Chicago: A Cultural and Creative Hub

Both Chicago and New York offered outstanding creative cultures for the development of Jazz in the 1920s, but while New York jazz was sterilized and limited by predominantly white audiences and distributors, Chicago’s music culture allowed for the productive furthering  of the jazz sound as the new “American” music. The city reached its status following the Great Migration, a period of time during which hundreds of thousands of African-American people migrated from away from the painful history of the South to the promise and intrigue of the North. Of these numbers, an estimated 60,000 black people migrated from the South to Chicago alone. Though the movement was initiated in an attempt to seek better living conditions, as the music industry grew so too did the numbers of talented musicians from the South that sought employment and publicity in Chicago. In addition, the closing of Storyville in New Orleans eliminated the club culture that had previously enabled jazz to thrive, and musicians found themselves in need of something to fill that void. This migration of mass talent brought the seeds of jazz development from New Orleans to Chicago, where a mass new black urban culture began to take hold.

Within Chicago, jazz was able to take hold as an indication of culture beyond simply musical form. Within the city of immigrants, black culture took hold, with black stockyard workers as patrons of the developing entertainment culture.The city’s nightclubs and ballrooms became musical “sanctuaries” for both musicians and audience members, in which all involved could be free to openly express themselves and enjoy the merits of a self determined culture. This setting, free from the constraints and concerns of “whiteness,” allowed jazz music to become an embodiment of racial difference. These clubs also opened doors for musicians to play in a new environment free from the “rules” of New Orleans style playing, with fresh audiences and consistent employment. As time went on, the music became the focal point for audible entertainment, dance, and general social culture.

As the culture surrounding the music developed, so too did the music itself continue to evolve. The Chicago style of jazz featured a much more prominent soloist with a large ensemble background, with each member including their own degree of improvisation. The musician that best embodies the style and development of jazz during this period and location is Louis Armstrong, an outstanding character that came to become the most widely recognized cultural icon for the genre. Armstrong’s distinctive soloist style “closed the book on the dynastic tradition in New Orleans jazz”, marking a distinct new chapter in the evolution of the genre (Gioia, 53). His trailblazing as a soloist led the way for a countless other jazz musicians, modeling their band dynamic after his work or popular imitations of the same nature.

The entertainment culture of Chicago in the 1920s played a fundamental role in the development of the jazz genre. The clubs and ballrooms of the city created a cultural hub for black patrons and musicians, fostering a sense of community and creative expression. The city offered promise for those that sought the sanctuary of music clubs, and as the New Orleans style began to fade, the emergence of the soloist and the beginnings of the swing era took hold.

Commented on: Sven Joshua Walderich's blog post