The Effects of the Civil War on Jazz Music

The Civil War

Introduction
Also known as the War Between the States
4 years long (1861 1865), which also co-incided with Abraham Lincolns presidency
Between the United States and eleven Southern States known as the Confederate States of
America
It was very destructive (680 000 800 000 casualties), and was the first modern war.

How the War Started

The secession of the Southern States from 1860 to 1861 caused an outbreak of armed
hostilities, due to the growing sectional friction over slavery
Between 1815 and 1861, the economy of the Northern States was modernizing and
diversifying intensely.
In the Northern States, agriculture was the dominant sector. They invested their resources in
an expansive and varied transport system (canals, roads, steamboats and railroads), financial
industries (banking and insurance), and an extensive and effective communications network
(newspaper, magazines, books, telegraph)
The Southern economy was based around slavery, and consisted of large farms and
plantations. The slaves were the main labour force of these farms, and was what they chose
to invest their money in.
By 1860, 84% of the capital invested in manufacturing was in states without slaves, the per
capita wealth of Southern whites was twice that of the Northerners, and three fifths of the
wealthiest individuals were Southerners.

Abraham Lincoln and the Slaves

There is much controversy surrounding Abraham Lincoln in the civil war. Although he is
known as the man who abolished slavery, that is not exactly what the Emancipation
Proclamation meant.
Due to the immense number of slaves, many managed to escape. During the war, troops
would take these slaves hostage if they managed to catch them.
Lincolns law Emancipation Proclamation stated that these captured slaves must be set
free, but he did not actually have control of the slaves that were in the Southern countries,
as slavery was still allowed there.
The document did, however, shift the focus of the war from industrialization, to slavery. This
meant that many territories around the world cut all ties with the Southerners.

Effects of the war

Due to this, the British started using Egypt and India as their main source of textiles a
practice that built up economies other than the United States.
 The United States became much stronger (much like the giant we know them to be today)
after they united.
The armies of the United States became stronger after learning how to fight in a modern
war. This made them the incredible force they are known to have been in further wars, such
as the World Wars. The advancements in their weaponry also set them much further than
the rest of the world in these technological advancements.
The civil war is known as the first documented (photographically) war. The photographer
Mathew Brady documented highly controversial topics, often moving bodies around, or
asking soldiers to act dead. These images were shared around the world, and taught people
of the price of war.
Concepts such as industrialization, globalisation, and income tax were basically born during
this time. These concepts have all dramatically changed how our world works today.

Jazz and the Civil War

Pre-Civil War: African Americans in the USA
With the so-called Great Awakening revival of fervent Christianity in America during the
1830s, the singing of spiritual hymns became popularised in both white and black spheres.
African-Americans elevated these spirituals into a genre all its own by incorporating
idiomatically African elements into the originally Western-based genre.
Owing to a climate of fascination with the exotic prevalent during the 19th century, these
spirituals eventually found an audience with white listeners, elevating this genre to one of
the first African-American based genres to enter the Popular music repertoire.
At the same time, however, this soon became one of the sole means of musical expression
for African-Americans, as their ability to make music and dance in more African idioms
slowly became illegalised over the course of the 19th century; African drumming and dances
either being restricted to set areas such as Congo Square in New Orleans, or forbidden
completely.

Post-Civil War: Abolishment of slavery

The Thirteenth Amendment, signed in 1865, meant the end of slavery for all African-
Americans in the USA.
This emancipation of the African-American people meant that they were now protected by
law from the brutalities and abuses of slavery, including physical abuse, sexual abuse and
the denial of education, wages, legal marriage, homeownership and more.
 Former slaves were now also allowed to express themselves more freely musically, as the
ban on music, drumming and dance in African idioms was lifted.
However, racial tensions in America persisted, and it was still illegal for African-Americans to
serve on juries, testify against white citizens, or serve in state militias. Additionally, black
sharecroppers and tenant farmers were also required to sign annual labour contracts with
white landowners. Refusal of this condition would result in the African-American being
arrested and hired out for work.

Civil War effects on music: Band music

Though they were free, racial prejudice and illiteracy drove former slaves into
unemployment and eventually poverty.
Striking out to find work, many African Americans turned to music.
A strong tradition of military brass and woodwind bands existed throughout the 19th century
in Europe and North America, likely owing to the encouragement of the formation of these
bands in the United Kingdom spreading through immigration to America.
These bands, along with black churches in the U.S. were the main sources of training for
African American musicians. Unlike White bands of the same kind, these African American
bands infused their playing with idiomatic African rhythms, playing with a distinguishing
swinging, syncopated style.
Though little to no improvisation is to be found in these early pieces, they certainly mark the
beginnings of jazz as a genre.
These bands also popularised ragtime in the 1890s, featuring syncopated rhythms against a
regular, march-like bass.

