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Essays on jazz history
History of jazz music essay
The history of Jazz in America
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Essays on jazz history
History of jazz music essay
The history of Jazz in America
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essays on jazz history
Jazz has shaped the world we know today. Jazz would have never been as popular without the help of the famous musicians: Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. These people helped spread the new genre through radio, railroads, and the records that they played. Where did this all start? The jazz age began in New Orleans where a certain King was born.
1) Because of people like Louis Armstrong, Ceril Mack, or Eva Jessye Jazz and blues were able to blossom with several instruments and subgenres. The following information will be about how jazz started, those people's contributions, and the instruments/subgenres. Jazz is a music that is still around today, and it was started over 100 years ago around New Orleans. Because New Orleans is a port city, Jazz and blues could be heard by many.
In the realm of music, African Americans celebrated blues music. The blues music that spread during the 1920s “expressed the longings and philosophical perspectives of the black working class” (). In addition to blues music, jazz became a dominant musical form which established Harlem as an exciting cultural center, resulting in abundant dance halls created where famous musicians such as the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, pianist Duke Ellington, and pianist Fats Waller could perform their unique solos and share their musical talents in an environment that embraced the freedom of self-expression. These developments that occurred in this period called the Jazz Age indeed empowered African Americans to use their musical talents in an effort to strengthen their traditions, culture, and racial status in an anti-black prejudiced society: “"Wild Dreams of Bringing Glory and Honor to the Negro Race," addresses the composer's difficulties in overcoming negative stereotypes, myths, and perceptions that were most often based in racial prejudice” (). Similarly, African Americans contributed to the field of drama, forming all black theatre groups and creating productions that often focused on portraying the folk experience (the experience of blacks in the South) and protesting racial oppression and black stereotypes.
Jazz can be characterized by swing, blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and lastly improvisation. Louis Armstrong would be considered a father of the American jazz genre. He was also considered one of the central musicians in jazz for his contributions as a trumpet player, composer and singer. Although jazz in deeply rooted in the black community, a variety of other cultures have shared their own experience, style and art to
Jazz is most often thought to have been started in the 1920s as this explosive movement, but that is in fact not the case. Starting in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many African American musicians have started to explore their taste in improvising, and where better to do that than New Orleans (Anderson). Before the 1920s these jazz musicians have already been going around sharing the unique sound, but up until then, jazz had remained majorly in New Orleans. Interestingly during this period, a common jazz band would consist of a cornet, a clarinet, a trombone, and a rhythm section when at this period of time the clarinet is not commonly associated with being a jazz instrument, it moved into being the saxophone rather. A big
Developed by African Americans, Jazz combined elements of European and West African musical traditions with African American forms of ragtime compositions, minstrel numbers, and blues songs. (Batchelor, Bob. " The Jazz Age: Music.") Jazz music featured many instruments like the saxophone, drums, pianos, trumpets, clarinets, violins, etc. Jazz helped influence dance, fashion, and culture in the 1920s.
Print. Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America's Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Print. Kallen, Stuart A.
Popular Jazz musicians included King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Duke Ellington. No one had quite heard anything like it before in America. Dances were made to accompany the music - mostly to "take advantage" of the upbeat tempo's. Before Jazz became popular in America, it was considered "the devil's music" by some of the public. Some people, like Ernest Newman, "debunked Jazz" in a 1927 magazine article.
Despite Jazz being formed out of two cultures, the issues of social stratification and racial identity never had to be addressed in early jazz history. But as Jazz grew in popularity in a prewar 1930s America, the issue of racism started to form. As Jazz prospered within the economy and as a musical style, it’s roots revealed it’s racial identity. Jazz emerged from the music used formerly to entertain slaves and was a tool of rebellion against the white man, Jazz’z roots were very much embedded in slave culture. As free slaves moved north, they brought their Jazz influence to parts of the country such as Chicago and New York.
The history, popularity and influence of jazz on human culture make it the seminal American art form. The origins of jazz music are central to its identity and its importance in the American story. Firstly, ragtime
Jazz, in nature contains many characteristics of black people because its origin was from an African music. When we talk about jazz as a black music, the black here refer to African-American. African music is characterized by collective performance as a musical element. Several people played together and danced and enjoyed music. That's why rhythm play was more important than melody in Jazz eventually in Hancock’s music.
Throughout the history of this country, the music of African-Americans has had a strong influence upon our society as well as our culture. This music started by carrying the slaves from Africa and is still with us today. The youth of today have retained certain elements within the music to form other unique styles of music. Jazz and hip-hop are two of the most widespread and popular forms of black music ever created. They were both strictly created by black musicians.
[the black musician] improvises, he creates, it comes from within” (Gerard 28). Despite Malcolm X’s criticism of the classically-trained musician’s inability to improvise, the European-influenced creole musicians began to learn to create variation within ragtime’s syncopated form. Likewise, blues musicians adopted parts of the genre of ragtime and implemented it into their call-and-response based music. The merging of these two styles of music occurred as a result of external socio-political pressure of Jim Crow segregation, but ultimately helped establish an innovative and swinging genre of jazz
The 19th century was a century that united different ethnic groups such as German, French, Irish, Spanish, African and Italian together, these ethnicities had one main thing in common – the same taste in music. How did Jazz develop and what were the main causes of it being found in New Orleans? New Orleans was founded as a part of the French Louisiana colony in the year of 1718. We know that the Louisiana territory was taken away from us
Plays like Medea have both an advantage of helping the cause of women as well as a disadvantage of hurting the cause of women. One advantage to help the cause of women would include the loyalty that some women can contain. Another advantage would be the ability of a woman to do and overcome anything she sets her mind to. A disadvantage would be how the play portrays women as heartless and deranged.