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Beginning with the African musical heritage and its fusion with European forms in the New World, Marshall Stearns's history of jazz guides the reader through work songs, spirituls, ragtime, and the blues, to the birth of jazz in New Orleans and its adoption by St Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. From swing and bop to the early days of rock, this lively book introduces us to the great musicians and singers and examines jazz's cultural effects on American and the world.
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THE S T O R Y O F J A Z Z
This edition has been specially printed for the use of students of American civilization outside the United States and is not for sale
THE S T O R Y OF JAZZ
Marshall W. Stearns
N E W Y OR K OXFO R D U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS
To my wife, Betty, who routed the RaRa band under the balcony of the Hotel des Orchidds in Petionville while my daughter and I forgot our fevers and operated the tape re corder (e.g., ‘La F£te Rose,’ Ethnic Folkways Library, P 432).
Acknowledgments
For the last thirty years—ever since the Hot Five recordings—I have been trying to read all the writings on jazz, listen to all the recordings of jazz, and talk to all the musicians who play jazz that I could possibly discover. This history, then, is a synthesis, and I cannot begin to acknowl edge all my indebtedness to others, although I wish I could do so. Nevertheless, some of my obligations are clear cut. I should like to acknowledge here the material assistance of the Viking Fund, the Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I should also like to acknowledge the sympathetic understanding and moral support of the Hunter College faculty and staff and President George N. Shuster. I owe a special debt to the following friends who have been generous enough to read my manuscript, in whole or in part, during the past five years: Donald Allen, George Avakian, Philip Barber, Rudi Blesh, W. Bruce Cameron, Gilbert Chase, Harold Courlander, Ralph Ellison, Leon ard Feather, Norman Granz, William Christopher Handy, Don Heckman, Langston Hughes, Willis Laurence James, Roy Lamson, James T . Maher, Tremaine McDowell, Alan vii
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Merriam, Gunther Schuller, Jerom e Shipman, Dr. Ed mond Souchon, Richard A. Waterman, and Martin W il liams. I have also profited greatly from extensive conversa tions and correspondence with Arthur S. Alberts, Jean Barnett, Ben Botkin, Sterling Brown, Albert Collins, Henry Cowell, Stuart Davis, Roger Pryor Dodge, Stanley Diamond, Sidney Finkelstein, B ill Grauer, Dr. Maurice Green, S. I. Hayakawa, M elville J . Herskovits, George Her zog, Sheldon Harris, W ilder Hobson, Leon James, Leon ard Kunstadt, M. Kolinski, Eric Larrabee, Jacob Lawrence, Alan Lomax, Dr. Norman Margolis, Albert Minns, Alan Morrison, Edward Abbe Niles, Frederic Ramsey, Jr., David Riesman, Boris Rose, Ross Russell, W illiam Russell, An thony Schwartz, Charles Seeger, Charles Edward Smith, Ernest Smith, Hsio Wen Shih, Harold Thompson, Robert L. Thompson, Lorenzo Turner, T ony Van Dam, Bernard Wolfe, and John W. Work. I am under a special obligation to Robert George Reisner for preparing the bibliography, and to my editors at the Oxford University Press ana the New American Library, Leona Capeless, Carroll Bowen, and Marc Jaffe, for their patience and encouragement. Above all, my thanks to the many fine musicians whose history this is.
Contents Introduction
Part O ne: The Pre-History of 1. Jazz and West African Music 2. From Africa to the New W orld 3. T h e West Indies and the United States
Part Two: New Orleans 4. 5. 6. 7.
T he New Orleans Background T h e Transition to Jazz Jazz Begins Buddy Bolden and the Growth of Jazz
Part Three: Th