Civil War effects on music: the Blues

After the Civil War, a new genre called the Blues developed as a means to vent about the
frustrations of African-American life.
These frustrations were most commonly linked to the African-American narrative of the
time: That of the impoverished black communities and their disillusionment with life, and
the injustices they faced.
This form once again drew on African traditions, mimicking a Call-and-Response pattern
through its three four bar phrases, in which the first two phrases describe a problem,
 beginning on implied tonic and subdominant harmonies respectively, while the third,
beginning on the implied dominant comments on this problem.

Prominent Musicians
W.C Handy
W.C. Handy was an African-American composer and a leader in popularizing blues music in
the early 20th century, with hits like "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues."
I've always felt that the blues deal with an epoch in our history, and coming from the same
people that gave us the spiritual, they reflected a nominal freedom. All the blues that I've
written are either historic or folklore or folksong.
W.C. Handy was born on November 16, 1873, in Florence, Alabama. He played with several
bands and travelled throughout the Midwest and the South, learning about the African-
American folk music that would become known as the blues. Handy later composed his own
songsincluding "St. Louis Blues," "Memphis Blues" and "Aunt Hagar's Blues"which would
help popularize the form and come to be major commercial hits. He died in New York City in
1958.
Handy's contributions in shaping what would be called the blues were influenced by the
African-American musical folk traditions that he experienced during his travels and
performances. In 1892 he formed a band called Lauzette Quartet, with the intention of
performing at the Chicago World's Fair later that year, but when the fair was postponed until
1893, the band was forced to split. Handy ended up in St. Louis, where he experienced
difficult days of poverty, hunger and homelessness.

Jelly Roll Morton

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1890 July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly
Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer who
started his career in New Orleans, Louisana.
Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's
first composer and arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its
essential spirit and characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues",
published in 1915, was the first published jazz composition. Morton also wrote the
standards "King Porter Stomp", "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I
Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the last a tribute to New Orleans musicians from the turn of the
20th century.
 Notorious for his arrogance and self-promotion as much as he was recognized in his day for
his musical talents, Morton claimed to have invented jazz outright in 1902much to the
derision of later musicians and critics. A lot of jazz historian have agreed and many have
disagree with Mortons assertions. The musician, and composer as Gunther Schuller says
Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's
"considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation". However,
on the contrary the scholar Katy Martin has argued that Morton's bragging was exaggerated
by Alan Lomax in his book Mister Jelly Roll, and this portrayal has influenced public opinion
and scholarship on Morton since.
Tony Jackson, also a pianist at brothels and an accomplished guitar player, was a major
influence on Morton's music. Another musician that influenced Morton was Buddy Bolden.

Buddy Bolden

Charles Buddy Bolden is generally considered to be the first bandleader to play the
improvised music which later became known as Jazz. He was the first "King" of cornet in
New Orleans, and is remembered by the musicians of that time period as one of the finest
horn players they had ever heard. He is remembered for his loud, clear tone. His band
starting playing around 1895, in New Orleans parades and dances, and eventually rose to
become one of the most popular bands in the city. In 1907 his health deteriorated and he
was committed to a mental institution where he spent the remainder of his life. Trombonist
Frankie Dusen took over the Bolden Band and renamed it the Eagle Band and they continued
to be very popular in New Orleans until around 1917. Bolden made no recordings, but was
immortalized in the Jazz standard "Buddy Bolden's Blues" (I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden
Say) which is based on Bolden's theme song "Funky Butt". Several early Jazz musicians, like
Sidney Bechet (as a child musician) and Bunk Johnson, apparently played in Bolden's bands
occasionally.
At the turn of the century, the blues was still slowly emerging from Texas, Louisiana, the
Piedmont region, and the Mississippi Delta; its roots were in various forms of African
American slave songs such as field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and country string ballads.
Rural music that captured the suffering, anguish-and hopes-of 300 years of slavery and
tenant farming, the blues was typically played by roaming solo musicians on acoustic guitar,
piano, or harmonica at weekend parties, picnics, and juke joints. Their audience was
 primarily made up of agricultural labourers, who danced to the propulsive rhythms, moans,
and slide guitar.

References
1. Biography.com Editors.n/a. W.C. Handy Biography. Retrieve from
https://www.biography.com/people/wc-handy-39700

2. Buddy Bolden Says. E.W. Russell. 2000. Cadence Jazz Books. Retrieved from
http://www.redhotjazz.com/buddy.html.

3. Burkholder, J.P., Grout, D.J. & Palisca, C.V. 1960. A History of Western Music. New York:
W.W. Norton and co.

4. Unknown.2003.History of Jazz. Retrieved from

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essaysblues.html
5. Warner, M & Fleming, W. 2005. Arts and Ideas. Belmont: Wadsworth.

6. James, M., 2017. OVERVIEW: A Brief Overview of the American Civil War. [Online]
Available at: https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/brief-overview-american-civil-war
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8. The Civil War Part 2: Crash Course US History #21. 2013. [Film] Directed by Stan Muller.
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Available at: http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war
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