Defining Jazz

Jazz music is an American artform, that has rich artistic heritage and is a product of cultural collaboration. Academically, jazz music is defined as a genre that originated from New Orleans in the 1900s that was strongly influenced by African American culture. Jazz is characterized by strong and distinctive performance techniques, and dotted or syncopated rhythmic patterns. Although jazz encompasses these characteristics, it is so much more than that. Jazz music, (like most music) has the ability to emotionally connect with its listeners and create an experience that can not be put into words. The distinctive quality of jazz music that sets it apart from other genres, is its unique ability to collectively improvise. The audience plays a large role in the spontaneity of jazz, where the performers and the audience create a partnership in the creation of this music. The defining feature of jazz, is its ability to improvise which creates a new form of artistic expression that is not commonly seen within other genres. We compared and contrasted three different definitions of jazz from Wikipedia, Grove Music, and the Encyclopedia. We analyzed historical development, musical traits, key performers, and race/gender ideologies of jazz music. Based on our research, we believe that jazz music is a unique language that blends musical creativity, culture, and heritage, with raw and intimate expression that runs on the foundation of collective improvisation. Although the genre has evolved and will continue to evolve, this foundation of collective improvisation is at its core, what jazz is built on.

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The early development of Jazz music took place in New Orleans during the late 1800s. After the abolition of slavery in the United States, African Americans began to find jobs performing in the entertainment industry (Wikipedia, 2018). African musical traditions were combined with European music and instruments to create Ragtime, the foundation of Jazz (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). During the early 1900s, Jazz musicians migrated from New Orleans to bigger cities due to segregation laws, as well as the closing of Storyville, a popular performing venue, and the overall decline of the entertainment business (“Jazz”, 2018). During the early 1900s, as Jazz music began to be recorded and bands toured America and Europe, Jazz started to be acknowledged as a genre (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). The 1920s and 1930s, also known as the Jazz Era, saw Jazz and Swing music being fused and performed by Big Bands to create popular dance music. After World War 2, swing-era Jazz began to decline due to the lack of resources for big bands (Wikipedia, 2018) and New Orleans-style jazz music resurged (“Jazz”, 2018). Since the 1940s, new forms of Jazz music were continuously being created. The 1940’s saw Bebop Jazz and Afro-Cuban Jazz. Bebop Jazz was more intricate, complicated and artsy than previous Jazz music where as Afro-Cuban Jazz incorporated the musical rhythmic features of Afro-Cuban heritage with Jazz (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). Hardbop and Modal Jazz became popular in the 1950s. Hardbop was similar to bebop but incorporated R&B and gospel sounds. Modal is improvisational Jazz that requires the musician to create the song structure using melody (Wikipedia, 2018). The 1960s saw Free Jazz emerge as a style that broke free from mainstream Jazz and contained more raw emotion (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). Since the 1960s, Jazz continues to grow and develop into new styles, including Latin Jazz, Jazz-Rock, Jazz-Funk, Smooth Jazz, and Acid Jazz (Wikipedia, 2018). Jazz is such a wide and diverse genre of music that includes many styles that to this day remain equally as important and popular.

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Musically, Jazz is a genre characterized by lively ‘swinging’ polyrhythms, blues notes, call and response vocals and improvisation (Wikipedia, 2018). The instrumentation typically includes one or more brass horns, a trombone, a trumpet, a bass drum, a snare drum, and sometimes a clarinet (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). Improvisation in particular is a key element of Jazz’s musical style, which can be attributed to the prior influence of blues music (Wikipedia, 2018). Jazz songs are well known for their syncopated patterns (Tucker & Jackson, 2001), diatonic harmonies (Tucker & Jackson, 2001), and for having multiple simultaneous instrumental rhythms (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). Drum beats in jazz songs are particularly energetic (Tucker & Jackson, 2001), which helps contribute to its reputation as a form of dance music. In general, Jazz music places much more value on the present performer than on a song’s original composer, because every performer interprets the tune in their own unique way; even when the same person plays a song multiple times, it is always different in one way or another (Wikipedia, 2018). Players would embellish melodies and add details to them, while creating countermelodies to accompany the primary melody. Jazz does not merely recognize a ‘lead’ performer as being important, however; in a Jazz performance, everyone on stage is valuable. Jazz performances feature extensive interaction and collaboration between the performers; rather than simply ‘doing their part’, they will work together and respond to each other in their unique interpretation of the song (Tucker & Jackson, 2001).

