The Harlem Renaissance: Jazz Analysis

Jazz is a musical form, often improvisational, developed by African- Americans and influenced by both European harmonic structure and African rhythmic intricacy. It is often characterized by its use of blues and speech. .Jazz was starting to become a popular form of dance music at the same time of the arrival of the New Negro Renaissance, also known as the Harlem Renaissance, lasting from 1919 to 1939. This period in African American life was filled with black civil rights activists promoting self-consciousness. In an attempt to do so, black leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Charles S. Johnson, and Alain Locke sought to create a school of black literature because they thought that if blacks were to achieve greatness as a people, they

had to produce great art and master skills like math and science. Important black political leaders during the Renaissance including black nationalist Marcus Garvey and his Negro Improvement Association, A. Philip Randolph, a socialist who assumed the position as head of the Pullman Porters union,
and Du Bois who continued to push for civil rights and a form of
“Pan Africanism” that was against Garvey’s. He did this
through multiple publications and articles he wrote in magazines and newspapers.
Cities like New York and Chicago were crucial to the development and growth of jazz music, especially for black artists. African American jazz was played more frequently on urban radio than on suburban radio stations. The youth of the 1920's was influenced by jazz to rebel against the traditional culture of previous generations. As jazz became more popular, mostly white American elites, who preferred classical music and sought to expand its popularity, hoped jazz would not become mainstream.
The African American response to jazz during this era was mixed.

For many members of middle class, the educated blacks, jazz was considered low class, worldly music from the devil. Due to the original reaction to Jazz music, it began with having little to

no literary influence in the 1920s and 1930s.

The only black writer of the Renaissance who truly appreciated the new art form of jazz was Langston Hughes who, during his career, not only wrote many poems about it but also on occasion read his poetry with jazz playing in the background, even recording with Charles Mingus a bassist during the time.

Frank Marshall Davis was a poet and journalist from Chicago, also known for being accepting of jazz as shown in some of his writing. Jazz became much more prominent in black literature and became more accepted following World War II. Jazz music became much more self-consciously an art; people realized it was the type of music designed for listening rather than for dancing.

The 1960s was the era of the Black Arts Movement, when younger black writers wrote about their desire for race solidarity and denounced not only acts of racism but many things affiliated with white people. Due to the racial prejudice at most

radio
stations, white American jazz artists received a lot more air time than black jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver. Big-band jazz, like James Reese in Europe and Fletcher Henderson in New York, also became very popular on the radio. This style represented African Americans in the predominantly white cultural scene. Many of these writers were poets and a lot of jazz poems were written in to credit specific jazz artists, most notably, saxophonist John Coltrane, who was considered the most popular jazz musician of the time. A large portion of the young people at the time still appreciated jazz, partially because it became “art” music with smart, self conscious and spiritual message. Jazz presented itself as a form of music that took itself seriously it had a passionate strong message.