Реферат на тему The Jazz Age

Содержание:

Introduction 3
1. The concept of «The jazz age» 5
2. Style story 8
Conclusion 13
List of references 15

Введение:

The Age of Jazz (Jazz Age) — introduced by F. S. Fitzgerald designation of the period in US history between the end of World War I (1918) and the beginning of the Great Depression (1929), due to the great popularity of jazz music. An approximate analogue of the concepts of the «Golden Twenties» in Germany and the «Roaring Twenties» in the UK (although the latter term applies to the United States).
According to Fitzgerald, this era is based on «momentary joy», «feverish hedonism», «a burning desire to live — today, immediately, here and now» and at the same time «a sensation of the collapse of the former world order, as if blown up by the war», sensation « the disintegrated connection of times and the unexpected vacuum between different generations. « The writer highlighted two important points in it: firstly, the connection with the carnival («America started the most massive, noisiest carnival in its entire history»), and secondly, the connection with the First World War and the lost generation.
During this period, jazz influenced many areas of American cultural life, especially popular culture. The main factor in its popularity was the beginning of regular broadcasting (1922), thanks to which even Americans living away from megacities could get acquainted with new styles of music without leaving their living room. Broadcasts were performed by performances by amateur groups and big bands from such musical capitals as New York and Chicago. At the same time, radio stations at first preferred Negro music of white performers.
In the 1920s, under the influence of a number of factors, American youth began to rebel against the traditional cultural paradigm for previous generations. This was manifested in the fashion for the Negro dance Charleston, new trends in costume, the growing popularity of radio concerts. The era of jazz is brightly captured in the novels of F. S. Fitzgerald (first of all, «On This Side of Paradise», «The Great Gatsby») and in some films of that era («Jazz Singer»).
But very soon, the conditions of ruthless commercial exploitation subjected this music to rough vulgarization and all kinds of distortions. The artistic images found by folk musicians were smoothed and standardized in accordance with market requirements. Many talented black musicians and artists were drawn into this conveyor of entertainment, corrupted by him and humiliated to the position of jesters, forced to grimace at the amusement of visitors to the night taverns of New York and Chicago.
The fate of jazz in recent decades has been primarily associated with the work of talented musicians who sought to develop the elements of Negro folk music inherent in it.
The purpose of the study is to study the era of jazz.
Tasks:
— The concept of «The jazz age».
— Style story.
The structure of the work is presented by introduction, two chapters, conclusion and list of references.

Заключение:

For some strange irony, the age of jazz does not reach its famous name at all. The period lasted only a decade — from 1919 to 1929.
Scott Fitzgerald, an American writer who became famous for the novel The Great Gatsby, came up with the sonorous phrase. It was he who gave such a dashing name, which later faded and crouched under the yoke of the Great Depression. The century of jazz was remembered by the world as a vibrant culture, which was forming into something new. The rebirth of literature, fashion, and, of course, music.
Speaking of jazz, it all started with African-Americans — it was they who created a new musical genre that does not reject, but rather encourages primitive aspirations and pleasures. It sounded a little rude, but the way it is — and that is the beauty of jazz! What was needed was music that could please people after the First World War, and not drive it even deeper into longing.
The amazing original skills of blacks are confirmed by many scholars and researchers just musicians who happen to hear improvised black choirs. In the same article, Paul Robson cites the story of American scholar of African American music, Natalia Curtis-Berlin, about the amazement of a German musicologist who heard the singing of a giant, composed of nine hundred members of a black student choir.
There was a boom in dancing. Very popular were: foxtrot, waltz, charleston and blues. A lot of dance clubs were opened, where everyone was taught a certain style.
In general, there have been many changes in the age of jazz: the development of broadcasting, the improvement of attitudes towards sexual minorities, an increase in interest in sports and the consolidation of sports journalism — and this is not an exhaustive list.
Crazy time, strongly reminiscent of an erupting volcano — the interests of people, the prosperity of individual areas and the emergence of new ones — all this mixed together and created an amazing time period.
But if in American folk music and in the work of progressive American composers Negro motifs, rhythms, harmonies are equitable with all other means of artistic expression, then for the modernist bourgeois music and its jazz «mass propaganda» section this Negro element is prudently exploited exclusively as « exotic, spicy seasoning.
There is no doubt that the art of jazz, which has established itself in world culture as a kind of manifesto of «musical independence» of the USA, originates from black music. Jazz perceived the individual elements of its rhythmic structure, characteristic intonations and harmonies, the originality of the melodic pattern. Initially, jazz was, as the American scholar Sydney Finkelstein writes, «black ghetto music created by the poor for the poor.»

Фрагмент текста работы:

The jazz age, or Roaring Twenties, is the decade between the end of World War I (1919) and the onset of the Great Depression in the United States (1929). The Age of Jazz is deeply connected with the events and consequences of the First World War. The attitude to the war in the USA was special, different from Europe. Whereas in Europe, participation in hostilities was directly related to the need to protect one’s territory, one’s own home, one’s life, but for the United States, separated from the theater of operations by the Atlantic Ocean, entry into the war was rather a symbolic act. As can be seen from President Woodrow Wilson’s speech to Congress on April 6, 1917, America set itself the task no less than «save the world for democracy»: «Our motive is not revenge or a victorious affirmation of the physical power of our nation, but only the protection of human rights, for which we are fighters» [2, p. 46]. In his speech on declaring war, he said that if the United States had not joined the war, all of Western civilization could have been destroyed.
Although US participation in World War I lasted only 18 months (April 1917 – June 1919), the fact of this participation had a profound effect on national consciousness and culture.
After the end of the war, the conclusion of the Versailles Peace Treaty and the founding of the League of Nations (at the suggestion of President W. Wilson), US citizens gained a sense of self-worth as a nation among other nations of the world. Even if Europeans did not recognize this, many Americans firmly believed that it was their entry into the war, their technology and their human resources that put an end to the First World War. One consequence of this belief is an increased sense of pride in everything American. For example, after World War I, it became prestigious to study American culture and literature at colleges and universities in the USA. In 1929, the journal American Literature was founded.
In the postwar period, there are a large number of publications about the features of the American mentality, the specifics of the American version of the English language. Here are just a few facts [3, p. 71]:
— In 1919, Henry L. Mencken published the book The American Language;
— In 1926, Stanley T. Williams publishes The American Spirit in Letters; in 1931, he began to teach the American Thought and Civilization course at Yale University;
— In 1928–1930, the three-volume work of Vernon Louis Parrington, «Main Currents in American Thought», was published.