Chapter 5 - The Rise of New Jazz, 1971–1979

Summary

With the course of jazz profoundly influenced by the events of the previous decade,examines the 1970s, a time of new growth and innovation in jazz in the GDR. During these years East German cultural critics viewed American free jazz (as exemplified by Ornette Coleman) as an expression of social revolution in the United States, reading it as music protesting grievances and echoing class warfare. By contrast, however, jazz “made in the GDR” became emblematic of an art form in harmony with socialist society. Yet this harmonization was not perfect. This chapter explores how jazz retained its countercultural aspect, despite its incorporation into state culture and its subsequent flourishing, as well as how STASI surveillance of jazz increased given growing traffic between East and West. At various live jazz events in the 1970s, fans described an oppositional atmosphere, revealing a more ambiguous dynamic between individual and state than official proclamations might indicate. In the era of Ostpolitik, performers and audiences found subtle ways to critique the socialist state, even as East German diplomats recruited jazz to showcase socialist Germany on the global stage.