Jazz Music

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The Beginning

The word “jazz” did not become commonplace until around 1920 even though it had spent the preceding decade establishing itself as a musical genre. A mix of European harmony and African rhythm, blended with the current styles of the time such as ragtime and rhythm and blues, Jazz can be seen as an amalgamation of different cultures and has had huge influences on, and evolved concurrently with, American society in the past century. The birthplace of jazz is the subject of much more controversy than its undoubted influence on society. The most commonly reported and, in my view, logical birthplace of jazz is New Orleans. Being a port city (with people migrating from all over the world), it was a melting pot of diverse racial composition. Atkins (1995, p18) observes that unlike the stern protestant ethic found elsewhere in the south, the attitudes prevailing in New Orleans encouraged dance and music. It was a city with a great culture of celebration and rich music tradition, a city with a nightlife that allowed musicians to play with, and learn from, one another. These elements united in New Orleans in a way unrivaled by any other city and were crucial influences in the creation of jazz’s identity. Since its birth, jazz has spread across the globe like anything contagious. The more people were exposed the more it evolved. It has seen more than a century of humanities growth, from slavery in the early 1900s to America’s first black president and everything in between. It has been used as a creative emotional outlet by not only the African Americans but by people of all racial backgrounds and, to this day, is still evolving.

New Orleans and The Great Migration

New Orleans was unlike other cities. As Driggs (1982, p20) ...

... middle of paper ...

...ple with hearing deficiencies and speech impediments. A lot of the time the new sentence was more interesting than the one before it, (except in the case of ‘smooth jazz’. That was obviously a result of bad communication.) Each chapter in Jazz’s history is totally dependent on and, is a result of, its social environment at the time. What we will never know however, is how big and crucial its impact was on humanity, particular during the trying years throughout the twentieth century.

Works Cited

PBS - JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns: Jazz in Time - World War II. 2014. PBS - JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns: Jazz in Time - World War II. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_wwii.htm. [Accessed 30 May 2014].
F. Driggs, 1982. Black Beauty, White Heart. 1st ed. New York: Da Capo Press.

R. Atkins, 1995. Jazz, The Ultimate Guide. 1st ed. Sydney: Carlton Books LTD

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