Landmarks for Alternative Jazz Identities in the Wake of Totalitarianism

In the beginning jazz was an Afro-American import. In those European countries that were subjected to the trauma of totalitarianism jazz acquired an aureola of martyrdom becoming the symbolism of underground resistance. The appearance of jazz orchestras was considered concealed reaction to oppression through the expression of national identity. Hence jazz lost its originally entertaining function and metamorphosed into a sound metaphor for liberty. By the early 1960s, all over Europe there already existed a conscious generation of jazzmen, able to assert each country’s identity under the broad spectre of this cosmopolitan music.

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