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Keep Cool, Man:
The Negro Rejection of Jazz
- Abstract
GET HOT” was once the Negro reveler’s favorite exhortation; now, in Harlem, the key word is “Be cool, man.” The difference between these two expressions is more than a mere matter of slang: implied in them are two distinct and contrasting attitudes toward experience.
“Get hot” was the jubilant cry of the emancipated Negro finally celebrating his recently acquired freedom. Released from bondage, he exercised his new liberty in the most immediate forms: he danced, sang, and demonstrated, played hot jazz and seared his insides with gin. Getting hot was a group ritual, a spontaneous, unself-conscious tribal activity having little to do with white society. It was a release, a letting off of steam after hundreds of years of suppression; also, it counteracted persisting contemporary pressures. The Negro enjoyed getting hot, and, after burning himself out in dance, drink, and music, he always rose phoenix-like from his ashes, re-created through recreation.
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