Racial Factors of The Swing Era

As jazz entered the mainstream in the 1930’s, more white bandleaders and critics began to emerge.  Race became an explicit subject matter during the “Swing Era” due to the popularity of the music, its newfound availability to whites, and the revolutionary popular front that taught anti-racism as an extension of the communist ideology.  These developments led to race dialogues being publicized across the country and not just within black communities.

The popularization of jazz across racial borders began in Chicago when white musicians like the Austin High Gang dared to enter black jazz venues in the South side and attempted to replicate the music they heard there. This imitation started to popularize jazz within white communities.  Though the appropriation of jazz angered many black musicians who weren’t getting credit for their innovations, the invention of the radio in the early 1930’s provided opportunity. When listeners all across the nation began to enjoy and appreciate jazz over the radio, white audiences could not distinguish between white and black musicians (Gioia, 129). Radio created an important desegregated national stage for the further popularization of jazz.

Still, spaces in which musicians performed were still extremely racially divided..  Competition was a key asset in sparking racial dialogue in the 30’s.  As black and white bandleaders and musicians populated New York, the question emerged as to which race played better jazz music.  This question was actualized in 1937 when Benny Goodman’s band battled Chick Webb’s on the stage of the desegregated Savoy club in Harlem.  This event was important because most people in attendance thought that Webb beat Goodman’s band in terms of playing better swing.  This proved that black jazz was comparable if not better than jazz played by whites.

The inequity of opportunity for blacks to book higher-brow venues persisted.  Although Webb had beaten the “King of Swing” in a desegregated black space which opened its doors to whites attending the competition, black musicians like Webb still were unable to book high-brow venues which still booked shows according to lines of race and class rather than musical talent.  An example of this was Goodman’s performance at Carnegie Hall in 1938.  Even after being shown up at the Savoy a year earlier, Goodman still had the privilege of playing the first jazz show at Carnegie because he was white (Gioia, 142).  What started as an issue for blacks getting cheated out of their music in seedy South Side clubs of Chicago publically took the main stage in the 1930’s.  Mainstream media also responded to the question of race’s role in the music.  A musical tradition that had previously been looked down upon by most whites was now written about by emerging white jazz critics like John Hammond. Hammond explicitly commented on the dialogue between whites and blacks within the context of jazz. This created a duality between the white critic and the black musician “because the majority of jazz critics are white middlebrows, most jazz criticism tends to enforce white middle-brow standards of excellence as criteria for performance of a music that in its most profound manifestations is completely antithetical to such standards” (Jones, lecture slides).

The white jazz critic was a product of the popular-front political movement happening at the time.  The Swing Era happened at the same time as the Great Depression.  Simultaneously, the Soviet Union’s dedication to Communism was appealing to those frustrated with America’s Capitalist system.  The Communist party in America saw anti-racism as similar to anti-fascism, one of the cornerstones of the communist party.  Thus, the Popular Front fostered radical white Leftists who learned anti-racism through “an appreciation of black culture and history” (Lecture, 2.14.13).  This produced white allies of blacks and their culture like Hammond who had trouble navigating racial issues with his writing because he was affiliated though not fully embedded in the same reality as the black musician (Stewart, 2.14.13).