Abstract
If, as an older man, Ellington placed high value on music "beyond category," then his first decade in New York proved the musical and social value of that notion and established career patterns that extended to the end of his life. The categories that both challenged and spurred Ellington were jazz and race. By 1930, he had made the first in a series of claims about striving to develop a new kind of race music. "I am not playing jazz," he said, "I am trying to play the natural feelings of a people." In the later 1930s he noted that his aim had "always" been to develop "an authentic Negro music." He insisted that he did not play jazz because when he began his career, he recalled, "jazz was a stunt." Such insistence served as an antidote to persistent stereotypes about both jazz and African Americans, and the further we get from its original context, and the more the discourse about jazz (from textbooks to television documentaries) treats Ellington's music as jazz, the more difficult it becomes to fully engage with Ellington's stated vision. By saying he wanted to cultivate a kind of music that was more than jazz, "more than the 'American idiom'," and "definitely and purely racial," Ellington articulated a broad vision that implicitly defied the narrow frames of the era's racial discourse. As a musician who strove both to develop the idioms associated with African Americans, especially the blues, and to cultivate a sophisticated, cosmopolitan artistic persona, Ellington was an early exemplar of Afro-Modernism and the New Negro project of redefining the black experience in American life, as a southern and largely rural population migrated en masse to the urban north. And beginning in the 1920s, Ellington proved again and again that he could at once fulfill and foil the expectations that audiences placed on black musicians.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington |
| Editors | Edward Green |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 85-105 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781139021357 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780521881197 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2015 |
Publication series
| Name | Cambridge Companions to Music |
|---|
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Arts and Humanities(all)
Cite this
Ellington’s Afro-Modernist vision in the 1920s. / Magee, Jeffrey.
The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington. ed. / Edward Green. Cambridge University Press, 2015. p. 85-105 (Cambridge Companions to Music).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
}
TY - CHAP
T1 - Ellington’s Afro-Modernist vision in the 1920s
AU - Magee, Jeffrey
PY - 2015/2
Y1 - 2015/2
N2 - If, as an older man, Ellington placed high value on music "beyond category," then his first decade in New York proved the musical and social value of that notion and established career patterns that extended to the end of his life. The categories that both challenged and spurred Ellington were jazz and race. By 1930, he had made the first in a series of claims about striving to develop a new kind of race music. "I am not playing jazz," he said, "I am trying to play the natural feelings of a people." In the later 1930s he noted that his aim had "always" been to develop "an authentic Negro music." He insisted that he did not play jazz because when he began his career, he recalled, "jazz was a stunt." Such insistence served as an antidote to persistent stereotypes about both jazz and African Americans, and the further we get from its original context, and the more the discourse about jazz (from textbooks to television documentaries) treats Ellington's music as jazz, the more difficult it becomes to fully engage with Ellington's stated vision. By saying he wanted to cultivate a kind of music that was more than jazz, "more than the 'American idiom'," and "definitely and purely racial," Ellington articulated a broad vision that implicitly defied the narrow frames of the era's racial discourse. As a musician who strove both to develop the idioms associated with African Americans, especially the blues, and to cultivate a sophisticated, cosmopolitan artistic persona, Ellington was an early exemplar of Afro-Modernism and the New Negro project of redefining the black experience in American life, as a southern and largely rural population migrated en masse to the urban north. And beginning in the 1920s, Ellington proved again and again that he could at once fulfill and foil the expectations that audiences placed on black musicians.
AB - If, as an older man, Ellington placed high value on music "beyond category," then his first decade in New York proved the musical and social value of that notion and established career patterns that extended to the end of his life. The categories that both challenged and spurred Ellington were jazz and race. By 1930, he had made the first in a series of claims about striving to develop a new kind of race music. "I am not playing jazz," he said, "I am trying to play the natural feelings of a people." In the later 1930s he noted that his aim had "always" been to develop "an authentic Negro music." He insisted that he did not play jazz because when he began his career, he recalled, "jazz was a stunt." Such insistence served as an antidote to persistent stereotypes about both jazz and African Americans, and the further we get from its original context, and the more the discourse about jazz (from textbooks to television documentaries) treats Ellington's music as jazz, the more difficult it becomes to fully engage with Ellington's stated vision. By saying he wanted to cultivate a kind of music that was more than jazz, "more than the 'American idiom'," and "definitely and purely racial," Ellington articulated a broad vision that implicitly defied the narrow frames of the era's racial discourse. As a musician who strove both to develop the idioms associated with African Americans, especially the blues, and to cultivate a sophisticated, cosmopolitan artistic persona, Ellington was an early exemplar of Afro-Modernism and the New Negro project of redefining the black experience in American life, as a southern and largely rural population migrated en masse to the urban north. And beginning in the 1920s, Ellington proved again and again that he could at once fulfill and foil the expectations that audiences placed on black musicians.
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U2 - 10.1017/CCO9781139021357.010
DO - 10.1017/CCO9781139021357.010
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:84954101697
SN - 9780521881197
T3 - Cambridge Companions to Music
SP - 85
EP - 105
BT - The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington
A2 - Green, Edward
PB - Cambridge University Press
ER -