In the mid-20th century, in the face of moral travesties like lynching, segregation, and lack of black power, black jazz musicians began to create something that proved truly their undeniable technical skills, in-depth artistic knowledge and general passion for an art form that they developed: Bebop. In the 1950s, the bebop style of jazz was the most popular and innovative music – one of the first times in American history when black artists (such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington) were at the forefront. center of artistic attention. Soon, the masses of happy bebop fans would see the emergence of a completely different form of expression, suited to a complex new era. In the 1960s, politicians and social unrest caused black Americans to completely rethink their position in society and how they should be able to fit into it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Much of black social development from the late 1950s to the 1960s focused on respect for black personhood. Fittingly, jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman began to rethink the time, harmony, and space of bebop, creating a new, introspective sound that relied less on what they played than about what they had to say. They passed from the status of “entertainers” to that of “artists”, entitled to the same respect as great painters or writers. As black political leaders began to make progress in breaking the chains of oppression, black jazz musicians began to use jazz as more than music; their work became a demonstration to whites that they would express themselves freely and radically beyond the bebop model. This "New Jazz" or "Free Jazz", unlike bebop, incorporated dissonant non-harmonic sounds, highly unconventional rhythms and a much clearer reflection of the musicians' soul and emotions beyond their core skills. This emerging music served as a wake-up call signifying the end of the appeasement of African Americans and their insistence on expressing their humanity, like the political revolution of the same era. A new era of freedom was coming with this music. During the bebop era, black Americans and jazz musicians believed that their music had been co-opted by white people and that they were not making money, because the white label owners kept all the profits from bebop sales. discs. The situation was summed up by saxophonist Archie Shepp: “you own the music and we make it.” Black musicians claimed that they were leading the way in innovation and creativity and that they were working very hard to achieve it. Meanwhile, White-owned record labels collected and kept all the money. Frank Kofsky, Trotskyist, jazz historian and writer, explained: "The main function of the artistry of the jazz musician is to enrich not the person who owns it, but the white executives who own and/or manage the means of production." and distribution within the political economy of jazz; and the decisions of these owners and managers, particularly those involved in the recording industry, are absolutely crucial in determining both the total amount of employment of black musicians and which specific musicians will have access to it. " This experience was personally described by Ornette Coleman: "Here I am used as a nigger who can play jazz, and all the people I have forregistered and worked act like they own me and my product. They have been guilty of making me believe that I should not make a profit from my product just because they have taken over the production lines. The language used by Coleman is highly political with words as channels of production. It even seems to give off a Marxist vibe, which is probably no accident because of the point it's trying to make. This notion was further expanded by Kofsky who, in 1970, declared that whites owned the "major economic institutions of the jazz world – the booking agencies, the record companies, the nightclubs, the festivals, the magazines, the radio stations." radio, etc. Black people have nothing but their own talent.” White leaders of the bebop era found it difficult to rip off these incredible musicians, as there were large numbers of young, skilled musicians waiting to fill any open space at a recording or concert. But when jazz moved from prepackaged groups to individual artists with something completely genuine and authentic to say, the power began to balance out — unlike firing a difficult but faceless member of a group , firing a star artist was impossible for managers without major financial consequences. The disparity between the financial success of white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck and that of his black jazz contemporaries has been a subject of controversy among jazz musicians and critics. In 1954, Time magazine published a cover photo of Dave Brubeck and an article about a "new type of jazz age" that omitted the contributions of black musicians and suggested that Brubeck and other white musicians were an improvement on in relation to former black and immoral jazz musicians. . The Time article also reported that in 1954, Brubeck would earn $100,000 while equally accomplished and talented black jazz musicians could barely pay the rent. It is, in some ways, reminiscent of slavery: white people profit enormously from the economically fertile waters of the blood, sweat, and tears of their slaves. But instead of slaves picking cotton, jazz musicians reached new heights of creativity and poured their souls onto a canvas of harmonies and rhythms that they offered to white people without demanding just monetary reward. In the summer of 1963, Martin Luther King led the march to Washington and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to a crowd of more than 200,000 people. Eighteen days later, a bomb exploded in a Birmingham church and four young black girls were killed. Americans watched as police in Birmingham, Alabama blasted black children with high-powered garden hoses. Television screens have brought racist acts of violence and statements of hatred into Americans' living rooms and caused Americans to face the harsh reality of the discrimination faced by black Americans. In February 1965, Malcolm X, the most influential spokesman for Black Power, black pride, and black independence through white separation, was assassinated. In August 1965, the Watts Riots broke out in Los Angeles. Shops were looted and burned, thirty-four people were killed and thousands more were arrested. Black people were expressing the hypocrisy of the U.S. government's focus on anticolonial struggles in Vietnam, while ignoring the struggles of the freedom movement in the country. Kofsky points out: “Could there be anything more patently absurd than the assertion that the United States government fights for freedom and human rights?rights of the non-white population in Vietnam, while allowing these identical rights to be violated with impunity? by any