Blog #5

I had assumed, coming into this course, that jazz was a style of music closely tied to black culture; and for the most part, that assumption was confirmed. Most of the leading artists in every new incarnation of jazz, from its inception in the early twentieth century on, were African American, and the stylistic elements that made Jazz distinct from other music styles were from African musical and dance traditions. For instance, the club Minton’s, mentioned in Miles Davis biography, was a source of great musical innovation in the Bebop style of jazz, was almost entirely black in its audience and performers. White people at Minton’s were rare and out of place. “… no matter how good the music sounded down on 52nd Street, it wasn't as hot or as innovative as it was uptown at Minton's. … you had to calm the innovation down for the white folks downtown be­cause they couldn't handle the real thing. Now, don't get me wrong, there were some good white people who were brave enough to come up to Minton's. But they were few and far between.” (54 ,Davis).

 There were white musicians at the forefront of jazz, but they were rare and usually met with skepticism by black audiences; Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, and Bill Evans, to name a few. Davis wrote that some people didn’t like that he chose Bill Evans as his pianist; People thought since his quartet was one of the best, he should have a black pianist. Miles even suggested that it is part of the reason why Evans left. “Some of the things that caused Bill to leave the band hurt me, like that shit some black people put on him about being a white boy in our band. Many blacks felt that since I had the top small group in jazz and was paying the most money that I should have a black piano player. Now, I don't go for that kind of shit; I have always just wanted the best players in my group and I don't care about whether they're black, white, blue, red, or yellow. As long as they can play what I want that's it. But I know this stuff got up under Bill's skin and made him feel bad. Bill was a very sensitive person and it didn't take much to set him off.” (231, Davis). On the whole, Jazz was dominated by black musicians.

Evans own theory of jazz challenged my preconceptions about the role of improvisation in Jazz. I had always thought of the improvisational process of jazz being something that defined it and distinguished from, say, classical styles of music. Evans, however, proposed that improvisation dated back to 17^th century classical music, but the art form had been lost.(Stewart, March 10) He thought that improvisation in jazz was a revival of that art form. If he was right, it puts jazz in a different context in musical history.