Hip or not, does it really matter?

Apparently, jazz was a “hip” thing back in the day. It was the cool thing to listen to if you were a rebel. If you weren’t a rebel, what were you stuck with? Classical music? However, you were only able to properly play jazz if you were “hip,” which according to Amiri Baracka in Blue People, is, “…an attitude or stance marked through modes of symbolic display associated initially with bebop: beret, goatee, ‘ridiculously draped suits in the manner of a zoot suit,’ horn-rimmed glasses, heroin addiction, bop talk, and, of course, the music itself. (231)” Where did these rules come from, and why must I listen to them? Well, if I like jazz, that means I’m a rebel, which means I’m allowed to play jazz, right? Is that how it works? Or is there something I’m missing here?

From what it sounds like to me, jazz was only played by the people who fit in these categories. What really bugs me is WHY the bebop jazzers in the 40’s would do THAT. Why heroin? How come they couldn’t just be addicted to coffee like most of the musicians I know?

Part of it is having a nonconformist attitude that’s present with the musical expression of jazz. Furthermore, it draws more from African American emotional expressivity. So does this mean myself, as a white male musician, can’t play jazz? Honestly, I know I’m an awful jazz musician. I’m a square when it comes to improvisation or anything related to jazz.

Some say it's hip to be a square.

BUT, I know many a white males who are very good jazz musicians. So does this mean, even though they are good, they really can’t be because of their heritage? Better yet, by staying with the definition given above about “hip,” are they still not allowed?

Even though both African Americans and non-African Americans could be hip, it’s pretty much defined by the African American jazz musician. That’s great and all, but what about all those other rules to being hip? The baggy clothes, berets and goatees: where do these come into play? I’m going to blame Dizzy Gillespie for this. He was, of course named “Influence of the Year,” by Metronome in 1946.

Full of Win.

All in all, the idea of being “hip” is something that was blown out of proportion due to the media. Many people would try to get into the whole “hip” scene of the beboppers, but would follow the negative stereotypes coming from media, like drug addiction, and ruin it for the rest of the beboppers trying to make a decent living. While these people would make it seem worse than it was, it doesn’t mean there weren’t any drugs going around…there still were. It doesn’t mean though that everyone was doing it.

Although not everyone was doing it, the people not doing probably had a more difficult time fitting in with the culture of bebop. Looking back on past experiences, I know for a fact that I could have had more friends and fewer enemies if I had just done what everyone else was doing.