Jazz, Josephine Baker, and France
How Exoticism Opened the Door to African American Jazz Performers
Into a France rocked by WWI and the Great Depression, jazz arrived at the perfect moment to revitalize, renew, and fill deep longings for escape into "Otherness
When Jazz made its fledgling journey across the Atlantic, it found an enthusiastic reception, especially in France. There, exoticism reigned, and the media reveled in popular imagery from the smiling, ambivalent Antillean on the front of the hot chocolate mix, Banania, to the darling of Paris, jungle-clad Josephine Baker.
Exoticism
Exoticism flowed from the French dependence on African colonies. During WWI, the French employed 200,000 African soldiers on European soil. About 31,000 became honored military heroes. To place this African effort within the very narrow context of traditional French identity, exoticism provided not only a context for African contributions but a strict delineation between the two cultures. The French viewed their relationship toward their African citizens as paternal with all the inherent implications and inequalities of a patriarchal relationship.
Ambivalence to Enthusiasm
There existed a strange distinction between the ambivalent perception of French blacks from Africa and the benevolent welcome afforded African Americans who began migrating to France during the 1920's. Arriving in France to play jazz, study art, and escape racism in the US, they found a tolerant climate allowing them unique opportunities for advancement. Some, like Josephine Baker, capitalized on exoticism to become symbols in French popular culture.
Jazz Renaissance
During WWI, many fundamental Western values and beliefs came into question. Artists and intellectuals began asking impossibly nihilistic questions including whether or not art, itself, was dead. Depleted beyond repair by war, France responded with appreciation and adoration for the energy and "Otherness" found in African American artistic innovations. They admired their frenetic dances to the accompaniment of dangerously attractive new rhythms. They applauded their authentic joy in the process of music making.
Jazz's "Otherness"
Like exoticism, jazz inadvertently played on European notions of savagery and "Otherness." The response of French people enthralled by exoticism was both naively enthusiastic and shockingly racist because of their strong association of African Americans with primitivist stereotypes. While the French couldn't get enough of Josephine Baker, they also wanted to see her hopping around tribal style in an improvised banana skirt.
Jazz's Frontiers
In a France struggling to redefine itself, jazz was particularly attractive. Jazz overthrew dogma weighing down Western music. Its musicians, with their wild rhythms and seemingly effortless improvisations, not only surmounted musical and racial barriers, but they also found innovative ways to explore consciousness and reality. Jazz's wild departure from the norm would appeal to an entire generation of French musicians, writers, poets, and artists.
For more historical jazz music commentary, read The Day the Music Stopped.
