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