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November 2004:
It is only in a free market economy that jazz can
fully flourish. In Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776), the
division of labor is held accounted for the economic, social and
cultural prosperity that started during the Industrial Revolution of the
18th century. Instead of being well rounded,
individuals are encouraged by the capitalist mode of production to
specialize in one task or sub-field. This relates to jazz, for
example, since record executives and producers from Verve used to tell Elvin Jones to go into the
studio and “do his thing”. Instead of playing every style of drumming
from Kenny Clarke on forward, people were just interested in hearing
Elvin’s specific sound (the patented triplet approach which he became
famous for in Coltrane’s band). This means that instrumentalists are
encouraged to learn a certain style from a specific phase in jazz: today
there are cats that play Dixieland and cats that play bebop. You
certainly don’t hear someone playing everything from ragtime to
free jazz. Each musician has there own field and that makes jazz better
as a whole (a musician who masters only one certain style is better than
a musician who just satisfactory plays many different styles, since
there are plenty of fish in the sea who can specialize in every period
that exists). This is how capitalism’s division of labor carries
over to artistic endeavors such as jazz.
In Das Kapital (1867), Karl Marx writes
about class based socioeconomic inequality that exists from the
capitalist mode of production, distribution and consumption. It is this
exact inequality that created the work songs of the African-American
South, which are the foundation of jazz music. The urbanization
brought about by the Industrialization of the West contributed to wide
spread poverty. It was in these urban ghettos where jazz was being
created by the likes of W.C. Handy (St. Louis Blues) and Charlie
Parker (Kansas City Blues). These impoverished individuals were
writing music history. In fact, the only reason why Handy wrote the
St. Louis Blues composition was because he was stranded by the
Missouri River at sunrise with no money to get home. If he would have
had the money to get home, that musical piece would have never been
written. It was the social stratification of American capitalism that
was responsible for the unique cultural statement of jazz. Leroi
Jones a.k.a. Amiri Baraka
wrote in Dutchman that Charlie Parker was “mad” and ‘if he hadn’t
had a saxophone to play he would go out and kill the first white people
he saw’. It was the poverty brought on by capital that had economically
and socially segregated his people -- this was the contributing factor in
his angst. Fortunately he had enough money to put a saxophone in his
hands instead of harming other individuals…he cried about the inequality
and unjust treatment in his K.C. Blues. He was just following
in the footsteps of what other blacks had done in America's modern
history, like Sidney Bichet in
New Orleans earlier in the twentieth century.
Classical social theorist Max Weber wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism (1905) that we live an ascetic life since we work so hard to
make excess money. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk lived a monastic life as well, only
so he could produce excess art. This production function carries over
from the economy to the arts. French social theorist Emile Durkheim wrote about The Division of
Labor in Society (1893) and how economics relate to culture in
modernity. Jazz was indeed
a creation of the capitalist spirit. This art form is the result of
the dynamic wealth creation model that the American economic system was
founded upon. We have the laissez faire system and the invisible hand to
thank for all the hot jazz of yesterday and today.
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