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influence jazz in american history
the emergence of jazz
roots of jazz in the 19th century
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Breakthroughs in American Jazz
The backdrop was New Orleans in the late 19th century, a growing port city with a diverse population of African Americans, whites, displaced French settlers, and immigrants from the West Indies and South America. This hodgepodge of cultures mixed European influenced popular music, such as ragtime, with tradition African music creating the hybrid musical style known as jazz. Jazz, bold and beautiful, in its purest sense demands high instrumentation mastery, creativity, and improvisation combined with low rehearsal and repetition. Unlike opera or symphony music, jazz dates back a little more than a century ago and finds all of its major developments occurring in the United States.
Jazz is constantly changing and evolving. From the beginning to now there are six distinct styles mimicking American life for the past century. What started out as ragtime turned into early jazz with musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory and King Oliver. Politically and economically the Great Depression changed everything including the sound and style of jazz music. Quartets became less popular because people wanted music with more of a punch, this was the movement of swing and the big band. In the early 1940's two different jazz styles were developing bebop and cool/west coast jazz. Musicians not satisfied with the rules regarding big band music, limited opportunities for improvisation and musical experimentation, began to break those rules regarding how music in the jazz style should be created and how it should sound. The last two steps in jazz's evolution is Hard Bop and Avant-Garde/Free Jazz. Hard Bop is a hard driving descendant of bop and Avant-Garde Jazz is boundarieless jazz that frequently uses honks and squeaks in the music encompassing all ranges and sounds from the instruments. Ornette Coleman's 1960 album Free Jazz in 37 minutes of complete collective impersonation.
A Tribute to Charlie Parker Birdmen & Birdsongs was a jazz festival recorded in January 1990 at the Palais des Festivals located in Cannes France. The highlighted jazz bands were the Phil Woods Quartet and the John Hendricks Group. One song in particular performed by the John Hendricks Group called Parker's Mood was one of the best representations of the bebop style with improvisations of wide melodic range on different instruments including piano, drums and bass. Also Parker's Mood showcased one of the best displays of scat singing by John Hendricks and his daughter Michelle Hendricks.
Jazz as a general genre reached its peak in the thirties. Jazz was incredibly popular with both the Black community, and the white community; however, Jazz reached the adolescents the most. Jazz music was associated with the African American culture during this time of increible racial tension, subsequently the ‘teens’ of this generation began to tune into this genre for its rebelistic qualities. Popular forms of jazz music often included, Dixieland/’hot’ jazz, classical jazz, and bebop. The defining artist of hot jazz was Louis Armstrong. This music was characterized by collective improvised solos, around melodic structure, that ideally built up to an emotional and "Hot" climax. The rhythm section, which typically consists of percussion, bass, banjo, or guitar helps to support this crescendo, many times in the style of a
The first appearance of jazz was at the turn of the century in New Orleans and is called “Dixieland Jazz,” or “Classic Jazz.” It developed out of music for street parades in the black community. It also had deeper roots in a style of music called “Blues,” which was used to express the daily experiences of the community (History). Other influences include the combination of West African folk music with the popular classical music of Europe, developing into syncopated rhythms and chord variations on classical pieces (Passion).
In New Orleans, where the jazz music started, music was not a luxury, it was a necessity. Ethnicities represented in New Orleans were as follows: French, Spanish, and African, Italian, German, and Irish (Herbert Asbury, 1938). This unique combination provided a unique mix of cultural influences which gave birth to such unique styles of music: ragtime, blues, spirituals, marches, and of course jazz. The workers needed the music as a way of communication, relief, and hope for freedom, during the mind-numbing labor.
Jazz is an American genre that developed from ragtime and blues in the early twentieth century in urban areas of the U.S. This genre is characterized by strong, prominent meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors, and performance techniques. The development of Jazz made a postive, lasting impact after World War One ended. It became a way of bringing young people together. Jazz became the basis for most social dance music and provided one of the first opportunities for public integration. Subcultures like the gangs of New York and Chicago encouraged the subjugation of the black artists to the white man’s economic and social power, often resulting in gang leaders having complete control over
Jazz was a unique form of music, there had never been anything like it before. It was rebellious, rhythmic, and it broke the rules- musical and social. It started a musical revolution, “With its offbeat rhythms and strange melodies, jazz was blamed for everything from drunkenness and deafness to in increase in unwed mothers.” Jazz was seen as immoral and worried the older generation that their kids would lose interest in classical music. It was also seen as against society because it came about from the African- American culture, but despite all of that, jazz led to a new era of music that still prevails today.
Since the first emergence of Jazz in the late 19th century, new styles and versions of the genre have been popping up in various locations across the world. Jazz first appeared in New Orleans. This is because New Orleans was one of the only places in the world that allowed the slaves there to play musical instruments, most importantly the drums. People in New Orleans of all social groups attended VooDoo rituals, which was where European horns met African drums. The two sounds joining together was “like lightning meeting thunder”. The locals then put the two styles together and used music they heard in churches or in barrooms for inspiration, thus creating an entirely new style of music; Jazz.
