Class evaluation Blog

When I enrolled in this class, I honestly wasn't sure what to expect. I thought it was going to be more music oriented class, with the history of how the music came about. But what I found was that it was much more a culture-oriented class; in particular how the black community shaped, and was shaped by Jazz music through dialogue with the musicians (February 5 lecture, "The Novel"). This class has changed many of my preconceptions on Jazz, including the time periods and cities in which it flourished, the importance the genre had to black Americans, and the multiple styles that jazz entails. I honestly had no idea that there were so many different styles of jazz; learning about how each style of jazz developed, flourished, and disappeared was fascinating.

One aspect of the class, Swing, actually caught me off guard. I had no idea that swing music was actually a form of jazz. I had always imagined jazz as a sort of white movement, a 50s dance craze that was the foundation of Rock n' Roll. In fact, the sound was pioneered by black musicians like Duke Ellington in New York. Stride piano and the modernity of Jazz led to the bigger, louder, more upbeat "swinging" rhythms that swing is known for (Gioia 144-45). I realize now how wrong I was, but I can see why I had interpreted the music that way. While the style was pioneered by blacks in New York, whites began to take a fancy to the music; at this point jazz was no longer looked down upon. 
Benny Goodman's performance at Carnegie hall brought swing to a broader audience, and whites seemed to claim the genre as their own eventually. Black musicians were discriminated against, sold less records, and made less money. The class has shaped my understanding of swing from a genre of its own, invented by white musicians for white dance halls to a style of jazz, pioneered by blacks who were in turn exploited for their own creativity. White's turned the style into "their music" by feeding off the creativity of Blacks while simultaneously oppressing them. Eventually, blacks would reclaim the genre after the swing scene had become stale and overcrowded. In a "reaction" against swing, Bebop emerged, with more complex rhythms that were difficult to imitate (Stewart Bebop Lecture).
Overall, this class has been significant not so much in what I learned about jazz, although I did learn a great amount, but because of the Black history that the class imparted upon me. I feel more informed, more understanding of black culture, and got a better sense of what segregation and discrimination looked like in the past. It also gave me a better appreciation for the human psyche, because from oppression came a beautiful art form, that to this day remains relevant and important to Black Americans.