"The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light" (Fitzgerald 41).
The Great Gatsby portrays the Prohibition Era, or the Roaring Twenties, as a time of parties, wealth, extravagance, and drinks. A falseness permeated the entire society, with "introductions forgotten on the spot" and fake friends who simply took advantage of wealth to move up in society (41). Parties were casual, with friendly but often insubstantial conversations accompanied by calming Jazz music. The music both shaped and was shaped by the parties. The music swells with an influx of people and the repeated and often improvised sections of the music matched the polite conversations that took place. The cocktail music is upbeat and welcoming, with a comfort similar to the alcohol that everyone is consuming. Music very much reflects and creates the mood of the party; the specifics of each song will not be remembered by the partygoer after they leave, similar to how they will not recall the other people they met at the party. By not distracting from the main party, the music creates a mood while not calling attention to itself. Even when the atmosphere is threatened by a "gypsy...
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...Put the Sin in Syncopation?" Ladies Home Journal (1921): 16-34. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.
Kellner, Bruce. "The Cotton Club." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 7 May 2014.
Savran, David. "The Search for America's Soul: Theatre in the Jazz Age." Theatre Journal 58.3 (2006): 459,476,546. ProQuest. Web. 5 May 2014.
"Speakeasies, Flappers & Red Hot Jazz: Music of the Prohibition." Riverwalk Jazz - Stanford University Libraries. Stanford University, 2005. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
"Swing Music in the 1930s (Overview)." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 7 May 2014.
Young, William H. and Nancy K. Young. "Swing Music and Dance." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 7 May 2014.
Also known as the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties, the American people felt that they deserved to have some fun in order to forget the emotional toll and social scars left from the war. The Jazz Age was appropriately named due to the illegal activities and good times, which included music, parties, and flapper girls. Jazz was a new style of music that originated out of the New Orleans area, where one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time – Louis Armstrong – began his career. The energy of jazz was a very new and almost uncomfortable style for the very traditional, rigid family of the 1920s. Young people in particular seemed to enjoy this new music the most, as it made them feel carefree. The energy of jazz was symbolic of the era’s trans...
3. Davis, Nathan T. Writings in Jazz. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Dubuque, IA. 1996. p. 152-153, 163, 166.
Jazz is an American genre that developed from ragtime and blues in the early twentieth century in urban areas of the U.S. This genre is characterized by strong, prominent meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors, and performance techniques. The development of Jazz made a postive, lasting impact after World War One ended. It became a way of bringing young people together. Jazz became the basis for most social dance music and provided one of the first opportunities for public integration. Subcultures like the gangs of New York and Chicago encouraged the subjugation of the black artists to the white man’s economic and social power, often resulting in gang leaders having complete control over
Interview footage of her colleagues, fellow musicians, and friends such as Annie Ross, Buck Clayton, Mal Waldron, and Harry “Sweets” Edison look back on their years of friendship and experiences with the woman they affectionately call “Lady”. Their anecdotes, fond memories, and descriptive way of describing Holiday’s unique talent and style, show the Lady that they knew and loved. The film also makes interesting use of photographs and orignal recordings of Holiday, along with movie footage of different eras. With the use of these devices, we get a feel for what Holiday’s music meant for the audience it reached. The black and white footage from the thirties of groups of people merrily swing dancing, paired with a bumptious, and swingin’ number Billie Holiday performed with Count Basie called “Swing Me Count”, makes one wonder what it might have been like to actually be there. To wildly swing dance to the live vocals of Billie Holiday must have been an amazing experience, as this film demonstrates.
The word “jazz” is significant to America, and it has many meanings. Jazz could simply be defined as a genre or style of music that originated in America, but it can also be described as a movement which “bounced into the world somewhere about the year 1911…” . This is important because jazz is constantly changing, evolving, adapting, and improvising. By analyzing the creators, critics, and consumers of jazz in the context of cultural, political, and economic issue, I will illustrate the movement from the 1930’s swing era to the birth of bebop and modern jazz.
