The Birth of Jazz in New Orleans

The history of New Orleans was very interesting to me. It was nice to read about the city, as I knew nothing about it previously. What I most liked about this chapter was getting a sense of how the city came to be and what it was like for the people there. I was surprised to see life expectancy so low in that place for both blacks and whites. Looking back, it is not really surprising that jazz would come out of this place for it was like a city in decline and jazz was like a boisterous response to this decline. Or it could be, as the author notes, that jazz was born out of vice and that vice is what ruined the city.

I don't really feel that is probably true as vice and virtue are part of the human condition wherever you are. New Orleans was just situated at a place where things were booming for a short time and then when the boom left, the music was what filled the void. Plus, the rhythms used in jazz were the same kind found in the religious houses where the hymns were sung. Jazz seems to have been an expression of the soul not meant for the House of the Lord but rather for the clubs where people wanted to have fun and feel something other than holy for a moment. All of that is part of what it means to be human and it makes sense that in a place like New Orleans, a city that had peaked economically, that jazz would flow out of its spirit because clearly there was more to New Orleans than just a love of money. There was also a love of life there and that is what is seen in the way jazz came to birth there.

Also of interest was the biography of Buddy Bolden. I thought this was a particularly good part of the chapter because it let the background history of New Orleans recede and the life of one particular person to come forward -- and that was Bolden who is known as having a founding role in the birth of jazz. For me, that was the best part of the chapter.

What I liked best about this chapter was the story of Buddy Bolden. I thought it was great that his songs were viewed as bad by the police and if they heard you singing them they would lock you up. The part where Buddy starts playing one of his songs with the band in the street and the police start bopping people on the head when they start singing along made me laugh. This story gave me a real understanding of what jazz was all about in its infancy in New Orleans. It was not just about experiences and feelings but also a kind of protest to those in power. It was a fun-filled way to challenge authority and assert oneself in a city that no longer offered much to its inhabitants.

The fact that Buddy was born after Reconstruction officially ended is telling, I feel, because it meant that life in New Orleans was not going to get any better and young people like Buddy who grew up in this time knew it. So they decided to be themselves. After all, they had nothing to lose. That to me is what jazz means too -- it is music that personifies this attitude of "what do I have to lose?" and that is seen in the way Buddy would strut his music around in the face of the law and the people would sing along. The police wouldn't like it, but they did not care.

Still, Buddy's story is sad because he ended up going insane -- and his story reflects the larger story of New Orleans, a city that essentially has fallen apart. The whole soul of the city seems to be carrying this weight of sadness and I think Buddy was part of that for a period and helped to express it in a way that was light. That is how I see this coming of jazz in that place at that time: jazz represented the soul of the city -- alive but also defiant.