The New Negro of Jazz: New Orleans, Chicago, New York, the First Great Migration, & the Harlem Renaissance, 1890-1930

The Harlem Renaissance is often remembered for its cultural achievements, but scholars often place too much attention on literary and visual artists with little regard for the musicians of the period. When scholars do make the connection between jazz and the Harlem Renaissance, the work of jazz artists in cities outside of Harlem play second fiddle. In fact, New Orleans and Chicago could just as easily stake the claim as the nation's jazz capital in this period, and so many early jazz innovators emigrated to Chicago's South Side from New Orleans that the Windy City could arguably boast a more vibrant music scene than Harlem. Thanks in no small part to the First Great Migration, when over one million African Americans left the South to stake their claim on the American Dream in the urban North, jazz transitioned from a regional to the national music in the 1910s and 1920s. A number of scholars of the Great Migration have shed light on the grass roots leadership that facilitated northern emigration. In the first few decades of the 20th century, African Americans in scores of cities across the country were busy forging a new collective identity, known as the "New Negro", as expressed in the visual and performing arts, political protest, and economic enterprise culminating in the Harlem Renaissance. Thanks to several historians the political activism of the literary component of the Harlem Renaissance is well known. Unfortunately, few have made the same connections in regard to the musicians of the period. Jazz made its own Great Migration on the backs of a cadre of grass roots musician leaders whose political awareness has yet to be fully appreciated. These considerations suggest that a deeper analysis of jazz, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the political activism of musicians beyond 135th Street and Lenox Avenue is necessary to uncover the "New Negro" of black music.;This dissertation examines the Great Migration through the lens of jazz to explore why New Orleans musicians left the Crescent City at the turn of the twentieth century, why Chicago and New York were such attractive places to ply their crafts, and what relationship New Orleans, Chicago, the Great Migration, and jazz have to the Harlem Renaissance. As a result, this work synthesizes the scholarly traditions of Urban, African American, and Jazz histories, and challenges the traditional interpretations of the Harlem Renaissance. While jazz was a central cultural component of life in Harlem, it was also crucial to scores of cities across the country as African Americans journeyed north during the Great Migration. Jazz musicians were also just as active politically as other migrants. Despite a common stereotype that characterizes musicians as apolitical, my work seeks to demonstrate that the musicians of the period were no different than their counterparts in the literary arts by shedding new light on the grass roots activism that emerged alongside the music.