Looking back in American history, America has tended to have different phases lasting around ten years. The nineteen-twenties will always be remembered in history because of the triumphal progress in many different areas. The twenties were a time of great change in America in many different areas. The changes were in the laws, the lifestyle of women especially and the moral values that they lived by. One of the major events that sculpted this era was prohibition. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the life of crime associated with prohibition causing the enormous transformation of Jay Gatz to Jay Gatsby, and also causing a tremendous change in America.
Jazz music prospered in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Jazz was created by African Americans to represent pain and suffering and also represented the adversity that racial tension brought. (Scholastic) African American performers like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker came to be recognized for their ability to overcome “race relati...
Prohibition had the most effect on The Great Gatsby's most notable charachter, Jay Gatsby. Bob Batchelor states in his book Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel, “Gatsby is a deeply flawed hero” (Batchelor 250). Gatsby is a hero because he was able to achieve the American dream by working hard to get to the top. Gatsby, however, was flawed because his dreams revolved around impressing and winning back Daisy. He was so blinded by his love for Daisy that he was not willing to achieve his actual dream. In the Great Gatsby, it is heavily inferred that Gat...
Rosenthal, David. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Carringer, Robert L.. The Jazz singer. Madison: Published for the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research by the University of Wisconsin Press, 1979. Print.
The Jazz Age was also a response to the First World War and to Edith Wharton’s “Old New York”. We see the youth generation of America disenchanted with the nation’s leaders following World War I, believing that, “the delicacy and pettiness of the older generation… led to the most horrible war in human history”. This way of thinking led to a new mood, “one composed of a new toughness of mind, a fresh repudiation of the Victorian ethic, and a very deep distrust of the rhetorical flourishes of the successful economic and political leaders”. Therefore the younger generation in the 1920s chose to rebel against the leaders of the older generation in the only way they knew how—expressing themselves through partying and acting out against the old Victorian guidelines for socie...
“His relaxed phrasing was a major change from the staccato style of the early 20’s and helped to set the stage for the Swing Era” (“Life & Legacy”). And as such a prominent artist, and in particular, jazz artist, Armstrong did not only change the perception of jazz and swing, but the views on African Americans and their culture. Armstrong and the Harlem Renaissance reflected black history and culture, and it became popular, even in white communities and clubs. Jazz as a whole genre helped further society’s views through the universal language of music, where any ethnicity could partake in it. And the revolution of jazz was lead by the stylings of Louis Armstrong. The duration of the jazz and swing era, lasting decades past the 1920s, symbolized the civil rights movement directly through the lyrics, sounds, and artists
Koenig, Karl. "Something About Ragtime." Jazz in Print (1859-1929): An Anthology of Early Source Readings in Jazz History. New York: Pendragon, 2002. 97-98. Print.
In the 1930s, Goodman gradually gained recognition at recording sessions and radio shows in New York City, where he later formed his first band and began performing weekly on NBC’s radio show Let’s Dance (Collier 89). Around this time, Goodman had his first number one hit “Moonglow,” clearly marking his progression as a bandleader (Collier 96). This exposure allowed Goodman to achieve greater national fame that provided the foundation for the beginning of the Swing Era. With a national audience building from his radio performances, Goodman’s upbeat, hot jazz swing style was gaining traction, leading up to a pivotal performance on his band’s tour in Los Angeles that marked the transition to a new era in jazz. At Palomar Ballroom, Goodman and his band performed their new swing music, which combined elements of jazz and popular American dance music (Firestone 204). The gig is generally accepted as the start of the Swing Era, as Goodman’s style of swing music gained overwhelming positive feedback from the audience. Since the performance was broadcasted on national radio, Goodman’s jazz music dominated headlines and catapulted jazz into the forefront of American popular music. As dancers craved the upbeat swing music, bands copied Goodman’s style, which led to the proliferation of swing music and the birth of the Swing Era (“Benny Goodman:
Ostlere, Hilary. “Taming The Musical.” Dance Magazine 73.12 (1999): 84. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005.