New Orleans

Re-New Orleans

The New Orleans area was unusual in that a mixed-race Creole caste enjoyed many of the opportunities of whites, and black ensembles took part in the classical music and operas of the city. However, a segregation law ruling of 1894 classified the Afro-Creole population as "black", throwing the two communities together. Since 1857, there was legalized prostitution in the red-light district around Basin Street called "Storyville", where many early jazz performers played.

Numerous marching bands, such as the Onward Brass Band founded in the 1880s, found work at functions, particularly at the lavish funerals arranged by the African American community where they played solemn music on the way to the cemetery, then on the way back celebrated with spirited, syncopated ragtime style versions of tunes such as Chopin's Funeral March. From the 1890s, the cornet player Buddy Bolden led a band which performed in Storyville, integrating Afro-Creole dance music with blues elements and reportedly adding a rhythmic swing, inspiring many future jazz musicians. His career ended abruptly in 1907, before he made any records so there is uncertainty about his style. His performances in New Orleans parades and dances appear to have been early examples of jazz-style improvisation.

The instruments used in marching bands and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands of primarily self-taught African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from around 1914 on, Afro-Creole and African American musicians playing vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern USA cities. A "...black musical spirit (involving rhythm and melody) was bursting out of the confines of European musical tradition, even though the performers were using European styled instruments.

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