KKK redneck who sets out to elevate his status among his peers by “making him a nigger”? ". Inevitably, the frustration of black Americans came to the fore. The volatility of the times, consciously or unconsciously, seeped into the music of New Jazz pioneers Coltrane, Coleman and Taylor, musicians who broke with the predictable barriers of bebop and its imitative hard bop, which jazz musicians had accepted, and connected their music to the energy initiated by the civil rights movement. As jazz historian AB Spellman has noted, Coltrane, Taylor, and Coleman worked on distinct, but interrelated, principles. In a May 7, 2000 interview with Shipton, drummer Rashied Ali explained how this period was viewed within Coltrane's group of associates: "Those were the hard times of the '60s. We had the civil rights issue , we had King, we had Malcolm, we had the Panthers. There was so much diversity happening. People demanded their rights and wanted to be equal and free. And of course, the music reflects that whole period. . . all this time has definitely influenced the way we play. I think that's where this really free form came in. Everyone wants to get away from rigidity, to get away from what was going on before; they wanted to identify with what was happening now, and I'm sure the music came out of all that. » Coleman's main contribution to jazz can be considered rhythmic, although his tonality has been the subject of much discussion. Coltrane's is harmonious, contrasting, as he does, his wildest explorations with precise chord models. Taylor is involved in the construction and organization of sound. The unique production of musical brilliance created by these musicians was astonishing. They constantly embellished each other's innovations, creating an extremely living and improving organism. Of all the Free Jazz artists, it was John Coltrane and his music who initially guided and had the most profound and lasting effect on the movement and his New Jazz colleagues. musicians. “When it comes to John Coltrane's music, there is never any controversy. He was simply a giant. Jazz historians have debated and speculated regarding the conscious social or political intentions that Coltrane was trying to communicate with his music. His album A Love Supreme, considered by many to be the greatest jazz recording, presents a message of universal love and was released in 1965, as the Vietnam War began to intensify. When asked about the Vietnam War, he replied: “I am opposed to war; that's why I opposed the Vietnam War. I think all wars should stop. Coltrane's works after A Love Supreme, particularly Ascension, were seen as more closely connected to the racial unrest of the time and the black political movement. Ascension conveyed a political statement to jazz critics and black activists because the music sounded so different and because of the album's musicians, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Marion Brown. Coltrane, unlike many of the more vocal free jazz musicians, did not publicly share his political opinions and beliefs. In a 1966 interview with Coltrane, Kofsky asked whether there was a relationship between the black community, the ideas of Malcolm X, and the "new music." Wilmer quotes saxophonist Albert Ayler: “John was like a visitor to this planet. He came in peace and he departed in peace; but during his stay here hecontinued to try to reach new levels of consciousness, peace and spirituality. That's why I consider the music he played to be spiritual music - the way John grew closer and closer to the Creator" and Archie Shepp: "I believe John's death brought us closer together as musicians , brought us closer to a kind of unity. This is how you should evaluate a great man. Well, I think it's up to each musician to decide to call it whatever they want, for whatever reason. I recognize the artist myself. I recognize an individual when I see their contribution; and when I know the sound of a man, well, for me, it's him, it's that man. That's how I see it. Labels don't bother me. Instead of a political speech, Coltrane used his saxophone to respond to the political times. When new, freer, more intense, rule-breaking forms of jazz began to emerge, black musicians, including Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk, began using politically intentional music to address issues. important issues such as racism, segregation, the Vietnam War and the mobilization efforts of the black community under the signs of “Black Power”. One example is Charlie Mingus's "Fables of Faubus", originally recorded for the 1959 album Mingus Ah Um, which ridiculed Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus for trying to prevent desegregation in the Little Rock Public Schools. The lyrics of "Fables of Faubus", which characterizes the governor as a Nazi fascist of the Klu Klux Klan, were considered too controversial and censored by Columbia Records. It was not until the 1960 album, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus, that the lyric recording was released. The mocking and searing lyrics end with a schoolyard chant, similar to the chants used by segregationists in their political culture. According to Scott Saul, "Fables of Faubus" attacked the segregationists: "not by blinding them with virtuosity (the bebop solution), but by astounding them with a professionalism so solid that he knew the virtues of an amateur.” This was a very moving and compelling case of a jazz musician using his music to express himself and protest racism and segregation. Drummer Max Roach was another free jazz musician who used music to address political and racial issues. Inspired by the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins at the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina (as depicted on the album cover) and the momentum of the civil rights movement, Roach expedited recording from an album he was working on with singer-songwriters Oscar Brown and Abbey Lincoln, for the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. We insist! Freedom Now Suite, released in 1960, includes five selections including the heavy and spiritual song "Driva'man", on the theme of the urgency of the black struggle for equality in America. Abbey Lincoln's screaming vocals on the song Protest evoke the emotions felt from the slave fields to the police brutality meted out to King's non-violent protesters, seen by Americans in black and white on their modern televisions. Mingus and Roach name Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" as inspiration for their protest songs. Mingus said: “That’s when I changed my idea of ​​a song telling a story. This music is here to tell the white world the wrongs they have committed when it comes to race. by the artists. For example, the liner notes for Coltrane's Live at Birdland album, written by LeRoi Jones, eloquently offer a connection between Coltrane's song, "..