Jazz Influence On Pop Culture

Jazz, a genre of music that was born from fear and unfortunate circumstances, is to this day one of the most loved music genres. Jazz, by definition, is “a type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. Brass and woodwind instruments and piano are particularly associated with jazz, although guitar and occasionally violin are also used; styles include Dixieland, swing, bebop, and free jazz.” (Google Definitions) However, despite how popular and loved this upbeat music was, it caused a lot of controversy in its time.

Jazz was a hit in the 1920s, African Americans were given credit for leading the jazz industry, the Jazz industry had an amazing impact on many other popular cultures. Jazz was the favorite type of music among the flappers. The Jazz age was known to be powered by the prohibition of alcohol.

     The music called Jazz was born sometime around 1895 in New Orleans. It combined elements of Ragtime, marching band music and Blues. What made Jazz such a different perspective of traditional music was its act of improvising. There was a widespread use of improvisation often by more than one player at a time. Songwriters would write the music down on a piece of paper, and then the Jazz musicians would try their best to play the music. Usually in a Jazz piece, musicians would use the song as a starting point to improvise around. Jazz musicians would play a familiar song to the audience, and by the time they were done with the piece they would stir up a totally different feeling away from the

​The iconic mark of the music in the twenties was jazz. According to a website devoted to posting and commenting on jazz music in the twenties, jazz music appealed to the young people of the era. “The music…was fast and furious – it was young people’s music…” (100 Favourite Songs). Jazz became popular because it was so drastically different than anything they had heard before. Independent (or indie) record companies were introduced in the Roaring Twenties (Tyle). Some of the greatest jazz musicians appeared on indie labels: Gennett, Paramount, and Oken (Tyle).

Jazz music is a blend of white middle class thoughts and African American traditions. Jazz originated in New Orleans in the beginning of the 1920’s. The Jazz Age was from 1920 through 1929. During the 1920’s, the First World War had just ended in 1918 and the Great Depression was affecting the citizens of the United States. Jazz music and dancing helped people forget about the terrible Great Depression. It gave the citizens a reason to be happy and love life during the 1920’s. The new form of music allowed people to express themselves in new ways. Jazz music was influenced by African American musicians, changed the music industry all over the world, and affected the society.

Jazz is among one of the most interesting genres. It has encompassed all cultures since it arose in the late 18th century. Cool jazz, hot jazz, gypsy jazz, and many other sub-genres of Jazz have emerged throughout the years; however, it is seen through history that many of those sub-genres emerged during the Harlem Renaissance. This was a time period in the late 1920s and early 1930s in Harlem, a neighborhood within the northern section of New York that celebrated black intellect, black voice, and black ways of life. Jazz music was widely popular among that movement. Traditionally, Jazz is an improvisation and syncopation that showcases brass instruments, piano, and woodwind instruments. This genre will also generally have a forceful rhythm.

The Jazz Age was a national undertaking that took place in America during the 1920’s, also known as “the Roaring Twenties” from which both jazz music and dance emerged. Despite the era ending with the beginning of The Great Depression in the 1930’s, jazz has lived on in American pop culture. The birth of jazz music is often credited to African-Americans, but it soon expanded to America’s white middle class. This resulted in jazz being combined by both African-American traditions and ideals with white middle class society.

The most popular new genre of music was Jazz. Jazz was created by African Americans by putting music and poetry together. Even though African Americans sit at the start of this new craze, overall, they tended to be treated the same as they were before they developed this form of music. Jazz affected both the fashion industry and literature in the 20’s. This was the first time in history that a minorities culture was preferred over the mainstream culture.

