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1920s vs. 1950s

Although conventional wisdom holds that music is a unifying force, and it was to some extent, American music in the 1920s and 1950s was a dividing element due to controversial new genres that divided Americans by age and race.

Cultural critics in the 1920s and 1950s were a strong dividing element for each decade; however, 1920s cultural critics were much more dividing than 1950s cultural critics.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Vol XCIII, No. 311

American Music 1920's

American Music

A new era...

  • America becoming a more modern nation. New inventions and technology…especially the RADIO!!
  • $3.4 billion dollars of radios sold
  • Radio replaces newspaper as a new medium for entertainment and communication
  • new age "heroes" shift from politicians to musicians and movie stars

The Jazz Age

  • Starts among high school age kids-- Jazz music = "Sexual Rebellion" of the 1920's
  • Jazz music became a symbol of "new/modern" culture in the cities. Proliferation of phonographs and radios made the spread of music easier
  • Jazz= Pre-WWI development: African influenced slave spirituals grew into jubilees and the blues
  • Ragtime works became published in the late 1890's = said to be the earliest forms of jazz
  • The Great Migration (1920's), as black people moved north, so did Jazz music
  • Louis Armstrong

1950s

Harlem Renaissance

  • significance: Harlem produced a wealth of African American poetry, literature, art and music, expressing the pain sorrow and discrimination blacks felt at this time
  • in the 20's Chicago became a center among jazz musicians…many came from New Orleans
  • Duke Ellington = Jazz artist → he formed “the Cotton Club” (famous night club)

Cultural Critics 1950's

The Beatniks!

  • A group of disillusioned young writers and poets who felt that the world around them was hypocritical and restrictive
  • Catcher in the Rye, Marlon Brando in The Wild One & James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause all depicted the youth as lost, directionless and unhappy
  • This movement formed around poet Allen Ginsberg, novelist Jack Kerouac, and other bohemian writers
  • The Beats protested the hypocrisy of society and the sheer normalcy of the era
  • New mass-media began to support this cultural rebellion
  • Rock 'n' Roll
  • Carl Perkins ("Blue Suede Shoes") pioneer then Elvis Presley ("Hound Dog") made it famous
  • Blend of African American music and blues with white country music (Before Elvis known as "race music")
  • Threatened status quo - parents thought it would ruin their kids because they thought they were falling in love with black people
  • Inspired teenage rebellion - controversial performances
  • Traditional Pop
  • Simple and melodic with catchy lyrics
  • Nat King Cole ("Mona Lisa")
  • Frank Sinatra ("Wee Small Hours")
  • Country
  • Western, Honky Tonk, Outlaw Country styles
  • Johnny Cash ("I Walk the Line")
  • Hank Williams ("Hey Good Lookin")
  • Rhythm & Blues
  • Combined jazz, doo-wop, blues, and gospel
  • Spurred creation of Rock n’ Roll, soul, Motown, and funk
  • Typically African American artists pushed into R&B to make way for white rock n’ roll
  • Ray Charles ("What’d I Say")
  • Little Richard ("Tutti Frutti")
  • American Bandstand with Dick Clark

In response to this youthful rebellion--adults began classifying their actions as "juvenile delinquency"

Cultural Critics

1920s

  • Fundamentalism
  • Scopes Trial - teaching Darwinism in public schools illegal in Tennessee
  • American Civil Liberties Union got bio teacher John Scopes to teach the theory to his high school class – arrested and tried in 1925 then found guilty
  • Prohibition
  • Wartime concerns to conserve grain and maintain a sober workforce moved Congress to pass the amendment
  • Prohibited sale and manufacturing of all alcoholic beverages
  • Ratified 1919 - Volstead Act (set punishments and defined intoxicating beverages)
  • Bootlegged liquor smuggled from Canada or made at home, speakeasies
  • City police paid to look other way, President Harding served alcohol
  • Gangsters → Chicago, Al Capone, organized crime, expanded into prostitution, gambling, narcotics
  • Republicans and southern Democrats supported, northern Democrats called for its repeal
  • Public resentment and increased criminal activity then the Great Depression → 1933 repealed
  • Nativism
  • Over 1 million immigrants came 1919-1921
  • Catholics and Jews from Eastern and Southern Europe
  • Protestants, workers, isolationists → Quota laws 1921, 1924, 1927 based on nationality
  • Sacco and Vanzetti executed in 1927, international protests, convicted because they were poor Italian anarchists
  • Ku Klux Klan
  • 5 million members 1925
  • Opposed Catholics, Jews, foreigners, Communists, blacks
  • Promised to drive out bootleggers, gamblers, and adulterers

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