Month: October 2018

Swing Dance: Jazz Roots and African American Art

Jazz dance began in the eighteenth century as a way for African slaves in America to keep their culture close. Traditionally, the dance was celebratory, and earth focused. Dancers kept themselves grounded and felt the pulsing vibrations of African drums through the earth. This happy and naturally human dance became their glue throughout slavery. In New Orleans, African slaves gathered to dance and socialize, but their dancing and drums were not understood by Americans. When Americans restricted their dancing, they began to meet in secrecy, giving rise to street dances influenced by jazz music and ragtime.

Of course, these street dances found their way into all the underground jazz clubs during prohibition. The styles formed from African dances made their way into the umbrella term “swing”. The popular styles “lindy hop”, “balboa”, and “shag” all evolved from African dances and jazz. When watching these completely different dances, we don’t see their similar origin. Balboa, a small stepped close form dance evolved because of strict Southern California rules where kicks and big movements were prohibited. The dance itself almost made a mockery of the rules it followed. The incredibly upright posture and tiny steps still look lively. People today who don’t know about balboa origins think the dance is humorous when they first begin. It is awkward to learn, but that is the entire point. The laws that had to be followed are actually ridiculous. When the same people who feel awkward beginning Balboa see a professional, they are usually quite impressed. This is a perfect example of how African Americans made an incredibly complex art, despite people who made every effort to keep them from doing so. My personal favorite form of jazz dance is West Coast Swing. It is danced to more smooth blues and funk music, which is actually the furthest from the traditional African origins. Even so, it is still incredibly grounded compared to dances that do not fall under the swing category. It relies on a strong partner connection and understanding that African artforms tend to focus in on.

Lindy Hop is balboa on a grander scale. Kicks and flips can be expected in this wild eight count dance. This style is probably closest to its original origins. It is also closely related to Lindy Charleston, which starts with a grounded pulsing and swiveling feet and can take many forms either with a partner or solo. These forms of jazz dance, when done with a partner, rely almost entirely on connection and decisive action.

There is a long list of swing dances that came from jazz, however, they all have one thing in common. They are incredibly free spirited and flexible. In other words, they are fun. Swing dancing is popular today in the styles from the 1920’s to the 1950’s. There are dance studios that mimic the feel of the 1920’s, people have Gatsby dance parties, and so on and so forth. In my opinion, this is a problem. There is not enough recognition for the history of jazz and jazz dances. These dance clubs are mostly white and exclude the history, culture, and people from a fascinating form of art.  Jazz dance is under looked as an artform and deserves to have its roots honored and its beauty admired, not diminished by people who don’t understand what lies behind it.

Ties of Jazz and Rap in United States Popular Culture

In the Broadway musical Hamilton, there are several extrinsically interesting musical choices. Specifically, because the musical centers around the founding of American government as told by black Americans, jazz music is portrayed in relation to the character Thomas Jefferson. It is fascinating how the musical specifically chooses to make Thomas Jefferson’s solo in a jazz style because he, in actual history and the musical, is mostly working in France.

The first reason that this musical’s choice is so brilliant is because the entire play is set in a hip hop and rap style. Thomas Jefferson’s solo, however, is in an old school, traditionally African American, ragtime style. Of course, this makes the character quirkily stand out. This juxtaposition in fact is a testimony to the way jazz stands out and tells a story unapologetically. In the sense of the musical, Jefferson is difficult to write into a story because his principals and ideas are so incredibly different and in conflict to most of the characters. Along with this, Jefferson is so often in France that it is awkward to write him into a story. The musical takes advantage of this character being out of place and connects it to what the audience already recognizes. People expect jazz to demand to be different. The genre implies complexity, awkwardness, power, opposition, and struggle. So naturally, the musical needed to put Jefferson and jazz together.

Hamilton also uses a very specific form of jazz. The use of ragtime and boogie-woogie are tied to the South. In reference to my post about Cab Calloway, there are very clear ties to the South in their use of scat music and the evolution of hip hop. This is a fantastic use of inspiration in Hamilton because they take so much from Cab Calloway and modern hip hop. Jefferson, a Virginian, would certainly be loyal to the Southern styles of music and because he was in France he remained loyal as such. Coming back to the US, however, he found himself in a sea of his own evolved culture with all of his collogues heavily affected and influenced by the close ties of jazz and rap. The same ties apply on a lesser scale to soul and funk.

Finally, the musical inadvertently brings to light something unfortunately widely true for the history of jazz and its ties to African American history. The access to the Broadway show was almost exclusively available to upper middle class and upper-class white Americans. Hamilton, although prided on its progressive stance and use of an all-black cast, primarily benefitted one group. It is a way for white Americans to profit off of and feel progressive by watching black actors. The same is also true for jazz. Southern African American jazz musicians played for the better, all white, jazz clubs. Upper class, white, often older Americans can appreciate jazz while at the same time demeaning rap music directly derived from jazz. They refuse to see the poetry in works by artists like Kendrick Lamar because it is associated with lower class, violent, or uneducated individuals, which bottom line perpetuates systemic racism

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Jazz Greats

The gorgeous and sincere voice of Billie Holiday dances with a piano as she poetically mourns over Southern history in a song called “Strange Fruit”. She represents how beauty, politics, art, and humanity are sisters of emotion. Her powerful song written about the lynching of African Americans in the 1930’s touches the soul of anyone willing to listen. The first line of her song “Southern trees bear strange fruit” introduces her topic with intrigue. She is seen preforming live in 1959 in front of a piano. Her eyes were distant, and her expression disgusted as she stood still, center stage, and described the bloody history.

Going on in the song, she sings “Blood on the leaves and blood at the root”. In this line she is not only referring literally to the brutally beaten and bloody bodies of African Americans. She is exclaiming how African Americans have a historically bloody history in their “roots” and black Americans, even as she sings (in the 1950’s), are being treated brutally. As powerful as that is alone, many stand in awe wondering how she sang such a protest in the 1950’s before the 1968’s when the major protesting of the world took place. One can imagine that Billie Holiday had little to no support and much backlash surrounding such a long, but the fact that she still chose to sing it in a time where she already didn’t have the upper hand in her own career is striking. It shows just how much the movement affected her, just like it affected the poet who originally wrote it.

“Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” brings the song to the commonality of lynching. She is comparing the hanged African Americans to fruit, a normal thing to see on trees in the south. “In the southern breeze” refers to the flow and way things are commonly done in the south. Poetically, Billie Holiday is bringing attention to the problem by making people think about their own ideologies in using something Southerners take pride in and forcing people to look at it in a different light. The next line in the song, “pastoral scene of the gallant south, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth”, takes a prideful piece of the traditional South and exposes its ugliness. The same idea is behind the next line: “scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, then the sudden smell of burning flesh”.

The poem the song is based on was written by a Jewish man who was haunted by a photograph of lynching. The poem itself seems like something that would come out of the 1960’s, a time when public protest and outcries were happening. The fact that this poem was turned into jazz music far before the 60’s is why the jazz age is so important and beautiful. In 1940, the writer of the poem, Abel Meeropol, was investigated. He was thought to have been paid by Communists to write the now popular song. Sacrifices by everyone involved were made in order for this powerful song to come about. It is for this reason that Billie Holiday is considered one of the jazz greats.