PROHIBITION AND THE RISE OF JAZZ
Prohibition was never an easy sell. It brought plenty of moralistic preaching and lifesaving promises. But it had a hard act to follow--the triumphant 1919 WWI victory parade down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, led by James Reese Europe’s proto-jazz “Hellfighters” band. Americans went wild with joy as the hundred black musicians blasted out Here Comes My Daddy Now. Returning Colonel Thomas Gowenlock of the American First Division, recalled, “All over the world…, people were celebrating, dancing in the streets, drinking champagne.” It was a time not to clamp down, but to cut loose. 
PROHIBITION GOOD TIMES
So when Prohibition went live a century ago, reaction came immediately. Ken Burns has revealed that “just minutes after Prohibition went into effect, six masked bandits with pistols emptied two freight cars full of whiskey. Warehouses were raided; a truck full of bourbon hijacked.”
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 Capone
Ironically when Al Capone rose to power, he would become a big sup-porter of New Orleans jazz music. In New York, the Harlem Renaissance shifted into higher gear, with Alain Locke’s “New Negro” standing for his rights. During the war, African Americans had “served their nation, and now they would insist on being treated like full citizens,” wrote the Harvard scholar Nathan Huggins. Yet American racists doubled down. The Equal Justice Initiative reported, “Because of their military service, black veterans were seen as a particular threat to Jim Crow and racial subordination.” 
But now, women had the vote. Flapping young faces—"fast-moving, fast-talking, reckless and unfazed,” shortened their skirts and cut their hair. In the speakeasies, they smoked, drank, and danced the Charleston to hot jazz bands whose music brought freedom in vivo. |
But to some, freedom brought fear. Newspapers in the 1920s wrote of jazz as the devil’s music that would warp the minds and hearts of American youth. The Illinois Vigilance Association found that in 1921-1922, jazz had “caused the downfall” of one thousand girls in Chicago alone.” This was the normative response to “subversive” behavior that tested established ideas. Then—as now--what had been “established” was the inferiority of the Negro. Any stand against this mindset brought white backlash—including from the Ku Klux Klan, which supported Prohibition. 
But freedom will not be tied down. After their Fifth Avenue victory parade, the Hellfighters brought a trumpeting hit, How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm, which helped kick off the Jazz Age. The next decade brought jazz and blues masterpieces from Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Mamie Smith, The Boswell Sisters, James P. Johnson, Cole Porter, and more, as jazz supplanted all previous American music.
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♬ LISTEN: James Reese Europe "Hellfighters" Band
How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (after they've seen Par-ee?)
James Reese Europe’s all-black 369th “Hellfighters” regiment spent 191 days in front-line WWI trenches--more than any other American unit. For their courage, they were awarded the French Croix de Guerre. The Hellfighters band became the most well-known of its kind—first to bring proto-jazz to the Continent. Arriving home, they led the victory parade up New York City’s Fifth Avenue and recorded numerous tunes, including this favorite, How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?”
How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (after they've seen Par-ee?)
James Reese Europe’s all-black 369th “Hellfighters” regiment spent 191 days in front-line WWI trenches--more than any other American unit. For their courage, they were awarded the French Croix de Guerre. The Hellfighters band became the most well-known of its kind—first to bring proto-jazz to the Continent. Arriving home, they led the victory parade up New York City’s Fifth Avenue and recorded numerous tunes, including this favorite, How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm?”