Jazz Music between World Wars Essay Example for Free

Jazz Music between World Wars Essay The jazz craze in music during the 1920s reflected a general spirit of the times for many commentators like Seldes that this decade became known as the Jazz Age. Following World War I, jazz music certainly captured the popular imagination. The rapid popularity of jazz music led to its equally rapid spread among musicians. No other style up to this time in American popular music so quickly came to dominate popular performance. The American vernacular, which had already made significant inroads into the commercial popular music market, had captured popular tastes at an unprecedented level, seemingly sweeping aside the old â€Å"standards. † And just as ragtime and syncopated dance music became part of earlier commercial popular music, the dominance of jazz in the 1920s also represented a major triumph of the black vernacular in American popular music. The jazz craze began through the influence of non-professional musicians. While still marginal to most legitimate venues, non-professional musicians performing the jazz vernacular were attracting audiences to clubs, theaters, restaurants, and were popular in the speakeasies of the 1920s. They also had opportunities for their music to reach a broader audience in a booming record market following World War I. Professional musicians, however, quickly adopted jazz music in their orchestras and smaller bands. They co-opted the jazz fever while simultaneously distancing themselves from non-professionals. (Charters, 39-43) By occupying the most lucrative jobs in theaters, dance halls, hotels, and other venues, professional musicians positioned themselves as the premier interpreters of this new vernacular idiom in commercial popular music. The common defense of jazz as good music during the Jazz Age embraced the professional musicians and professional composers who performed and created jazz music, not the non-professional musicians who first introduced it. In adopting jazz idioms, professional musicians were simply continuing the process of cultivating the American vernacular. Black professional musicians were already adopting black vernacular idioms in their music making in earlier syncopated society orchestras and simply adopted jazz idioms as well as the name in their â€Å"jazz† orchestras. (Bushell, 72-75) White professional musicians had performed rags as part of their repertoire in the past, but with the jazz craze, many were quick to adopt syncopated dance and jazz practices in some form as the defining style of their profession. White professional musicians also quickly followed black professional musicians in transforming their bands into jazz orchestras, and just as quickly claimed to be the modern proponents of this new American popular music. Black and white professional jazz orchestras in the 1920s established the basic instrumentation, arrangement, and techniques of the big band dance orchestras that dominated American popular music until the 1950s. In the 1920s, an emerging new ideal of good music involved a balancing of the previous cultivated practices and cultivated music of professional musicians with popular vernacular idioms. The proper balance, however, was hotly debated. Professional musicians would constantly distance themselves from the pure vernacular of non-professional musicians. In defending their balance of the cultivated and the vernacular in popular performance, popular tastes, however, were demanding jazz music and a professional musician would be remiss to ignore his patrons in the popular music market as much as stodgy critics and some professional musicians would rail against the pernicious influence of jazz. Professional musicians in mediating the popular music market had to continue to navigate the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial construction of good music in America. While popular tastes in musical entertainment promoted the black vernacular in commercial popular music, the plight of the African American community in the United States continued to be dire. Some leaders in the black community had hoped that African Americans participation during World War I in both the military and in industry, and the Great Migration out of the Jim Crow South, would change their fortunes as segregated and oppressed second class citizens. The post-war years, however, dashed most hopes of any immediate positive change. (DeVeaux, 6-29) Race relations went in the opposite direction. Race riots sprung up across the nation while lynching continued to be a regular occurrence. Efforts continued to secure the legal segregation of black communities, and the labor movement continued to exclude blacks. The Ku Klux Klan reached its peak membership and popularity during the 1920s. The segregation and denigration of the black community was also reflected in the social organization of American music. (Hansen, 493-97) Besides the segregation of audiences and most venues, black professional musicians also remained outside the artistic community of white professional musicians in terms of unions, band organizations, and this communitys vision of a professional class of artist in America. The balance of the cultivated and the vernacular among professional musicians also continued to run against elitist conceptions of popular music and popular musicians as less legitimate than the music, musicians, and composers of the European cultivated tradition of classical and opera music. Black professional musicians also continued to strive to break through the barriers erected against them in the world of European cultivated music. This continuing tension in the implied lower status of professional musicians who performed American popular music erupted during the Jazz Age into an open rebellion