The Jazz Age in France
Interview with Charles Riley II on Paris, the South of France, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Expatriate Experience during the 1920's
American jazz music is once again in a period where it is receiving very little mainstream musical attention. Yet, in places like Europe and Japan it still attracts rabid fans of all ages. At different times, for some reason, American jazz has had not just an influence on music, but a profound influence on culture. The time when it exerted perhaps its most powerful influence outside of the United States was the 1920's. The place where that influence was felt the strongest was in France.
The hot jazz sound that flourished just after WWI became the soundtrack of the expatriate experience in France. It became one of the strongest influences on the watershed years of the full flowering of modernism, impacting not just jazz, popular music, classical music, night clubs, dance and fashion, but painting, literature and sexual and race relations. From Paris to the south of France, le jazz hot became the kinetic vortex at the heart of one of the most exciting decades of the 20th century.
More than 75 years after the zenith of the roaring 20's, a book was published, that captured in vivid prose and striking photos and illustrations the essence of that golden age. The book is entitled The Jazz Age in France (Harry N. Abrams), by Charles A. Riley II. The book came out just a little more than 25 years ago. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Regarded by many as perhaps the great American novel, it also captured the heady jazz age at what was perhaps the peak of the era. From the dance halls of Paris to the enclaves of art at Montparnasse, and traversing the luxuriant coast of southern France from some of the western coastal towns of France, to the Italian border on the east, Riley has brought to life the exuberance, creativity and explosion of new ideas and lifestyles during the 1920's that made France the place where modernism captured the imagination of the world.
France had always been a place where art and new ideas flourished. Two factors that contributed to making it so special in the 1920's were the abundance of Americans who so dramatically shaped it and the fact that the south of France became for the first time the summer playground that it still is today.
While the long, rich history of painting, literature and culture in and around Paris since just before the birth of modernism has been extensively written about, the relationship between the evolution of the south of France as an artistic mecca and the role of jazz as a cultural force is not as familiar to many people.
Painters from Paris and other parts of France and Europe had been visiting the seaside towns along the entire coast of France since the 1800's to escape the stifling heat of summer in European cities and to be inspired by the tranquil natural beauty of the ever-abundant idyllic fishing villages. But for most of the European demi-monde and for America’s expats, the south of France was not a place where they went in the summer. Just after WWI, in 1918, the American song composer Cole Porter decided to stay on in the south of France for the summer. However, it wasn’t until American artist and Mark Cross heir Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara stayed on at their Villa America at Antibes that the world discovered the sublime charm of the La Cote d’Azur. The Villa America became the summer playground and home of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter and many others. Days at the beaches and a sail on Gerald’s boat Weatherbird, named for the Louis Armstrong song, capped off with late night dinners, were followed up by writing, painting, composing and other creative endeavors.
While the south of France was the new summer playground of the roaring 20's smart set, Paris was still the cultural center of Europe. Sylvia Beach’s bookstore Shakespeare and Company; the Ritz bar; 27 rue de Fleurs, the home of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Tolklas and for a time Gertrude’s brother Leo; the Ambassadeur club and the Theatre des Champs Elysees, where Josephine Baker danced and sang, were some of the places where the jazz age came alive.
If anyone is capable of writing a book that captures that elusive and heady time, it’s Charles Riley. Riley has written many other books and is a professor at the Beacon Institute of Clarkson University. He was also a reporter for Fortune magazine, where he covered politics and Wall Street, and he served as the editor of Art and Auction magazine. As someone who had the privilege to live in “Little Hall,” which was Scott Fitzgerald’s room at Princeton, Riley understands both the significance of the art that was created in the 20's and the style in which it was executed. Riley explained how writing this book was a new experience for him. “The thing about this book that perhaps makes it different from anything I’ve ever written,” he stated, “was it was so much fun to write and it seems to be fun for people to read.”
For Riley, the writing became an experience that mentally transported him back to the 20's. “I had pangs of jealously and nostalgia as I wrote the book,” he admitted. “I thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it have been sweet to have lived then and just sit there with interesting people and have those kinds of conversations every day, and then go and do your writing or go into your studio and do your painting.’”
While many books have been written before on the subject, few have been so evocatively written and have contained so many marvelous illustrations, some reproduced in color for the first time. Riley had access to all of Gerald and Sara Murphy’s papers, and spoke with direct descendants of Robert Benchley and of many other key figures from that era. The author brought out how the various players supported one another and how some also attempted, often quite successfully, creative fields outside those for which they were most known. Riley explained: “Hemingway was a great supporter of the visual artists like Miro, Picasso and Gerald Murphy. Dos Passos and Cummings were poets and artists. They were multi-faceted people. Cole Porter was an artist and a writer, but they were all friends and part of a circle.”
It has been a fascinating journey for Riley and during our talk, he modestly revealed, little by little and in an off-handed way, that he felt he was destined to write this book. Although he is originally from the Vermont/Massachusetts area, he grew up in Manhassett on Long Island. While his home was in Tudor City in Manhattan, as a summer resident of the East End of Long Island, he had spent a good deal of time at the local haunts that often provided the scenic backdrop for the exploits of many of the real life characters of his book. The East End figures prominently in the story, as it was the place where Gerald and Sara Murphy met and where their families had a home. They are both buried there and their daughter Honoria, lived there for many years. Riley also attended the prep school Hotchkiss, which was also where Gerald Murphy and “Archie” MacLeish studied. Riley’s first job out of college was being hired by “Mr. Doubleday” as an assistant to Mrs. “Onassis” (a.k.a. Jackie Kennedy), when she was an editor at Doubleday.
Riley spends the summers in Cutchogue and is in love with the sleepier northern fork of the East End. “I love the rural quality. We take our bicycles down to the beach. Nobody is ever on that beach. I have 120 rose bushes and when I go fishing I never see another fisherman.” The area has become an artist’s haven, with the likes of Richard Serra and art critic Robert Hughes, among many others, who have lived there. Oddly enough, the most dramatic connection to the expatriates in France in the 20's for Riley is the fact that a cousin of his on his father’s side was President Calvin Coolidge. On first hearing this, one may be puzzled about the connection, which turns out to be a very ironic one. “Calvin Coolidge passed the prohibition laws,” Riley explained, “which was the reason all those Americans went to Paris.” Riley couldn’t help laughing when he said this.