Harlem: The City of Contradictions

The City of Contradictions: A Tale of Two Harlems

In the late 1920s, upon my first visit to Harlem, I encountered two different faces of the city. On one side, there was a neighborhood known as the Harlem Renaissance, representing the fountainhead of black intellectual life. Here, the collective pride of an oppressed race and optimism for the future reigned supreme. This Harlem was akin to the Promised Land of the Old Testament – freed from slavery, now able to meet its own needs, and finally empowered to realize its vision of civil society.

During this period, Harlem symbolized adolescence for all African Americans – whether living in the North or South, East or West. It was a neighborhood where a minority culture had been built to be self-sufficient, rather than dependent on tolerance or goodwill from others. The most striking aspect of late 1920s Harlem was how far its intellectual movements had advanced. There were certainly African American intellectuals before, but often they worked isolated, even forced to labor under open oppression. In contrast, this new environment brought together an entire cultural elite to express themselves across various disciplines including poetry, fiction, visual arts, music, history, sociology, and creative thought.

Just a few years ago, Harlem was a predominantly white neighborhood inhabited by European immigrants and Lutheran churches; a community whose sounds were the lilting melodies wafting from apartment windows rather than ragtime. Named after the Dutch settlers who drew inspiration from their hometown of Haarlem in the Netherlands, this neighborhood retained its Old World roots well into the early 20th century. However, following the onset of World War I, the African American population exploded along with immigrants from overcrowded midtown Manhattan and those from the South. They created a new society here: not just temporary residents or settlers but also property owners – by the late 1920s, 70% of Harlem's real estate was under black control.

However, alongside this Harlem there was another Harlem. Historian David Levering Lewis, starting "from a prism of census data, medical data, and socioeconomic studies," concludes that even in the midst of the so-called Renaissance, "Harlem had become a slum." This second Harlem was under pressure from harsh economic conditions, low wages, and looming rent payments. A 1927 study showed that 48% of Harlem tenants spent more than twice as much on rent as comparable white city dwellers.

In this hand-to-mouth environment, a quarter of Harlem families took in at least one lodger - twice the rate for white New Yorkers. Sometimes the same bed was rented twice over to lodgers working different shifts. Black wages might be higher in the North than in the South, but the gap between Black and white earnings remained an insurmountable chasm. In this environment, Black independence came at a cost - a cost paid daily through food and shelter expenses.

And jazz was very much a part of this second Harlem; it lived here more than it did in the high culture and lofty ideals of the "other" Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance created an ideology, a cultural context, for jazz. But it was the rent parties and the underground economies of Harlem that actually produced the music. Even before the Great Depression began, the rent party had become an accepted way to cover the high cost of housing. Admission could range from twenty-five cents to a dollar, and the money collected covered both the cost of the party and the next month's rent. "They'd cram more than a hundred people into a narrow seven-room apartment, and the walls would bulge out," recalls Willie "The Lion" Smith, one of the greatest Harlem pianists. "Some parties would spill into the hallways and through the whole building."

The Turbulent Relationship Between Harlem Renaissance and Jazz

While researching the Harlem Renaissance, what surprised me most was the ambiguous position of jazz within the movement. Activities like rent parties, for all their vitality and social significance, were a point of separation between the two Harlems. One historian writes that rent parties were "the community's private passion," yet "their existence was either ignored or barely acknowledged by most Harlem writers."

The music of hidden Harlem was largely overlooked in many Renaissance-themed books for a long time; even notable figures such as Duke Ellington and Fats Waller played humble roles in history. Despite their artistic achievements representing the pinnacle of African-American culture, their connections to jazz relegated them to submerged Harlem, the world of speakeasies, and poverty.

Cab Calloway, recalling those years, captures jazz's marginal role within the larger cultural explosion: "Those of us in music and entertainment were vaguely aware that something exciting was happening, but we weren't directly part of it." Benny Carter agrees: "As musicians, we knew that a lot was going on in literature, for example, but our worlds were very far apart. We felt that the Black cultural and moral leadership looked down on our music."

In 1936, when pianist James P. Johnson sought the assistance of writer James Weldon Johnson, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, in his bid for a Guggenheim fellowship, the respectful tone of the musician's letter – which noted that the two leaders from different fields had never met personally – was still a testament to the clear divide between their worlds. The Guggenheim jury reinforced this view by rejecting Johnson's application and also turning down his second request in 1942.

