JAZZ

Jazz is an original American musical art form which originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States out of a confluence of African and European music traditions. The use of blues notes, call-and-response, improcisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note of ragtime are characteristics traceable back to jazz's West African pedigree. During its early development, jazz also incorporated music from New England's religious hymns and from 19th and 20th century American popular music based on European music traditions.

In New Orleans, many early jazz performers played in the brothels and bars of red-light district around Basin Street called "Storyville".[10] As well, many marching bands played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American community. The instruments used in marching bands and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands of primarily self-taught African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from around 1914 on, Afro-Creole and African American musicians playing vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.

Jazz Styles

Big bad/swing

Bop

Cool

Free jazz

Fusion

Hard Bop

Latin jazz/world fusion

New Orleans/classic jazz

Soul jazz /groove

Top Artist

Chet Baker

Billie holiday

Charles Mingus

Cannonball Adderley

Cal Tjader