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Jazz Music Research Paper

Decent Essays

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.

Despite the positivity the culture jazz brought to the country, many began to feel annoyed and even threatened. …show more content…

Many burned their records simply to keep warm on cold nights, and record players were no longer being produced. Jazz began to spread when bands would hold liver performances, free to view. The music allowed people who were scared for their family’s and own lives lose themselves in dancing and having wholesome fun. Music is the purest of medicine.

The hostility of people who disapproved of Jazz are the ones who started the issue. Using offensive slang terms and talking down on black communities. A genre of music that came to be solely to bring hope and joy to a broken country ended up to bring hatred instead. Despite that, jazz continued to evolve. Jazz turned into swing, a more dance based type of music, which lead to white Americans discovering the budding genre of music.

In the end, although there was much controversy towards the music, jazz ended up having an over all positive impact on the U.S. Not only did it lift the spirits of struggling people, it created a completely new culture and the main music genre of the decade. To this day thousands of people continue to love jazz and swing and it continues to impact music to this day. The moral of the story is, don’t allow people’s hate to deter a positive influence, especially in a time of struggle. As it can influence positively for generations to

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