We Publish Music In Our Life

Music plays an important role in our lives no matter whether our tastes are Hip-Hop, Country, Jazz, or Rock. Music can be in the background when we drive or study, provide a refuge from our problems, offer a trigger for our memories, or be an integral part of our lives. Jazz was born in this country and has affected the music industry as we now know it. In this paper, I will discuss the history of Jazz, Jazz musicians and the state of Jazz.

New Orleans, Louisiana, is considered the place of origin of Jazz. About hundred years ago, but its roots can be found in the musical traditions of both Africa and Europe.

New Orleans was the perfect city for the creation of Jazz because all of these elements to come together because it was a city that had people arriving from all parts of the world, it had different ethnic groups, and it had nightlife where live music was essential.

The famous trumpeter Wynton Marsalis once said, ‘New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration….echoes of traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music could be heard and seen throughout the city. When all of these kinds of music blended into one, Jazz was born.’ (Teacher.Scholastic) The roots of Jazz began developing in the African American communities all throughout the south with rhythms reflecting the diversity of cultural influences from West Africa to the West Indies, from ragtime to the blues (PBS).

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The creation of Jazz has been debated for years, on one hand, some people think Jazz was born in 1895 when Buddy Bolden started his first band.

On the other hand, people will state it was created in 1917 when Nick LaRocca and his Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded the first Jazz record, ‘Livery Stable Blues.’ Jazz was an outlet for some many musicians because it had had a unique syncopated sound. Even with this newly-formed creativity, people saw this type of music “immoral” and protested the creation. That did not stop many musicians from playing in the deep south; it gave a musician their own expressive way, making it an ‘extension’ of their own human voice. Jazz is a combination of influences from African music and European music.

From African music, Jazz was influenced by the rhythm, “feel” and soul. From European music, it influenced Jazz by giving it harmony and most importantly the instruments. Most if not all instruments used in the performance of Jazz was invented in Europe, For example, the saxophone, trumpet, piano, etc. In Jazz, a melody begins a song, but then each musician has a chance to improvise, playing all kinds of crazy notes: high, low, long, short, gravelly and clear. “The music creates a ‘visceral response’ such as feet-tapping or head-nodding” (Washington Post). Jazz evolved from slave songs and spirituals religious African American folk songs and this genre of music have evolved from primarily African Americans. The major element of jazz music is what is called the swing note, but it is strictly defined as a triple subdivision of the beat against duple subdivisions.

Swing notes are critical to Jazz compositions the most accurate definition of that comes from the most famous and most influential artists in the music history Louis Armstrong. Louis’ definition of the swing note: “If you don’t feel it, you’ll never know it.” In essence, a swing is a rhythmic momentum, a pulsing of the beat created by playing notes written in the same duration as a pattern of long and short (Britannica). Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901, and began playing the cornet at thirteen. He expanded the idea of Dixieland (where every musician soloed at once) into individual solos. But some people forget that was an influential singer to Jazz too. “His vocal improvisations and the powerful feeling of swing that he brought to everything he sang loosened up the more formal style of his contemporaries. In the process, he turned every song into a reflection of his own fun-loving personality” (music.si.edu).

His most influential vocalizations came from the performance he did in 1926 when performing “Heebie Jeebies,” which popularized scat singing. Louis Armstrong past away in New York City on July 6, 1971. Louis Armstrong was an innovator but the Jazz we hear today is not the same, we have John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie to thank for that. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, is considered one of the founding father of modern Jazz, famously said “no him, no me” in reference to Armstrong, explaining that Armstrong’s playing was the foundation of his own music (Troupe). Dizzy made use of the upper register of notes above C, playing with a super-fast speed using new rhythms and chord changes. This began the change of American Jazz generations from “swing” to “bebop”.

The bebop tunes gained a vast recognition of being “modern Jazz.” His personality was heard in the music and the way he played, he became an icon. When he played, he was easily recognizable to everyone by his balloon cheeks and his trademark trumpet, with its horn bent upwards at a 45-degree angle. The story of the 45-angle trumpet is that somebody fell on Gillespie’s trumpet. As a result, the bell was bent, Gillespie played it, and liked the sound. Dizzy also thought that it projected better over the heads of the audience of people in the back of the nightclub.

The state of Jazz today is basically a free-for-all musician are basically going in one of three directions: traditional, contemporary mainstream, or ‘anything goes.’ Traditionalists are performing Jazz mainly patterned on Blues, Swing, and Bebop. Many believe traditionalists are the ones playing ‘real Jazz.” Contemporary mainstream Jazz artists are influenced mostly by Hard Bop sensibilities. “Anything goes” artists will basically play all types of Jazz and try to fuse it together. I believe that the genre of Jazz in today’s music climate is dying, it hasn’t fully disappeared but it’s in danger. The younger generations do not appreciate the talent Jazz musicians have and radio stations just push new pop and electric genres down people’s throats.

In Conclusion, Today, Jazz is played and listened to around the world, from people of all different ethnicities and cultures. Jazz began in the city of New Orleans and has evolved into worlds’ music. I focused on the history of Jazz, two very influential Jazz musicians and how the genre of Jazz is doing today. Jazz has been used in multiple genres of music and has been an inspiration of a couple too. Even if the genre of Jazz dies off the influence, they have in modern music will never be surpassed.