Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-1930

by William Howland Kenney

The setting is the Royal Gardens Cafe. It's dark, smoky. The smell of gin permeates the room. People are leaning over the balcony, their drinks spilling on the customers below. On stage, King Oliver and Louis Armstrong roll on and on, piling up choruses, the rhythm section building the beat until tables, chairs, walls, people, move with the rhythm. The time is the 1920s. The place is South Side Chicago, a town of dance halls and cabarets, Prohibition and segregation, a town where jazz would flourish into the musical statement of an era.
In Chicago Jazz , William Howland Kenney offers a wide-ranging look at jazz in the Windy City, revealing how Chicago became the major center of jazz in the 1920s, one of the most vital periods in the history of the music. He describes how the migration of blacks from the South to Chicago during and after World War I set the stage for the development of jazz in Chicago; and how the nightclubs and cabarets catering to both black and white customers provided the social setting for jazz performances. Kenney discusses the arrival of King Oliver and other greats in Chicago in the late teens and the early 1920s, especially Louis Armstrong, who would become the most influential jazz player of the period. And he travels beyond South Side Chicago to look at the evolution of white jazz, focusing on the influence of the South Side school on such young white players as Mezz Mezzrow (who adopted the mannerisms of black show business performers, an urbanized southern black accent, and black
slang); and Max Kaminsky, deeply influenced by Armstrong's "electrifying tone, his superb technique, his power and ease, his hotness and intensity, his complete mastery of the horn." The personal recollections of many others--including Milt Hinton, Wild Bill Davison, Bud Freeman, and Jimmy McPartland--bring alive this exciting period in jazz history.
Here is a new interpretation of Chicago jazz that reveals the role of race, culture, and politics in the development of this daring musical style. From black-and-tan cabarets and the Savoy Ballroom, to the Friars Inn and Austin High, Chicago Jazz brings to life the hustle and bustle of the sounds and styles of musical entertainment in the famous toddlin' town.

Genres: Music, Jazz, History, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-researched history of the groundbreaking jazz music scene (live and recorded) in Chicago during the early decades of the last century. Kenney's advantages as a cultural historian are his knowledge about music, which helps him illuminate the innovations of black jazz players and band leaders as well as the uses made of those innovations by white bandleaders and players; his well-grounded thesis about the cause of the rise and fall of the scene; and his exhaustive research into numerous sources. His weakness, as might be deduced by the fact that this is a "cultural history" rather than a cultural studies text, is theoretical insights that would have helped him ground his thesis more solidly and convincingly into regimes of power and ontology/epistemology.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jazz in Chicago gave particularly sharp and memorable musical expression to feelings of giddy excitement and rebellious daring, stimulating powerful emotional experiences which permanently shaped our collective memory of that time and place.

Sweatman was famous for playing "the rosary" on three clarinets simultaneously and in harmony.

Run by two Kentucky sisters, Ada and Minna Everleigh, the club had even used hidden wall devices to shoot perfume into the rooms.

In the black-and-tan business, the race of the owner-proprieter could affect the taste with which black entertainment was presented to the general public and the courtesy with which black customers were received.

Breakfast dances from 4:00 am to midmorning on Sundays became a standard feature of the jazz age.

Jelly Roll Morton had imbedded what he alleged to be a diamond in his front tooth in order to radiate wealth.

Loise de Koven Bowen

In a world of prostitution, gambling, and illegal alcohol, music and dancing were lesser evils.

Prohibition required that saloons find something effervescent with which to camouflage the sale of alcohol.

"The young people were dancing with much vim and zest."

The main ballroom had a cushioned dance floor, where a middle-aged crowd danced the more tradition steps.

The Midway Gardens (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright)

Mezz Mezzrow

Jazz, as Neil Leonard has explained, often acted in this manner as a religion for many who had been cast adrift in the maze of urban America.

The Spoon and Straw at 5619 Lake street, owned by C.S. Lewis.

When Eddie Condon heard him play that fall, he remarked that Bix's "sound came out like a girl saying yes."

"Wabash Blues"

Such "Race Records" were intended to develop a working-class, urban, ethnic market for inexpensive phonograph records.

Mayo Williams

What could be interpreted as unusually close relations with black jazzmen, might also represent the taking of unfair advantage.

In October 1927, the Supreme Court refused to hear the cabaret owners' appeal of what Variety, always a supporter of the speakeasies, called the "hip" rulings.

[M.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. If you really want to understand where jazz came from and why it changed when it migrated out of New Orleans, you need to read *this* book AFTER you read by Kenney's later text, Jazz on the River. The two together explain to much and cover a good deal that even Louis Armstrong's biographers to date have missed. Kenney, a very good scholar, connects all the dots ... and suddenly jazz's evolution from New Orleans to Chicago to New York -- especially Armstrong's seminal role in shaping and redirecting the development of jazz, even as his own music **had** change in order to develop, because of his travels -- makes absolute sense. Kenney is completely underrated as a jazz scholar, but I'd put his two jazz histories at the top of any other books about the evolution of jazz, including the text that accompanied Ken Burns's wonderful PBS documentary series, JAZZ. In fact, you should only read/watch/listen to all the materials that Burns produced for that series **AFTER** you read Kenney's two volumes.

Sometimes, the clearest vision about a subject comes from someone standing apart from it -- and in the case of Kenney and jazz, that's absolutely true. If you love and/or want to understand jazz, get your hands on Kenney's two books immediately, then make sure you listen to the specific music tracks as you read about them. You'll find a lot of them uploaded to YouTube these days, so that part should be easy.

[L.M. Elm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great look into southside Chicago where jazz found its home. Kenney touches on the players and racial tensions that made Chicago jazz different from New York or New Orleans or elsewhere. Highly recommended for the music enthusiast or history lover.