An article in a morning newspaper last week told of a South African-born musician who has come back to Africa in order to make contact with the “true roots” of jazz. The piece reiterated what seems to have become a politically comfortable fiction about Africa having single-handedly hosted the birth of jazz; that jazz is solely a “child of Africa”. There is no doubt
that African musical identity is of the very essence of jazz, but to imply, as this and other contemporary writings — and sadly, some musicians — have been doing, that jazz is somehow entirely African in its origins is to misrepresent.
Jazz did not first sound its voice in Africa. Any understanding of how jazz came about will reveal not only a multifold array of musical forebears but that, in geographical terms, the first jazz germinated and took root in the Southern states of America. Its earliest composers and performers were, almost without exception, black people, but in musical arithmetic and grammar, jazz owes as much to its European “roots” as to any others.
From its beginnings, jazz has used the diatonic system and its harmonies, however inventively wrought these usages have been. A vitally important factor in the infancy of jazz was its instrumentation: it was first played on cornets, clarinets, banjos, pianos and standard percussion instruments, all of which jazz was, in effect, liberating from a studious indenture of their own. The sometimes exotic instrumental sounds and phrasings of early pioneers like Bix Beiderbecke, the intricate stylings of Louis Armstrong’s bands were of a startling agility and approach, a new and heady expedition over yet unexplored ranges.
It is generally agreed that the emerging identity of jazz was heard in the early piano rags of the South. The most cursory analysis of Scott Joplin’s pieces and those of his contemporaries reveals established “classical” conventions. Rags were written in minuet and trio forms, they were modifications of the polkas, waltzes and marches that were the fashion of the early white South. To these has been added a distinctly African temperament.
But it is myopic when commentators, wishing to be politically chic, purposefully slight the profound European contributions to jazz. What they also disavow is that jazz is one of the most evident and supremely successful examples of multiculturalism the world has seen. Those who would suggest that jazz is something specifically, or indeed wholly African in origin and therefore, by implication, only truly authentic when played by black musicians, are indulging a decidedly unsalutary form of cultural snobbery. Such patronising misrepresentation discounts a lineage of formidably gifted white jazz musicians who could never claim African roots.
Jazz was the overriding musical influence of the 20th century. There can be few fusions of disparate cultural expressions that have been so wide, almost supervisory in effect. The entire body of 20th century musical expression has been infused with the eloquence that jazz gave, not only in its own forms but, by osmosis, to popular Western music. Severe classicism and late-flowering romanticism had all but ended with Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner. In the early century, French and Spanish impressionists and modernists were taking so-called classical music into new and ravishing spheres. But their influence on the total music of the century is actually negligible next to the way jazz changed everything it touched. In its many forms the reward of its avid musical personality is immeasurable: from the complex humours of King Oliver’s New Orleans through swing, the great standard ballads of the Gershwins and Cole Porters, numerous dance forms, through every phase and shape to the songs of today.
That jazz music had to undergo a stressed liberation of its own is a history unto itself. In a predominantly white society jazz music was for many years regarded with amusement and even open contempt. It was often regarded as little more than an urban night-time toy, not too serious. As late as the 1950s Cotton Club days, Duke Ellington was required to write and play “jungle” jazz as sop to the prejudices of smug white audiences who believed jazz needed to be kept safely in its paddock. The pianist, Errol Garner, recalled how he had to learn to play at a 45-degree angle to his keyboard so that he could present a tooth-filled “happy nigger smile” to the white crowd. But all that is another long story.
I have often wondered how one of the great masters would have responded to jazz. I’m sure Chopin would have been stunned by the piano solos of Fats Waller or Art Tatum. The reason that jazz would have captivated him is simply that it was speaking in the same language he did, but with new and exciting accents. He would have received this new music without first checking its birth certificate.
There are no “true roots” to jazz. With its wide and mixed parentage, jazz is a living triumph of inclusiveness, an extravagant musical hybrid. As the commentator, Alfred Appel Jnr said: “Art creates its own realities. It does not issue passports.”
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