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Jazz Age
The Jazz Age was a period from 1920 to the early 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz. This era fundamentally transformed American culture, particularly women's roles and sexual expression, making it a crucial period for understanding modern feminine identity and erotic liberation.
Historical Background
The term "jazz age" was in popular usage prior to 1920. In 1922, American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald popularised the term with the publication of his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Jazz originated in the Black-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developing from roots in blues and ragtime.
New Orleans provided a cultural humus in which jazz could germinate because it was a port city with many cultures and beliefs intertwined. People of different cultures and races often lived close together, allowing for cultural interaction that facilitated the development of an active musical environment.
Musical Revolution
Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music." The earliest jazz styles, which emerged in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York in the early 1920s, are sometimes referred to as "dixieland jazz." Jazz is generally characterised by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.
Key Figures
Louis Armstrong brought the improvisational solo to the forefront, replacing the original polyphonic ensemble style of New Orleans jazz. His solos were a significant factor in making jazz a true 20th-century language. After leaving Henderson's group, Armstrong formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, where he popularised scat singing.
Duke Ellington gained popularity during the Harlem Renaissance and opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club in 1927. Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration.
Prohibition and Speakeasy Culture
The Jazz Age was inextricably linked with Prohibition (1920-1933). Speakeasies—illegal establishments where alcohol was served—became lively venues of the Jazz Age, hosting popular music that included current dance songs, novelty songs and show tunes.
Jazz was played in these speakeasies as a countercultural type of music to fit in with the illicit environment. Al Capone, the famous organised crime leader, gave jazz musicians previously living in poverty a steady and professional income. The illegal culture of speakeasies led to what was known as 'black and tan' clubs which had multiracial crowds.
New York City Speakeasy Scene
New York City had, at the height of Prohibition, 32,000 speakeasies. These venues employed sophisticated strategies for hiding alcohol, including mechanisms that could quickly dispose of liquor during police raids and secret wine cellars with hidden entrances.
Women and Sexual Liberation
The Jazz Age coincided with women's suffrage and the emergence of the flapper. Women began to take on larger roles in society and culture after the First World War, with many more possibilities for social life and entertainment.
Jazz served as a platform for rebellion on multiple fronts. In dance halls, jazz clubs, and speakeasies, women found refuge from societal norms that confined them to conventional roles. These spaces offered them more freedom in their speech, attire, and behaviour.
Female Jazz Musicians
The 1920s saw the emergence of many famous women musicians, including Bessie Smith, who gained attention not only as a great singer but also as an African-American woman and an icon in the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout her musical career she was unapologetically herself, expressing the struggles of the Black working class whilst addressing issues such as poverty, racism, and sexism alongside themes of love and female sexuality.
Lovie Austin (1887–1972) was a Chicago-based bandleader, session musician, composer, singer, and arranger during the 1920s classic blues era. She and Lil Hardin Armstrong are often ranked as two of the best female jazz blues piano players of the period.
Global Influence
By the 1920s, jazz had spread around the world. The New York Times reported in 1922 that "Jazz latitude is marked as indelibly on the globe as the heavy line of the equator," reaching from Broadway to San Francisco, then to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, India, Egypt, Palestine, Monte Carlo, Paris, and London.
European jazz began with a tour by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919. The European style of jazz entered full swing in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, which began in 1934.
Cultural Impact and Criticism
Jazz encouraged rebellion amongst young people, who used its influence to challenge traditional culture. This youth rebellion included flapper fashions, women smoking cigarettes in public, a willingness to talk about sex freely, and radio concerts.
Traditionalists were aghast at what they considered the breakdown of morality. Some urban middle-class African Americans perceived jazz as "devil's music," believing the improvised rhythms and sounds were promoting promiscuity.
Writing About Jazz Age Sexuality
For writers crafting scenes set in the Jazz Age, this period offers rich opportunities to explore themes of sexual liberation and feminine empowerment:
Atmosphere and Setting
- Speakeasies: Smoky, intimate venues where conventional morality was suspended
- Dance halls: Spaces where bodies moved freely, expressing sexuality through movement
- Radio broadcasts: The intimacy of music shared across distances
Character Development
- Women asserting independence through fashion, behaviour, and sexual choices
- The tension between traditional values and modern desires
- Interracial relationships flourishing in "black and tan" clubs
Writing Examples
"The saxophone's wail seemed to reach into her very soul, awakening desires she'd never dared name. In the speakeasy's amber light, with jazz rhythms pulsing through her body, conventional morality felt as distant as yesterday's headlines."
Why it works: Connects the sensual nature of jazz music with personal sexual awakening, using the speakeasy setting to suggest freedom from social constraints.
"She moved to the syncopated beat, her bob bouncing with each step, defying every rule her mother had taught her about proper feminine behaviour. This was her rebellion—not with words, but with her body."
Why it works: Links the physical act of dancing to broader themes of female liberation, emphasising bodily autonomy as a form of resistance.