Jazz
HISTORY OF JAZZ
Typical Instruments
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Vocals
Piano
Banjo
Guitar
Double bass
Trumpet
Trombone
Saxophone
Tuba
Clarinet
Flute
Bass guitar
Drum kit
Vibraphone
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:
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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 AfroCaribbean 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
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.
Congo Square in New Orleans
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
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-andresponse.
Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag
and The Entertainer
Blues
 Blues is the name given to both a musical form and
a music genre that originated in AfricanAmerican 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,
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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
“Basin Street Blues”
1959
“La Vie En Rose”
1946
Louis Armstrong
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 jazz
 Dixieland revival
 Cool jazz
 Hard bop
 Modal jazz
 Free jazz
60s and 70s
 Latin Jazz
 Bossa Nova
 Post-bop
 Soul Jazz
 African Inspired
 Jazz-rock fusion
 Psychedelic jazz
 Jazz 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- traditional
 Cuong Vu- experimental
Smooth Jazz
 In the early 80s, smooth jazz began to become
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popular
A fusion of pop and jazz
The most widely played tracks are in the 90–
105 BPM range; “downtempo”
Branched from Miles Davis’ music
Smooth jazz
And then there’s this…
And this…
80s to Now
 Jazz rap
 Nu Jazz
 Punk jazz
 M-base