New Orleans, 1900
Why New Orleans?
◦ Mix of cultures
 Creole
 French
 Spanish
 White
 Black
 Caribbean
 All the ingredients of jazz met and
mixed in the streets of New
Orleans
 http://www.joy2learn.org/jazz/historyof-jazz/origins-of-jazz/


 No
one knows for
sure which
musicians were the
first to play jazz
 The most likely
candidate was
cornet player Buddy
Bolden
 His music was
never recorded
 It
was “free”
 Improvised- music that isn’t
written down (improv)
◦ Never the same way twice
 Music
centered in the black
community in the south
 https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=0TvxkpiD-zw

Each melody instrument has a
distinctive role in the song
 Drums = Keep Time
 Tuba/Bass = Bass line
 Trumpet/Cornet = Melody
 Clarinet = Embellishment
 Trombone = “Tailgating” (slide)

Each musician puts personal
touches on the melody

King Oliver’s Creole Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41DMsV5MF
A
 White
group, blending
all styles around them
 In 1917: recorded first
“jazz” recording in
NYC
◦“Dixieland Jass Band
One-Step”
◦“Livery Stable Blues”
A
white group playing
“black” music…
 The band leader did not
help matters by saying that
white musicians in New
Orleans invented jazz
 Tune
recorded by the Original
Dixieland Jass Band
 Trumpet, clarinet, trombone,
rhythm section
 Original recordings had no bass
line – why?
◦ Low frequencies made the
recording needle jump
◦ https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=89fZGnAdago
 Bought
more than a million
copies at 75 cents eachmore than any single
record in history
 Thomas
Edison joked that he
played jazz records backwards
because they “sounded better
that way”
 Younger people loved it- it was
fast, exciting, and ideal for
dancing
 However,
many white Americans
resisted Jazz Music
 Jazz was considered rebellious –
like ragtime before it
 Criticized by political/religious
leaders
 Associated with stupidity, crime,
and interracial mingling
 There were “professional” reports
that even tried to link jazz to
suicide, insanity, and indigestion

Jazz arrived on the scene just as
ragtime was beginning to
become ‘acceptable’ to dance to
 (This will repeat itself)
 Considered
a musical “novelty” –
everyone wanted to try it just
once to say they did
 White
people could
“experience what it was like
to be black” without going
near a black person.
 (This will repeat itself)
 Audience
after WWI
for jazz expanded

Louis Armstrong