Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement
The 1960s was a very controversial time in American history with many tensions regarding the Women rights movement, the protest for American troops to leave Vietnam, and the Counterculture movement which were all very prominent during the 60s. The Civil Rights Movement was very much alive during this time as well. Where many activists such as Malcom x, Dorothy Height, Marthin Luther King Jr. and many more did their best to protest for change and racial equality. Jazz and its musicians had an incredible influence over this movement where it was shown in many of the musicians’ efforts through their songs, records, charity events, performances, and in many instances showed how Jazz was a form of rebellion, a call out to freedom and equality, and expression of the hardships that were experienced by people of color in the 60s.
During the 60s, Charity events that were mostly held in the North of the United States, delivered a lot of influence to the Civil rights movement. The focus of music was predominantly Jazz, with many musicians such as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Jackie McLean, Count Basie, Abbey Lincoln, Duke Ellington, Clark Terry, and countless more had performed in this charity events (Monson, 189). One of the biggest impacts that these charity events had on the Civil Rights Movement was that it generated a lot of money to help support the movement. Where a lot of these charity events were being held by the SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. “New York Friends of SNCC reported raising $34,000 in 1963, and over the next two years, New York was consistently the largest single contributor to SNCC’s national effort, averaging $16,000 per month in 1965…which included Clark Terry, Dave Brubeck, and Lambert, Hendricks, and Bavan, generated $5,200; a single cocktail party in December generated $12,000” (Monson, 191). These Charity Concerts were a very big aid for the Civil Rights Movement, allowing the movement to keep on progressing through help many Jazz musicians that had participated in these events. Another impact that the Charity events had on the Movement was that it allowed people from the North to see the struggles that people in the south who were advocating for change were experiencing due to laws and social norms based on racial discrimination. Monson states, “Although benefit concerts generated considerable amounts of money for civil organizations, the economic dimension alone cannot explain fully their purpose and popularity. Many of these events offered a dramatic forum in which northern audiences could hear directly from southern activists about day-to-day life on the front lines of the movement” (190). This reveals how significant the events were in terms of helping the movement. It opened the eyes of many American citizens who weren’t living in the south, to the harsh challenges that activists had to face when protesting for civil rights and the basic living conditions that people faced while living there all through Jazz and its well-known musicians that performed in these events.
While many of these Charity events and performances did great favors for the Civil Rights Movement, there was one event that stood out as well, which was the counterfestival called “Newport Rebels Festival” led by Charles Mingus and Max Roach. The festival represented a form of protest towards the music festival that was being held in Newport, since it favored popular white musicians rather than musicians of color who were talented, as mentioned in Scott Saul’s book “Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t : Jazz and the Making of the Sixties.”
protested the general “mastodon ways” of the established festival, more specifically it targeted Newport promoter George Wein’s wage scale, which favored mainstream (often white) musicians over cultish (often black) performers… so it shunted less obviously ingratiating musicians into afternoon slots where attendance was poor. For Mingus, Roach, and many others who clambered onto the “Newport Rebels” stage at Cliff Walk, this booking policy was an outrage that put the lie to George Wein’s high-toned claim that the festival sought to “sponsor the study of our country’s only original art form.” The civil rights spirit of the counterfestival—its protest against racial business as usual—was not lost on the press corps. (125)
Many Jazz musicians especially Max Roach and Charles Mingus, were incredibly furious since the festival was not true to its purpose which was to represent America’s original art form, and there is nothing more original and American made than Jazz, created by African Americans. Furthermore, rather than giving musicians of color equal treatment to express their art, they were thrown to the side so that popular white musicians can take the more popular spots on stage. The “Newport Rebels Festival” was a protest towards racial inequality in terms of the music business that many musicians were apart of such as swing era heroes like Roy Eldridge and Coleman Hawkins, bebop musicians like Kenny Drew and Max Roach, hard boppers like Yusef Lateef and Kenny Dorham, free Jazz musicians such as Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, and vocalists like Abbey Lincoln were all present in the festival (Saul, 126). The festival helped shed light upon the racial discrimination that the music business had towards people of color which the press took note of, adding more support for the Civil Rights Movement.
