Intertwining Natures

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The Intertwining Natures of Jazz and Civil Rights “I'm white inside but that don't help my case, 'cause I can't hide what is in my face. How would it end? Ain't got a friend. My only sin is in my skin; what did I do to be so black and blue?” This melancholy message resonated with the frustrated African American community in 1929, as more than a century and a half of enslavement in the United States had left them with deep emotional wounds. Despite the 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment into the United States Constitution, the United States continually suppressed black Americans, using various legislation to do so. By the same token, African Americans were by no means treated as equal by their white counterparts. Fats Waller’s “Black and Blue,” one of the first instances in which racial struggles appear in the country’s mainstream canon, belonged to an up-and-coming style of music. As this “jazz” music became more and more acclaimed, its musicians began to utilize their popularity by placing messages of the America’s virulent racism in their craft. Thus began an abiding affair between art and civil rights. Jazz music, or an improvisational dance music based on a set harmony, can be traced back more than a century to 1895; Buddy …show more content…

At the same time, he experimented with different ensemble instrumentation: “In the 1920s, Armstrong … began to revolutionize the jazz world with his introduction of the extended solo. Prior to his arrival, jazz music was played either in highly orchestrated arrangements or in a more loosely structured “Dixieland”-type ensemble[s]” (PBS, 2005). Well into the 1950s, Armstrong’s career flourished. His dry vocals and his swinging trumpet playing became internationally recognized, sparking jazz movements in France and in various Latin American

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