Blog #2

Blog Post #2  

Chicago, in comparison to New York, I believe was the most important city to jazz during the 1920s. Chicago during the twenties turned into a city where black entertainment thrived. Depending on the social, economic, and racial conditions, Chicago jazz made a name for itself in history. 

Socially, the 1920s in Chicago was a place where black people sought out for dreams. Black people migrated to Chicago all with a shared dream that they were going to make something for themselves and had the idea of sacrificing your body so that their future descendants will become middle class. With this in mind, many people who saw an opportunity for them to become famous jazz artists, thought that the buzzing city of Chicago can give them a chance. Chicago at that time was a lively town with the contributions of gangsters, the mob, speakeasies, and the prohibition. Socially, the mob and gangster played a large role in creating a different jazz culture because gangsters were the ones really in charge of jazz players who they wanted to play for them and their clubs. Nightclubs and town areas became sanctuaries to jazz players and people of the city who enjoyed the jazz music that was brought up from the South. 

Economically, the city of Chicago helped the growing jazz culture to thrive with the rush of migrants that were drawn to the city because of the more opportunities jazz players were given to play in clubs that were also given larger amounts of money to perform for clubs. Many famous jazz players that came from all over the country i hopes to experience this kind of economic prosperity. According to Gioia, he writes, “But these players remained in Chicago not due to any loyalty to their native soil, but because of the vibrant local jazz scene and the financial security it represented.” Not only a new representation of jazz that flourished from Chicago and brought in the rush of jazz players, but it also became large enough in the city to give much more opportunities to jazz players who could earn a larger sum of money compared to performing in places like New Orleans. 

There were some racial conditions that played into the successes from jazz in Chicago. Jazz did create a conflict because artist would sign very strict and binding contracts that disallowed them from playing for other club manager or boss. These binding contracts had black musicians feeling like they were being slaves once again, but slaves to music. This would lead to a criminalistic scene amongst jazz players and may be a downside to the the culture of Chicago. 

Since jazz migrated up North from original cities like New Orleans, Chicago did create its own style of jazz. Gioia mentions that the music in Chicago, “Was still a paean to the New Orleans sound, but it also pointed forward to the later Swing Era preferences for tighter arrangements, greater expressive range and variety, and a more pronounced separation of solo and ensemble textures.” I think that the social and economic components in Chicago did help create a wider range of styles that jazz was being played into. Jazz of course was brought into the Chicago through the many influence that New Orleans had to offer. In these years, jazz in Chicago turned into something that appealed to a public image and the aspect that differentiated it from other styles the most was the improvisation. 

I think the the boys from the Austin Hill Gang can best describe the styles of jazz that Chicago as a city emulated. The Austin Hill Gang was a group of high schoolers that would listen to recorded music and simply just tried to play the way that the big shots in the jazz game would play, later composing a working band. This was the style of improvisation where jazz players can just listen to sounds of other jazz sounds and be influenced to play their own versions of it. The style of jazz in Chicago may never be understood as the advances in the different styles continued to grow throughout the jazz movement. For these boys of the Austin Hill Gang, they saw Chicago as a jazz sanctuary where any style of jazz can be accepted or formed into different appealing sounds.