Music Jazz is a rather old musical genre. It originated in the early 20th century in the United States in New Orleans. It was born as a result of the fusion of elements of rural and urban folklore of black Americans with the European musical tradition, from which the instrumentation, melody and harmony of jazz, as well as the metrics of the English language in vocal works, are derived.… Read more
In contrast, specifically Negro-American is swing, among other things. There are various theories as to the origins of jazz. One of them says that it crystallized from African music, however, it seems doubtful. According to musicologist Matthew Swiecicki, it is not African music but the music and songs of African-American labor. Jazz has a lot in common with labor songs sung by American slaves, as does the blues, from which jazz drew a lot. According to other musicologists, jazz is more an interpretation of music than a musical style. Jazz performers have a considerable tendency to improvise, their songs are characterized by syncopated rhythms, as well as a great deal of freedom of interpretation and arrangement.
Jazz, like other genres of music, has some of its constant elements that distinguish it from the crowd of other genres. These include swing, which is a distinctive rhythm, very light and bouncy, and derived from the practice of black musicians. It also has an ecstatic function, which involves a kind of improvisation to engage listeners, in the form of clapping, applause or shouting. The final element is the individual code of a given performer, consisting of a specific and his own way of interacting with listeners.
A bit of history
Thehistory of jazz can be divided into several stages, the first of which is at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is the time when jazz music is just developing, blooming out of the songs of slave labor, church chants, but also the songs of white immigrants from Europe. Jazz begins to form between 1900 and 1920 in cities such as New Orleans, St. Louis, Memhis, Baltimore, and the first traditional jazz bands were formed in Negro English-speaking neighborhoods. The initial name jazz (or even originally jass) had a negative meaning, denoting noise, rumble, and was given to ridicule its performers. Typical instruments of that era were clarinet, cornet and trombone as melodic instruments and drums, piano and double bass (bass guitar) as percussion. This was related to piano regimental music and Negro march music.
Traditional New Orleans jazz, or the classics of the genre, was from 1929 to 1935, a period that began with the release of the Orginal Dixieland Jazz Band's program album. This is the period of the formation of the traditional composition of jazz instruments and a certain style of the genre. During this period such notables as King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roli Morton, Creole Jazz Band and the New Orleans Rythm, Kings white jazz band surfaced.
Between 1935 and 1945, swing music reigned supreme. Swing music was mostly performed by large bands called big bands. It was very popular during World War II because of its anti-totalitarian overtones, and interestingly it was also popular among the people of the Third Reich. Its popularity began to decline sharply immediately after the war, but in Poland it was also popular after 1945 and this was due to its subordination to Moscow. In our country it was associated primarily with bikinis. Representatives of this genre include Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman.
After 1945 there is a development of modern jazz. Such factions as be bop, cool jazz, hard bob, free jazz and jazz rock were then created. Be bop arose earliest and still drew a lot from swing music, its most important representatives were Charlie Parker (alias Bird), Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk. Hard bop is a variety of jazz created in the late 1950s, it contains numerous influences of blues music. Some of the best-known representatives of hard bop include: Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark, John Coltrane, Lou Donaldson, Miles Davis, Kenny Drew, Benny Golson, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins and Horace Silver. Cool jazz is a quieter, smoother variety of jazz, its development was in the late 1940s/early 1950s and the most important performers were Miles Davis and Chet Baker.