What comes to mind when thinking of the 1920’s? Most people think of the freedom the United States felt after World War I and that is exactly what jazz and the Charleston symbolize (Boundless.com par. 1). Jazz and the Charleston were extremely controversial in the 1920’s because they promoted a new way of thinking, which outraged the older generations (Knowles 160). Older generations did not like the fact that young people were becoming more and more daring with their actions just by playing music and dancing (Boundless.com par. 6). Today, jazz and the Charleston are thought of as out of date, but without them, music today would be completely different. Jazz and the Charleston revolutionized modern music and dance by altering the rhythm of classical music, changing the culture of American society (Boundless.com par. 1).
Imagine you are walking the streets of New Orleans. You are standing right where jazz was established in the United States of America. Jazz wasn’t just about music, it also affected the culture involving social, economic, artistic and jazz leaders.
To understand the genesis of Jazz one must also understand the setting of its origin, New Orleans. The city was founded by the French in 1718, then in 1763 the city ceded to Spain and remained under Spanish control until later being returned to the French in 1803, and then was immediately sold to the United States under the Louisiana Purchase. New Orleans was also heavily populated by African slaves making up 30% of the total population of the city at this time; so New Orleans was experiencing a lot of cultural diversity and was being shaped and molded by the many different fashions of people who lived in the city. These different social groups along with their culture also brought with them their deep rooted musical traditions, the fusion and combination of these traditions would give rise to what we know today as modern day Jazz. Jazz is a genre of music that could only have formed in America; it draws from many different cultures and art forms creating a cocktail of traditional European and African music, mixed with a blend of Spanish tinge, with a strong base of blues filtered through the American experience.
In the 20’s, the era right after World War I, music and dancing became a focus. Many musicians were moving Northward from southern cities such as New Orleans, which was a main focus for what would become jazz music. As these musicians came up to more urban cities, they introduced the country to a world of music based on Caribbean music tones and southern blues. Syncopation was common in the songs that were known in this area, as were the common bluesy sounds and rhythms of those gospel songs and old hymns. This would all greatly influence the jazz creation. Jazz began as a music type that was focused more on orchestral sounds and bigger bands than smaller bands, such as seen with Whiteman, and this was evident in the types of dances and music the people listened to, with large piece orchestras. In this time period, there were big bands, but few solos or focus on jazz technique individually, as the bands showcased the overall sound of the band’s polyrhythmic and polyphonic sound more than its homophonic solo sounds. People such as Louis Armstrong began to be interested in focusing more on chords than melodies and on solos than group collective improvisation, and this started the move to a new wave of jazz: swing.
When it comes to jazz music, there is one name that everyone knows, whether they’ve never listened to jazz before or if they’ve listened to it their whole lives. That name is Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was one of the pioneers of jazz music, from his humble beginnings in one of New Orleans roughest districts, “the Battlefield”, to playing concerts for sold out crowds in Chicago and New York City, Louis left a massive impact on the way America listened to music for a long time. One of his premier tracks, “West End Blues”, left an impact on jazz music, which other musicians would try to emulate for years.
Not only is it nearly impossible to pinpoint jazz’s conception in time, many locations are accredited with its origin, the United States allowed for jazz to start gaining popularity and leading into the change it had to the music scene. When jazz is brought up, many first think of its birth place being New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans has always been a big musi...
In 1920 the Jazz music has emerged in the City of New Orleans and from there, there were also many great New Orleans Jazz musicians. Jazz is a music style that combines of three main element improvisation, bluesy flavor and swing feeling. Often, African American play Jazz on the street of New Orleans and they started to form bands and perform for people without charging them money. In the early history of Jazz, there was one major artist that has major contributions to Jazz, his name is Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was one of early jazz musicians who were born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Though, many African American Jazz musicians play music on the street of New Orleans but there was not any known record of their musics. Armstrong was one of those early Jazz musicians who move to Chicago where later he play and develop historic jazz style called improvision. Louis Armstrong well known as a soloist performer of his cornet or trumpet. Louis Armstrong using improvising technique where he can compose music while he is solo with his trumpet and create smooths and depth melodies.
a unique sincerity and magnetism that has withstood the test of time. From its humble beginnings in New Orleans, jazz quickly spread throughout the United States and soon became an illustrious component of American culture. This art form not only offered a distinct and musically euphonic prospect, but also gave voice to the African American community. The development of jazz tore down barriers and confines forever shaping music and culture around the world.
Before I take this class, the jazz music is familiar as well as unfamiliar to me. I am pretty sure that I heard jazz performance at many times, but I cannot tell what jazz is. And there was a time when I thought jazz music was belong to the upper class, however I understand the jazz music is regardless of class and race, so much even it more tends to lower middle class. In the early of 19th century, the New Orleans was owned by the French, and due to the lax management, lots of African-Americans got away from slaveholder from America’s south. They got married with French under the “mixed marriages”, therefore there were huge amount of mixed-race know as Creoles. The Creoles had the same rights with white people, they got