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Furthermore, many performers played a large part in the development of jazz. I believe that while instruments gave the genre its sound, performers gave the genre its taste and vibe. The way they move, sing, and improvise, gave the music a unique tone which defined it in a different way from the rest of the genres. There are a number of key performers that had a large contribution to the early

growth of jazz. One who was really significant was Jelly Roll Morton. He was said to have been the inventor of jazz or known as one of the earliest jazz artists (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). “Morton was a crucial innovator in the evolution from the early jazz form known as ragtime to jazz piano” (“Jazz”, 2018). Other significant performers were the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. They were a band of white male performers that had a distinctive sound that was noticeable among other jazz musicians (Horn 266). Their record was the first ever published jazz piece which gave them a significant role in the innovation and development of jazz (“Jazz”, 2018). Moreover, other artists whom along the years become influential to the genre were Louis Armstrong who started his career in the 1920s was one of the most significant of his time (“Jazz”, 2018). Additionally, Buddy Bolden was a cornetist and also led a band that

was considered to have originated the style of jazz (“Jazz”, 2018). The encyclopedia of popular music of the world (2005) supports these statements in claiming that the artists mentioned above and many more had an influence that was substantial to jazz (Horn 266).

 

 

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The genre of jazz has been strongly influenced by race and gender ideologies throughout history. According to our research, jazz music has been heavily influenced by African American culture. In some perspectives, jazz has drawn attention to the African American contribution to culture and history, while for others the genre acts as a reminder of the oppression and racist society along with the restrictions of artistic vision (Wikipedia, 2018). During the Atlantic Slave Trade, slaves came largely from West Africa and the Congo River and brought their strong musical traditions with them. Jazz music emerged from the culture and musical traditions of slaves that were brought to the West during the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Oxford Grove Music article supports these arguments about the influence of the African American community on jazz music, and states that the foundations of jazz were established by black Americans in this modern environment before it was named “jazz” music (Tucker & Jackson, 2001). Additionally, the Oxford Grove Music article states that before jazz as a genre received its name, it was referred to as “ratty” music. This title is also symbolic of certain racial ideologies prevalent during this time period. The Encyclopedia article stated that a large number of musicians involved in early jazz were from creole familie (“Jazz”, 2018). Creole are persons descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana, and the term means ‘native born’ (Wikipedia, 2018).

Youtube Clip: The Impact of African-American Music on 20th-Century American Culture: Jazz and Blues (1996)

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Additionally, jazz music has had many female contributors. Women were far less recognized for their contribution to jazz than male composers and performers. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed throughout jazz history, but are often recognized for their vocal talent rather then for their accomplishments as bandleaders or instrumentalists (Wikipedia, 2018). It is interesting to note that the role of women within jazz music is not analyzed in depth in all three articles, even though women were instrumental to the emergence of the genre. Jazz music has been heavily influenced by the African American community, which has strongly contributed to the emergence of this genre.

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Youtube Clip: Exploring Improvisation in Jazz”

In summary, the genre of jazz is multifaceted in nature and is a blend of various different types of music but is rooted in its ability to improvise. Jazz music has a rich cultural heritage, and is largely influenced by the African American community in New Orleans in the 1900s. Musically, jazz is greatly evolved throughout history and has taken various forms of artistic style, but has always been centered around collective improvisation and a partnership with its audience members to create a unique and profound experience that sets it apart from all other genres.

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Works Cited

Tucker, Mark, and Travis A. Jackson. “Jazz.” Grove Music Online. January 01, 2001. Oxford University Press,. Date of access 29 Sept. 2018,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000045011

Jazz. (2018, September 29). Retrieved September 29, 2018,
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz

Horn, David. “New Orleans, LA.” Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, vol. 4, London: Continuum, 2005, pp. 262–270.

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