telephones, though the one invention that had the greatest impact remained the Radio. It soon
became people's favorite pastime. News and entertainment were directly provided along with sports, concerts, sermons, and "Red Menace" stories. But, most importantly, they could now listen to their favorite musician or singer, not only on their phonographs, but
also on the radio without leaving the comfort
of their home, as the growing popularity of
Jazz music took over the radio broadcast programs.
The birthplace of Jazz is generally
credited to New Orleans by African Americans tired of the repressive, unfair society. But, the music evolved and expanded to become socially acceptable to middle-class white Americans. Musicologist Charles Hamm described that by the 30’s, there would be three types of Jazz: black music for black audiences, black music for white audiences, and white music for white audiences.
Jazz trumpet artist Louis Armstrong, at first, received very little airtime because most stations preferred to broadcast white American Jazz singers, but in urban areas where the concentration of African Americans was higher, such as New York and Chicago, African American Jazz was played on the radio more often. Therefore, it is not surprising that Harlem, New York, became the cradle for the genre, where it also gave support to the African-American cultural, social and artistic Harlem Renaissance movement spanning the Twenties. The other major artists of the time were Duke Ellington and Count Basie, but with the changes in cultural acceptance and the debut of the flapper girl on the social scene, women began to make a statement, and left a imprint on Jazz, too. Bessie Smith, for one, as a Blues singer who gained attention because she was not only a great singer but also an African American woman, had a great influence on Jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday and many other artists who followed in their footsteps. As Jazz flourished, American elites, who preferred classical music, hoped to wipe out the provocative genre, but it had already found its way into classical music with composers such as George Gershwin and Herbert Howells.
With women now taking part in the work force, their head full of new ideas, like equality and free sexuality, more possibilities in terms of social life and entertainment were offered to them, too. Because the flappers were not all work and no play, they frequented Jazz clubs and vaudeville
shows. Speakeasies were a common destination, as they adopted the same blithe indifference toward prohibition as their male counterpart. They would party and dance until they dropped. The main popular dance, then, was the Charleston.
The Hot Five: Louis Armstrong, Johnny St. Cyr, Warren "Baby" Dodds, Kid Ory, and Lil Hardin Armstrong, c. 1925.
The JazzAge
The Charleston
Bee Jackson, world Charleston champion, the Picadilly Hotel Cabaret, London (1925)
14 | Ceres Magazine | Oct/Nov 2015