Blues People Negro Music in White America LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) Perennial ‘An Imprint of HarperColinaPublishested aoe ae Mat Ce ph me ein a gate "eps Ihege Wangs bye aco Soa “ ogee Mae Pasig Cf eso "Md ‘Rama Sa nord eyo Her and ss uo ops (hy Sane Copa ran ut en ay Tela epg 88 ir ‘lM Cant. Ne Yl, NY pro te "Hoe Lag Ham ang iy ey Can pg ENB ose ie eh enc OLA A mee Fr gen {omer Roby Cane PS yp MCN by {St ipo Agi one for peranc tom ny Fry br pg eS ye a Capron peered Wl pel ia Cp usm op 1588 y Les aan og © 199 ‘yam na Ain ent ft be Un Sauna No ‘ne pomancr exept eset grascs eee ce Seesovem Frm nso ent ren i pn eas ee tone Fer tama le te Spc Mss Depe Hepes en Ease oe Yr WY Pa Quiet bes 99 epi n Pema 02 yf ge Cag Pa De dh tn herr Nope an we alle. chiles shy on. woven 1orOLIOQM As 44 4189987 To My Parents (he fest Negrocs Lever metFor another class of Negroes, the blues had to get to them via the big dance bands the rest of the country was listening to, They were committed to the “popular” form socially, and, ‘as it turned out, emotionally as well. But the paradox of the black man’s participation in American life could be pushed further: "The inctessing popularity of swing arrangements on the Henderson model led to a general similarity of style in all the big bands, Negro and white. Goodman, Shaw, the Dorsexs, Harnet, Hines, Calloway, Teddy Hill, Webb, were all approaching the same standards of proficiency. There is 4 tenifying record, an anthology called The Great Swing Bands, on which most ofthese bands are represented. If they are played without consulting notes or labels, tis impossible to distinguish one from the other.”* ‘So, many’ of the new citizens had got their wish, At that particular point in the development of big-band jazz, the ‘Afro-American musical tradition seemed indistinguishable from the commercial shallowness of American dance music. With rithm & blues, blues as an autonomous music had re treated tothe safety of isolation. But the good jazzmen never wanted to get rid ofthe blues. They knew instinctively how they wanted to use it, eg., Ellington. The harder kinds of blues stayed in the old neighborhoods with the freedmen ‘when the citizens moved out. Rhythm & blues was a popolari- ‘ation, in a very limited sense, of the older blues forms, and in many cases merely a commercialization, but it was still an emotionally sound mesic Its very vulgarity assured its mean- ingful emotional connection with people's lives. 1 still inti- rated the existence of what I think to be a superior muse: city, classic, of country blues. Its roots were still evident and functional, Ttheld the blues line in the cities, and the radios gave itto the rural Negro as wel, 2a Wen Stab oe p72 Blues People | **** | 174 12/.... The Modern Scene It sfor tant of «conscious critical sense and the intl tual powers of comparison and classification that the Negro has failed to create one of the great cultures of feo nt nt from an ak ofthe reac pale, nor from lack of the most exquisite sensibility an ver fom cquisite sensibty and the (ocea Pa, Neg Sept) The Dues occurs when the Negro i sad, when he for from his home, his mother, or hs suet, Then he thinks of @ modif or» prefered rythm an thes his trombone or his olin or hi banjo hs clarinet, ot his drum, or else he sings, or simply dances, And on the hoven mot he plants the dept of hi imegination, Thismakes hse paseo he Bla, (Baus Ansaenr, 1918) When the swing style had runt oune and most bigand iat, exept the bucroriented bands inthe Southwest std the Ellington organization (and the "aitonal or New Ot Jean tet people stil around), ad become watered-down, slick “whit” eommeriliatios of Fletcher Henderson, theders” people cane om the sene. Thereby amore dread {ateparation was intial Tacs people (as Ralph Eso put it “those who a= copa and ved closet tet fll experience) ad thei Piva, ut the midlelase Negros ad gotten “rs” SPU bus tration, except ase es cavcatared ia iste swing se or the pil spectacle of Careie Hall Tse woogie or Hazel Set playing Gris Concerto fA Rrra Cafe Society. Assndation, the social proces they {ei hey sma acept always proposed thatthe enforced kara of peopl in Ameria o Wester society de- ‘reac the vl ht popes etre Alt-Ameronn ‘Sot raion could arly be considered a socal (oF Tlomomic) asset in American sity, Avtonomocs bhi Sul not rec the nd ofthe mide dass Negro, even f Rerchove nt to deny isa or ans emonstested how ie bles imp, and thos Afro- Arjan musi waton, could e retained in a broader inisea!eapresion Bg-band jazz showed that this musi pues en pecans Amnescan expression (and also {hat there ws ¢ Commercial efor 8), which iced of (eit the beadened socal perspective of the post Depres- Sl itn Nog. Bu as tue expresion ofan America rch coud be clebratedy as Whitman sid “in a pit Tired to tsi: jr cook note sndestood by mation tic ha nal Tost the Cail War by “placing private Fropery ove other values—the result beng such denis Ee fanancguty a te legiition of isumanity and op- freon a over the South Aes folk expression ofa tad Ermally oppesed people, the most meaningl of Negro tera ny eer ann sete sets pope themsetes were fred tobe, ("The of bss reminds me of tlvery is Ui way many middleclass Negoes put And {icy ct nly tink slavery withthe sense of shame thee esd for acceptance comtantly provided. Thee Utopia kd have no slaves nor sone of slaves.) But as the secret Blues People | * +) 176 ness and separation of