against the European cultivated tradition. Professional musicians in jazz orchestras attempted to counter the singular role claimed by the European cultivated tradition. These musicians asserted that jazz was a true American or African American school of fine art music in contrast to cultivated European music – a populist appeal for high art legitimacy. This high art turn in American popular music, however, ultimately failed when the depression wreaked havoc on the popular music market. With the introduction of a new popular music market of live performances, records, broadcasts, and films, the quest for legitimacy among professional popular musicians would have to take another route. It was a period where professional popular musicians in adopting the jazz vernacular went against the reigning cultural hierarchy in America. (Peretti, 234-40) The period following World War I was a crucial turning point in American popular music. The American vernacular in general was storming the ramparts of the old edifice of good music as Tin Pan Alley song and dance dominated popular performance. Both professional and nonprofessional musicians also were benefiting from more affluent times and the growing importance of entertainment in the lives of most urban Americans. To the chagrin of elite and moral defenders of nineteenth century cultural idealism, most urban Americans were readily joining a Cultural Revolution in commercial popular entertainment. And at the center of this revolution was the national craze for jazz music and jazz dance. The jazz craze made syncopated rhythms and other black vernacular idioms central elements of American popular music making. While many small jazz bands performed a black vernacular style of music from the Delta Region of New Orleans, jazz music in the 1920s encompassed not only this style but syncopated dance music, blues music, piano rags, and virtually any tune jazzed up by musicians. The jazz craze in essence was the craze for the black vernacular among popular audiences and the performance of this vernacular in some form by popular musicians and popular singers both professional and non-professional. The extent to which musicians and singers actually adopted the black vernacular rather than a superficial imitation – critique later jazz critics would make of certain sweet jazz during the 1920s – is less important than the fact that jazz entered the consciousness of the nation and musicians as the reigning popular music. The word Jazz seems to have found a permanent place in the vocabulary of popular music. It was used originally as an adjective describing a band that in playing for dancing were so infected with their own rhythm that they themselves executed as much, if not more, contortions than the dancers. The popularity of the raggy music has created a demand for music with exaggerated syncopation, an attempt as it were to produce the wonderful broken rhythms of the primitive African jungle orchestra. The jazz craze also coincided with the growth of black entertainment. During the 1920s, black entertainment districts like the South Side in Chicago and Harlem in New York City witnessed a major boom. Besides entertaining the large black populations of The Great Migration, black musicians and singers were entertaining white audiences who went uptown for their entertainment. The boom in the 1920s in black entertainment, as Kenny (1993, 89-92) and Shaw (1987, 122-30) show, was driven by the demand for the black vernacular. In musical theater, musical revues, vaudeville, dance, and speakeasies, the black vernacular and black artists were in demand. This demand was met not only in black entertainment districts, but also outside these districts as black artists performed for white audiences in musical revues, dance halls, and clubs in white entertainment districts. The popularity of the black vernacular also increased when record producers discovered a race market in black music. Most members of the New England School of cultivated music like Mason, and other defenders of the old ideal of good music, were stridently against the influence of jazz in both popular music and classical music. Repeating the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial epithets used to condemn the popularization of vernacular jazz, the guardians of the old ideal ridiculed any idea of jazz meriting the status of high art or even having an influence on serious music composition and performance. As David Stanley Smith, Professor of Music at Yale University, argued in The Musician of August 1926, jazz musics â€Å"monotonous rhythm, as unvaried as the chug-chug of a steam engine, enslaves its practitioners within a formula, and induces in composer, performer, and listener a stupor of mind and emotion. † On the other hand, many of those individuals who embraced â€Å"modernism† in cultivated music were sympathetic to jazz music. These modernists emphasized jazz as the legitimate expression of the times and a nation. (Stewart, 102-109) The debate within the cultivated tradition between old idealists and modernists on the influence of jazz revolved mainly around the influence of popular jazz on serious music composition and performance. That the question would be posed in such a manner spoke to how, by the 1920s, the European cultivated tradition had organizationally and ideologically broken from the world of commercial popular music. Crossover between popular music and cultivated music occurred during the 1920s, but organizational and ideological barriers left little chance that jazz musicians would transform the cultivated tradition. The very formation of a separate world of cultivated music in the United States was predicated on its distinction from commercial popular music, popular musicians, and popular tastes – a distinction