In the 1920s and 30s, radio and recording technologies have gained great popularity around the world. They not only allowed music to be heard from far away, but also allowed the unique experience of listening to a musician live to be repeated. What did it mean for the musicians who played on these radio stations and recordings? As we will see in the accounts from Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams, John Hammond, and several other notable people, the invention of the radio and recording technology helped to solve some issues facing Jazz musicians, yet it created new problems that these musicians had to face.
It is undeniable that radio and recording have helped Jazz musicians in many ways, allowing musicians to be discovered more easily and giving more people the opportunity to listen to their music. One of the major benefits of radio was that it allowed people to listen to musicians play miles away over the radio, sometimes, it could even be heard a few states away. This allowed musicians to expand their audience from just being the concert venue to whoever was tuned in to their radio station. It also allowed members of the music industry to listen to and learn about Jazz musicians from different parts of the country. This is exactly what happened to Count Basie, a Jazz pianist playing in Kansas City. John Hammond, a music journalist and record producer, picked up Count Basie and his band one night on his car radio and is so impressed with how the band played that he started writing articles about their performance. In his autobiography, Hammond writes about this experience, saying “So, I had known of the Basie band without ever hearing them play. And what I had picked up from Kansas City was amazing.”(Gottlieb 132). This experience Hammond had to listen to Count Basie drove him to publicize the band in the magazine Down Beat. This publicization by Hammond was “influential in bringing the latter’s orchestra to national prominence in 1936”(Hammond). Count Basie himself talks about his side of this experience in his autobiography, writing how John Hammond “was writing articles for Down Beat, or some magazine like that, and he would put little things in there about picking up our broadcast on the short-wave radio set he had in his automobile”(Gottlieb 139) He goes on to say how Hammond’s discovery of their band caused many notable people in the music industry at that time to gain an interest in their bands like Willard Alexander and Dave Kapp. Without the radio, the Count Basie band may have not been discovered by so many people or it may have taken a much longer time. Also, it enabled the Count Basie band to reach people in the music industry from miles away, which not only helped the Count Basie band but other small jazz bands as well. This, however, had some drawbacks which will be discussed later on.
Much like radio, recording technology allowed people from all over the world to listen to jazz musicians. Although the process of recording in the 1920s was rather difficult, the resulting records were worth it. Companies would distribute these records to locations around the world so they can be sold off. This allowed Jazz musicians to reach the ears of many people worldwide without having to travel far. In Mary Lou William’s autobiography, she talks about her first major hit with her band, titled “Froggy Bottom”. Williams mentions how it was so famous, that after getting back from Harlem’s Appolo Theater, “All that could be heard on the jukeboxes was “Froggy Bottom”. That particular tune was playing all over the country”(Gottlieb 107). Due to the technologies of recording, people all over the nation did not need to go to a venue to hear Williams perform Jazz, and instead could play her music wherever there was a record player. This made it much easier for people to listen to Williams and other Jazz musicians that they liked, and for every record each Jazz musician sold, the musicians became more and more popular.
The technologies of radio and recording, however, created new problems that Jazz musicians had to face. For instance, it enabled the music industry to take advantage of the same musicians that they helped to promote. Returning to a previous example, once John Hammond started publishing articles about his band, it did not take long for recording companies to try and take advantage of the Count Basie band. Count Basie writes about his first contract with a recording company called Decca Records and how a man from that company had the band sign an unfair record deal, saying how “he offered me a contract to make twenty-four sides a year for three years. That was how I came to sign my first recording contract, and I made a very big mistake on that one”(Gottlieb 141). John Hammond also writes about the contract Count Basie signed with Decca Records, and how Basie was essentially taken advantage of. Hammond made comments such as “To Basie it seemed like a lot of money. To me it was devastating”(Gottlieb 135), “There was no provisions for royalties”(Gottlieb 135), and that the contract was ”below the legal minimum scale demanded by the American Federation of Musicians for recording”(Gottlieb 135). Count Basie had no idea what to look for when signing a record deal, which allowed Decca Records to take advantage of him. Hammond then realized that his praising of the band in Down Beat contributed to this, saying how “The loss of Basie to Decca was partially my own fault”(Gottlieb 135). Hammond’s comment shows how although the publicity caused by radio is not inherently bad for Jazz musicians, it can and has led to members of the music industry taking advantage of these local Jazz musicians. This not only limits their career to what the label company demands of them but can have a significant impact on their personal lives if they do not make enough money off of the contract.
