T h e G r e a t G a t s b y
MuSiC oF tHe HaRleM ReNaiSsAncE

The frustration that many African-Americans felt from racial prejudice was expressed in creative rather than violent outlets. The music emerging from Harlem was a truly unique, American form of art. Jazz was original because of its spontaneous rhythm, joyous melodies, and spirtual soul. The main instruments used were the piano, the string bass, and the drums.

Evolved from the old Negro spirituals, jazz was a form of "protest" music for thinkers of the twenties; this protest took the form of rebelling against old conventions and just having fun. Jazz was viewed by Americans of the old, pre-World War I generation as scandalous and sinful for its sensual chords and the image of the "immoral" people associated with it.

During the twenties, there was first a migration of jazz players to Chicago and then to New York. The music form evolved somewhat in Chicago, as emphasis began to be placed on the soloist and the saxophone was added to the jazz style. As the migration moved to Harlem, jazz took a strong hold in New York. It was extremely popular and fit right in with the other cultural forms of protest that black intellectual voices were voicing. A popular new style of playing the piano, called "stride piano," emerged from one of the great jazz leaders, "Fatts" Waller. Waller also originated the technique of the "boogie woogie," which entailed a short bass pattern, leaving the right hand to improvise and play freely, utilizing different rhythms.

Jazz would spread its influenece to other cities, Paris among them. However, it was most powerful while in Harlem because it was a peaceful form of protest against the old moral traditions and the racial tension that was spreading across the United States.

Symbolizing the protests against convention and the era of "just having fun," jazz was played at Gatsby's weekend shin-digs. The party guests dance late into the night to the sensuous rhythms of the latest music craze. Chapter Three of the novel describes the party guests dancing as "a notorious contralto...sung in jazz [and] happy vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky" (51). Jazz expressed the desire of many people of the twenties to cut loose and have fun. It was also ideal dancing and party music.