further exacerbated by jazz music being an expression of the black vernacular. The influence of jazz within the cultivated tradition, however, was debated during the 1920s as professional musicians laid claim to a truly American art form and modernists promoted the incorporation of jazz in serious music composition and performance. (Badger, 48-67) Traditionalists, of course, had reason to be optimistic as the economic depression following the 1929 stock market crash wreaked havoc on the commercial market of popular jazz music. Defenders of the European cultivated tradition also had reason to celebrate as the confident proclamations of professional musicians on jazz as Americas first authentic art receded to the background as these musicians adjusted to changed economic circumstances and a new popular music market. Professional musicians struggle for legitimacy during the Jazz Age, however, laid the ideological and musical foundation upon which the next generation of professional musicians would construct a modern jazz paradigm. In their quest for legitimacy as professional artists, they were the first popular artists to attempt to transform the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial constructions of the old ideal of good music in America. While their efforts contained their own complicity in manners of distinction, the contradictions of an elite populism embedded in a racist culture, they did struggle to create an alternative understanding of art and society in America. As the self-appointed mediators of the American vernacular, professional musicians and composers ardently worked to construct an alternative form of good music to that of the European cultivated music tradition – a music reflecting in some fashion the world of popular audiences and popular tastes. ( DeVeaux, 525-40) In this process of syncretism, the reinvention and reinterpretation of musical idioms and practices, these artists created the American big band dance orchestra and the Tin Pan Alley song that dominated American popular music until the middle of the twentieth century. While jazz did not become a universally recognized American high art form during the Jazz Age, professional musicians and composers transformed it into legitimate popular art music, although at the expense of those non-professional vernacular musicians who did not assimilate into their profession. The need for professional musicians to legitimate popular dance orchestras disappeared after the 1920s, and the old ideal of good music no longer occupied this professional class of musician. (Gioia, 213-20) The emergence of an alternative ideal of good music among professional musicians signaled a final separation between popular music making and the cultivated tradition in American music. This break was both ideological and practical; a reflection of both a new professional ethos among professional musicians and the culmination of the division in the social organization of American music between the world of popular music and the world of European cultivated music. (Lopes, 25-36) The previous crisscrossing professionally between the cultivated tradition and popular music making was no longer part of this profession. The future big band leaders and musicians of the Swing Era began their professional careers not in symphonies, but in the small jazz ensembles and jazz orchestras of the Jazz Age. The fate of jazz was seemed threatened by the power over popular music of a new mass media industry of broadcasts, recordings, and film. Just when the fortunes of jazz seemed dead and buried, however, the swing craze reignited popular interest in the cultivated jazz vernacular. (Hennessey, 156-60) The promotion of sweet music and the subsequent swing craze, however, set in motion a new distinction within the profession of musician. No longer than singularly obsessed with the world of European cultivated music, professional musicians who assimilated the black jazz vernacular now viewed sweet music as their more direct nemesis. The race and class boundaries articulated in the old ideal of good music were now articulated more directly for professional musicians in the distinction between the popular music cultures of sweet and swing.

The Bean Trees Essay -- essays research papers

â€Å"The Bean Trees†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In The Bean Trees there are lots of themes that add up to a well-made story. One of the more obvious themes is that of immigration and the Underground Railroad that Mattie helps run. Within the book there are also several references to child abuse. Another is that of Teen pregnancy that is introduced early on. This however is not all of the themes that are used, but they are some of the more prominent and reoccurring ones in the novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One of the themes is teen pregnancy, it however is primarily only talked about it the first chapter. This is one of the greatest driving forces for getting Taylor out of Kentucky. Taylor starts in a society where the many of the girls in her school and town become pregnant at a young age. This all but impresses Taylor and motivates her to become someone better than all the pregnant girls of her town. It motivates her even more when Newt Hardbine and Jolene Shanks arrive at the hospital. Newt had been shot by his father and furthermore Jolene had also been shot at while she was carrying a baby. As this reality dawns on her it grips to her soul and immediately changes the way she views the world. This turn of events has a great impact on her future. I think her decision to leave is sealed on that day. Soon after, Taylor pools her money together and she buys a 55 Volkswagen. After Taylor ties up a few ends at home she is on her way. Taylor after getting some miles und...

