The Impact of New York Jazz

The era known as the Roaring 20s was an important cornerstone of American culture. Jazz was increasing in popularity and so were the metropolitan cities that supported the music. Chicago jazz was known for its “rough, segregated, and competitive style where those talented enough thrived” (Lecture, 1/31/2013). On the other hand, New York jazz was known for the Harlem Renaissance, “an era symbolized for black cultural and intellectual life that reflected community pride for all African Americans” (Gioia, 93). Thus, New York was more essential to jazz than Chicago was because of the existence of two Harlems and the introduction and impact of stride piano.

New York surely brought the Harlem Renaissance which experimented African culture with “a full range of human expression of poetry, fiction, visual arts, music, history, sociology, and various other disciplines in which creative thought flourished” (Gioia, 94). Yet, another Harlem existed, the “slums of Harlem which reflected a crueler reality and less promising future where one meted out daily in the cost of food and shelter” (Gioia, 94). The Harlem slums flourished with rent parties, which were fully musical and thrown for a small fee in order to pay for the month’s rent.  However, because there were two Harlems, social classes existed even within Blacks. In fact, “middle-class and upper-class black families were ambivalent about embracing vernacular elements of African-American culture,” (Gioia, 95) even banning blues to be played in homes. Yet, Harlem was a centerpiece of all African cultures including Northern ragtimers and Southern bluesy, folksy Blacks that collectively meshed together.

But the fact that African Americans from the North and South developed syncretism in Harlem produced some social tensions between Blacks. One solution to assuage this problem was stride piano. Stride piano was a style of ragtime jazz that included “an oom-pah left hand coupled with syncopated right hand figures” (Gioia, 100). This style was a “pathway that assimilated traditional highbrow culture, lowbrow nightlife, and became the symbol of middle-class prosperity” (Gioia, 96). Therefore, stride piano “attempted to bridge the gulf between highbrow and lowbrow, compromising in finding a fertile middle ground” (Gioia, 96). In addition, stride piano allowed improvisation in ragtime for creativity and imagination to flourish. Improvisation allowed “taking what is around and what has gone before, which as a result, created a new art and community out of it” (Lecture, 2/5/2013). Improvisation also emphasized jazz as a dialogue between performer and community, similar to M.M. Bahktin’s Theory of the Novel which describes the “intrinsic connection of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed, in this case, jazz between the musician and his/her community” (Lecture, 2/5/2013). This new type of jazz incorporated the diversity of different musical styles including ragtime, blues, Chicago, and stride, making New York the “crucible in which the fusion of styles took place” (Gioia, 106). Thus, stride allowed Harlem rent parties to emerge effectively, and introduced Harlem Cotton Clubs that shined on Black performance, while separating the "hot" and "cold" styles of jazz.

Because of the existence of the two Harlems and stride piano, New York was the integral highlight of 1920's jazz. In fact, influential musicians such as James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum thrived. They represented New York jazz at its best because of their superb abilities to play stride piano. They created a Harlem stride tradition that continuously flourished throughout New York and ultimately paved a pathway for big band jazz and swing jazz styles to form.