Middle- and upper-class Black families were at best ambivalent about celebrating the cultural contributions of ragtime, jazz, and blues musicians, and often openly hostile to those elements within their communities. Willie "The Lion" Smith recalled that "the average Negro family wouldn't allow blues or even dirty music to be played in their home," adding that "among those who least liked this kind of entertainment were Negroes recently come up from the South looking for a better life." Striving to appear sophisticated and to be accepted, the newcomers from the South quickly began to reject the defining marks of their origins - whether food, clothing, language, or culture.

In such an environment, would it be surprising that two Harlems – literary aspirations Harlem and jazz and blues Harlem – have been caught, even if not in war, at least in a disquieting ceasefire? This contrast was both disturbing and somewhat ironic. While James Weldon Johnson and others laid the literary foundations for the Harlem Renaissance, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and others were actually creating some of the most authentic and sustainable achievements of African-American culture; their works would ultimately reach a far broader audience than literary productions.

The Stride Piano Revolution in Harlem

The piano was often the battlefield between these two Harlem visions. The instrument represented contradictory possibilities - a path of assimilation into traditional high culture, a calling card of lower-class nightlife, a symbol of middle-class respectability, or simply a means of making a living. Looking back, however, we can see that the piano in late-1920s and early-1930s Harlem was the center of a new genre. Known as Harlem stride piano, this style stood as a bridge between the ragtime idiom of the turn of the century and the new jazz piano styles then taking shape.

Recalling the musical scene almost half a century after his 1908 arrival in New York, James P. Johnson said: "There were no jazz bands like in New Orleans or on the Mississippi riverboats, but ragtime piano was played everywhere - in bars, cabarets, and brothels." Stride pianists were aware of the gulf between elite and low culture that Scott Joplin had recognized, and they never forgot the importance of their roots in popular music. James P. Johnson's music exemplified this approach; it represents a crucial link between Scott Joplin's ragtime and the jazz of Fats Waller and Art Tatum.

His early work remained faithful to the rag style, and his composition "Carolina Shout" received particular attention from his peers. The piece was widely imitated by other players even before the sheet music was published, and eventually replaced "Maple Leaf Rag" as the ultimate test piece for aspiring rag pianists. Johnson, however, pushed against the gates of concert music with a determination similar to Joplin's: his legacy includes the Harlem Symphony, the American Symphonic Suite, Concerto Jazz à Mine, the piano rhapsody Yamekraw (which Fats Waller performed as soloist at Carnegie Hall), and the opera De Organizer (with a libretto by Langston Hughes). Johnson received little encouragement for these efforts during his lifetime.

Johnson explains the origins of the New York stride piano style within the city's competitive musical environment: "The reason the New York boys are such top-flight musicians is that the New York piano was developed with European method, system, and style. People in New York were accustomed to hearing good piano in concerts and in cafés. A ragtime player had to live up to that standard."

Piano Virtuoso: The Astonishing Musicality of Art Tatum

When I first encountered Art Tatum, he forever blurred the line between the possible and the impossible in music. While widely regarded as the greatest exponent of the Harlem Stride piano style, he did much more than that; thus, his placement within the commonly used categories of American music history remains a complex and contentious figure. One inevitably resorts to the oldest cliché: Tatum was "ahead of his time."

For Tatum, the Harlem Stride served as a foundation upon which more complex musical structures could be built. While some might argue that Art Tatum was the best flower of the Harlem Stride tradition, he actually tolled its death knell. As he developed his mature style, Tatum nearly exhausted the possibilities of stride and forced later piano modernists – Monk, Powell, Tristano, Brubeck, Evans, and others – to work outside the impressive shadow of this figure in many different directions.

Tatum's virtuosity clouds the question of his place in jazz history. Although his music was praised for - and attacked for - its showmanship, Tatum's significance lies less in his nimble fingers than in his advanced musical understanding. Using massive chord voicings as building blocks, Tatum created dazzling harmonic variations and raised passing chords to a level of sophistication unmatched in either jazz or classical music.

Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio, on October 13, 1909. He had cataracts in both eyes and for the remainder of his life had only partial vision. However, like many blind musicians, he compensated for his weak sight with an extraordinary sense of hearing. At three years old, he began to mimic jazz pieces from player pianos and radio broadcasts.

Harlem musicians were not prepared for the impact Tatum made when he came to New York in 1932. A few days after his arrival, the local piano titans decided to test the newcomer's mettle. Tatum was taken to a Harlem nightclub where the greatest masters of stride - including Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, and Willie "The Lion" Smith - were ready to do battle. When Tatum's turn came, he played a dazzling "Tea for Two" packed with dense harmonies that left the audience speechless. Waller and Johnson tried to respond, but Tatum had the last word with a breathtakingly fast "Tiger Rag."

