Jazz Age

•The Roaring 20's•• The Jazz Age •

• Introduction to the Jazz Age •

According to several sources,

Fitzgerald named the 1920s

the Jazz Age. He was right. Music celebrated the emotions of the people who believed America

was at its peak. The snazzy tunes ran through the veins of 1920’s women and their dance partners. The music gave way to freedom, or so it seemed.

Men like Louis Armstrong

and Duke Ellington began paving the way for exploration in American musical style.

The age takes its name from jazz, which saw a tremendous influx in popularity among many parts of society. Among the prominent concerns and trends of the period are the public embrace of technological developments such as

cars, air travel and the

telephone - as well as new

trends in social behaviour, the arts, and culture. major

developments included art design, style and

architecture.

• Jazz Age Women • A lot of women in the 1920’s were known as “Flappers”. This

referred to a new style of young women who wore short skirts,

bobbed their hair, listened to the new jazz music, and flaunted their arrogance which was considered

acceptable behaviour then. Flappers were seen as

brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking,

treating sex in a casual manner, smoking,

driving automobiles and disobeying social normalities.

Gradually, the Flapper look entered mainstream America. Single and married women in the cities and the country came to enjoy the comfort and ease of the new styles. The Flapper's signature hairstyle was given even more legitimacy in the late

1920s when First Lady Grace Coolidge cut off her long hair and adopted a short style.

• Jazz Age Music & Dance •

White people were finally beginning to mix with black people in the Jazz Age, leading to some exciting musical and cultural cross-

pollination. Black musicians were finally

being recognised and headlining clubs.

Brass music, like the horn and the saxophone were exciting and liberating like ragtime from the slave era. So whites and blacks were hanging out together, impressed by each other, swapping names and back-chat.

In the earlier 1920s the first raves were also beginning to happen. These were all-night jazz parties where drug usage occurred.