William Powell in "My Man Godfrey," 1937
Jazz the music will survive the wounds America has self-inflicted in the guise of deep cuts in government spending when economic growth has already slowed to a crawl. Jazz — as well as blues, rap, hip-hop, soul, bluegrass, chamber music and most rock ‘n’ roll — is fairly cheap to produce, given workers (musicians) who will accept pennies for hours spent doing what they love. So the devil’s advocate is moved to ask: “Are hard times good for jazz?”
Artists and audiences will suffer along with everyone else across genre preferences except, I guess, the societally maladjusted superrich — though they too may find the continental U.S. less, er, pleasant, with fewer environmental protections, food and water inspections, police and fire departments, worse roads and airports, increased unemployment, less healthy/less educated employees (who won’t be able to afford to buy whatever they’re selling) and more need of body guards. A lot of money can be a buffer against a lot of ills, but it won’t filter the air we all breathe, the future we’ll all share. And with greater income disparity between the wealthy and the rest, conflicts will not abate; they’ll escalate and multiply.
But remember the Great Depression, aka the Swing or Big Band Era? Or more likely reading about it, hearing its stars? The orchestras of Ellington, Basie, Goodman, Shaw, Waller, Lunceford, the Dorseys, Glenn Miller and many more gave the huddled masses something to dance about. Great voices/soloists including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Charlie Christian, Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Fats Waller and so on emerged from the hoi polloi — seldom the swell’s class — to express themselves, conveying life beyond toil and trouble even while looking that stuff dead in the eye.
Whether the Swing Era is dated, as Gunther Schuller has it in his book of the same name, as starting in 1930 or as Wikipedia says 1935, launched by Goodman’s breakthrough three-week stand at LA’s Palomar Ballroom, the period encompasses both the lowest years of the 20th century in the U.S. and those producing the most enduring achievements of our popular arts (besides music, also songwriting, standup and slapstick comedy, fiction and the movies). Not that widespread depression is a must have for the creation of entertaining diversions — there was hot jazz throughout the Roarin’ ’20s prior to the stock market crash in ’29; there was cool jazz and an unprecedented explosion of other pop forms from the post-WWII late ’40s through the early ’70s, when the U.S. withdrawal in expensive defeat from Vietnam and a disgraced Republican president’s resignation let to national exhaustion (not to say “malaise“). But in the Swing Era, when the possibilities of big, fast money earned from bootleggers and their best-heeled customers evaporated with the bursting of a financial bubble and the legalization of booze, musicians seemed to feel liberated rather than oppressed, and set themselves to making life a bowl of cherrys, and meaning a function of swing.
I’m spitballing here, haven’t done any research, don’t know if there is statistical supported argument that upbeat music and sweeping entertainments really proliferated during the era of the breadlines, the dustbowl, hoboes riding the rails and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s stabs at Keynesian fiscal stimulation policies (which worked, when steadily applied). Yet the extravagant fantasies of Busby Berkeley musicals, the anarchy celebrated by the Marx Brothers, the escapism
approved by The Wizard of Oz and determination winning over travail in Gone with the Wind: is that the kind of stuff smugly self-satisfied people would favor? During the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s success in popular music was one of the few vehicles for personal survival, if not sure upward mobility — and strangely enough it proved to be that again in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when urban youth without ways out of deteriorated city centers re-purposed discarded turntables and scratched records in service of a musical movement that reflected life as they knew it, not just what they saw on tv. Maybe in the 20teens Americans will be thrown back on their own imaginations and easily accessed devices, to come up with some new music that boosts spirits, overcomes obstacles, soothes grief.
Necessity is the mother of invention — who said that? an ancient Roman — and when things are bleak, you gotta shake ‘em off. (When things are ok, maybe the time’s right for more esoteric, self-reflective, edifying pursuits.) In the USA circa 2011, there are many under-employed musicians, and here’s betting in 2012 unless corporations start hiring, the recording industry revives and some genius develops a business model for the Web’s legion of content providers there will be even more. If those young players, smart people with sharp ears who want to have fun, connect their expressive energies to the rhythmic zeitgeist, they might attract eager multitudes who have just a dollar or two to spare on live performance rather than purchases from the iTunes store (because their old Macs are broken, and Steve Jobs won’t discount Apple products).
"Forgotten man" Godfrey wins scavenger hunt for rich, endearing brat Carole Lombard
It might be too late for us oldsters who can no longer crash on pals’ sofas over the course of protracted bus tours, whose disposable income is reserved for expensive medicines and treatments not covered by our costly health insurance plans, who haven’t the spark that can make living joyously without do-re-me seem like a lark. But we’ve had our glory years. Look what they got us — defeated while partying, victims of no-nothingism, bigotry and capital run amok.
Maybe a new generation won’t mind being burdened like citizens of a third world country, juggling multiple temp jobs to cover basics with verve leftover to blow passionately into the wee hours. Maybe there will be enough trust fund babies and derivatives brokers to finance a gutsy new style that rallies both them that’s got and those who don’t.
But no, I take it back: poverty and strife aren’t good for anything, war’s worst of all. And as Billie Holiday sang, the ones who worry about nothin’ are the children who’ve got their own.
There’s always jobs in entertainment, although for one dancing beauty in white there’s always one hundred of sweaty men in black who crouch under white pianos while making the instruments move. Eighty years later, one would notice our black reflections in even blacker floor, and remember us. Maybe.
Cyril knows his stuff, Moscow-native and author of the first Russian history of American jazz. He’s editor of jazz.ru and author of science fiction novels, a member of the Jazz Journalists Association — from all that and what more, this vivid image?
