Stacey 1

Ella Stacey

SchWelte

Honors Humanities II

14 December 2020

How did Duke Ellington create jazz to be perceived as an art form in the music industry?

Context Essay Thesis: Jazz came from African American slaves that created spiritual music

about their hardships, which slowly led White citizens to accept African Americans as

musicians.

Jazz music didn't start as the swingy and upbeat music it is today, it started as songs from

African American’s slavery experience. The African Diaspora in the United States:

Appropriation and Assimilation says slave traders made African Americans be their

entertainment by whipping them and keeping them captives. They would sing, dance, and play

their musical instruments. According to ​The Creation of Jazz​, some slaves were not able to

create music, so they would sing at night in the dark where no one else could see them. After the

Louisiana purchase, slaveholders moved west and south to cotton plantations. Some of the

Southern United States has African American instruments today. In the north, slaves were

considered as part of the household and were encouraged to sing hymns and Palms as part of the

prayer services. These experiences also created songs like the Blues, which developed in the mid

to late 1800s. They sang about the rise of Jim Crow and how that limited their opportunity. “In

the Civil War… these songs showcased the suffering of African Americans under

slavery”(FOSLER-LUSSIER). African Americans used these experiences to create music and

communicate their difficulty to the rest of the world.

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These experiences from slavery made spiritual music. “Spirituals originated as slave

songs, but they were now carefully arranged in the European classical style and Song by clean

cuts choirs of Negro college students” (Perretti). According to ​The Creation of Jazz​, to the North,

Christianity was mainly dominated by White Citizens, so the African culture and Christianity

were assimilated. African American music and dances were interwoven along with dancers and

drums with specific spirits in the late 1700s. Black absorption finally started when there was a

rise in spiritual music. “Appreciative white listeners valued little black music besides the

spirituals'' (Perretti). White citizens started to listen to these songs with a mix of Black and White

culture and they started to accept it. According to The African Diaspora in the United States:

Appropriation and Assimilation, the 1700s started to see a rise of churches in both the south and

the north. These choirs would repeat what the leader said or sang by singing. African Americans

wanted to present themselves so that the European Americans would respect them. White

citizens that were musical could find common ground with these singers. In a Nashville

Tennesse college, the students went out of their comfort zone to perform spiritual songs, which

talked about slavery and in hopes would encourage people to think of them as equals. “‘One

observer cited the choir’s ‘wild, delicious’ sound; another delighted in the ‘strange and weird’

music that recalled the harsh conditions under which African Americans survived’”

(FOSLER-LUSSIER). White citizens were starting to accept African American spiritual music,

and even enjoy it.

Jazz originated in New Orleans, and it started to grow as more people migrated from the

Great Migration. Most Black musicians made Chicago their prime destination. According to ​The

Creation of Jazz​, “More than 60,007 blacks migrated to the city in five years after 1915 more
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than doubling back black population there, and as many as 120,000 followed them in the late

1920s.”(Burton). During the Harlem renaissance, many others started to feel like they had a

place to express themselves. The Farish Street Historic District: Mississippi's Little Harlem says,

“Alongside other Black-owned businesses, cabarets and clubs welcomed all visitors, including

the most famous Black artists of the day.... African Americans did not have to sit in the balconies

or enter from the rear as they would in White theaters” (Luckett). African Americans everywhere

were starting to feel accepted and like they had the opportunity to showcase their talents. The

Harlem Renaissance also brought a type of music genre called concert spirit, which was more

similar to the European music. These spiritual songs started to become more like jazz when

artists like Kid Ory started to experiment. Kid Ory said, “We used to stand on the bridge, you

know, at night… In the dark, just couldn’t see anyone, no one could see us [or] hear us, you

know, sitting on the bridge. Get us a few ginger cakes, and we was all right” (Burton). Ory

would create bands and instruments with his friends when he was young, just to experiment, and

he would soon become one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Many other Jazz musicians

started to come out and show their talents, one being Louis Armstrong, a jazz trumpet player.

