We are told uncountable lies, and many of them are politically motivated. Most people believe them. The lie Im briefly addressing today is that Jazz came from the Blues and Ragtime. The truth is, Jazz is not an 'African-American' invention at all.
It originated, at the latest, in 1880s Paris. The movement, borne out of classical music, was popularly called 'Impressionism', though its major proponents rejected the term, calling it 'Modernist'.
Two Frenchmen, both with similar inspirations such as Chopin and Berlioz, and an American, Edward MacDowell, started publishing classical piano and even operatic music with groundbreaking and unorthodox note progressions. The Frenchmen are called Gabriel Faure and Claude Debussy.
All three of these studied and/or taught at the Conservatoire de Paris. Faure was the eldest, and MacDowell and Debussy studied there at the same time.
Debussy would have a protege, also French, called Maurice Ravel.
Together they formed the alternative music scene of late 1800s-early 1900s France, and Debussy in particular enjoyed commercial success, and was taught to piano students, including those in the United States.
There are two routes that the Jazz concepts of these Modernist composers took into the United States, and both are before Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington or any other well-known 'African-American' musician began playing actual Jazz, rather than Blues or Ragtime, which was the prevailing style in their scenes up until this point.
If you have a musical ear, you will be able to hear the development of Jazz from classical music by listening, through the years, to the songs of Faure, Debussy, and Ravel (and occasionally Bartok).
I have made a specific list of songs that shows this 40+ year development, coming out of classical music. These include, but are far from limited to:
1885-1888 C'est L'Extase - Claude Debussy
1890-91 Menuet - Claude Debussy
1892 Nocturne - Claude Debussy
1894 Nocturne No. 6 - Gabriel Faure
1899 Pavane pour une Infante Defunte - Maurice Ravel
1903 Reflets dans L'eau - Claude Debussy
1901-1905 Hommage a Rameau - Claude Debussy
1904-05 Oiseaux Tristes - Maurice Ravel
While my findings are entirely based in music and falsifiable data, Jazz has been racially appropriated by some darker-skinned people in the United States. They claimed it as 'theirs', perhaps to differentiate themselves from lighter-skinned people, or to build a segregated folklore around which to identify as 'black'. While the Blues seems clearly to have originated from some darker-skinned people in the US, Jazz is a genre of music with vastly more development, and at least some of them knew that they were taking from the French masters. Its perfectly possible that they, having been alienated (or their ancestors having been) and oppressed by lighter-skinned rulers, became somewhat racist themselves, and refused to credit the lighter-skinned composers - that several of them themselves fleetingly admit to having been influenced by.
I do not believe in racial identity. 'White' is a lie, and 'Black' is a lie, there is no such thing as a 'white' or a 'black' person, and to still have that delusion today is both profoundly stupid, and the entire cause of racism in the first place.
As such, I have enjoyed undermining the attempt at racially appropriating this genre of music, and have shown that Jazz music is neither 'Black', nor 'White'. It is, instead, from the musical innovations of 1880s-1910s French Modernism.
I wonder what else in our culture we can de-politicise, and, from its surpression by propaganda and 'identity politics', free the truth. For now though, you have some fascinating music to listen to. Enjoy!
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Seems sensible to me. I didn't know about that guy invented the Jazz!
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