Jazz in the ghetto: 1950–70

Extract

According to the schemata normally used by critics, jazz ceased to be ‘popular music’ with the arrival of bebop in the mid-1940s. While this statement has some truth to it, it also requires a good deal of qualification. Like blues, jazz remained economically viable in black neighbourhoods until driven out by the slicker pop sounds of the late 1960s. That jazz (with the exception of the ‘cool’ style played by Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, etc.) had a primarily black audience is confirmed by Joe Fields, currently with Muse Records and formerly employed by Prestige and Columbia:

Our records sold to some white college kids, but our sales (at Prestige) were overwhelmingly to blacks – not just tenor and organ stuff but hard bop too. That's why what we sold in Boston was nothing compared to Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, Cleveland … Our sales in Los Angeles were much better than in San Francisco.