• DOI:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1986.tb03313.x
• Corpus ID: 143798056

The Social Interpretation of Modern Jazz

@article{Lewis1986TheSI,
  title={The Social Interpretation of Modern Jazz},
  author={Alan Lewis},
  journal={The Sociological Review},
  year={1986},
  volume={34},
  pages={33 - 55}
}

• Alan Lewis
• Published 1 May 1986
• Art
• The Sociological Review

The history of jazz, unlike that of classical music, has always tended to be viewed in social as well as musical terms. Although its origins are still unclear, it emerged as the folk art of a specific group of people, American Negroes, whose segregated social situation produced distinctive cultural patterns. Then again, in its popular commercialised forms of ragtime, dixieland and swing, the evolution of jazz seems obviously related to broad social changes associated with the development of mass consumption, mass media, and mass entertainment. The rapid changes in jazz musical styles here are clearly related to changes in entertainment venues, recording technology, and the processes of commercial organisation surrounding entertainment music. Popular music was and is a commodity, and has to be in tune with the times if it is to be saleable on a large scale. Since the 1940s the more esoteric traditions of jazz have been seen as the increasingly self-conscious high art development of the original set of folk musical traditions and elements, elaborated particularly in reaction against the pressures of commercialisation and white imitation. As part of this artistic development jazz evolved as a black instrumental music in which instrumental virtuosity in improvisation is its core. The rapidly changing character of the American black community, particularly the shift from an agrarian to an industrial basis, transformed the conditions of production and reception of this music and interacted with the processes of commercialisation. The intensification of the 1950s civil rights movement and the ghetto riots and broader radicalisation of the 1960s have left their marks on the social interpretation of jazz. Three works in particular stand out as sociologically sophisticated attempts to connect the musical evolution of jazz with changes in racial relations and black political and cultural consciousness. Blues People by Leroi Jones,2 the black poet and writer, appeared in 1963. Using a social anthropological perspective, Jones analyses