Not So Long a Way From Satchmo

The journey of jazz through the 20th century has been a nonstop excursion through a territory filled with unexpected twists and turns and myriad changing landscapes. In fact, if any image of the music has remained constant, it has been the conviction that it is an art form based on creative spontaneity and a constant receptiveness to new ideas.

Or, at least, it seems so now, after the fact. But the truth is that--despite the qualities of innovation and openness essential to the music--the many shifts of style and attitude that have taken place over the past hundred years were rarely met with universal acceptance. And many participants in the journey appeared content to terminate the voyage when they reached their own particular vision of the jazz promised land.

Take the emergence of Louis Armstrong, for example--by almost any definition the first genius of jazz. But there were plenty of observers in the 1920s who were not especially pleased with his harmonic style of improvisation, a dramatic shift from the paraphrase and melodic ornamentation method favored by earlier New Orleans players. And, while Armstrong’s impact on musicians was pervasive, pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton insisted that he was the “inventor” of jazz.

It’s also worth noting that cornetist Bix Beiderbecke had his own dedicated followers, and that his juxtaposition to Armstrong was the beginning of a kind of parallel, white shadow jazz history (examined in some detail in Richard Sudhalter’s provocative book “Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz”) that would eventually encompass the work of artists such as Benny Goodman, Pee Wee Russell, Red Norvo, Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz and Bill Evans, among others.

When bebop arrived in the ‘40s, exploding into the jazz world via the music of Charlie “Bird” Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Max Roach, the situation got downright nasty. And it didn’t help that--around the time Parker & Co. were advancing the appeal of chromatic harmonies, disjunct melodies and a new approach to rhythm--a major New Orleans/Dixieland revival was taking place in the work of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, Eddie Condon and the rediscovery of Bunk Johnson and George Lewis.

The two conflicting camps, with their dedicated followers, viewed each other with disdain. To the boppers, the New Orleans revivalists were “moldy figs.” To the revivalists, the boppers were a collection of goateed, beret-wearing noise-makers.

Ultimately, the differences were blurred rather than resolved. The musical elements of bebop became the common dialect of jazz, well into the present. But New Orleans jazz, with its efforts to preserve the music of the pre-bop, pre-swing era, never quite disappeared. Available in the myriad Dixieland and New Orleans festivals that take place, almost weekly, throughout the country, it continues to be an active--if commercially invisible--corner of the musical arena. Ironically, however, most of its younger practitioners play the classic New Orleans music with distinctly bop-influenced styles.

The boppers discovered what it was like to be on the opposite side of the field in the ‘60s, when their hegemony was challenged by avant-garde players such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. “Free” improvising, to the boppers, was simply a way for unskilled players to make a name for themselves. To some extent, they were right, since the movement did indeed contain a substantial share of creative poseurs. But the work of Coltrane, in particular, was too powerful to question, especially in a player who had already--in the ‘50s--thoroughly established his bop credentials. And “free” jazz, like the New Orleans sound, has continued to attract dedicated performers and followers.

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Yet another controversial shift took place in the late ‘60s, when Miles Davis’ “In a Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew” combined the seemingly incompatible elements of electric instruments, rock rhythms and open improvising into what quickly came to be called jazz fusion. Purists of all sorts--from New Orleans to swing to bop--raised their hands in horror at what they viewed as the ultimate abandonment of all that had been sacred to jazz.

But fusion persisted, first in groups such as Return to Forever and Weather Report, only to quickly find its components translated into a more accessible pop instrumental form via crossover jazz (with players such as David Sanborn and Grover Washington Jr.) and smooth jazz (with Kenny G and Rick Braun).

In the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, Wynton Marsalis--echoing, oddly, the New Orleans revival of the ‘40s--insisted upon a return to what he viewed as jazz basics: rhythmic swing, improvisation and the blues. Using his powerful position as the creative director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, his influence touched a generation of Young Lions, all of whom have worked at rigorously reexamining music of the pre-’60s eras.

Marsalis’ viewpoint has not been universally embraced, however. And his opposition, particularly amid the always heated New York City jazz scene, has been particularly intense, creating a factionalism recalling the bopper/moldy fig skirmishes of the ‘40s.

Which leaves jazz, at century’s end, pretty much with the same kinds of opposing notions that were around when Armstrong arrived on the scene. Except for the fact, of course, that--between fusion, free jazz, smooth jazz, New Orleans, bebop revival and any number of other specialized areas--there currently are a lot more points of view to argue.

As the new millennium dawns, and jazz is spreading throughout the globe in dramatic fashion, more opportunities will arise for further polemics from those who insist upon their own narrow definitions of the music. And one can’t help but hope that such definitions are left behind. How much better it would be to respect and acknowledge the capacity of jazz to retain its essential character even as it grows and changes. The results, as the dynamic 20th century shifts have shown, can only serve to enhance and extend the seemingly infinite creative potential of this remarkable music.