Jazz has multiple sub genres and styles, whether that was ragtime or classic swing type of Jazz, Bebop, Hard – Bop, Post – Bop, Bossa Nova, Afro – Cuban, Jazz Fusion, and countless more, are all part of the genre of Jazz. However, one of the most influential sub genres would be Avant – Garde. During the time where Avant – Garde Jazz started to become more popular, it attracted a large audience of white listeners since it tended to sound “whiter” compared to the other sub genres, since there was less audience participation and “audible” response that you would usually see in straight ahead Jazz that had more of an audience representing African Americans (McMichael, 402). Despite Avant – Garde having less of an African American audience and more of an audience that were mostly white listeners, it started to change people’s perceptions regarding racial identities.
Whites who listened to the emerging “free” or “avant-garde” jazz in the early 1960s did so within this context of the parallel forces of black-directed social and musical activism, both of which significantly affected black and white racial formation on both mainstream and subcultural levels. Avant-garde jazz played a particularly important role in this new discursive space because “free jazz” itself and its distinct modes of reception from more traditional types of jazz performance (discussed below) added a different layer of comprehension to the rearticulation of racial identity. (388)
The influence of Avant – Garde, helped change people’s view of racial perspectives, which would then challenge social identities and norms put out by society during that time in the 60s, despite it being discriminatory. The sub-genre led people, especially people who were white, to think more regarding the civil protests that were happening at the time and would make them question their identity as well. “White jazz listeners exposed to the turmoil of the 1960s developed an appreciation of difference through listening, through intellectually and emotionally acquired knowledge gained from their participation in jazz subcultures of integration. Their appreciation of difference is remarkable for its reflexivity, which is instrumental in their probing and questioning of their own racial identity” (McMichael, 403-404). This goes to show the impact that Avant – Garde had during the fight for racial equality in the 60s. Allowing people to look deeper into their racial identities and seeing the true injustice that was happening at that time in the 60s. Furthermore, showing how influential Jazz was during the movement.
There were many Jazz records and songs that was used as form of outcry or protest towards racial inequality during the Civil Rights Movement such as “Alabama” by John Coltrane written created shortly after the bombing of 16th street Baptist Church, “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone, and Max Roach’s album “We Insist! Max Roach’s – Freedom Now Suite.” In the newspaper “Memories of an Unlikely Young Firebrand” written by Nat Hentoff, talks about the switch of careers and focus of Abbey Lincoln and the influence of the Album “We Insist! Max Roach’s – Freedom Now Suite” which she played a significant role in, and how that album has impacted her career. The album was “the earliest full-scale protest record in Jazz when it was released in 1960” (Hentoff, 1). After the album was released, Abbey Lincoln had already changed her career focus from singing in clubs to engaging in the Civil Rights Movement (Hentoff, 1 and 2). The album was meant to showcase the transitions of slavery, to freedom, and then up to the moment of the Civil Rights Movement while denouncing apartheid. The newspaper states, “The work encompassed slavery to emancipation to the civil rights movement. It also included a fierce denunciation of apartheid (‘Tears for Johannesburg’) …but the most startling section was in ‘Protest,’ featuring ordered, wordless screaming by Ms. Lincoln” (Hentoff, 2). The entire album’s goal was to highlight the African American experience in the past years from slavery, to being free from slavery, yet still having to experience extreme racial discrimination, leading up to the Civil Rights Movement. As a listener, the screaming behind Max Roach’s drum fills held a lot of frustration and anger, where it could be seen as some type of outcry from the countless years of racial inequality. Which explains the headline that Hentoff wrote “A civil rights protest album on which she sang (and screamed) helped bring out racial divisions in jazz during the early 1960s” (2). The entire album helped highlight the racial injustice that was running in the U.S. and the negative experience that people of color had to face as result of it, shedding more light on the issues that the Civil Rights Movement were protesting.
