A Summary of the History of Jazz Music in the U.S.
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans. It originated in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in spirituals and blues, ragtime, marches, and in West
African cultural/musical expression. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music." Since the 1920-1933
Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression.
The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is
believed to be related to jasm, a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning "pep, energy." The use of the
word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first
documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune
article about "jas bands." In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the
slang connotations of the term, saying, "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z.' It wasn't
called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S.'
Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, syncopation and
improvisation. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms."
Jazz is a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro
with European music" and it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time
defined as 'swing.'" Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation
plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the
performing jazz musician." It has also been said about jazz, “it is music that includes qualities such as
swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical
possibilities."
As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to
different styles.
New Orleans jazz (also called Dixieland, or traditional jazz) began in the early 1910s, combining earlier
brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In
the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented Swing Big Bands, Kansas City jazz, and hard-swinging, bluesy
improvisation were the prominent styles.
Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's
music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near
the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.
The 1950s saw the emergence of Free Jazz, which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal
structures, and in the mid-1950s, Hard Bop emerged, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues,
gospel, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using
the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation.
Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's
rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound.
In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called Smooth Jazz became successful, garnering significant
radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz.
