When I started this course on American popular music, I was not sure what to expect. As the course went on, I became surprised by how much I have learned. This class has helped me explore many genres and learn how to analyze songs. My favorite genre that was explored during this course is jazz. While understanding the roots of jazz, towards the end of the course, I observed how I listened to music differently.
Jazz has always been one of my favorite genres. Jazz feels very expressive and allows the musician to share their heart with the audience, this is one of the reasons it is one of my favorite genres. My experience with music has been through dance, and dancing to jazz is something I’ve always enjoyed. One characteristic of jazz is improvisation, which allows the musician the chance to create their own melodic lines. In dance, we create our own movements to the tune and it is always a great experience to have two expressive hearts come together to express one tune. Since jazz has such a special place in my heart, I truly enjoyed learning the roots of jazz.
…show more content…
These ragtime players had huge influence on jazz. The earliest jazz recordings are known as traditional jazz or New Orleans jazz. New Orleans is the birth place of the genre. Jazz seems to be a combination of African and European rhythms. The makeup of traditional jazz is different from other genres although some underlying characteristics are from ragtime. The makeup includes the front-line, which include musicians with lead parts, playing cornets or trumpets, clarinets, and trombones. The rhythm section includes the piano, banjo, and percussion. This combination of instruments creates a unique
Jazz has always been a part of the American tradition. Some may say they like Jazz for its rhythmic twist and turns. Others may love the soothing melodies from an improved Trumpet solo. All in all, Jazz has been an American staple and has molded today’s popular music, into what it is today. It’s very different from classical music, which is written out and strict. Jazz is much more. It’s made up of spontaneity and improvisation, which makes up an idea on the spot. There are many wide varieties in Jazz. There is Bebop Jazz, Avante Garde Jazz, Acid Jazz, Free Funk Jazz, Soul Jazz, Swing Jazz, and many, many more! These forms of Jazz can be seen and heard in some of your favorite music of Today. It’s been widely used by the world. There is an important reason as to why this genre contributes to the growing of music. We first take a look into the root of all Jazz. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the country of Africa was the first known country to use rhythm primarily for the element of musical expression, and ensembles composed entirely of percussion instruments created extended polyrhythmic works. These polyrhythms, which means the “layering of multiple rhythms.”, were record in Western music. African music did not use paper, or sheet music. Instead, they relied on Aural rituals, learned by ear and also used” spontaneity, which is later said to be known as improvisation”. In Africa, most of the music that was expressed was for religious
Jazz is a genre of music that originated in African American communities in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. The Jazz Era was a big deal throughout 1915 to 1935. Jazz was brought up in many different ways. There was many jazz artist who contributed to the era such as Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. As the jazz era ended, some artists struggled and some continued on with fortune and fame.
Jazz music originated from the Black Americans in the beginning of the 20th century. It is characterised by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm. Instruments like the harmonica, trumpets and other percussion instruments are associated with jazz. Some jazz sub genres are swing, Dixieland, Blues, Free jazz, Acid/Fusion jazz and Bebop. Chicago and New Orleans are the two types of Jazz that are very popular and an instrumental and historical pathway to the introduction of the creation and entirety of Jazz music.
Jazz has a forward momentum, meaning that it gives music that suspension. It leaves you wanting more. Also, do you ever wonder why you feel the need to tap your foot to the beat while listening to Jazz music? This is because jazz is considered one of the most rhythmic forms of music. Jazz was originated in
The film and novel of To Kill a Mockingbird complement each other in many ways due to their similarities, but the book can accomplish things that the movie can’t due to it’s ability to tell. The book is written in a narrated voice, making it hard to tell the entire story through a film. The thoughts and feelings of the characters can’t always be felt and understanded through a film because of its limited time allotted, but through a book you are able to know and interpret everything. There are missing parts of the plot, along with many other differences of the story because of this. While the book is very similar to the movie and vis versa, there are many differences.
Eventually the periods branched into genres, which focused and categorized with even greater detail on each piece of music (Estrella par. 6). Jazz is a genre of music that originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As jazz began to grow popular, it served as a means to bring young people together. It also settled some of the controversy between the blacks and whites, as it was a great unifier and social
Jazz is an American music genre, founded by African-American musicians. It emerged in the early 1900s as its creators merged aspects from West African musical traditions with aspects from religious music and from many other types of popular music based on European traditions. While some elements of jazz were borrowed from other musical genres, the music that came forth was one of a kind, an art form of its own. A significant element of jazz is improvisation, the adjustment of a melody or countermelody as a song is being performed. Therefore, a song may be different every time it is played.
Until the past year or so, I considered jazz to be an out dated style of music that only elderly folks enjoyed listening to in their retirement homes. However, jazz has immense influence from the cultural integrations that took place during the early days of America. Cultural influences such as religion, politics, race, socioeconomic status, and musical ideologies from both the Americans and the Africans meshed together which formed the genre of jazz that I personally love and enjoy. These cultural influences played a major role in shaping jazz into a specific art form/genre. Before, during, and after America declared independence from Britain many African slaves were introduced into this new land through means of the middle passage.
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
Jazz emerged towards the beginning of the 20th Century, but didn 't just spring up out of nowhere. Instead, it was a creation that developed from popular music styles of the 1800s that blended and combined them to entertain the nation and social dancers. The two main music styles that jazz consisted of were ragtime and the blues. Both ragtime and the blues had their beginnings in African-American communities. While both of these music styles strongly contributed to the creation of jazz and have a lot of similarities, they do have their differences. These differences lie within their origins, their elements that make up their styles and how these elements influenced jazz, and their artists and composers.
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.
Once we understand how improvisation plays a role in the overall tune of jazz, we can then look to how jazz is communicated. To musicians, jazz is a language. It doesn’t limit to a yes or a no, but instead it communicates feelings that show our anger, happiness, sadness, and everything in the middle. It is unique in that it seems to transcend tradition language barriers. Though a man who speaks Spanish and another who speaks English cannot understand what the other is trying to say, jazz has a way that communicates the feelings behind the words, that
The rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, and drums) maintained a steady, even beat; the saxophone and brass sections countered each other with harmonized riffs and repeated figures, with section leaders improvising over this background (Stewart, 1979).
Prejudice causes a permanent scar on the people targeted. For centuries it has resulted in foolishness in the minds of people that has destroyed lives. When the seeds of prejudice grows to exponential amounts in someone’s mind it can transform into a vicious hatred. This disdain can affect everyone in a society like weeds in a garden. Prejudice because of race, religion, and socially can destroy and alter people’s lives detrimentally.
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