Another great example can be the song “Mississippi Goddam”, written by Nina Simone. The song was inspired by the bombing of 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham, that killed 4 young African American girls.
It came to her in a ‘rush of fury, hatred and determination’ as she ‘suddenly realized what it was to be black in America in 1963.’ It was, she said, ‘my first civil rights song.’ Unlike Simone’s earlier work (one critic had dubbed her a ‘supper club songstress for the elite’), ‘Mississippi Goddam’ was a political anthem. The lyrics were filled with anger and despair and stood in stark contrast to the fast-paced and rollicking rhythm. Over the course of several verses Simone vehemently rejected the notions that race relations could change gradually, that the South was unique in terms of dis- crimination, and that African Americans could or would patiently seek political rights. ‘Me and my people are just about due,’ she declared. (Feldstein, 1349).
The song was meant to reveal the harsh way people of color had to live in America, during the 60s. The tune itself is fast paced with the lyrics reflecting the living conditions of people of color with some of the verses mentioning “Hound Dogs on my trail” and “I think every days’ gonna be my last” which dives deep into her perspective and she felt living in America as a person of color in the 60s. As result, the song became an anthem, as it represented the struggles that people of color had to face. One may argue that Nina Simone’s work wasn’t very effective since as a woman at that time, she was seen as an untraditional leader due to her sex and musician background that was different from others (Feldstein, 1349). This is true in many ways especially since at that time many efforts that were pushed by women were overlooked at since women at the time didn’t really fit the stereotype of strong leadership which was more characterized towards men at the time. However, Nina Simone’s work still had major influence.
She recorded nearly twenty albums and received critical and commercial acclaim within and outside the United States; by the late 1960s, Simone had a global audience for wide-ranging recordings that included Bea- ties songs and those that considered segregation’s effects on children, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., gender discrimination and color consciousness among African Americans, and black pride…Simone is a window into a world beyond dominant liberal civil rights organizations and leaders and into networks of activist cultural producers in particular. She matters not necessarily because she definitively caused a specific number of fans to change their behavior, but because the perspectives on black freedom and gender that she among others articulated circulated as widely as they did in the early 1960s. (Feldstein, 1351 -1352).
Despite the challenges that with being a woman in leadership shoes due to sexist norms, her influence was enormous, having a huge and diverse listening audience to reveal the harsh reality of people of color in America. Helping strengthening the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Movement was one of the biggest movements during the 60s. Many celebrities, artists, musicians, and other things such as the media and the press all played a role in helping to push the movement. But without a doubt, Jazz as a genre and the rest of its musicians played a significant role in fighting for the cause against racial discrimination and injustice. The use of charity events, performances, different sub-genres that helped spoke to different demographics of audiences, and songs specifically made to help visualize the harsh conditions of living as a people of color helped strengthen the movement as whole.
Works Cited
Feldstein, Ruth. “‘I Don’t Trust You Anymore’: Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s.” The Journal of American History, vol. 91, no. 4, 2005, pp. 1349–79. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3660176. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
Hentoff, Nat. “Memories of an Unlikely Young Firebrand: A civil rights protest album on which she sang (and screamed) helped bring out racial divisions in jazz during the early 1960’s. Recollecting A Firebrand.” New York Times (1923-), Mar 03, 2002, pp. 2-a31. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/memories-unlikely-young-firebrand/docview/92199374/se-2.
McMichael, Robert K. “‘We Insist-Freedom Now!’: Black Moral Authority, Jazz, and the Changeable Shape of Whiteness.” American Music, vol. 16, no. 4, 1998, pp. 375–416. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3052287. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
Monson, Ingrid. “Monk Meets SNCC.” Black Music Research Journal, vol. 19, no. 2, 1999, pp. 187–200. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/779341. Accessed 2 Nov. 2024
Saul, Scott. Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t : Jazz and the Making of the Sixties, Harvard University Press, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ccny-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3300359.
