Jazz Music

Next up on our stroll through the history of our various genres of music is Jazz Music! Originating in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, jazz music claims its roots in blues, marching bands, and ragtime. An important skill of the best jazz musicians is the ability to improvise. This means that they make up solos, on-the-spot, as they perform. That takes tremendous skill! Syncopation, polyrhythms, and irregular rhythms are all highlights of jazz music as well. (hint: study your theory to find out what those are!) Each successful jazz musician has also found a way to show their own individual style through their music, so that one musician never sounds the same as another.

Cornet player, Buddy Bolden, is widely regarded by historians as being the first jazz musician. Some other early jazz musicians include Mutt Carey, Bunk Johnson, and Joe Oliver, as well as Creole musicians Jelly Roll Morton, Freddie Kepard, and Sidney Bechet. Today, we have different types of jazz that have all evolved from these first musicians. They include Modern Jazz, Free Jazz, Bebop Style, Latin Jazz, Cool Jazz, Jazz Manouche, Jazz Fusion, Smooth Jazz, Modal Jazz, Swing, and Hard Bop.

Some famous jazz musicians that you might know of are Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie.