Women's Rights Movement: Jazz Transformations

Woman’s Rights impact on Jazz Transformations

By: Mallory Monaghan

While the Woman’s Rights movement dominated the attention of the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, Jazz music prevailed as a driving theme. Women’s new outlook on life and its possibilities was magnified by the innovative sound that created the mentality of the roaring 20s. Courage, equality, strength, and originality were all concepts encouraged by this era and contributed to the beginnings of Jazz and its successors. These social and cultural changes not only challenged and transformed the traditional ways of life through the years but also transformed Jazz and the genre’s individual style.

The earliest surviving instrumental jazz recording is from 1917 and was recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. This “early jazz” was “considered collective improvisation” and was characterized by small groups and little planning. (Aaberg) This style easily matched the individualistic attitude that beamed from the lovely ladies of the 1920s.

As women’s new, strengthened roles became less gender oriented and more widely accepted, so began the “big band era”. This development in Jazz came about during the 1930s and early 1940s. The association with the big band sound created a feeling of unity and exhilaration that motivated the decade. However, the pleasantness was cut short due to the beginning of World War II; and so jazz transformed once again.

Be-bop was the music of the 1950s. Jazz had come thirty years in the making to create what was finally considered “modern jazz”. However, it did not come easily. As stated by Langston Houghes bop comes from, “ Out of the dark days we have seen. This is why be-bop is so mad, wild, frantic, crazy.” (Lowney) Not only did every woman achieve what to some seemed forever impossible, they took that strength and powered through a World War that brought pain and suffering to so many. The beginning of the 1920s, the Woman’s rights movement, and Jazz is what drove both men and women through the thirty years it took to create such free, feel-good music.