The History of Jazz Part I: Prehistory

Jazz is often thought of only in terms of its stars. Miles Davis on trumpet and Coltrane on sax come to mind. While these and other stars did have a huge impact on jazz in America, there is a lot more to the music than its celebrities. My hope with this series is to give people some insight into the lesser-known sides of jazz.

In the first section of this series I will focus on the musical influences that made jazz what it was, and what it has become. This is the history of jazz before it became jazz.

I. Slave Music Lays the Foundation

The first evidence of music that would become jazz was seen in 19^th century New Orleans. In Congo Square-where Louis Armstrong Park is today-slaves would come together to play music, sing and dance together.

These dances would often start when one person started pounding out a rhythm on a makeshift drum. Other percussionists would join in, followed by a slave playing a stringed instrument made from a calabash. Soon, the dancers would begin to gather. Drawings from this era confirm that these slaves were playing instruments almost identical to those used in indigenous African music. The dances, and the documentation of them, show us a tie and place when Europeans were exposed to African ritual.

Except for an interruption during the Civil War, these dances seemed to last until about 1885. They disappeared at about the same time that the first jazz bands started playing in New Orleans.

Slaves in New Orleans, most taken from West Africa, clung to what social elements they could carry with them to the colonies. Music and folk tales proved to be the most resilient of these elements. New Orleans' (relatively) tolerant stance on slaves meeting and playing music became the foundation of what would become jazz.

Minstrel shows had an odd impact on jazz. In these shows, white people would put on blackface and mimic (often in a derogatory way) slave culture. Later generations of black entertainers would imitate the white stereotypes of black culture. Hence the oddness: black entertainers mockingly imitating white stereotypes of black culture.