Who Developed Jazz Music?

Although there are many different theories, the most commonly accepted story is that jazz was developed by African Americans in New Orleans.

Early Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as “America’s classical music”. The first jazz artist to achieve widespread recognition was Louis Armstrong.

New Orleans

New Orleans is considered the birthplace of Jazz. The city has a long association with the music, dating back to the early 1900s. The city’s multicultural atmosphere, its mix of African American and Creole cultures, and its status as a major port city all contributed to the development of Jazz.

Some of the most important early Jazz musicians were from New Orleans, including Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Jelly Roll Morton. These musicians were instrumental in developing the distinctive sound of Jazz and helped to spread the popularity of the genre.

Storyville

Storyville was the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, from 1897 to 1917. It was established by municipal ordinance under the vague guidelines of acknowledging toleration of prostitution while containing and restricting it within certain defined boundaries. These boundaries were drawn in included an area bounded by Canal Street, Basin Street, Iberville Street, and Customhouse Street.

The district was named for Alderman Sidney Story, a city councilor who wrote the law that established the regulations and boundaries of the area. It officially opened on October 1, 1897, becoming the nation’s first legally sanctioned red-light district. Within a few years it grew to encompass about 15 city blocks and became the largest such district in America.

Jazz music developed in this environment out of a combination of African American music traditions and European military band music.

Ragtime

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 seen by many as “America’s classical music”. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation.

Scott Joplin

Ragtime music was developed by African Americans around the turn of the 20th century. The first Ragtime compositions were published in 1899, but the genre didn’t really take off until Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag was published in 1899. Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” wrote some of the most popular and well-known Ragtime tunes, such as The Entertainer and Elite Rag. Nevertheless, while Joplin helped to popularize Ragtime music, he was not the only important figure in its development. Other important early Ragtime composers include Joseph Lamb, James Scott, and Jelly Roll Morton.

Jelly Roll Morton

Jelly Roll Morton is one of the most important figures in the history of jazz music. A self-taught musician, he was one of the first to develop the style of New Orleans jazz. He was also a master of improvisation, and his piano playing was a major influence on subsequent generations of jazz musicians.

Morton was born in New Orleans in 1890, and began playing piano in local bars and brothels when he was just a teenager. He quickly developed a distinctive style that combined elements of blues, ragtime, and European classical music. In the 1920s, he began to record his music, and his recordings had a major impact on the development of jazz.

Morton continued to perform and record throughout his life, and he remained one of the most influential jazz musicians until his death in 1941.

Dixieland

One of the earliest styles of jazz was Dixieland, which developed in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century. The style was characterized by a strong rhythm section, including the drums and piano, and improvisation. The earliest jazz bands were often made up of marching bands that played for parades and other public events.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong, one of the most influential jazz artists of all time, was born in New Orleans in 1901. He grew up in a poor, segregated neighborhood and began playing the trumpet at a young age. He quickly developed his own style, influenced by the music he heard around him. He went on to play with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. He also made a number of hugely popular recordings, including “West End Blues” and “What a Wonderful World.” Armstrong’s influence on jazz is incalculable, and his life story is an inspiration to musicians and fans around the world.

Big Band

Jazz was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by African Americans in the United States. Jazz is a musical art form that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was then developed in Chicago and spread to the rest of the country.

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington was one of the most important figures in the history of jazz music. He was a composer, bandleader, and pianist who created some of the most popular and enduring jazz standards. Ellington’s career spanned over 50 years, during which time he wrote over 1,000 compositions. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz composers of all time.

Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., in 1899. He began playing piano at an early age and soon developed a love for ragtime and blues music. He began his professional career in the mid-1920s, leading a band at Harlem’s Cotton Club. Ellington’s distinctive style emerged during this period, combining elements of ragtime, blues, and New Orleans jazz. His compositions from this period include “Mood Indigo” (1930), “Sophisticated Lady” (1932), and “Solitude” (1934).

