1920s through the 1950s, Harlem in the 1920s, or Central Avenue in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s—are a function of such interactions on the local level (Ogren 1989; Lopes 2002).
In Steppin’ Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890–1920 (1984), for example, Lewis Erenberg discusses the changes in public entertainment occurring in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century. He describes the novel forms of social interaction centered on cabarets and rathskellers, particularly in the Times Square area in the 1910s. Although rathskellers were associated primarily with public drinking and vice, cabarets, often lavishly decorated, were conceived as a respectable alternative for well-heeled patrons. Both kinds of venues had high cover charges, served expensive food and drink, and offered their patrons floor shows and opportunities for dancing (119). The atmosphere in cabarets differed in one major respect: it brought men and women “into a more intimate relationship than was possible in conventional theatres…. Performers appeared on the floor at eye level, standing or moving amid the diners seated in a semi-circle…. The audiences were close enough to touch the performers, and they often did so in specially designed numbers and rituals” (124–25). The sociability encouraged in cabarets, which catered primarily to audiences who had seen theatrical performances earlier in the evening, led to the establishment of the nightclub:
In order to allow patrons to remain undisturbed by the 2:00 a.m. curfew laws and police harassment, promoters began buying the charters of defunct private social organizations in the fall of 1914 and turned special rooms of their establishments into so-called clubs…. When the regular portion of the restaurant closed, members adjourned to the room set aside for the club…. Some establishments adhered to strict rules of membership and dues, but most merely declared those remaining after the legal closing hours as members. Writing their names on cards supplied by the management, customers henceforth had proof of membership. The night “club” remained open as long as the desire for enjoyment prevailed, rather than as the law or the duration of the play demanded. (129–30)
Legally sanctioned as places where alcohol could be served, cabarets and their attendant nightclubs encouraged their patrons to lower their inhibitions in pursuit of pleasure and afforded them limited opportunities to mingle with less respectable people (like gangsters and gamblers) without threatening their social status. In other words, a change in the definition and use of public space was a crucial component in the transformation of cultural life for at least one group of people in New York City.
New York, however, was not unique in this respect. Kathy Ogren (1989, 56–86) details the way in which similar scenarios played out in other metropolitan centers in the early decades of the twentieth century. Transitional areas and vice districts—particularly after the passage of the Volstead Act, which prohibited the sale of alcohol, in 1920—became the primary locus for cabaret-style entertainment. Ogren observes that “residential zoning laws designed to regulate commercial development and racial segregation often combined … and forced blacks and other inner-city residents to live in the same areas that supported vice” (1989, 60; see also Ostransky 1978, 63, 85–86). Wherever they existed, and however they came into being, such spaces proved crucial in the development of jazz, for they gave professional musicians opportunities to perform and allowed audiences the opportunity to hear them. Moreover, the work of publishing and recording companies as well as coverage in newspapers and other contemporary publications, both local and national, helped not only to create scenes but also to generate public interest in them. Additionally, the success of early jazz and blues recordings beginning in the late 1910s helped to cement interest in the emerging musical styles in New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other places.
Many musicians were drawn to New York City in the 1910s and 1920s by increasing opportunities to perform and record, as Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstadt show in Jazz: A History of the New York Scene (1962). The authors present a richly detailed account of the early jazz scene in New York City, discussing musicians, various performance venues, and the spaces in Harlem and near Times Square that were the centers of music-related activities through the 1950s. In their chronicle of the careers of musicians such as James Reese Europe, Scott Joplin, Fletcher Henderson, and Bix Beiderbecke and the fortunes of venues in different parts of the city, they continually remind their readers of the importance of seeing jazz’s development as encompassing more than progressively more intricate musical arrangements:
By 1923 and 1924 it had become fashionable to listen to jazz. Not the rough, crude jazz of a few years before, but the new “symphonic” jazz. Just as in the 1950s, another of jazz’s brief moments of stylish attention, there were lectures on jazz, “concerts,” lengthy articles in slick magazines, and some interest from [music] publishing houses…. Carl Van Vechten, Abbe Niles, Henry Osgood, Virgil Thomson, and Don Knowlton were contributing articles to magazines like Harper’s, Literary Digest, and New Republic. The Negro revues, with their jazz orchestras and blues vocalists, were playing to large and enthusiastic audiences along Broadway. (131–32)
The real rush to Harlem began about 1926, and by 1927 and 1928 it was one of the fashionable places in New York. The night life began to have some of the glitter that [Jazz Age] novels described. There were nightly radio programs from the larger clubs, the bands were getting frequent notices from the magazines and newspapers, and there was a noisy parade of musicians through most of the small clubs. (196)
[During the swing era, the] expenses of organizing and advertising a band were so high that the successful leaders had to enter into complicated financial arrangements with outside backers. Everything about the new bands cost money, from hiring soloists away from their present bands to buying uniforms and music stands…. Newspapers and trade magazines were flooded with press-agent releases. As the publicity grew more insistent, the personalities became more and more the centers of attraction. They were given nearly as much publicity as successful movie stars. If the promotion caught the public’s eye, the investment could be made highly profitable. Willard Alexander’s M.C.A. booking office handled the very slick and very expensive promotions of both Benny Goodman and Count Basie and realized a small fortune on the percentage of the bands’ gross take…. Behind the elegant face that swing presented to the public was a nervous, tensely competitive entertainment industry that was exploiting the new style. (242)
In short, a number of factors drew musicians to New York City, provided opportunities for them to perform in different parts of the city, and made the public aware of their activities. In addition to musicians, moreover, critics, publicists, venues, and fans played prominent roles. Together they entered a stage framed by the scene, commented upon it, and, through their actions, sustained and transformed it. The development of jazz, then, was not simply a function of developments in musical style; it was also a function of developments in the use of urban space—the peregrinations of European American “cultural tourists” to largely African American areas for entertainment, the continued movement of African American musicians (but not non-performers) to downtown performance spaces (which were presumably safer for middle-class white patrons), and the use of nascent broadcasting technologies both to attract audiences to those spaces and to allow them to experience, at least vicariously, what occurred in them without actually being present.4
Paul Chevigny’s Gigs: Jazz and the Cabaret Laws in New York City (1991) shows how incomplete any history of the New York scene is without consideration of the municipal regulations that determined who could perform in the city’s venues, how many musicians and what instrumental combinations were permitted, and where venues could be located. These regulations, collectively known as cabaret laws (after the early twentieth-century venues that inspired them), imposed what now seem absurd strictures on venue owners. As legally defined in 1926, a cabaret was “any room, place or space in the city in which any musical entertainment, singing or dancing or other similar amusement is permitted in connection with the restaurant business or the business of directly or indirectly selling the public food or drink” (quoted in Chevigny 1991, 56). Anyone operating such an establishment was required to have a cabaret license. Initially, only venues were required to be licensed, but following the transfer
