I've been thinking about Lox's theory, posted yesterday, that jazz appeared simultaneously at various planation homes around the south, thanks to house-servant slaves being trained in the European musical tradition.

It's a very plausible theory. Maybe I've been wrong all along in believing that my adopted hometown, New Orleans, was the true, one-and-only, "birthplace" of jazz.

On second thought, however, I feel pretty sure that New Orleans provided an absolutely unique environment to act as crucible to a new musical genre:

For several generations, while slaves throughout the English-speaking South were absolutley prohibited from gathering to drum and dance in their own tradition (for fear that secret, coded communication via drum leading to revolt/uprising), New Orleans provided a meeting place (Congo Square) where slaves and free people of color could gather every Sunday for free musical expression. Some participants, obviously, would be among the relatively privileged few to have experienced formal Wesstern musical education; many others would be playing strictly "by ear," or instinctively. Also, some of the folks would be more recently arrived from Africa, or from Hispaniola, than others. All in all, a very fertile situation from which new forms of expression to emerge.

Also in New Orleans, there was a large and prominent community of Creoles, or what we would today call "biracial" people. In the English-speaking south, the "one-sixteenth" rule held sway from the very beginnning of the peculiar institution of slavery ~ a person with ANY African ancestry was subject to enslavement. Under French and Spanish rule, New Orleans saw the emergence of a middle-class community of mixed-race people, many of whom became highly educated in the European tradition. And, it is a well-established historical fact that many of the musicians involved in the evoltion of early jazz were indeed Creoles from this community.

So, yeah, after about 24 hours of doubt, I am back to believing that jazz was indeed created right here in the Crescent City.