. As a youth, I associated a lot of early rock music with black Americans going so far as to be surprised to learn that Creedence Clearwater Revival, the folks who sang the version of Susie Q I was most familiar with, were white. I didn’t understand why I didn’t see a lot of black artists in the 80s performing new wave, metal, etc., etc.
Yeah, Black American Music seems overly broad. Is Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day” also Black American Music?
“Jazz started in the African American community,” is a completely true statement. “A lot of people who aren’t African American play jazz,” is also a completely true statement. I don’t any tension between these two statements. What is there to debate here?
If a naive person who has heard today’s jazz were unknowingly to listen to old-timey jazz, I mean real old-timey jazz, from as far back as recordings go, they would never call what they heard jazz. High Society by King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band (1923) is what they put on soundtracks to silent comedies. Miles Davis never played “jass” as it was spelled in the early days.
The Latins invented French. You can’t make a case that modern people in France speak Latin. French evolved from it. So did Spanish and Italian and Romansh and several other languages. All unquestionably trace directly back to Latin and unquestionably have evolved from it in ways that are broader and often unrecognizable to a theoretical native Latin speaker.
Two things can be true. In these cases, both are. No debate is involved in denying it, only ideology.
Similarly, food and cooking: tomatoes from the New World being an integral part of Italian cooking, or the fact that Tex-Mex or Chineese-American dishes don’t exist in the countries that inspired them.
All musical genres are influenced by all the genres that already existed at the time the genre first developed. They also were influenced by all the other genres that came into existence while the genre continued to be developed. Sometimes this influence was large and sometimes it was tiny. The only things it can’t be influenced by are genres that only came into existence in the future. It would probably be possible to create a huge chart with time as the one dimension in the chart and a set of lines showing how much influence the pre-existing genres made on each later genre as time went on. It would be so large a chart that it would be better to write a book about the influence of musical genres on each other. This thread is an example of why it’s better to read books about a subject when it’s so complicated that any thread on the SDMb or any other online discussion board would oversimplify the subject.
