Are you questioning whether it was harder to record music, or harder to compose music???
First, you have to compare apples to apples. Hiphop is a completely different genre than jazz. Hiphop didn't exist in the 1920's. However, we still have jazz music today.
The second problem is that there is no real hiphop music. That's a misnomer. There are no hiphop musicians. There's rap, which is verbal, and the music used is taken from various music styles, whether it be rock, reggae, jazz, etc.
So, as far as music is concerned, comparing jazz music of the '20's to todays hiphop is comparing apples and oranges.
A more reasonable comparison would be the recording of the music, and how that music was marketed. The jazz musician of the early 20th century could not even fathom the ease or recording that we have available to use today. We have a forum of people here on FP, who all have some from of recording studio in there homes. A jazz musician in 1920 was content to have his instrument. The money available is far greater today. Most of the early jazz pioneers died broke. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Eubie Blake, Dizzy, Charlie Christian, Louie Armstrong, none of these cats were rich. They performed constantly, just to get by. The recorded records for labels, but hardly saw any money at all from those recordings. They were stars, and they were famous, but they were not wealthy.
You have to also keep in mind, in the 1920's, jazz was looked down upon just like hiphop is. The classically trained musiciansa of the day scoffed at jazz music. It was beneath, and they didn't see it as creative. For intensive purposes, jazz music was the dance music of the time. It remained the music that people danced to up until the 1950's, when rock n roll took over.
The jazz that most of us relate to, didn't really eveolve until the 1940's. In the 20's, you had dixieland and ragtime. Beginning in the 40's, you had the bebop movement. Bebop was the bohemian extension of jazz. Jazz became hip and cool. It started to gain acceptance with young people who would frequent speakeasies, and after hour spots to hear Coltrane, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, charles Mingus, and others. Jazz was the hiphop of the 1940's and '50's. Swing/bebop was rebellious. Even conventional jazz musicians didn't understand it. The beat was hard driving, and it whipped people into a frenzy. Jazz clubs were perpetuated with sex and drugs. Most jazz musicians were addicted to either alchohol, coke, or heroin. They were truly equivalent in fame to today's rap icons.
I wrote all of this to say what?? Jazz and hiphop have a lot in common. To me, hiphop is an extension of jazz. Both forms are about musical exploration, and pushing the limits. Jazz musicainas use machines just like everybody else. They use computers, software, and even samplers. Did you know there are jazz samplists? Check out people like Barnyard Drama. Then you have Branford Marsalis, and his Buckshot Lefonque. That's jazz-hiphop at its finest.
