Jazz À La Creole: The Music of the French Creoles of Louisiana and Their Contribution to the Development of Early Jazz at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

As a result of its unique colonial history, Louisiana was characterized by a threetiered society in which the Creoles formed a middle-class that distinguished itself by its attachment to the French culture and language, and to the Catholic Church. Using creolization as a model to describe the process of cultural interchange leading to the creation of new cultural products, this thesis documents the contribution of the Creoles to the development of early jazz.