Jazz - the folk music of African-Americans that is an amalgamation of African rhythms and a native adeptness for extemporaneous composition combined and blended with the instruments and structural elements of European music - first made its way to Cincinnati in the early 20th century. This vibrant music arrived, not necessarily only on riverboats coming up from New Orleans, as romantic tradition suggests, but also by way of Vaudeville, radio broadcasts, Edison cylinders and 78 rpm recordings. The music was quickly assimilated and played by local Blacks and also by Americans of non-African heritage, as it was in New Orleans. It was a manifestation of genius that had never been seen or felt before and it’s popularity spread like wildfire, also throughout Europe and to other parts of the world. There was a uniquely African rhythmic vibrancy that was unlike anything else in earlier American musical traditions. There had been other highly rhythmic world music (of Eastern European or East Indian origin, for example) but this new music, rooted in African rhythms and blues inflections, was clearly a sound that captured the attention and imaginations of people the world over. Jazz music had a large impact on the overall American stylistic shift from the Gilded Age of the late-19th century into the early 20th, even at a time when racism and Jim Crow dominated the institutions of the United States. Americans took it as there own, even though it's genesis was from a disenfranchised minority.
Cincinnati has not been considered historically to be a seminal center in the development of jazz but it had long been on the map for touring musicians and bands, going back to the late-1910s and 1920s. And, undoubtedly, there has been musical activity on a local level, but there is little documentation of that in newsprint here until the late 1940s and 1950s. Jazz thrived in the African-American West End neighborhood before taking hold in other places, then as result of the displacement of many properties there due to the construction of the Millcreek Expressway (later I-75), Union Terminal, and other Urban Renewal projects. Parts of the African-American community then moved to Avondale, Walnut Hills, Bond Hill and other east side neighborhoods and the music moved with them. But we also see that jazz made its presence known in other suburbs and neighborhoods. Jazz became the hot "thing".
There were presentations of jazz in the city’s major venues that opened in the 1920s like the Taft Auditorium and Albee Theater. It was played in West End clubs and theaters. In the still segregated climate of this North/South border city, jazz was played in both Black communities and White, sometimes being discreetly separated along racial lines, but sometimes with overlap, mainly with white musicians and listeners being accepted into the Black venues, rather than vice versa. The love of music and respect between musicians existed without prejudice and racism there, perhaps earlier than in other non-musical realms of interaction. Nonetheless, there was an opinion and feeling, that white jazz musicians were often given more press and more opportunities than Blacks, and this caused resentments.
Much later than during the heyday years of jazz (1920s-1960s), the phenomenon known as “jazz education” developed which changed the nature and ecology of the art. This art form which had its development in clubs and on the “street” became academicized and spawned many talented musicians, well-equipped for a career for which there is little audience. However, these sincere musicians will continue to play jazz in spite of that fact.
See the decades below for a look at what was printed about jazz in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area.
* Read an overview of the inception of this site and other relevant essays HERE.
