Creoles, Italians and African-Americans: the Birth of Jazz in the Cescent City about 1900

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Originally uploaded by Incognita Nom de Plume

African Americans are the best known of the participants in creating a hot music at the turn of the century. The birth of jazz seems mostly to have happened first in the port city of New Orleans.

But Af-Ams were joined in the creative act by Creole men.

Defining Creole:

1. Europeans born the new world: French or Spanish.
2. All peoples of the colonial era who were born in the new world (Europe being the old world): Africans, indigenous peoples, Europeans. And there was quite a bit of mixing between those groups.

Finally, who were the Euros who played hot music and helped birth jazz? A large percentage of them were Italians, I've seen in my reading.

What was it about Italians in New Orleans around 1900?
They were
- outsiders; as Roman Catholics in a society dominated by WASP's, they had so little status that most were forced into housing adjacent to the black quarters.
- it was not unusual to hear these Southern Europeans - most of them were from Naples or the island of Sicily - called "dagos" or "wops."

Btw, the Creoles hated being in bands with black men. Many Creoles had formal musical education. Most black musicians were not educated - even if they were talented.

Somehow these groups forged musical arrangements of all sorts of tunes - gospel-based melodies, tunes from vaudeville - into a music that was full of emotion and excitement.

That was jazz.