HISTORY OF JAZZ

Jazz

Typical Instruments

VocalsPianoBanjoGuitarDouble bassTrumpetTromboneSaxophoneTubaClarinetFluteBass guitarDrum kitVibraphone

Characteristics of Jazz

Because it spans music from over 100 years now, jazz can be very difficult to define

While jazz is difficult to define, many can agree on a few common characteristics: Swing notes Blue notes Improvising Syncopation

Characteristics of Jazz

Syncopation: when the rhythm falls between beats

Swing notes: when the first note in a pattern is held longer than traditionally to create alternating long and short sounds

Blue notes: notes lowered slightly from their normal major placement for expression

Improvising: reacting and creating in the moment, instead of beforehand

Beginnings of Jazz

The roots of jazz reach back to African-American slaves, who did call and response songs on the fields

New Orleans slaves would hold festivals where there would be dancing, drumming, and singing

New Orleans became the hub for African and Afro-Caribbean music infusion into culture

White minstrels began taking the rhythmic and melodic characteristics, putting on “blackface,” and performing for white audiences

Beginnings of Jazz

Black churches began being influenced by the chord progressions from Christian hymnals

Musicians making secular music began being influenced by the music in the churches- this led to blues

In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, which they used to parody European dance music in their own dances

Congo Square in New Orleans

In Louisiana's French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work. They were allowed to gather in the "Place Congo” at the "back of town" (across Rampart Street from the French Quarter), where the slaves would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music.

Other Influences

Cuban music began influencing African-American music

A twice-daily ferry used to run between Havana, Cuba and New Orleans- musicians would ride back and forth to learn from and perform with each other

The habanera was a rhythmic pattern that heavily influenced early jazz genres

Early Jazz Genres- 1890-1910

The abolition of slavery led to new opportunities for the education of freed African Americans.

Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment.

Black musicians were able to provide "low-class" entertainment in dances, minstrel shows, and in vaudeville, by which many marching bands formed.

Black pianists played in bars and clubs as ragtime developed

Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Ragand The Entertainer

The classically trained pianist Scott Joplin and the acknowledged "king of ragtime" produced his "Original Rags" in the following year, then in 1899 had an international hit with "Maple Leaf Rag".  Joplin wrote numerous popular rags, including, "The Entertainer", combining right hand syncopation, banjo figurations and sometimes call-and-response.

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century.

Originated from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.

W.C. Handy, an out of work African American, created the “St. Louis Blues” and “Memphis Blues”

Dixieland

Based in New Orleans; also known as New Orleans Jazz

Early jazz performers began in bars of the red-light district around Basin St.

Used the instruments in marching band and dance swing bands

Small bands mixing self-taught and well educated African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a key role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South

Musicians playing in vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern US cities

From Ragtime to Jazz

Jelly Roll Morton was a very influential musician that changed the term from “Ragtime” to Jazz

He began in New Orleans, then began touring with vaudeville shows

In 1938, Morton said, “Now in one of my earliest tunes, “New Orleans Blues,” you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz”

 He was a crucial innovator in the evolution from ragtime to jazz piano. Morton could perform pieces in either style. Morton's solos were still close to ragtime, and were not merely improvisations over chord changes, as with later jazz.

Swing

Jelly Roll Morton loosened the rhythms from ragtime, leading to swing

Swing is the most important, and enduring African-based rhythmic technique used in jazz.

Louis Armstrong’s definition of swing is: "if you don't feel it, you'll never know it.“

Armstrong popularized the New Orleans style of trumpet playing, and then expanded it. Like Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong is also credited with the abandonment of ragtime's stiffness, in favor of swung notes.

Armstrong, perhaps more than any other musician, codified the rhythmic technique of swing in jazz, and broadened the jazz solo vocabulary

Louis Armstrong

“Basin Street Blues” 1959

“La Vie En Rose”1946

The Jazz Age- 20s&30s

Prohibition in the United States (from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies becoming lively venues of the "Jazz Age“

The Jazz Age was an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes.

Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture.

The Jazz Age

The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders.

Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw.

Swing was also dance music.

Into the 40s

By the 1940s, Duke Ellington's music transcended the bounds of swing, bridging jazz and art music in a natural synthesis.

Ellington called his music "American Music" rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as "beyond category.“

Bebop

In the early 1940s bebop-style performers began to shift jazz from danceable popular music towards a more challenging "musician's music."

The most influential bebop musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Bud Powell, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, and drummer Max Roach. 

Since bebop was meant to be listened to, not danced to, it could use faster tempos

From the 30s to the 60s

Afro-cuban jazzDixieland revivalCool jazzHard bopModal jazzFree jazz

60s and 70s

Latin JazzBossa NovaPost-bopSoul JazzAfrican InspiredJazz-rock fusionPsychedelic jazzJazz Funk

80s to Now

In the 1980s, the jazz community shrank dramatically and split. 

The divide was between traditional jazz and experimental jazz

Wynton Marsalis- traditionalCuong Vu- experimental

Smooth Jazz

In the early 80s, smooth jazz began to become popular

A fusion of pop and jazzThe most widely played tracks are in the 90–

105 BPM range; “downtempo”Branched from Miles Davis’ musicSmooth jazzAnd then there’s this…And this…

80s to Now

Jazz rapNu JazzPunk jazzM-base