Brian Reager September 24, 2012 Professor Tietze Jazz and the American Identity

Jazz and the American Identity: Reflection #1

Art is the expression of human creative skills and imagination, usually allowing access into human emotions. Whether it is music, sculpting, painting, or dance, art has been widely accepted as a means to discover an individuals identity. Throughout our existence, the human race has had to struggle, mourn, and jubilate. Regardless of medium, art has been known to mirror these emotions through technical and aesthetic properties. Jazz is no exception. Jazz is, in a way, the identity of an entire group of people or an entire culture, as apposed to a singular person. According to Tietze, Jazz and individual identity are both intimately connected to the American experiencean experience where one must struggle and find ways of coping. Created and consequently expanded by the African American community, Jazz represents a blending of African rhythmic and expressive elements, with European musical elements, producing a unique musical structure and practice. According to Tietze, it was created as an attempt to balance the oppositional forces of life in its music. Thanks to Jim Crow laws that were notorious throughout the beginning of the 20th century, African Americans

found it extremely difficult to find places to perform their music. Tietze states in one of his articles that Jazz deals with the relationship between sadness and coping. Just as the African American community mourned and subsequently hoped to cope from their discrimination and socio-economic status, the musical and technical aspects of Jazz seemed to mirror these struggles. An example of this marriage between sadness and coping would be in the blues song by Robert Johnson, entitled, Come in my Kitchen. First recorded in 1936, the song is sung from the point of view of a man whose significant other left him for another suitor. Throughout the song, he regrets the fact that she will not be returning (Well shes gone, I know she wont come back.) in addition to finding ways of coping with it (I took the last nickel out of her nation sack.). The style of blues in itself helps to broaden the range of emotions by shifting into minor keys as well as a slower tempo. Another example of this relationship between mourning and finding comfort would be in Jelly Roll Mortons rendition of the 1902 song, Didnt He Ramble? The song begins as a funeral march, invoking a very somber tone. With the line, "ashes

to ashes, dust to dust, if the women don't get you the liquor must", the music
switches over to a jubilant jitterbug. This marriage of divergent tones is only one specific example of the many motifs that Jazz utilizes to communicate the AfricanAmerican experience. This mirroring of emotions to technical aspects of musical aesthetic is the very paramour of why Jazz is one of the most effective links to the

human condition. In addition to the technical and expressive qualities, Jazzs relationship to the human identity can be accounted for neurologically as well. According to Tietze, our brains ability to parallel process allows us to combine positive and negative social emotions with our imaginations. Thanks to this added emotional ingredient, it is easier to relate and find the identity and purpose behind another persons art as well as create art with emotional resonance. In the same way we use our brain to tell stories (through whole-brain activity) we are able to perceive musicin this case, Jazz. According to Tietze, human responses to music engage strong emotional and memory information. The different musical elements and influences presented in Jazz, access different parts of our brains, creating ones own unique emotionally charged perception. Thanks to the endless ability of the brain and its processing, we are able to connect emotional responses to not just Jazz, but all matter of art. What sets Jazz aside from all other styles of musicas well as all other matter of art, is the immediate imagery that is presented to us when we listen to it. When experiencing Jazz we hear the struggle as well as the accomplishment, the sadness and the jubilation, the glumness and the hopefulness, the pain and the healing, all within the same song. In the same way that our brain processes these conflicting emotions, Jazz seems to work just as hard to convey them through music.