Monday, October 19, 2009

HUM 223: Paper due Friday, Oct. 30

Write a two- to four-page essay reacting to the following question. Remember, an essay has a beginning, a middle and an end -- or, in the terms you learned or are learning in English 111, a thesis statement that sums up the main point of your paper, a body giving evidence for your thesis and a conclusion in which you tie your evidence back to the thesis. The question is designed to give you a starting point, but it is up to you to turn it around into a thesis statement; in other words, you will either agree, disagree or partly agree and partly disagree with the premises of the question. Your paper should be typed, in 12pt Times Roman or 10pt Verdana type, with standard Microsoft Word margins. Cite your quotations from Vera Lee in parentheses. The paper is due in class Friday, Oct. 30.

As jazz evolved from its roots in folk music, gospel and the playing of New Orleans street bands, it gained something and lost something as it reached the wider audience of popular music. In the heyday of Dixieland and swing during the 1920s and 1930s, it became commercialized. In so doing, it crossed over from African American community to a predominantly white American culture.

"While many black bands thrived on blues and stomps, often in unfamiliar head arrangments, the white ones kept to a standard, recognizable repertoire of Tin Pan Alley tunes," says Vera Lee in our textbook, "Black and White of American Popular Music." Lee sees "a good deal of truth to the old stereotype which labels white band music of the time 'sweet' and the black ones 'hot'" (215-16), although she acknowledges the stereotype was overdone. As American popular music further evolved into bebop and modern jazz, it took on some of the attributes of art music. Again, it gained something and it lost something. Lee suggests that black bebop musicians of the 1940s and 50s sought complexity in their music partly as a reaction against overly commercial, under-talented whites (245-47). But she says the complexity took their music away from its roots in the African American community, where people "would turn instead to the more accessible rhythm and blues. And as for the bop experimentalists, ironically, they wound up performing mainly for white audiences and white critics" (254). On the other hand, in a preface to Lee's book, pianist and educator Ellis Marsallis says American society - and the music with it - has evolved to the point that race no longer matters. "Today, wherever I go, I can work with whoever fits the bill musically," Marsallis said. "As Miles Davis said, his musicians can be black, white or blue. None of that matters if they can play" (ix). Or, as band leader Duke Ellington famously said, "It's all music."

Vera Lee tries to give a balanced account of the role that racial attitudes played as jazz as it went from the music of a bounded folk community to America's most popular genre of music and then into a kind of art music. In your opinion, does she succeed? How much truth do you see in the stereotype that black musicians played a more authentic brand of jazz while whites played watered-down pop standards with a little jazz mixed in? Or are the differences between Dixieland, swing and bebop more about music? You can argue either side of this issue, or stake out a claim somewhere in the middle. But whichever position you choose, be sure to cite plenty of evidence from Vera Lee and whatever other sources you wish to consult.

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