Jazz Music History

Jazz has always seemed to be a purely American art. The American story seems to be embedded within this musical genre, particularly with the story of African-American slaves. The slave trade brought nearly half a million workers from Africa by the 1800’s, where strong musical roots were a definitive part of their culture. Their spiritual songs, chants, and hymns evolved to become the blues genre. When it was combined with ragtime, a musical genre characterized by syncopated rhythms, a very early form of jazz was created. Jazz stayed with America through its darkest times, from when Prohibition ruled the land to when the Great Depression was in full swing. But it remains a little-known fact that Europe was also experiencing its own “Jazz Age”.

They were incorporating music from all over the world, including Asia, and were continuing to search for new sounds to incorporate into their own music. In 1900, the American composer John Philip Sousa toured Europe with his band, including at the Exposition Universelle in Paris (Rau). They played a style of music that was completely unknown to the Europeans: ragtime. It combined African dance music with Sousa’s own military marches he composed in the late 19th century, resulting in an early form of jazz. Musical characteristics of ragtime included heavy syncopations (emphasis on the off-beat) in the right hand, accompanied by a marching bass. The cakewalk, an American dance accompanied by ragtime music, was especially popular. The dance had twisted origins: slaves would dance and attempt to mimic their privileged owners, with the most light-footed slave winning a cake. The French composer Claude Debussy, living in Paris at the time, was most likely at the Fair where the Sousa Band performed various cakewalks. He was intrigued, and wrote multiple piano pieces trying to emulate the atmosphere of a cakewalk. First was Golliwog’s Cakewalk, which was from a set of piano pieces entitled “Children’s Corner”. It was named after a doll that was beloved by Debussy’s daughter (Staff), and features several influences of ragtime, including the ‘blue’ note, as well as chromaticism, various 9th chords, and ‘jazzy’ harmonies (Kyzer). Another popular cakewalk Debussy wrote after the success of Golliwog’s Cakewalk was Le petit negre, a piece that features several similar characteristics with the former piece, but is slightly easier to play. The piece has fallen out of the popular piano repertoire recently, as it was discovered Debussy originally named the English title as “The little ni**er”, but was changed soon after by publishers for