jazz in America

Ever since the beginnings of jazz in America at the turn of the twentieth century jazz was a music form that northerners were not exposed to because slavery, for the most part, took place in the south. And that is where jazz in America came from, the slaves. The focal point for jazz in the states became and remained New Orleans for the first part of the 1900s. This remained unchanged for about 20 years. But because Chicago was such a big stop for most of the traveling shows that originated in New Orleans the music started to move at a rapid pace. And Marshall Stearns specifically stated the hypothetical peak of jazz intensity shifted from New Orleans to Chicago sometime before 1920(Ostransky 63). And as I will discuss later, through a phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance, New York became another hub for the jazz culture. Because Chicago was an important center for railroad and shipping it attracted many transients and travelers (Ostransky 63). Many of these people were musicians, particularly piano players. As these people arrived in Chicago they realized that a hint of ragtime was there already. As a matter of fact it may have been introduced there as early as 1893 at The Worlds Fair (Ostransky, 67). At there fair it was thought that professors had introduced the music style and it formed a pretty good foundation. In 1906, Tony Jackson came to Chicago and about two years later Jelly Roll Morton arrived. The two continued to build the foundation that had been started at the fair. The two performed at popular nightspots and it was said by Eileen Southern: because of their efforts Chicago became the center of ragtime playing that St. Louis had been a decade earlier(Ostransky, 63). Another big contributing factor was that as mentioned before, New Orleans was an important starting point for many traveling shows. But a lot of these traveling shows ended in Chicago. The city was also a ...