Louis Armstrong, Eccentric Dance, and the Evolution of Jazz on the Eve of Swing explains that

Dave Peyton, a musical critic, could see a difference in Louis Arstrong’s playing and how it was

more eccentric. Armstrong “brought us an entirely different style of playing than King Joe

[Oliver] had given us” (Peyton). He said Armstrong had more jazzy figures and was releasing a

new style of jazz. Another famous female African American singer, Ella Fitzgerald, also played

a big role. According to Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz, Updated Edition,

Ella grew up listening to another great Jazz musician at the time, Louis Armstrong. “But it was

Armstrong's concept of improvisatory liberty with lyrics, the way he made them swing, and his
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variety of attack and inflection that had a profound effect on both jazz and popular singing of the

day” (Stuart Nicholson). She listened to Armstrong as a child, which helped influence her

musical style and swing of jazz. Ella’s church also helped her shape and establish her musical

foundation, because it was some of the first formal music making she had. Many important jazz

musicians also had similar experiences. As Ella started to become famous, she would play in

places such as the Cotton Club, which was a white bar. She and other jazz musicians were some

of the first to break that barrier. “Maybe I’m stepping out (of line), but I have to say it, because

it’s in my heart. It makes you feel so bad to think we can’t go down through certain parts of the

South and give a concert like we do overseas, and have everybody just come to hear the music

and enjoy the music because of the prejudice thing that’s going on” (Ella Fitzgerald). Ella took

those first steps of standing up for her and other African Americans by performing and doing

what she loved because she wanted her music to be appreciated by everyone.

Ella wasn't the only jazz musician that helped with racial equality, artists like Duke

Ellington also had a big role. Duke Ellington is a composer, piano player, and was in a jazz

orchestra. According to The Marketing of Duke Ellington: Setting the Strategy for an African

American Maestro, Ellington hired a manager, Irving Mills, whose goal was to change marketing

and production to be more important for African American artists. “Mills needed to accomplish

more than just selling the music and his band; he had to create an image of that circumvented the

racial segregation that divided the entertainment world” (Harvey G. Cohen). Mills made

strategies that decreased stereotypes. Ellington used music as a long term form of activism.

Through music-making, marketing, radios, sheet music, and so much more Ellington was able to

change race and culture by creating a larger audience and being inclusive with everyone that
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wanted to listen. He helped the jazz genre become more popular and took away the entertainment

Industry's separation of African Americans.

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NHD Annotated Bibliography

Nickoloson, Stuart. “Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz, Updated Edition.”

Google Books​, Google, 2004, books.google.com/books?hl=en.

This book was published by Stuart Nickolson, who wrote about Ella Fitgerald’s life through

friends and coworkers and the interviews he has with them. There are many quotes from the

people she was around and how people perceived Ella. It talks about Ella’s childhood and how

she was able to become talented, famous, and influential. This informative book gave insight on

a more personal level with how she came to be, which was through her determination and other

African American musician’s examples. This source could be biased, but because he uses quotes,

it is more accurate. The goal was to inform the reader about Ella’s life and what she did to

become talented and famous. Seeing that Ella found herself through other African American jazz

musicians supports my argument of how jazz changed peoples lives because it communicated

freedom and opportunity. Ella was able to become who she is because she saw others doing it,

which communicated to her she had the opportunity to do it as well.

Peretti, Burton W. ​The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race and Culture in Urban America.​ University

of Illinois Press, 1994.

This book was published by Burton Peretti from the university of Illinois, who is a historian that

researches urban history, cultural and social history, and jazz. It goes through how Jazz was

created through slaves, then spiritual music, and then into jazz. It also talks about Kid Ory’s role
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and what he did to influence jazz. This source is useful because it gives good history and

background knowledge to my topic. It also gives specific insight to a specific musician, Kid Ory.

It could be slightly biased because it was second handwritten, but he introduced evidence and

stories about someone’s life. This source gives another insight to other artists, just like many of

my other sources do. It has helped my project because I learned more about music and its

history. It gave some context to how jazz artists came to be. I have come to learn that music is in

fact a form of communication, and that’s how it spread and influenced other African Americans

to join in.

Robert Luckett. “The Farish Street Historic District: Mississippi's Little Harlem.” ​Fire!!!,​

vol. 4, no. 1, 2017, pp. 20–54. ​JSTOR​,

www.jstor.org/stable/10.5323/fire.4.1.0020. Accessed 4 Dec. 2020.

