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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.
Understandably the focus of the episode titled 1959 The Year that Changed Jazz would focus on the events of 1959. The main point was outlining the four albums by four different bands that showed the different ways jazz was evolving. The first album to take focus was Kind of Blue recorded by Miles Davis and his sextet. Davis had started his jazz carer at the age of nineteen under his idol Charlie Parker in the late 1940's. Taking what he learned from Parker of the Bebop style, Davis went on to become an amazing artiest in his own right. Columbia Records was was easily able to turn him into a national celebrity, one that the women found highly attractive. From the sextet, Jimmy Cobb and Herbie Hancock were interviewed.
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
Jazz music of the 1940’s and 1950’s was defined by a history of change since its beginning at the dawn of the 20th century. Almost every decade brought a new flavor to the movement, and by the 1940’s jazz had developed into a mature, complex form of music, with many nuances and avenues for continued change. It is important to trace the early movements in jazz to better understand the innovations of the Bebop and Cool jazz eras of the 40’s and 50’s.
The recording of the Livery Stable Blues is one of the most important moments in the jazz history, which helped this genre of music get wide recognition outside of New Orleans.
Although jazz first appeared in New Orleans in the twentieth century, the music it was derived from has been around for much longer. The roots of jazz can be found in both African and European influences that blend together to create a distinctive musical quality and swing character. It encompasses a wide range of music, including that of ragtime and blues, which are two of the most prominent genres that influenced jazz in its early stages. Although there are many differences between the musical styles and instrumentation of ragtime and blues, there are also some similarities in terms of common origin that helped drive the birth of modern-day jazz.
Jazz is referred as “America’s classical music,” and is one of North America’s and most celebrated genres. The history of Jazz can be traced back to the early era of the 20th century of the U.S. “A History of Jazz” presents From Ragtime and Blues to Big Band and Bebop, jazz has been a part of a proud African American tradition for over 100 years. A strong rhythmic under-structure, blue notes, solos, “call-and response” patterns, and
Jazz was introduced directly after World War I by African-Americans (Boundless.com par. 1). Although jazz was composed by many different African-Americans the main founder of jazz was Ethel Waters (McCorkle par. 8). Jazz was first played in New Orleans, but as the African-Americans moved north, white citizens caught on and tuned jazz into a new craze (Lindop 107). Even though jazz was created in New Orleans, Chicago became the home of jazz music (Bingham 8). The first jazz players derived the tune from a mixture of Latin American, African, and European rhythms, making it very popular among many different types of people (“Latin Jazz” par. 1). Jazz was so well-liked because it gave the artists the opportunity to make the predetermined tune their own (“What is jazz par. 1). When listening to jazz the same song is never heard twice because the band members each put their own spin on the way they play their instrumen...
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.
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.
The evolvement of jazz throughout the years has been an interesting one. Blues and Ragtime are just two simple innovations that has allowed for many variations in the jazz genre. Both of these genres have their similarities and differences in how they influenced jazz music through: improvisation, syncopation, and experimentation.
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.
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.
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 music prospered in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Jazz was created by African Americans to represent pain and suffering and also represented the adversity that racial tension brought. (Scholastic) African American performers like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker came to be recognized for their ability to overcome “race relati...
Now a days, many believe that jazz is not that important of music genre, but with our history, jazz plays a big role. “Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but it is a gift that America has given to the world.”, quoted by Ahmad Alaadeen. Jazz in the 1920’s opened the eyes of whites and invited them into African American culture; it evolved Americans to where we are today since it brought a change to the music scene, an acceptance of African Americans, and a change of lifestyles.