Jazz music has a complex history, and its status has shifted throughout its history. Exposure to recordings changed it forever, yet it was a live performance that helped it go mainstream.
The first ever Jazz record, by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, emerged and shaped the genre by establishing a specific sound that people who were not familiar to the genre would initially learn about it from. Furthermore, the 1938 Carnegie Jazz Hall Concert was extremely significant for jazz music, because that was when the genre received true mainstream recognition, authenticating it in the eyes of the public. These two points in jazz history influenced the genre culturally, politically and economically.
Original Dixieland Jazz band is a group consisting of five musicians, all of them white men, who performed Jazz pieces in the early 20th century. Before them, no other artist had ever made a jazz record. Most performances were live improvisations in bars, restaurants, festivals, parades, and more. It was rare for someone to be able to attend a Jazz concert and watch a full set of organized performances. However, towards the end of the first world war, in February of 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made the first ever jazz record (Dommett, 11). According to Dommett, jazz was among the types of music that experienced a vogue period following the World War era (11). Most of Europe and some other countries became more aware and familiar with jazz music after the First World War, mainly because of the band’s recording certifying the genre (Dommett, 11).
Livery Stable Blues (1917) – Original Dixieland Jass Band
This point in jazz history is especially significant, because it was the moment these artists took the music a step further and introduced it to a new audience. At the time they played a meaningful role in publicizing jazz. However, the genre that allowed complete improvisation and musical creativity was then limited to the sound of the Dixieland Band (Dommett, 12). New upcoming artists and consumers of jazz began to take inspiration from the early records, imitating them in order to produce their own music (Dommet, 12). As a result, the genre became less of a creatively improvised phenomenon over time. In fact, Lawrence Gushee asserts that it is clear hundreds of young, upcoming musicians have copied the instrumentation, manner of playing and repertory of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (151). Some of them may have never been to America at all, let alone New Orleans, but the widespread distribution of Jazz records allowed them to study and compose within the genre nonetheless.
Dommett says that the Dixieland Band was the “First authenticated jazz band to travel outside the united states” (Dommett, 11). These travels spread jazz so that it would be known around the world, helped to support it economically, and made it more recognizable in the music industry.
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band may have been white, but jazz in the United States was known to be a genre largely dominated by black people. On the other hand, Negro jazz was never recorded until the early 1920s; even then, it was frequently pushed aside to give way to the artists that were already gaining international recognition (Dommett, 12). It was significant that this particular band was the first to produce a jazz record, because the perception people had of them directly inf luenced jazz’s cultural and social identity; seeing white men as the face of jazz probably contributed to the worldwide popularity of their music. Black people were not entirely removed from the picture, though, as Lawrence Gushee points out: “Even at the time, however, New Orleans colleagues and competitors of ODJB fully acknowledged the debt all of them owed to African Americans” (Gushee, 152). This may be because many of the earliest jazz musicians were African Americans, who invented jazz’s distinctive sound.
With the new prejudiced social identity that followed the first ever record, musicians from New Orleans felt that they owed the African Americans more recognition (Gushee, 152). When the first Negro jazz record was made in 1923, the genre changed to become more supportive and inclusive of black musicians.
The famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, by Benny Goodman of Colombia Records, was a monumental performance in the history of jazz music. This performance, which was re-released in 1950 as a record, became known as jazz’s “coming out” party to the world of “respectable” music. At the time, it was acknowledged as a landmark in the acceptance of jazz by American society (DeVeaux, 6). Music culture within American society was either considered “high” or “low” (DeVeaux, 7): high culture music was performed within concert halls for upper class citizens, whereas low culture music was regarded as mere dance music for those of a lower social status. Previous to 1938, jazz was considered low culture music, and its audience was within a lower social and economic status. Along with being a “low” form of music in general, jazz was viewed as Afro-American music in a society that considered blacks second-class citizens (DeVeaux, 7). The music industry was unwilling to recognize black artists, let alone jazz music, due to racially charged classist ideologies (Deveaux, 7).
Benny Goodman: 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert
The 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert was one of many firsts. Benny Goodman would be the first jazz bandleader to perform at Carnegie Hall, which legitimized jazz music for the high class American music culture. Jazz musicians did not abandon their distinctive performance styles after 1938, but jazz ceased to known as music that only lower-class people should enjoy. In addition, it was one of the first recorded jazz concerts, and its exceptionally positive public reception further served to legitimize jazz in the mainstream. Benny Goodman gained success from marketing to the public’s fascination with basic musical elements of jazz, such as the improvised solos and hard-driving rhythms (DeVeaux, 9).
- Benny Goodman
After the success of the 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert, jazz music gained a new public perception. This concert demonstrated the essence of jazz on a wider social scale, and gave the genre the recognition it deserved. Along with the added exposure, this concert began to shift classist ideologies that were prevalent during this post-war era. Benny Goodman gained even more notoriety after this performance, and it legitimized jazz performance on a much wider scale. After this performance, jazz was not viewed as a genre meant for one specific class, gender, or race, but rather as a part of commonplace music culture.
The first Jazz record and the first Jazz concert were two exceptionally important events. Both gave the genre much more exposure than it had previously received, and both made it seem more “legitimate” than before. Their successes were economically valuable, their impacts were politically significant, and their mark on jazz culture can be seen even today.
Works Cited
“Benny Goodman.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benny-Goodman/media/238784/11154.
DeVeaux, Scott. “The Emergence of the Jazz Concert, 1935-1945.” American Music, vol. 7, no. 1,1989, pp. 6–29. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3052047.
Dommett, Kenneth. “Jazz and the Composer.” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 91, 1964, pp. 11–20. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/765961.
Gushee, Lawrence. “The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Jazz.” Black Music Research Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, 2002, pp. 151-174. DOI: 10.2307/1519947 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1519947
Jazz Time with Jarvis X. “Benny Goodman: January 16, 1938 Carnegie Hall (Full Concert).YouTube, 17 Jan. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zejfr1H40eA.
“Kid Ory’s Creole Orchestra.” Red Hot Jazz, http://www.redhotjazz.com/oryscreoleinfo.html.
“Livery-Stable.” Wikipedia, Carl Savich, 22 September 2015,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Livery-stable.jpg.
“Original-Dixieland-Jazz-Band-3-OTA.” Resort Centre Ice Rink, Tyler, 2 May 2017,http://www.parkcityicerink.com/original-dixieland-jazz-band-3-0ta/.
Peppopb. “Original Dixieland Jass Band – Livery Stable Blues (1917).” YouTube, 2 Nov. 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WojNaU4-kI
“Photograph of Buddy Bolden.” Storyville Life, Peter Nissen, http://www.storyvillelife.com/buddy-bolden/.
Jazz Hands 
