How New Orleans Became the Birthplace of Jazz

       At the start of the twentieth century, jazz music emerged in New Orleans due to geographical and cultural reasons. Ted Giola refers to New Orleans as a “major hub of commerce” (Giola, 29) and rightly so: Water was the major source of transportation at the time (via steamboat) and New Orleans’s seaside location helped the city rise as a major cosmopolitan trading center, bringing a diversity to the city that no other city in the U.S. was able to experience.
      Culturally, New Orleans was home to a richly-diverse population. In addition to the diversity within European populations, there was also a major black population, with a large portion being of West African heritage. This diversity was further fueled by intermarriage.
      Home to a predominantly Catholic population, New Orleans had a slightly more liberal legal system and attitude in regards to slavery; they followed the Latin Code, which argued that slaves have souls and are human beings — not property. Intermarriage was supported in order to increase the Catholic population. This resulted in a large mixed-race population.
      The Creole people — the descendants of New Orleans’ French and Spanish settlers — are famously tied to New Orleans culture. The Creole intermarriages with the black population resulted in mixed children — Creoles of Color — generally the free children of slave owners. However, the Creoles of Color did what they could to separate themselves from the lower-class black community; they tried to assimilate into New Orleans’ European culture and spoke negatively of the lower-class black community to emphasize how different they were from the Creoles of Color. They also their own set of legal rights.
      All of this “special treatment” toward the Creoles of Color changed after the Robert Charles Riots in 1900. Robert Charles, a black man, shot a white policeman in self-defense. The white population rioted for days; Charles’s body was unrecognizably mangled when he was killed. Racial tensions remained high after this event.  The Louisiana Legislative Code in 1894 — which stated that anyone with “one drop” of African blood was black (Giola, 34) — changed the social status of Creoles of Color.
      The significance of the passage of the Louisiana Legislative Code in 1894 cannot be stressed enough: It played the most important role in the emergence of jazz in New Orleans. Because of this “one drop” rule, Creoles of Color were no longer welcome in white communities; they were pressed into associating with the lower-class black community that they had struggled to differentiate themselves from.
      Musically, the Creoles of Color were classically-trained musicians with technical fluency. No longer welcome to play with the white bands, they began playing with the black musicians. This resulted in a syncretism of African and European musical tradition. The African musical principle of ‘vital aliveness’ — coined by Robert F. Thompson — calls for an intense performance style that is reminiscent of youthful energy. The musicians ‘attack’ their instruments to achieve this. This ‘vital aliveness’ from the black musicians combined with the Creoles of Color’s background in European musical tradition (Giola, 33), resulting in competitive creativity. Giola argues that the “blurring of musical genres was central to the creation of jazz” (Giola, 33). When the Creoles of Color played music with the black musicians, ragtime and the blues experienced inevitable changes. Through this fusion, jazz was born in New Orleans.