Reflections

A big part of my impression of this class is the emphasis we placed on taking a more holistic approach to jazz history by thinking a lot about how jazz is a product of its total environment and also how communities and cultures were, in turn, created by jazz.  This process is a part of what Bahktin’s dialogic imagination seeks to describe.  My first encounter with the dialogic theory, however, was through its use as a counterpoint to Ken Burns’ theory that superlative individuals make jazz.  The dialogic theory instead claimed that the creation of jazz takes place as a dialogue between community and performer.

From the start, the idea of superlative individuals developing jazz appealed more to me, as this certainly seemed to be the means by which innovation takes place in classical music.  Particularly, coming into this class, I held the general notion that composers were the creators of new musical styles.  Certainly the now ubiquitous concept of the singer-songwriter shows a synthesis between composer and musician but it was in jazz that I first witnessed the spontaneous molding and creation of new styles that took place entirely through improvisation, without much conscious desire on the part of the musician to move in a particular direction.  Louie Armstrong is a prime example of a musician, who through his solo playing alone, had the power to alter the sound of a band and ultimately of the entire jazz soundscape (King Oliver, 48).

I think this was possible because of the dynamics of the jazz band and the extent to which this allowed individual musical “personalities” to emerge in the sound.  I underestimated how sensitive and adaptive these musicians were to each other on stage and consequently just how much the performance of a piece of jazz music depended on the style and idiosyncrasies of the musicians playing it.  Coltrane talks about what a dominating musical presence Thelonious Monk had on the piano and how Monk‘s leaving the piano for a few minutes completely altered the dynamic of the band and allowed for experimentation.  (Robin Kelley, 231)  Jazz is unique in allowing the essence of each musician to shine so transparently through the sound and I think this is a part of the reason why community and other non-musical aspects of the environment are so apparent in jazz.  In this respect, the evolution of jazz can sometimes be seen as the sum of disparate cultural and musical experiences different musician bring to the table.

The above describes the development of my ideas about how the dialogic theory shapes jazz music. The evolution of these ideas is paralleled by the changes, as we shifted our focus from city to city, in my understanding of how the theories of the creation of jazz through “genius” or through a community in dialogue, support and oppose each other.    From the beginning, Chicago provided one the strongest arguments for the creation of jazz primarily by superlative individuals.   The influence of the community was surely present there, for the sound drew heavily on that of their New Orleans predecessors, but, for example, individual genius seemed like the absolute prerequisite to the revolution Louie Armstrong began.  His authority as a soloist stood out glaringly in King Oliver’s band and this ‘hotness’ was not lost in translation as many young white musicians attempted their own imitations of jazz (Chicagoans, 159). 

On the other hand, I knew the fusion of ragtime and blues in New Orleans and also later the creation of New York stride piano and the Kansas city sound were all evidence of a new style emerging in the collision between two cultures, with no single musician apparently leading the charge and the music evolving naturally within a community.  So clearly it was not necessary, for a truly “superlative” individual, whose vision and talent were so beyond his contemporaries, ie. Armstrong, for jazz to grow up and assume a new sound. 

Modern jazz is rife with examples of both theories at work.  Bebop was developed amongst a small community of friends inspired by the visions of members Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.  (Miles, chapter 3) Their music was at its ideological core, one espousing individualism and anti-conformism, a direct reaction to what had become a stale and formulaic swing scene.  (Gioia, 190) One of their contemporaries, Thelonious Monk, also developed a style around the bebop sound, but one that was also completely unique and idiosyncratic of Monk as an artist and person.  Although both of these styles developed in tandem and were very much related, these musicians were also “superlative” in their unique approach and so it seems as if their style was the result of collaboration amongst a small community of very talented individuals.

And so my rather ambivalent conclusion at the end of this is simply that both theories of the creation of jazz must coexist at some level.  There are certainly entire styles that could not have emerged without one or two key musicians but also instances when no single musician could be held largely responsible for a development and the results really were a collaborative effort.