A style of music that was created in the 20th century, Jazz has had a major impact on American culture. Originating from work songs African American slaves used to sing on plantations, the foundations of jazz first began as a three piece music group using instruments like the Fiddle, Banjo and the drum. These instruments formed a style known as Ragtime, which can be recognized as one of the first styles that marked the birth of jazz. Although jazz grew out of a lifestyle shaped by plantation life, over the course of the next hundred years, jazz evolved immensely, as it underwent many changes and branched off into various substyles. In the beginning of the 1900s, New Orleans style of Jazz also known as “Classic Jazz” became tremendously popular to all ethnicities. Performed by black, whites and African American creoles, Classic Jazz took the form of a small-band. These bands would performed at parties and dances with large brass instruments that had been salvaged from the civil war which include the clarinet, banjo, bass, guitar saxophone, cornet, trombone, tuba, drums and occasionally a piano. This dynamic new music combined syncopation of ragtime with modified popular melodies like marches, hymns work song and the blues. However in 1925 everything changed as Jazz introduced a new genre called Hot Jazz. This new style of jazz was characterized by spontaneous collective solos, that stirred up an emotional and “hot” climax. Additionally Hot Jazz was played with drums, banjo

The World With a Little Jazz Can you imagine a genre that would appeal to everyone? How about a style of music that would help bring different ethnic groups together? Well, in the beginning of the 1920’s, one genre in particular had an outbreak that would change the United States forever. Jazz music modified the world with its groovy beats, calming instruments and powerful vocalists. “The 1920’s or the Jazz Age, were years of change as America recovered from World War 1 and embraced new ways of behaving and thinking” (Benson, Brannen, Jr. and Valentine Vol. 7).

The music was upbeat just like the mentality of the era it was composed. After the World War 1, people embarked on the beliefs of the American dream and focused their attention on the innovation and creativity. Although there was conservative mentalities, the innovation and creativity mind was the spreading very fast in America. It was at this moment that jazz music was developed. The jazz age has been associated bebop music and made the era a period of innovative music (Porter, 2002). Most music in the modern era such as rhythm and blues, the hip-hop, rock songs and pop, got their roots from the jazz music. The jazz music focused on the music itself, and the used lyrics would tell that the instruments suggest. Just like the modern jazz, it made it easy for people to dance and enjoyable and most of the people would sit and listen. Modern music have tried to embody the appeal of the jazz music, and this forms one of the many ways in which jazz music modeled the music today. Despite the fact that the era of jazz music gone, the legacy used in the music will never be forgotten, due to the permanent stamp it did place in the world

Music is known as an universal language, it is an enormous part of cultures around the world.It has the power to get ideas and emotions across to all different kinds of people. Jazz is one genre of music that has affected our American culture and has since the beginning of the 20th century. The introduction of jazz has made a huge impact to American lives. With its intricate rhythms and sounds, it has helped bring people together and has helped us evolve as a society. Influencing our clothing, behavior, and even shaping cultural movements.

The development of Jazz was influenced by Ragtime. Ragtime became popular between 1897 through 1917. Ragtime was a fad that swept through the United States of America as the new type of music. Syncopation makes Ragtime very different from all the other genres at that period of time. It involves a variety of interruptions of the regular flow of the rhythm. Ragtime brought the beginning of the development of new music in the United States of America.

Music is and has been an inconceivably paramount piece of black culture, when concentrating on any kind of black music it is all that much an investigation into the back mind. Music has been a piece of the black cultural scene going over to slavery. Despite the fact that Jazz music is cherished and performed by individuals of each national background, in America, the groundbreaker, pioneer and innovator in every venture forward of Jazz has been the Negro. Unequivocally in light of the fact that the black culture talks so effectively in Jazz, it has gotten to be adored and respected everywhere. Between the two, there is no division of consecrated, secular, music, vocals, or instruments.

Our cultures are what makes us who we are today, and one of the biggest things culture has provided us with is music.With the help of venues, artists, and schools jazz music is becoming a more popular genre. Jazz was once a popular way to express yourself and it greatly impacted many cultures. It also has greatly impacted the music we listen to today. There is an infinite amount of music genres, and jazz music is a very crucial one to our history.