"That Tatum, he was very good," Fats Waller recalled later. "He had so much technique. When that man turned on the electricity, no one could beat him. He sounds like a band." James P. Johnson thought to himself: "When Tatum played 'Tea for Two' that night, I think it was the first time I'd ever really heard it played."

The Birth of Big Band Style: The Creation of a New Jazz Language

The emergence of the big band style may, in hindsight, look like an inevitable step in the evolution of jazz. But the line connecting jazz's roots to the later big band sound is anything but direct or clear. The shift toward a more composition-focused style of dance music was shaped more by commercial pressure than by artistic priorities. Figures like Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington brought about a revolutionary change in the sound of American orchestral music.

The evolution of jazz, like many other aspects of history, was shaped by the fusion of musical genres, and New York served as the crucible for this fusion to take place. Fletcher Henderson, who helped define the sound of the 1920s jazz big bands, drew inspiration not only from New Orleans and Chicago jazz but also from the popular music and dance trends sweeping through New York during that era. Although he studied chemistry and mathematics at Atlanta University, Henderson found his calling in the music world and developed a new, progressive vocabulary of jazz with his group at the Roseland Ballroom.

The most significant impact came from arranger Don Redman, who played a key role in transforming this working dance band into a powerful link between the Jazz Age and the Swing Era. With notable soloists such as Coleman Hawkins participating, the Henderson ensemble signaled the emergence of a new type of jazz musician: a professional, educated, and disciplined big band instrumentalist.

The Rise of Duke Ellington: From a Provincial Musician to a Legendary Figure in New York

In his affinity for noble titles of art, none suited the image better than Duke Ellington. Eloquent, charming, and refined, Edward Kennedy Ellington was a striking figure not only through his music but also through his personality. Born into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C., Ellington was raised to believe he was destined for greatness by his mother. This self-importance would become a defining characteristic of his character.

Ellington initially showed an interest in visual arts but later turned to music after high school. He developed himself with lessons from local ragtime pianists in Washington and piano rolls by James P. Johnson. Almost from the start, he preferred writing his own compositions and this method of learning by doing formed the foundation for his evolution as a composer.

In 1923, Ellington was known in Washington, but he had his sights set on bigger things in New York. Although his initial attempt failed, he didn't give up and soon found a steady gig with his group The Washingtonians at the Hollywood Club near Times Square (later the Kentucky Club), which would be a turning point in his career.

The Cotton Club Era and Its Impact on Harlem

The addition of trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley to Ellington's group revolutionized the band's sound. Miley's mastery of plunger and mute techniques formed the foundation for Ellington's distinctive "jungle style," characterized by exotic and growling sounds. With trombonist Tricky Sam Nanton also joining, Ellington's group evolved from a technically proficient ensemble into a unique collective of personalities.

The compositions recorded in 1926, such as "East Saint Louis Toodle-oo" and next year's "Black and Tan Fantasy," showcased this new and original approach. These pieces drew attention with their dark atmospheres and innovative structures, which would define the direction of the group to come.

In 1927, Ellington's group began performing at the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem. This club, controlled by gangsters, was both a great opportunity and new challenges for Ellington. During his time there, he transformed his group into one of the most popular African American ensembles of the era. Key musicians such as Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, and Barney Bigard, who would define the group's sound for years to come, joined the roster during this period.

The intense work tempo at the Cotton Club helped to hone Ellington's compositional skills. His adventurous harmonic approach, as seen in pieces such as "Black Beauty," created his signature sound, characterized by dissonance and polytonality. Duke successfully merged progressive composition techniques with popular music on stage.

In the early 1930s, despite the Great Depression, Ellington continued to rise to prominence. He solidified his fame through regular radio broadcasts, films, and tours. During this period, he composed timeless songs such as "Mood Indigo," "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," and "Sophisticated Lady." He also continued to strive for elevating jazz to an art music level by creating more complex and ambitious works like "Creole Rhapsody."

The Legacy of Harlem and the Beginning of the Swing Era

Duke Ellington's 1933 European tour proved that his music had a universal resonance. European critics wrote that he was comparable to great composers such as Mozart and Bach, unaware of the treasure trove America possessed. This trip confirmed Ellington's artistic vision.

When he returned to America, new and dynamic swing bands like Jimmie Lunceford's had taken the stage. The second half of the decade would come to be known as the Swing Era. This new popular music style was built largely on the foundations laid by Harlem pioneers such as Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington.

Ellington, Henderson, Lunceford, Calloway, and others represented an explosion of musical talent every bit as vital as that of Harlem's writers and visual artists. The work of these African American musicians transcended the boundaries of Harlem and shaped the cultural tastes of the entire nation. In the end, Harlem's hot jazz would become the daily soundtrack of American life - and then of the whole world.