This journal was written by Robert Lucket who is the associate professor of history and director

of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University. He wrote about the history of Harlem

and how it is connected to African Americans. It talks about all kinds of art and culture and how

they were brought up in white towns like Harlem. This source, like my others, gives some

background information and history about how the African Americans brought their culture to

the United States. The goal of this source was to inform people about the Harlem Renaissance

and how it affected the arts. It showed how culture and creativity came through difficult things

like racism and Black codes. This source has helped me gather some information on how people

were treated and how they influenced the spread of culture. It also helped me realize that music

and jazz came together because so many people were moving and gathering in one place to

express their culture.

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Harvey G. Cohen. “The Marketing of Duke Ellington: Setting the Strategy for an African

American Maestro.” ​The Journal of African American History​, vol. 89, no. 4,

2004, pp. 291–315. ​JSTOR​, www.jstor.org/stable/4134056. Accessed 4

Dec. 2020.

This Journal by Harvey Cohen who teaches at King's College London about history and culture.

It was about Duke Ellington's life and his rise to success. It talked about his manager Mills, and

how together they were able to become popular and do things other african American musicians

could do. The source goes through ways that they changed the music industry and introduced

jazz into it. It talks about Duke Ellington and is another example of how music is a form of

communication and how it brought whites and blacks together. He was one of the first to be able

to get special treatment like other white musicians, which cleared the path for everyone else. It

could be biased, but it uses quotes from Mills and others. The goal was to inform people about

Duke Ellington’s life, which relates to many of my other sources about a specific person. This

source shows that even though his intentions were nothing political, he just wanted to bring

people together, which is what music does. He decreased racism by just communicating his

music to everyone, and not just specific people, which brought people together. It made me

realize that Duke Ellington’s goal was to unite, which he used music as a form of communication

and entertainment to do.

Harker, Brian. “Louis Armstrong, Eccentric Dance, and the Evolution of Jazz on the Eve

of Swing.” ​Journal of the American Musicological Society,​ vol. 61, no. 1, 2008,
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pp. 67–121. ​JSTOR​, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jams.2008.61.1.67. Accessed 4 Dec.

2020.

This journal is written by Brian Harker who is a professor at Brigham Young University. It is

about Louis Armstrong’s life and how he came to be. It talks about where he performed and the

new styles he brought to the table, and how everyone was noticing the different styles and feel

his music had. The goal of this journal was to inform people how Louis Armstong influenced

jazz. It is similar to my other sources because it brought in a new perspective from another jazz

African American artist and how he helped with racial inequality. He, like many others, helped

lead the way for other musicians by going out of the box in his performing. He helped pave the

way for other jazz artists from music and communication. This supports my argument because

Louis Armstrong changed music into a new style and brought in more creative ways to play,

which ended up to be jazz. His ways communicated to others, which is how jazz spread.

Leslie woodhead, ​Ella Fitzgerald​, ​Smokey Robinson​, ​Jamie Cullum​, Eagle Rock Entertainment,

2019, Ella Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things

This documentary was made last year and was about Ella Fitzgerald and was erected by James

Leslie John Woodhead who is a british filmmaker and produced by Reggie Nadlosn who is a

filmmaker. This documentary is about Ella Fitzgerald’s life and what was going on in that time.

There was one clip from it where Ella spoke about racism, which is a very hard and rare thing for

musicians to do. This source is not biased because it is an interview with Ella Fitzgerald. It

helped bring in a more racial equality perspective into my research. The documentary is made to

inform people about Ella’s life and what she did to change jazz. This brought in the perspective

of how African American musicians felt about what was going on, and how much they wanted to
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change it. It showed that Ella was purposefully trying to change things and make it better. It

shows how she wanted to use her fame for good and by helping other African Amreicans. The

documentary supports my argument because she wants her culture and music to be accepted, so

she spoke up about it.

“The African Diaspora in the United States: Appropriation and Assimilation.” ​Music on the

Move,​ by DANIELLE FOSLER-LUSSIER, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor,

2020, pp. 68–92. ​JSTOR​, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.9853855.10. Accessed 12

Dec. 2020.

This book was written by Danielle Fosler-Lussier, who is a professor of music and associate

director for Graduate Studies at The Ohio State University School of Music. It is about how

slaves made music from their trials, that then became spiritual music, which white people

enjoyed. It talks about how they wrote their music through their trials and how they used that to

help others accept it. This was made to inform people about the origins of jazz and how it came

to be. This helps add some background information to my other sources because it shows how all

of the jazz artists became who they are. The book supports my argument because it explains that

as life went on, african american music slowly got more and more accepted by White citizens by

communicating through their hardships.

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