Jewish Americans in Jazz

Jazz music is a multicultural music, created and developed by African Americans using European instruments with Jewish Americans and others mixing in to further diversify the music. Jazz music was invented in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Originating in New Orleans, the music gained its momentum by getting a start in the red light districts. African Americans playing ragtime in the red light districts were the precursor to what was soon to become Jazz. As World War I came to a close Jazz started to enter the public arena. Two years later the prohibition of alcohol went into effect. This resulted in the creation of speakeasies, which allowed for Jazz music to flourish.

Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted. This allowed the music to poke and prod its way into white culture. Watching The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson we see that he is able to entertain a group of people that without him might not have welcomed Jazz into their club. The Jazz Singer is just one example of how Jewish Americans were able to take Jazz, music that African Americans developed, and bring it into popular culture. This opens the door for all kinds of hybridization among the Jewish American and African American communities. The film was seen as a glorification of Jewish assimilation into American culture as described by Ted Merwin in his current book, In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture.

George Bornstein writes in his book, The Colors of Zion, how African Americans were sympathetic to the plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. Louis Armstrong was willing to show his sympathy in an outspoken manner, going as far as being photographed with a Star of David necklace on. He was not the only African American who was sympathetic to Jewish Americans as we know that Willie "The Lion" Smith grew up alongside Jewish Americans and later discovering he had a Jewish ancestor of his own and converting to the religion. The idea for African American and Jewish American hybridity was not exploitation to boost their careers, but rather to show the melting pot reality of Jazz culture. Willie "The Lion" Smith is quoted in Bornstein as concluding that "They can't seem to realize I have a Jewish soul" after being heckled with baseball terminology describing Jewishness being a strike as well as African heritage.

Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz to where it is today. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." Goodman was leading a band named King of Swing, which was integrated. This was a big deal at the time as it was during segregation. However, it also proves the point that hybridity was a very real root from which jazz was propelled toward where it is today.

Notable figures

• Willie "The Lion" Smith
• Teddy Charles
• Irving Berlin
• George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
• Benny Goodman
• Joe Glasser
• Herbie Mann
• Stan Getz
• Lee Konitz
• Al Jolson
• Buddy Rich
• Artie Shaw
• John Zorn

References

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📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Jews in Jazz

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