Tata Ace- Case Study

MARKETING STRATEGIES ASSIGNMENT â€Å"TATA ACE† CASE STUDY 1) Why do we feel Tata Motors was targeting LCV (Light Commercial Vehicle) segment under commercial segment for TATA ACE? – – – Better highway systems like the Golden Quadrilateral meant that Commercial vehicles in 45+ Tonnes could carry bulk loads covering large distances in shorter time and at lower per tonne per km cost. Government also went about the task of improving road network between medium sized cities and also building all weather tertiary road network covering rural towns- only smaller and rugged vehicles could operate on these roads ( Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadhak Yojana).Increased congestion & pollution in most of the cities forced the government to regulate the movement of Large/ Heavy trucks (larger than four tonnes) in the cities. Tata motors considered the above primary factors in determining the need for large commercial vehicles for the highways and smaller sub 4 Ton category co mmercial vehicle for operating on both Inter city/ Town and Intra city road network.Ruling out the possibility of developing large commercial vehicles due to the high cost of development and fearing loss of revenues from their niche standard size truck segment, Tata motors decided to develop TATA ACE targeting the Light Commercial Vehicle Segment. Also helping their decision process were some key policy initiatives: – Discouraging the use of Old. Polluting & uneconomical vehicles Scrapping of >15 years old vehicles Ban on overloading of vehicle. ) Highlight the Key outcome of Market Research which was conducted before launching TATA ACE and do we think there was a gap which can be addressed by a Product like TATA ACE? Market research involving interviewing of over 4000 truck and three wheeler operators across the length & breadth of the country highlighted the following needs, though there was a section which opined that even a three wheeler under TATA banner would be welcome d by the market: (i) Owning price of the vehicle should not exceed INR 200,000/(ii) Fuel Efficiency. Reduce â€Å"per ton per km† cost. iii) Maneuverability of three wheeler but with higher level of a. Safety b. Durability c. Ruggedness d. Reliability e. Higher payload f. Comfort of a four wheeled truck. (iv) And finally â€Å"Personal Motivation† to drive a four wheeler to enhance the status of operators in the society and thereby create transportation entrepreneurs . Tata Motors addressed all the key requirements of the market with TATA ACE, A four wheeler with economical pricing, Fuel Efficient engine, pay load of 1750 kgs and built in safety features including enhanced comfort. ) How was Segmentation & Targeting done for TATA ACE? As a Functional segmentation, Tata motors decided that the ACE would address the spectrum of LCV to transport 750 – 1500 kgs over 100-200 kms and position it between the Rickshaws/Cart and Pick up trucks; meeting the functional nee ds of different customers. They also further segmented this functional segmented customers into four groups viz. , – Performance sensitive (7%) o Interested in status, Brand image and speed o Willing to pay higher prices for features Current owners/ operators of larger SUVs or cars. – Balanced perspective (25%) o Return on Investment o Comfort and features o Owners – Entrepreneurs o Purchasing three wheeler, due to absence of an alternative. – Return on Investment sensitive (55%) o Per Ton per Km cost o No value for Non-monetary purchase considerations o Generally fleet owners/ operators- who hired drivers – Acquisition price constrained (13%) o Lacked credit o Could not afford for slightly expensive vehicles. o Prefer three wheelerFinally they identified a group that could not afford any motorized vehicle; using bullock & horse carts, cycle rickshaws, manual pull carts. However this group over time can move up and be a TATA ACE customer. Based on functional & customer segmentation and also considering potential growth of the market , TATA Motors estimated and targeted: – 45% of the ACE’s customers planning to purchase 3 Wheeler – 15% from potential pickup & LCV purchasers – and 40% from first time CV purchasers. 4) Explain the Marketing Mix 4P's [Product, Price, Place, Promotion] strategy adapted for TATA ACE?Product: TATA ACE was designed to address three major customer needs in terms of product ie. , – Overloading capability – 2 cylinder water cooled engine, based on the proven Indica diesel engine – Safety, Comfort and aesthetic considerations Price: Though the price apparently was higher at ` 225,000 as against ` 100,000-200,000, they addressed the Per ton per km cost. Tata Ace would cost Rs. 6. 70 for delivering one ton of goods over per km as against `7. 88, their nearest competitor could offer and segment average of ` 8. 54. Place:Tata motors decided to roll out in phas e beginning with 5 states in Western and Southern parts of India; where the demand for three wheelers were high. They also benchmarked distribution network against two & three wheeler dealer network. Based on the data, they developed new dealership format called 1S (Sales), as against traditional 3S dealership network. Each existing Tata Motors 3S Dealer (Sales, Service & Spares) was required to set up 8 to 20 1S centers in their region and staff them with existing employees. Within 3 months 300 new distribution points were set up.Promotion: Tata motors used both Print and TV media to position and promote the product. – Chota Hathi – Symbol of Power, Reliability and â€Å"Mini† product A boy rushing to school, Wife seeing off for the day, Off to Work in Tata Ace and Going to School in Tata Ace. Also their positioning statements viz. , o India’s first Mini truck o Small is Big o Stability & Trust of big truck o Economic liberation o Feel good about jab o T ransportation at the last mile 5) What is the current trend of TATA ACE. Who are their competitors and suggest a future steps taken for TATA ACE?Present day competitors are : – Mahindra Gio – Mahindra Maxximo – Piagio Ape Mini Truck Force Trump Minidor. A few steps suggested for TATA ACE to continue to be the top seller are: – Continue to innovate and ring in changes to make the vehicle more fuel efficient. Increase engine torque to demonstrate performance in hilly regions Continue to control costs and offer competitive price to customers Increase Go Green initiative with increase in ENG and Electric drive variants Target export market aggressively; with both features and better pricing.

