But of course it's black the way blackness is in America, which is eclectic, just as "black" people are a social group so identified by self and others rather than a biologically distinct population (a biological "race" if there is such a thing), whose social and biological makeup includes lots of elements adopted and transformed from the general background that influences them as they influence it, so jazz (blues, etc.) is a music, largely black in origin and development, that has lots of other _essential_ elements feeding into it from other parts or aspects of our culture (European classical music, American folk and country, Broadway show tunes, pop music generally).
And of course when white and other musicians play jazz and blues, while it can be a tribute and support to the idea that black is beautiful, it's not a self-expression of that idea or feeling. But it's no less really and authentically jazz (blues) for all that: Duke Ellington or Woody Herman, Louis Armstrong or Muggsy Spanier, Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O'Day, James Carter or Joe Lovano -- you can argue the relative merits of these artists, but what you can't do is argue that the white artists aren't doing great authentic jazz.
>
> Also, there is a differentiating dynamic in an
> oppressed group making
> itself distinct from its oppressor group. So, in
> many ways Black music
> is explicitly, purposefully, definitively and
> consciously "not-white".
> Blues and jazz as played by Black people was not
> just not white because
> Blacks were forbidden to be like whites, but because
> it was a way for
> Black people to be different from whites ideally, in
> the sense of Black
> is beautiful, we want to be different from whites.
> It is in many ways
> specifically developed in antagonism to white
> musical forms. It is
> national liberationist music. You dig ?
>
> ^^^^
>
> ^^^^^^^^^
>
>
>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > It wouldn't be folk music. More like Bach, via
> > church music.
> >
> > Joanna
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
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>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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