Negroes in America was increasingly ‘broken down, Negro music had to reflect the growing open- ‘ness of communication with white America. The ease with which big-band jazz was subverted suggests how open an texpression Negro music could become. And no Negro need fee] ashamed of arich Jewish clarinetist. ‘By the forties the most contemporary expression of Afro- American musical tradition was an urban one, atived at in the context of Negro life in the large industrial cities of ‘America, And just as World War I and the Great Depression served to produce the “modern” Negro, so World War TT produced even more radical changes within the psyche of the American black man. The Negro's participation in World War TE was much less limited than in World War 1. Even though Negroes were still largely confined to “Negro units” of the Armed Forces, many ofthese units fought side by side ‘with white units. There was even a fighter squadron com- ‘posed exclusively of black pilots. The Negro’ role in this war could not be minimized as in World War I. World War IL ‘was an all out struggle, and the United States had to use all its resources. For this reason, more Negroes than ever were ‘ullized in important positions or positions of authority. (Ae- cording to NAACP figures, there were 404.348 Negroes as ‘Army enlisted men in World War I, and 1,353 commissioned officers. In World War II, there were gos,000 Negroes as ‘Army enlisted men and 8,000 ollicers. While the number of Negroes more than doubled, the number of commissioned ollicers increased almost eight times.) The sense of partici pation in the mainstream of the society was strengthened Among all Negroes, not only the middle class. Dorie Miller, ‘one of the frst Negroes to die in the war, at Pearl Harbor, ‘was almost canonized by Negroes all over the country. At my parents’ church in Newark, New Jersey, “Remember Dorie Miller” buttons which the church had purchased were passed oat. "The sense of a world outside of America, first revealed to The Modern Scene | **** | 177egies by World Wa I, was reinforced bythe even sore seein sept of World War I There were even blues saat the war by Ue cer singe ory "wpiscted™ ARE ian ike josh ite Thee was the song Ave You eye sey pepe Neo eammunies, whi extalled read we [emia (hy News) inthe war! “When the tibeln tye, “Atak hese be no tring ack Ae yu seine ab sonteady og"There sao oe pron of the reat ida the prxpestiv he yng TH bate tat ere Lh head’ gts Hatter (i resting to note Te i enon She you ready was ao being sed Peace Eimg Neues ound Hat tine to mean "Are Be ato wiite mere” "The te of - ore ing Me's ot realy” For nance, ono sree tgpos ere termed by many sellappoited Back uatluneofwhte soll popety areal") Taare a pst and responsi 0 0 major aes Pate Word War was heighten fr Negroes peeemagy ly gh snes ty got for working inthe eae lene plats rughout th county. (The Pekar THE Aan New Jersey aspen of in severe tne Pe ar therer te place where a Hackman cou rea nancy) Bot Rs ony served tones the Teite Present Negroes flea the soca neq ‘Krist ented to impose upon tem. Tis ase Ary te of the young men wort rm He wat meeting asked hires for this conty, oly to Bnd Tey sel weated he sabhumsns, ha i ws only Ne hey las Uy remand i“ places” Seer ra gol wartive js a vans and wise peed ere muck er thn ever before were infoiated {Sade thence economists col uy rans tof te boge Nero ghee ofthe ees, Rex sett dad dag wih the tue qu many tines found creme nllnt of rac lets. As Had happened seep ace World War Noy rs broke out al ver Blues People | (178 the United Stats, The lrgst was probably the Harlem ot of 194, when Negroes broke the windows Of white business tstablchments in the area and menaced white policemen, Some ofthe rss, like the one in Cero, Mois suburb of Chicago, begin because the Negroes with ther good money trated to get homes well AS thirty yeas Before, here fad been great migrations northward to th indostial centers. There were similar riots in Detroit, Chicago, and Newark ‘There were sso social movements among Negroes which re- sulted inthe formation of erganizatons to combat tneqoal iy, sta thre bad been around the tine of Wold Wa One othe mos eficctive ofthese as the 199 March On- Washington movement in. which ‘Negroes threatened to march on the capital if they were not laced In the de fense program. It was spctically bocate ofthis movement that Fresident Roosevelt signed the encetive order that was supposed to forbid dscinintion by Government contra tn Te tie hat are he Macho shin Imovetent later sw tot that the Fair Employment Paces Committe was setup. During the war, the Negro secured imre jobs at beter wages and ina more divesied eeupe- ronal odin pattern tan eve before" Betws te hiss he nd of Wal War He was perhaps ts radial a change inthe psychological pe spective ofthe Negro Amesinn foward Aseria a here as tetween the Emancipation and agg. Th many respets the bridge lato the mainstream of Ametian society bad been widened by th war and the resultant incense a general bg unas he ck Aner Te Neo me a grow, an the percentage of Negroes completing high school snd attending college fasten sharply, Many ofthe Negro veterans took advantage of the educational benefits offered wader the GI. Bil. In the South ave for instance, or the year 199994 only 19 per eet ofthe Negro children ‘Robert. Weaver, Negro Labor (New York, Harcourt, Brice, 1948) a ig Labor (New York, Harcourt Brace 1048) ‘The Modern Scene | **** | 179