The music we know today as jazz has deep and contested roots, but likely arose in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The music is based on the musical traditions of Africans, newly freed from slavery, and particularly by the tradition of the blues, an art form known for expressing the suffering and hardship of Jim Crow America.
In his book, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music, author and scholar Dr. Gerald Horne examines the economic, social, and political forces that shaped jazz into what we know today.
In this conversation, Dr. Horne guides us through the emergence of jazz as a musical art form, the brutal realities of white supremacy and economic exploitation faced by jazz musicians, and how this music blossomed into a force that has shaped and defined so much of U.S. American culture in so many profound ways.
Thank you to Elvis Phillips for the intermission music and Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond.
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