Erika Wilhite and Moria Dailey
Published: January 25, 2006
On Saturday, January 21st, in PJC’s Hagler Auditorium, Dr. Charles Suhor presented “The Jazz Story: African Roots, American Branches” on the history of jazz. The event was co-sponsored by the African-American Heritage Society, the Black History Committee of Pensacola Junior College, and the Florida Humanities Council.
Suhor, a noted Jazz historian and a percussionist from New Orleans, traced the development of jazz from its earliest roots in Africa all the way through 1927, the end of the “Golden Age” of American Jazz (1923-1927).
Suhor said that the “bent notes, smears, and rips” characteristic of the blues date back to pre-jazz African American expression in “field hollers, work and street songs, church music, [and] rural blues.” Incorporating the vocal and drumming styles of their native countries with the feelings brought about by their bondage, slaves created a prototype of the blues, later a component of jazz.
Describing the songs of slaves in his 1845 autobiography, Frederick Douglass recalled that “they would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. [t]hey would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. [t]he hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness.”
New Orleans was the focal point for the unification of these African influences as well as European influences (song structures, such as that found in popular songs and hymns, as well as the use of various wind and keyboard instruments) into what later became known as “jazz”.
Ragtime – jangling piano music, usually played fast but shallow – appeared in Storyville, the city’s red light district, in the 1890s, where most of the bars and brothels employed pianists. It was also in Storyville that artists such as Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton got their start.
The turn of the century was a “rich, rich time for music,” said Suhor. Although the city’s establishment considered music played in the early jazz forms of ragtime and ricky-tick to be “vulgar”, Suhor explained that jazz was flourishing anyway. “If there was a new place opening or a dance happening, they’d [New Orleanians] would hire a band to play on the balcony; they’d also advertise businesses by hiring jazz bands to play on wagons, and a ‘battle of the bands’ [would ensue] if two bands fell against each other.”
Suhor feels that New Orleans-born Louis Armstrong was the first “true” jazz artist. Armstrong was “the first great improv-ing soloist,” said Suhor, “[he] invented jazz vocal style. He was endlessly inventive.”
Suhor ended the presentation with a short question-and-answer period. In response to a query regarding his favorite modern jazz artist, Suhor laughed and said, “I haven’t seen a jazz artist who bowled me over since [John] Coltrane.”