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1920 in jazz

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1920 in jazz
Decade1920s in jazz
Music1920 in music
StandardsList of 1920s jazz standards
List of years in jazz
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This is a detailed summary documenting events of Jazz in the year 1920.

Jazz musicians born that year included Peggy Lee, Dave Bartholomew and Dave Brubeck.

Overview of Jazz in 1920

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Throughout much of the 1920s, the Chicago jazz scene was developing rapidly, aided by the migration of over 40 prominent New Orleans jazz men, including the New Orleans Rhythm Kings who began playing at Friar's Inn. Additionally, following Prohibition in 1920, the cabaret business began in New York City and the growing number of speakeasies developing in cellars provided many aspiring jazz musicians with new venues. This gradually saw many musicians who had moved to Chicago ending up on the East Coast of the United States. Meanwhile, classic blues and symphonic jazz were becoming more and more prominent as additional sub genres of jazz to consider.

Culture Surrounding Jazz in 1920

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The birth of a more urban and industrialized America was in part marked by the new style of music: jazz (Drowne 3). Leading up to 1920, America was becoming much more industrialized which led to the decade starting off with many strikes across different fields. However, as the decade progressed, the number of those in labor unions steadily decreased. Meanwhile, just before 1920, a racial division began to emerge between black workers and the veterans they replaced during World War 1. During this time, many blacks trying to get out of rural poverty moved north to big, bustling cities such as Chicago and New York City. Unfortunately, racial segregation and invasions of black neighborhood by whites led to many race riots in 1919. As prohibition led to many entertainment businesses expanding to include live music performances, it opened the door for many black jazz musicians to gain a following (Ogren 5).  Allowing jazz to rise up in American culture brought many unique things to music in 1920. New instrumental, orchestral, and rhythmic techniques were introduced, as well as twelve-bar blues, emotional expressiveness, a new scale, and unique forms (Murchison 98). In 1917, many jazz record companies began to conceal their identity because racial tension was on the rise and showed no signs of slowing down. This allowed them to overcome identity threats such as their association with illegitimate, but profitable products (Phillips and Kim 481).

The Jazz Debate in 1920

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“One can plausibly argue that the debate over jazz was just one of many that characterized American social discourse in the 1920s” (Ogren 3). In 1919, jazz was being described to white people as “a music originating about the turn of the twentieth century in New Orleans that featured wind instruments exploiting new timbres and performance techniques and improvisation” (Murchison 97). On the other hand, famous jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton said jazz is centered around melody, rhythm, and harmony. While white people often saw jazz as nothing more than syncopation and technique, black jazz musicians argued that improvisation and harmony are just as important. In addition to this, although jazz has mostly black roots, most people associate it today with white musicians (Dupree 288).

Jazz in Chicago

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By 1920, the African American population in Chicago was up to 109,594 out of 2,701,705 total residents (Absher 17). As African American culture in Chicago grew, so did racial segregation (Absher 19). This resulted in many black jazz musicians in 1920 having to defend their music against people who were trying to run them out of popular music and entertainment venues. After racially motivated violence broke out in Chicago in 1919, the local government created the Chicago Commission on Race Relations to hopefully help with the animosity between white people and black people in the city (Absher 30). In the midst of this rising racial tension, job opportunities for the majority of the black community became limited. Because many black people had previous experience playing musical instruments as a child, playing in nightclubs and other entertainment venues was proven to be one of the only options.

Race Relating to Jazz in 1920

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Despite the racial indifference that stemmed from jazz in the United States, white people were quickly catching onto the fact that this new music style wasn’t going anywhere and would eventually just have to be accepted and embraced (Anderson 135). Many white critics in 1920 would often refer to black jazz musicians as “savages” instead of musical artists and put down the genre altogether by saying that jazz was “strict rhythm without melody” (Anderson 136). Because jazz had caused so much segregation and tension between people living in big, urbanized cities, Chicago soon became a city of intense disconnect (Phillips 428).

Births

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George Handy, ca. January 1947
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
December

References

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  1. ^ O'Donnell, Maureen (2019-02-17). "Ken Nordine dies at 98; radio announcer & influential "Word Jazz" artist". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  1. "History of Jazz Time Lince: 1920". All About Jazz. Archived from the original on 2010-11-17. Retrieved December 2, 2010.
  2. O'Donnell, Maureen (2019-02-17). "Ken Nordine dies at 98; radio announcer & influential "Word Jazz" artist". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2019-02-20.

3.     Absher, Amy. “Musicians and the Segregated City: Chicago in the Early 1900s-1930s.” The Black Musician and the White City: Race and Music in Chicago, 1900-1967, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2014, pp. 16–47. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

4.     Anderson, Maureen. “The White Reception of Jazz in America.” African American Review, vol. 38, no. 1, 2004, pp. 135–145. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

5.     Drowne, Kathleen Morgan, and Patrick Huber. The 1920s. Greenwood Press, 2004. Accessed 19 Feb 2020.

6.     Dupree, Mary Herron. “Jazz," the Critics, and American Art Music in the 1920s. American Music, vol. 4, no. 3, 1986, pp. 287–301. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

7.     Murchison, Gayle. “Back in the United States: Popular Music, Jazz, and the New American Music.” The American Stravinsky: The Style and Aesthetics of Copland's New American Music, the Early Works, 1921-1938, University of Michigan Press, ANN ARBOR, 2012, pp. 95–123. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

8.     Ogren, Kathy J. The Jazz Revolution : Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz. Oxford University Press, 1992. Accessed 19 Feb 2020.

9.     Phillips, Damon J. “Jazz and the Disconnected: City Structural Disconnectedness and the Emergence of a Jazz Canon, 1897–1933.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 117, no. 2, 2011, pp. 420–483. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

10.  Phillips, Damon J., and Young-Kyu Kim. “Why Pseudonyms? Deception as Identity Preservation among Jazz Record Companies, 1920-1929.” Organization Science, vol. 20, no. 3, 2009, pp. 481–499. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

Bibliography

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