Although recording has helped Jazz spread far, it also limited the way Jazz is played. When people started to listen to recordings of Jazz musicians, they became accustomed to the solos in the recordings but would be displeased if the solos were not the same during performances, which defeats the whole purpose of repetition with a difference in Jazz. Several critics of Jazz took note of this occurrence. Albert Murray, who is a famous Jazz critic, discusses this situation in his book Stomping the Blues, writing about how back then, when Jazz musicians who made recordings would go on tour, they would encounter fans who “were not only as familiar with their styles as with the mannerisms of a favorite athlete but also could recite their solos note for note”(Gottlieb 995). This becomes not only problematic for the Jazz performers who are pressured to play their songs note for note on the recordings, but gives those who listen to these recordings the false idea that the songs played in the recordings must not be changed. This goes against the ideas of free expression that Jazz cultivates, causing a disconnect between the Jazz performers and the listener. Returning to a previous example, Mary Lou Williams touches on this issue in her autobiography, talking about how she “had gotten sick of playing the same ones long ago. Our repertoire consisted of recorded hits, and solos had to be exactly like those on the records”(Gottlieb 109). In this quote, Williams implies that Jazz is not supposed to sound the same every time it’s played, but to be performed in the moment. Because audiences demanded the Jazz musicians to play the solos note for note with the records, they inhibited Jazz musicians from properly performing Jazz and limiting their freedom and expression with their music.
In conclusion, radio and recording have helped to eliminate some issues Jazz musicians faced in the 1920s and 30s while creating different problems that the musicians needed to deal with. It is not fair to say that the creation of radio and recording has done all good or all bad for musicians, however, many of the issues these musicians did face were issues that could have been avoided. How then could people have done differently to avoid these issues with radio and recording? If the issues that faced Jazz musicians were to be avoided, people would need to understand what is Jazz in the first place to have a better appreciation of what happens in real live performances, while the members of the music industry need to treat the Jazz musicians with respect, giving them fair contracts and proper acknowledgment.
John Hammond and Irving Townsend, From John Hammond on Record(1977), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996) 132.
Count Basie and Albert Murray, From Good Morning Blues (1985), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 139.
Mary Lou Williams, From Melody Maker (1954), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996) 107
Count Basie and Albert Murray, From Good Morning Blues (1985), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 139.
John Hammond and Irving Townsend, from John Hammond on Record(1977), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 135.
Albert Murray, From Stomping the Blues(1976), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 995.
Mary Lou Williams, From Melody Maker (1954), cited in Reading Jazz, ed. Robert Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 109.
Works Cited
Gottlieb, Robert. Reading Jazz: a Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now. Vintage Books, 1999.
Hammond, John and Irving Townsend. John Hammond on Record. 1977, cited in Reading Jazz, ed Robert Gottlieb. New York, Pantheon Books, 1996.
Williams, Mary Lou, Melody Maker. 1954, cited in Reading Jazz, ed Robert Gottlieb. New York, Pantheon Books, 1996.
Murray, Albert. Stomping the Blues. 1976, cited in Reading Jazz, ed Robert Gottlieb. New York, Pantheon Books, 1996.
Basie, Count and Albert Murray. Good Morning Blues. 1985, cited in Reading Jazz, ed Robert Gottlieb. New York, Pantheon Books, 1996.
“Hammond, John (Jazz).” Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-2000186100.