Prohibition and the Great Migration were both “good for jazz.” The rise of the speakeasies contributed to the spread of the music and the musicians who were able to play it. I think Isabel Wilkerson’s quote of Richard Wright in the epigraph to her recent history of the era, which, although it mostly ignores jazz, may have some meaning for jazz as well:
“I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown. I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom.” [No pun intended by strange "winds"]
Both Prohibition and the Great Migration continued after the stock market crash of ’29. I would say that swing music was already well under way by the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933. I also think of it as a mostly regional style incubated in Kansas City, where, in 1929, Count Basie had joined Bennie Moten and political boss Tom Pendergast would play a role by keeping the nightlife — including the after-hours jam sessions — going non-stop for most of the 1930s if I’m not mistaken.
The speakeasies gave way to the more spacious ballrooms which could accommodate both dance crowds and “battles” between two big bands. No ermines and pearls required, plus the live radio broadcasts became essential during leaner times.
I guess my answer would be “no,” but mostly because it doesn’t sound right to say that poverty is good for jazz.
The great thing about jazz is that financial poverty and/or insecurity has been omnipresent, but some very great artists have been able to be creative and productive despite that. I think artists are not unlike other humans; resources help us all survive and thrive and being without resources really isn’t to anyone’s advantage, though it may strengthen one’s resolve to find some way to secure more.
Maybe the flourishing Swing Era is and was identified with the comparatively few big bands and stars of those bands who got the gigs,(with punishing time on the road between gigs), some of whom who were recorded, and whom we still can revere because they were recorded. Uncounted others played locally only, and played and sang pop country and polkas and “race” music, but not jazz.
I’m much less sure that the argument applies outside the U.S.
For me, in the UK, it seems that the U.K. swing music of the 1930′s (before my time) was characterised by society dance bands ( which sometimes did include players like Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins) and entertainers – which included Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington’s Orchestra and other imports and , above all, their radio exposure. But the choice of musical preferences was not driven by the economy.
“Jazz” played in this country was the product of individuals mostly inspired by American originals rather than a ground swell from deprived economic conditions.
It might be argued that the Skiffle Movement and perhaps Punk in this country derived from people with low, or no, income wanting to make music. (like the Blues ?)
I think patterns of entertainment change with economic conditions and if jazz is to be found in those lower cost entertainment venues it might be an influence. There are fewer ‘entertainment dollars’ to be spent and people seek better value.
Ken Peplowski says in his patter these days ‘Thank you for choosing us for your entertainment dollar” (even in England!)
Swing is happy music and whatever the economic situation, just listening to it makes one feel better. Try it and see!
If jazz makes something from nothing, can having something to lose get in the way of living in the moment? How important is the economy to artists who must live by their wits to create? Economist Joseph Schumpeter defined profit as the cost of staying in business in the future. Without profit, businesses die or get bailed out by government. Regardless of profit, jazz musicians continue.
I love your first question here, Steve. But I do think the economy has considerable impact on everybody: artists who live by their wits have to scramble even more cleverly (maybe that’s why the music of the Depression and jazz up from impoverished circumstances like Armstrong’s is SO good, “entertaining” and all-inviting). Artists carry on, regardless — and government mostly ignores them. I’m seeing a lot of young jazz musicians carrying on, but they have to have some wherewithall to do so, and jazz is not the art form of opportunity it was for the disenfranchised of the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s anymore.
No one is bankrolling gigs or recordings like the past and the number of musicians competing for dwindling gigs is rising. For non-touring musicians, local work at clubs, weddings, recordings, schools etc. is impacted – clubs can only afford smaller groups, wedding planners are scheduling ceremonies in off season to save on venue costs, soundtracks are using digital reproductions or cheaper non union cities, music programs are cut from schools. Unemployed audiences may have more time to enjoy music, but not the discretionary spending to participate in the music business. These things cut into musicians making rent. Less public and private funding is available for uninsured healthcare costs. With home and health in jeopardy, how long can “wherewithall” survive?
Quite right, that’s the question. Will we move to a culture of all-volunteer (mostly non-professional) music-making? Because musicians just ***must*** play?
All volunteer is an unlikely extreme. Perhaps hard economic times will encourage some people to make their own music instead of owning, leasing, or stealing someone else’s muse. Don’t forget, just as musicians are driven play, audiences crave music. Imagine a world with no music to hear.
Musicians coming up today have so many more ways to create and audiences have so many more choices. Recent metal festivals and dubstep raves I attended in the Northwest were packed with young people in the audience. This music goes to extremes of love and hate. I don’t know how much revenue was getting to the talent but between tickets and merch, some serious cash was changing hands.
You neglect to mention that many of the original generation of jazz musicians, such as Armstrong bandmate Kid Ory, were unable to find work through their music during the 1930s and turned to other more stable employment (in Ory’s case, chicken farming.)
I’d say that the economically-booming post-WWII-era 1950s were a lot better for jazz — not only the swing artists propped up by the power of mass media, but for a wide variety of jazzmen across various subgenres: trad, cool, post-bop, latin, etc.
Although you turn everything around in your last sentence and seem to disagree with yourself, the idea that you build up about artistry born from poverty is an overly romantic and unrealistic one.
Because I agree the artistry-born-of-poverty meme is simplistic and over-stated, I backed off it at the end of my article. Also because of what you say — jazz flourishes when there’s $ to support it. There IS something, however, to the idea that those who persevere against unusual challenges tend to build up some muscles with which to do so. The coming decades I speculate will be like the post WWII ’50s, with mass media galore and a variety of musicians across all genres, but at this point in time I can’t foresee music alone allowing financial security for very many people — only those who get to the very top of the mountain through hard work, talent, luck, connections and the tenor of their times.