A Different Rebellion

In a 1969 interview the 52 year old Thelonious Monk notably said that he had “no reason..[to] go through that Black Power shit now”, having already fought more than his fair share of battles against racism growing up in San Juan Hill, New York (19).  Indeed, San Juan Hill at the time was a community of poor and diverse, but mutually unfriendly, “general laborers” living in filthy, decrepit apartments (16).  Different races were often geographically separated in blocks (18) and as Monk recollects “we had to fight…to walk the streets”(19).   There was a palpable anti-black sentiment that began often from the very bottom with white teachers and policemen and culminated locally with dramatic race riots that gave San Juan Hill a reputation for violence (17).  Even among blocks of black people there was tension between those from the South, West Indies, and those born and raised in New York. (18)

Amidst this adversity, however, sprang up a tight-knit but also culturally diffuse community of primarily black people that was “like a small town unto itself; every circle of friends seemed to overlap”, which would form the basis for many of Monk’s early musical experiences. (35)  The amount of variety was apparent from the start.  His first piano teacher was a Jewish neighborhood musician from whom Monk was mainly learning European classical music (26) while at home he was constantly absorbing Caribbean music from the West Indians (23) and ragtime and stride from local black musicians like Alberta Simmons who personally tutored him in piano playing (27).  His mom, who had a rich background in gospels and spirituals also provided a rich church music heritage which Monk would later specifically cite as the influence for parts of his performance like the unusual dancing (232).  As an individual, an important part of his development as a young man took place in the local community center, “a second home” for local black youth that offered various recreational and musical opportunities. (28) 

A sense of this community would remain with Monk throughout his life in various forms, such as through his nurturing wife Nellie, or his friendship with like-minded musicians or with the white baroness Pannonica who would aid him at many points. (Lecture, 2/28)  The support of these people would give Monk a personal security that is evident in his wry humor, aloofness, and in his adoption of a somewhat alternate masculinity (232), one that is expressive and sensitive. (2/28)  All this is nicely illustrated by his humorous, rather than overtly indignant response, that “everybody wants to be young”, to Larry Ridley’s complaint about “whites calling us `boys' and stuff like that” (417).  

His personality and way of dealing with discrimination would also inform his artistry.  When Thelonious Monk defiantly states in a 1959 interview that “[his] music is not a social comment on discrimination or poverty”, Robin Kelley interprets this not as a rejection of politics but rather a defense of artistry.  (249)  Monk’s music was not quite the metaphysical rebellion used to describe the activism of his contemporaries, like that of writer Richard Wright, in which “[one] attacks a shattered world in order to demand unity from it.” (Search for Beliefs, 21)  His approach is seen through an anecdote in which he cures his wife’s dissatisfaction with an imperfect wall ornament by deliberately accentuating the imperfection. (Lecture, 2/28) Monk embraces his frustration with an unjust universe by absorbing its dissonances, irrationality, into aspects of his art, his personality, and the ideology of his musical community and this in turn inspires a new community of followers which transcend the racism he had not sought to fight head on. 

By the late 50’s his art had attracted but also shaped, an entire community of modernist artists who “found in Monk’s angular sounds and startling sense of freedom a musical parallel or complement to their own experiments” (226).  They likewise were fascinated by the beauty of dissonance and irrationality.  His tenure at the Five’s Spot, especially, transformed the bar into a hot-spot of jazz where black and white intermingled in the audience (228) and turned him into a “sort of religious or sacred figure” (232), whose eccentricities were seen as the answer to “times of standardization and bland conformism.” (255)

However, shortly after the zenith of his popularity, in 1958, Monk was detained by police who found his company of another white woman (Pannonica) suspicious and after refusing to cooperate, he was beaten, his property searched without warrant, and his cabaret card confiscated (254).  This event was very much akin to Arthur Miller’s definition of tragedy in which “the human spirit [finds] itself caught within a scheme of things that degrades it” (Search for Beliefs, 19) and in this respect his continued strategy of subversion through art is poignant but also very natural for someone in his position.  Ultimately it would be a member of the jazz community that would offer Monk a new job and opportunity after the loss of his cabaret card (256).  

*The citations of the form (n) with no apparent source are all from Robin Kelley's Thelonious Monk in order to reduce word count.  823 words including citations.