Book Review of Primo Levis Survival in Auschwitz Essay

Book Review of Primo Levis Survival in Auschwitz World War II was a war that took many lives from civilians that deserved to have a life of their own. They were ordinary people who were victims from a horrible and lengthy war that brought out the worst in some people. In Primo Levis Survival in Auschwitz, Levi gives a detailed account of his life in a concentration camp. Primo Levi was a young Italian chemist who was only twenty-four years old when he was captured by the Nazis in 1943. He spent two long and torturous years at Auschwitz before the Russian army freed the remaining prisoners of the camp. He tells about life inside the camp and how tough it was to be held like an animal for so long. He says they were treated as†¦show more content†¦The one thing all of the prisoners had in common was hunger, which laid the foundation for their life in Auschwitz. The prisoners in Auschwitz were treated very poorly and the world came crashing down on them even before they were brought there. When Levi was informed that he was going to be going to Auschwitz from Turin, Italy he did not know what to expect but he did not expect this. He said, dancing before my eyes I see the spaghetti which we had just cooked, Vanda, Luciana, and I, at the sorting-camp when we suddenly heard the news that we would leave for here the following day; and were eating it and we stopped (74). He was not aware that he would not be able to eat like this ever in the camp and was almost convinced that he would never eat like that again period. He thought about this in one of the rare moments that he had a chance to think about his past life that was very depressing for anyone to think about. They all thought they would be stuck there forever which it seemed liked already. The hunger that took over for everybody became the basis for their complex social structure. They would use rations of bread as the currency for things that they would need. They would buy spoons, shirts, and other things that they would need to survive inside the camp. The veterans could tell who the new people in the camp were because the new arrivals would stash half rations of bread in their coats while the veterans could not do that because theyShow MoreRelatedA Journey Through Auschwitz Concentration Camp in If This Is a Man by Primo Levi802 Words   |  3 Pages If This Is a Man by Primo Levi is a story about his personal experience of the journey through Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Right from the very first trip to the unknown destination, to the point of near death, Primo’s life was a constant battle between life and death. Throughout the book, Primo portrays his walk through living hell in a way that is both powerful and painful. The cover of the book displays a black and white picture of three bald men, one of which is Primo, all in the striped clothesRead MoreAnalysis of the Theme of Survival in Auschwitz Essay2577 Words   |  11 PagesSurvival in Auschwitz tells of the horrifying and inhuman conditions of life in the Auschwitz death camp as personally witnessed and experienced by the author, Primo Levi. Levi is an Italian Jew and chemist, who at the age of twenty-five, was arrested with an Italian resistance group and sent to the Nazi Auschwitz death camp in Poland in the end of 1943. For ten terrible months, Levi endured the cruel and inhuman death camp where men slaved away until it was time for them to die. Levi thoroughlyRead MoreSummary : Free Slave Voice 1397 Words   |  6 Pages2015 Free Slave Voice â€Å"Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.† (Levi) Mr. Levi’s quote is a response to a question about his survival at Auschwitz. In order to correct unjust or evil, we who stand by and say nothing must speak up, be heard, and be understood for we are many and evil is few. (OE) after reading the excerpt of â€Å"The Interesting Narrative of the