From kanto to jazz: The reception of popular music from the late Ottoman to the early Republican period

Abstract

This paper examines how popular music genres such as kanto, operetta, tango, and jazz were received in Türkiye from the Late Ottoman period to the Early Republican era, and the sources of legitimacy they relied on. It argues that early popular music in Türkiye was negotiated through power relations shaped by Westernization, modernization, the bureaucratic field, public representation, gender, and class. The theoretical framework approaches musical reception through the contestation between popular and elite sources of legitimacy. Methodologically, drawing on the perspective of historical ethnomusicology, the paper identifies kanto, operetta, tango, and jazz as its objects of inquiry and analyzes them through a historical and interpretive qualitative analysis of primary and secondary sources. Despite its broad audience in the Late Ottoman period, kanto was harshly criticized by the intelligentsia within the framework of moral discourses and failed to attain elite legitimacy. Although operetta was associated with the tradition of Western art music, its elite legitimacy remained limited because it was regarded as less serious than opera. In contrast, tango found both popular and elite legitimacy through its association with the body, the image of the modern woman, and its role in Republican balls in line with the new Republican paradigm. Finally, while jazz triggered moral panic during the Armistice years through its association with Pera’s nightlife, the conditions of occupation, and drug use, it acquired partial elite legitimacy during the Early Republican period owing to its Western character. Based on these examples, it is emphasized that popular music cannot be treated as a single, homogeneous category; rather, each musical genre is received within its own historical, cultural, and ideological context. The early history of popular music in Türkiye can therefore be understood not merely as a process of genre development but also, from the perspective of musical reception, as a history of different genres’ struggles for legitimacy.