In the 1930s and 1940s, Ellington’s band became one of the most popular attractions in the country. He toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, appearing at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. Ellington also wrote film scores and worked with a number of well-known performers, including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong.

Ellington’s later years were marked by declining health and a decrease in creative output. He continued to perform until shortly before his death in 1974. Duke Ellington remains one of the most revered figures in jazz history. His sophisticated style and brilliant compositions continue to influence musicians today.

Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman is considered one of the pivotal figures in the development of jazz music. A virtuoso clarinetist, bandleader, and composer, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups of the Swing Era. He is often referred to as the “King of Swing.”

Goodman was born in Chicago in 1909 to Jewish immigrants from Russia. He began playing clarinet at the age of 10 and soon became proficient enough to play with local dance bands. He made his professional debut in 1921 at the age of 12.

Goodman’s big break came in 1934 when he was asked to lead a band for a radio broadcast from Los Angeles. The broadcast was so successful that Goodman decided to form his own band. His band’s sound—a combination of blues, gospel, and European classical music—was fresh and exciting, and it quickly gained popularity.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Goodman’s band was one of the most popular bands in America. They played at Carnegie Hall in New York City and appeared in several Hollywood movies. Goodman continued to perform and record until his death in 1986.

Bebop

In the 1940s, a new style of jazz music called bebop emerged. Bebop was created by a group of young musicians who were influenced by the music of African Americans. They wanted to create something new and different from the music that was popular at the time. Bebop was characterized by its complex harmony, fast tempo, and improvisation.

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker was born August 29th, 1920 in Kansas City, Missouri. He was a self-taught musician, learning the alto saxophone at the age of 15. Parker’s style of playing quickly gained popularity and he became one of the most influential figures in jazz history. His use of inventive rhythms, extended harmonic ideas, and quick tempos helped to define the bebop style of jazz which emerged in the 1940s. Parker’s success continued throughout his career and he is widely considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.

Dizzy Gillespie

One of the most important and influential jazz stylists of the 20th century, Dizzy Gillespie was a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and singer. Gillespie was born in South Carolina in 1917 and raised in Philadelphia. He began playing the piano at age four, switched to trombone at age 10 and then took up the trumpet at age 15. He worked professionally while still a teenager, touring with Terrence Holder’s big band and then joining Cab Calloway’s band in 1939. He left Calloway in 1943 to join Billy Eckstine’s big band, which featured such future jazz legends as Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan and Dexter Gordon.

Hard Bop

Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that developed in the mid-1950s, largely in response to the return of bebop to its original, more complex harmonic structure. Hard bop artists combined bebop’s fast tempo and improvisational elements with the strong backbeat and blues influences of rhythm and blues.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical styles throughout his career, which included bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.

Modal Jazz

Modal jazz is a style of jazz based on musical modes rather than harmonic progressions. Jazz musician Miles Davis is credited with creating the style with his 1958 album “Milestones”. In modal jazz, the guitarist, bassist, and pianist “comp” or “continue” a single chord throughout the whole song.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American trumpeter, bandleader and composer who was one of the most influential figures in the history of jazz. He is known for his work with bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz and fusion.

Free Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as “America’s classical music”. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all connected by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation.

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, a term he invented with his album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation.

Fusion

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It developed from roots in blues and ragtime. 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.

Miles Davis

One of the most important and influential figures in the history of jazz, Miles Davis was a celebrated trumpeter, bandleader and composer known for his innovative and genre-defining work.

A native of Mississippi and later a resident of New York City, Davis made his mark on the jazz world as a sideman in the early 1940s, playing with such legends as Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He soon formed his own band, which would go on to make some of the most important and influential jazz recordings of all time. Throughout his career, Davis continued to push boundaries and innovate, constantly evolving his sound and expanding the possibilities of what could be accomplished within the jazz idiom.

In addition to his significant contributions to the music itself, Davis was also an important cultural figure, helping to break down barriers between races and paving the way for future generations of African American musicians. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.