Mad as Jazzmen |1930s Ryden AU| ✔️

-1-

New Orleans was known as the city of jazz.  It was the first place where this new style of music was brought to America, and it didn't take long for it to kick off.  It was an odd musical style, what with its funky rhythms and unique instrumentation.  It used drums, pianos, trumpets, saxophones, you name it.  Jazz was infecting America, and there was no avoiding the rhythmic disease.

The 1920s were soon named the Jazz Age, the golden days of America.  Jazz music was taking over New Orleans little by little.  Jazz was played in nightclubs.  Jazz was played on the streets.  Jazz was broadcasted all over the radio, and soon, all over the country.  People made their livings off of playing jazz.  The Roaring Twenties were a wonderful time in the history of America.

Then the stock market crashed in 1929.  The Roaring Twenties were over.

Stock prices instantly fell by eleven percent.  Five days later it fell by another twelve.  Banks failed.  The value of the dollar rose, and prices skyrocketed.  Taxes were increased.  People couldn't pay back their crippling debts.

In 1930 the Dust Bowl struck, the worst series of droughts in nearly three centuries.  Crops were destroyed.  Farmers couldn't produce enough to eat, let alone sell enough to make a living.

The Bank of the United States failed on December 11, 1930.  It was the largest bank failure in history.  The economy shrank by eight percent.  The unemployment rate rose to nine percent.  Deflation set in and hit the country hard, and no one could do anything about it.

By the end of 1933 the unemployment rate was at a record of nearly twenty-five percent.  The national debt was twenty-three billion dollars.  The droughts and dust storms devastated farms and towns.  The economy had been demolished, all because of what was known as the Great Depression.  America was no longer living in the golden days.  The Roaring Twenties were a thing of the past.

But jazz music lived on.

People still wrote jazz.  People still played jazz.  People still listened to jazz.  Jazz never died.  It just continued to grow.  Blues became popular, a new somber style of jazz.  Blues reflected the dismal mood of the failing economy, and people loved it.  Jazz lived in the hearts of every person in America, and New Orleans was the center of it all, the birthplace of this wonderful music.

That was why Brendon Urie was packing his things to move to the city.

He wasn't from a rich family by any means, but they weren't poor, either.  They hadn't been as tragically affected by the Great Depression as the others around them.  He wanted to see new things, visit new places.  He wanted to explore the world, for he was fresh out of school, a legal adult.  He was full of life and vigor, and he wanted to experience everything the world had to offer.

And he wanted to start at the very city where jazz was born.

While he packed he was accompanied by his longtime friend Kenny.  They'd been friends for as long as the two of them could remember, and although it hurt Brendon to leave behind his old life, everything he ever knew, he was eager to get a fresh taste of the world that awaited him.

"Maybe you'll meet a babe, settle down, have some kids,"  Kenny offered with a sly grin.  A cigar hung loosely from his mouth, smoke spiraling into the air in gentle wisps.  "It's about time you started lookin' for a girl."

Brendon only cast his friend a quirky smile as he packed away his blazer coats.  "Me?  Gettin' married?  You're full of it, Kenny,"  he laughed.  "Since when have you seen me as the settling down type?"

Kenny shrugged, taking a long drag of his cigar.  "I dunno.  Just thought you'd wanna have some little munchkins to call your own."

"Not in this day and age, Kenny.  Not in this day and age."