Pearson’s remarks, probably based on his reading of a chapter titled, “Big Towns and Brass Bands” in Leonard Feather’s The Book of Jazz: a Guide to the Entire Field, is a great starting point for this augmentation of “Jazz Beginnings.” Perhaps the preponderance of evidence is strong and it is obvious that the music we know as jazz grew out of New Orleans. However, let’s just take a little journey on the river of inquiry and ponder the possibilities of jazz beginnings in other locations other than or simultaneous to New Orleans.

From its founding as a post (city) in 1718 to the present, New Orleans has been a major port for the entire country. Ships from countries abroad docked in the piers of New Orleans to import and export tobacco, rice, cotton, sugar and a host of other commodities including slaves. This fact is indisputable. Rarely mentioned, though, is that during the period of slavery other major ports included Mobile, Alabama; Charlestown, South Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; and New York City, New York. According to Molefi K. Asante and Mark T. Mattson in The Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans, the principal locations of settlements within Colonial America both during and after slavery of Africans were found in Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Richmond, Virginia; New York, New York; Charlestown, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia (p. 37). Of these cities, Boston, New York, Charlestown and Philadelphia also witnessed a mass amount of immigration from slaves, recently escaped or freed slaves or non-slaves from the Caribbean, South and Central America. These mere facts could suggest that other places might have had the ethnic diversity, broad cultural influence and the opportunity to harvest creativity via music, or even incubate music similar in sound to what we now know as jazz.

By the turn of the century, New Orleans emerged as a prominent site for ragtime. Legends such as Tony Jackson, Jelly Roll Morton and Clarence Williams assisted in establishing New Orleans as a ragtime capital. Yet, New Orleans was not the only place where ragtime was performed. As John Hasse reveals, ragtime not only traveled from midwest to south, but also north and east.

In the 1880s, ragtime could be heard in the Midwest, even as its reverberations radiated to surrounding parts of the country. By 1892, composer Charles Ives had come across ragtime in minstrel shows in his hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, and at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, many people evidently heard the style for the first time. (Hasse 2000, 12)

Ragtime spread across the country via railroad and through performances on the vaudeville circuit (and T.O.B.A. circuit), as well as in recorded form on both piano rolls and phonographs. Ragtime quickly rose as a major (if not the most prominent) form of popular music in the country. While numerous scholars speak of the transition from ragtime to jazz or the evolution of jazz from ragtime, ragtime professors such as Eubie Blake speak differently.

It’s not the same as it used to be. Anyone can learn notes, and that’s how they play it today: They play the notes ­ but that’s not ragtime. Ragtime is syncopation and improvisation and accents. We all played our own style, but if you could have heard those old fellas play, you would have heard ad lib and those accents. Though seldom written into the music, they’re very important, but you just don’t hear them any more. (Waldo 1976, vii-viii)[original authors’ italics]

In many accounts, the presence of syncopation and improvisation is what scholars claim separates jazz from ragtime. Mention of ragtime is not complete in this context without attention placed on the famed “ticklers” from the east, most of whom never toke part in the New Orleans scene but are hailed as not only ragtime greats but further as transitional figures in the development of jazz piano. Eubie Blake, Luckey Roberts, James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith and Fats Waller, a distinguished group nonetheless, have influenced every jazz pianist directly or indirectly including Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Thelonius Monk and a host of other prominent names. All five of these musical giants relate stories of growing up hearing and seeing brass bands, funeral marches, river boats (on the Hudson River), ragtime and all speak about their disgust at the commonly held assumption that jazz came from New Orleans. A careful read of the following texts might cause consideration of simultaneous locales of jazz incubation: Eubie Blake (by Al Rose, New York: Schirmer Books, 1979), Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Story of Fats Waller (by Ed Kirkeby, New York: Da Capo Press, 1978 [1966]), James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity (by Scott E. Brown, Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press and the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University) and Music on My Mind: The Memoirs of An American Pianist (with George Hoefer, New York: Da Capo Press, 1978 [1964]).

When all of the recordings are returned to their vaults and the books to the shelf, perhaps New Orleans-born bassist, Pops Foster, with sincerity and great wisdom can settle this inquiry with such a simple yet complex statement. He once recalled that, “what’s called jazz today was called ragtime back then…” (Collier, 1978, 67) All of the speculation and research may be useless when considering Foster’s twist.

Whether one believes or not that somehow somewhere in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Newark, New York, or elsewhere, even a small portion of jazz was created, born, developed, incubated, … or not; inquires as the present one are exciting to investigate and always lead (at the very least) to introspective analysis on how important jazz is to each of us, regardless of the locale of its origin(s).

Sources

• Asante, Molefi K. and Mark T. Mattson. The Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans . New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991
• Collier, James Lincoln. The Making of Jazz: a Comprehensive History . New York: Dell Publishing, 1978
• Feather, Leonard. The Book of Jazz: A Guide to the Entire Field . New York: Paperback Library, Inc., 1961 [1957]
• Hasse, John Edward (editor). Jazz: the First Century . New York: William Morrow, 2000
• Pearson, Jr., Nathan W. Goin’ to Kansas City . Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987
• Waldo, Terry. This Is Ragtime . New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1976