The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia Read Free Book Online

tom-tom. But you don’t muffle drums with parades, or going back from the cemetery. At most there were eleven or twelve men in the whole brass band. 11
     
    Sometimes the same instrumentation would be employed for dances, but in many instances a smaller subset of these musicans, often joined by string players, would be used. The repertoire of these bands was remarkably varied. In addition to concert and march music, the ensembles also knew a range of quadrilles, polkas, schottisches, mazurkas, two-steps, and other popular dance styles. As the ragtime craze swept the country around the turn of the century, syncopated pieces became more and more frequently played by these bands, a shift that was accompanied by increased interest in “ragging” more traditional compositions. This blurring of musical genres was, as we shall see, central to the creation of jazz music.
    The blossoming of vernacular music took place in tandem with a tremendous outpouring of European concert music, opera, and drama. The opening of the first major theater in New Orleans in 1792 initiated a vibrant tradition of formal musical and theatrical performance. Another major venue, the Théâtre d’Orléans, opened in 1813 and was rebuilt, following a fire, in 1819; the American Theatre followed in 1824; the 4,100-seat St. Charles Theatre, where Jenny Lind sang, opened in 1825, and it too was rebuilt following a fire, in 1843; the Varieties Theatre, established in 1848, was rebuilt on a different site in 1871 and, ten years later, became the Grand Opera House; the Academy of Music opened in 1853; the French Opera House, perhaps the greatest of these, opened on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse Streets in 1859, and stood out as one of the most elegant performing halls in the United States until it too went up in flames in 1919. In short, music of all types permeated New Orleans social life; whether high or low, imported or indigenous, it found a receptive audience in this cosmopolitan city. Indeed, has any metropolis in history exhibited a greater love affair with the musical arts?
    The influence of this highbrow, European musical tradition was especially strong within the local black Creole culture. The role of these New Orleans Creoles in the development of jazz remains one of the least understood and most commonly mis-represented issues in the history of this music. Part of the confusion comes from the term Creole itself. In many contexts, the word has been used to denote individuals of French or Spanish descent who were born in the Americas. As such, it was a mark of pride that distinguished descendants of the first settlers of New Orleans from later groups of immigrants. However, many of these early inhabitants had slave mistresses, and the offspring of these relationships and their later progeny constituted a second group of Creoles—the so-called Creoles of color or black Creoles.
    Many black Creoles were freed long before the abolition of slavery in the South. The famous Code Noir or Black Code of 1724, which regulated interactions between slaves and masters, allowed for the liberation of slaves with the consent of their owner. Paternal feelings, among other motives, led many slave owners to follow this course with these children of miscegenation. Even after the Civil War, these Creoles of color did not associate with black society; instead they imitated the ways of the continental European settlers, often spoke a French patois, and, in general, clung tenaciously to the privileges of their intermediate social position. Toward the close of the nineteenth century, this separate existence no longer remained possible for many black Creoles. Perhaps the most decisive turning point was the passage of Louisiana Legislative Code No. 111 in 1894, which designated anyone of African ancestry as a Negro. Slowly, but inexorably, these Creoles of color were pushed into closer and closer contact with the black underclass they had strenuously avoided for so