What Is Jazz Music Known For?

The history of Jazz is shrouded in a bit of mystery and much debate. But what is Jazz music known for?

Origins of Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

New Orleans

New Orleans is known as the birthplace of jazz. The first jazz recordings were made there in 1917. Jazz is a mix of African and European music. The African influences come from the rhythms and sounds of the drums. The European influences come from the use of instruments such as the piano and trumpet.

Chicago

Chicago is known for many things, including its deep-dish pizza and its Jazz music scene. The city has produced some of the most influential Jazz musicians in history, including Miles Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. Chicago is also home to the world-famous Jazz club, The Green Mill. If you’re a fan of Jazz music, then you definitely need to check out this vibrant city.

Kansas City

Kansas City is well known for its contributions to the development of jazz music. In the early 1900s, the city was a major center for African American culture, and its nightclubs and dance halls were popular destinations for both black and white audiences. Many of the city’s most famous jazz musicians got their start in these venues, including Count Basie, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker. Kansas City’s distinctive style of jazz – often characterized by a driving rhythm and blues sound – became known as “Kansas City Jazz.”

Characteristics of Jazz

Jazz originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in African American communities in the Southern United States. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African American music traditions including blues and ragtime.

Improvisation

A defining characteristic of jazz is improvisation, or the ability to spontaneously create melodies, solos, and accompaniment parts. This often occurs within structured frameworks such as blues progressions, dancehall tunes, or well-known church hymns. Jazz musicians have a strong sense of swing, or the rhythmic feel of the music. Swing can be created by syncopated rhythms, called “riffs,” that are played by brass and reed instruments (such as trumpets, trombones, and saxophones), as well as by guitar, piano, bass, and drums.

Swing

Swing is a jazz music style that first became popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The term “swing” can refer to the era when this style of music was popular (known as the “big band era”) or to the specific style of jazz dance that was associated with this music.

The defining characteristic of swing as a musical style is a certain Walter piston syncopation – known as “the swing feel” – in which the accent is shifted from the usual second and fourth beats to the third beat in each measure. This give the music a “loping” quality which dancers find easy to follow. In addition,swing rhythms are usually played by brass and woodwind instruments, rather than by string instruments, giving the music a brassy, upbeat sound.

The most famous exponent of Swing Jazz was Louis Armstrong, whose records from the 1920s and 1930s are still widely admired today. Other well-known swing musicians include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller.

Polyrhythm

In music, polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more independent rhythmic patterns, which combine to create a new rhythm. It is the rhythmic version of polyphony. The term polyrhythm, literally “many rhythms”, applies to temporal non-homogeneity (or “heterogeneous time”), i.e. when the musical texture contains a mixture of conflicting or complementary rhythms.

Polyrhythms can be distinguished from irregular rhythms, which occur within the framework of one meter (or tempos), or from alternative metric clashed accents, such as cross-rhythms and irregular accentuation within constant meter (seeCross-beat).

Polyrhythms are very often used in modern jazz; they are also found in African music traditions and rock music.

Syncopation

One of the defining characteristics of jazz is syncopation, which is when a portion of the music is offset from the main beat. This creates a more complex rhythm that is often used to add interest or excitement to the music. It can also be used to create a sense of drama or tension. Syncopation is often used in solos, as it provides a way for the musician to add their own personal touch to the music.

Melodic and Harmonic Tension

Jazz is known for its melodic and harmonic tension. This is what gives the music its unique sound and feel. The tension is created by the use of minor chords, dissonance, and chromaticism. These elements work together to create a sense of unease or tension that is resolved by the end of the piece.

Jazz Styles

Jazz music is a genre of music that originated in the African-American communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is characterized by syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, and improvisation. Jazz styles vary widely, from the early ragtime and Dixieland styles to more modern styles such as bebop, post-bop, and fusion.

Bebop

Bebop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States, which features songs characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales and occasional references to the melody.

Hard Bop

One of the most popular and well-known jazz styles is hard bop. Hard bop is a style of jazz that combines elements of bebop, blues, and rhythm and blues. Hard bop was developed in the early 1950s and gained popularity in the mid-1950s. Hard bop often has a heavy, driving rhythm section and energetic solos. Some of the most famous hard bop musicians include Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, and Thelonious Monk.

Modal Jazz

Modal jazz is a style that began in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Influenced by Miles Davis’s 1959 album Kind of Blue, modal jazz developed as a reaction against the complex harmonic structures of bebop and hard bop. Instead of the traditional chord progression, modal jazz uses a system based on musical modes. This gave the soloist more freedom over the tonal structure of a piece while still providing a framework for improvisation. The best-known examples of modal jazz are Davis’s “So What” and John Coltrane’s “Impressions.”

Free Jazz

Originally conceived as a way to break free from the rigidity of bebop, free jazz quickly became its own distinct style, characterized by extended improvisation and a greater focus on the collective rather than the individual. Free jazz was often seen as a reaction against the commercialism of swing and bebop, and while it did inspire a great deal of innovation, it was also met with its fair share of criticism.

Fusion

Fusion is a jazz subgenre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians began blending elements of rock music with jazz. While jazz fusion often uses electric instruments and amplifiers, it is not solely defined by them. Jazz fusion can be acoustic, or it can feature a mix of both acoustic and electric instruments.

Jazz fusion is sometimes referred to as “jazz-rock” or “jazz-rock-fusion.” It was a natural evolution of the experimental nature of both jazz and rock music. Jazz musicians were incorporating elements of rock into their music as early as the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the late 1960s that this new style of music began to take shape.

Some of the most influential jazz fusion albums were released in the 1970s by Miles Davis, Weather Report, Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock. These artists took jazz in a new direction and forever changed the landscape of both jazz and rock music.