TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby" is as much a story of jazz as it is of love and ambition. Set in the Roaring Twenties, the novel captures an era when jazz was the soundtrack of a generation—lively, improvisational, and a little rebellious. Jazz in the 1920s symbolized freedom, modernity, and social change, starkly contrasting the rigid norms of the previous era.
In Gatsby’s world, the music blares from lavish parties, echoing the excitement, excess, and underlying restlessness of the time. Bands played swing, hot jazz, and early big-band arrangements, creating an atmosphere where anything seemed possible. Jazz here isn’t just entertainment—it reflects the characters’ desires, tensions, and the shifting social landscape of America.
Through Fitzgerald’s prose, jazz becomes a metaphor for the excitement and unpredictability of life in the Jazz Age.
This has been Rapp on Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and South Carolina Public Radio, made possible by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.