Contributions Of Jazz And The Age Of Blues And Ragtime

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Contributions to Jazz Jazz, being art itself, cannot be culturally or stylistically be defined by one or two characteristics. In this paper, I will argue that the development of jazz was mainly contributed by the genre of blues and ragtime. Blue and ragtime both show characteristics that contrast each other as well as conjoin to form the art of jazz. Both genres, however, contribute to the formation of jazz and are culturally influenced by the African-American population, therefore creating black nationalism in the twentieth century. Blues are known to be sorrow songs created by slave workers from the South (New Orleans). Although most songs in the genre blues are sorrow, blues was created by slaves to ease their suffering. Slaves found …show more content…

He created his own Scott Joplin Drama Company to perform his ballets because he thought that they were not being given the recognition they deserved. Scott Joplin passed away without seeing his artwork in music become respected as much as classical music and other respected genres but he did live to see the first ragtime school be created in New York City, known as the, “Tin Pan Alley,” which also created a dance group that would be using the syncopated music. New York City had an audience perfect for the genre ragtime; “The ‘nervous’ syncopation of ragtime seemed to fit the hurried tempo of the large and busy city.” This is a perfect explanation of the uplifting, fast, and warm swing feeling that ragtime conveys. Scott Joplin was also known as the “Father of the Blues” amongst many, although he made ragtime …show more content…

Both genres were shown to have rhythmic syncopation in their music and both showed the improvisation. Blues improvised in the sense of the vocalist and ragtime did not improvise and composed their music to b accenting certain notes. Earlier we saw the main difference between the ragtime and blues because blues is known to completely miss a strong or weak note and ragtime is known to accent midway between notes. This main difference made ragtime have the uplifting swing feel versus the sorrow blues

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