jazz

(noun)

A musical art form rooted in both West African cultural and musical expression and in the African-American Blues tradition. The sound included diverse influences over time, commonly characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and improvisation.

Related Terms

Examples of jazz in the following topics:

  • The Jazz Age

    • If freedom was the mindset of the Roaring Twenties, then Jazz was the soundtrack.
    • As the 1920s progressed, Jazz rose in popularity and helped to generate a cultural shift.
    • Due to the racial prejudice prevalent at most radio stations, white American Jazz artists received much more air time than black Jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Joe "King" Oliver.
    • Although the Jazz era ended as the Great Depression struck and victimized America throughout the 1930s, Jazz has lived on in American popular culture and remains a vibrant musical genre to this day.
    • Cab Calloway became one of the most popular musicians of the Jazz Age in the 1920s.

  • Jazz and "Dorian Minor"

    • Major and minor scales are traditionally the basis for Western Music, but jazz theory also recognizes other scales, based on the medieval church modes, which are very useful for improvisation.
    • (So, for example, D Dorian has the same key signature as C major. ) In fact, the reason that Dorian is so useful in jazz is that it is the scale used for improvising while a ii chord is being played (for example, while a d minor chord is played in the key of C major), a chord which is very common in jazz.
    • (See Beginning Harmonic Analysis for more about how chords are classified within a key. ) The student who is interested in modal jazz will eventually become acquainted with all of the modal scales.
    • Dorian is included here only to explain the common jazz reference to the "dorian minor" and to give notice to students that the jazz approach to scales can be quite different from the traditional classical approach.

  • Jazz, Blues, and World Music

    • These include various Latin (from Central and South America, some of which also include Native American influences) and Caribbean traditions, and from North America, many different kinds of jazz and blues.

  • The Culture of the Roaring Twenties

    • Jazz music experienced a dramatic surge in popularity, and notions of modern womanhood were redefined by the flapper.
    • The first talking film, The Jazz Singer, was released in 1927, followed by the first all-color all-talking feature, On with the Show, in 1929 .
    • During the "Jazz Age," jazz and jazz-influenced dance music became widely popular.
    • Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti were the first musicians to incorporate the guitar and violin into jazz.
    • Scott Fitzgerald published some of the most enduring novels of the Jazz Age, including This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and The Great Gatsby.

  • Bibliography

    • Lee Evans's Modes and Their Use in Jazz is both comprehensive and accessible for any musician who wants to begin to study that subject.

  • Modal Jazz and Folk Music

    • Some jazz and folk music is also considered modal and also uses the Greek/medieval mode names.
    • Modal jazz, on the other hand, is fairly new, having developed around 1960.
    • (A jazz musician would call this flatted or flat thirds and sevenths. ) So any scale with a flatted third and seventh can be called a Dorian scale.

  • Escaping Hard Times

    • Following World War I there was a mass migration of Jazz musicians from New Orleans to major northern cities like Chicago and New York, leading to a wider dispersal of Jazz as different styles developed in different cities.
    • As the 1920s progressed, Jazz rose in popularity and helped to generate a cultural shift.
    • Due to the racial prejudice prevalent at most radio stations, white American Jazz artists received much more air time than black Jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Joe "King" Oliver.
    • One of the exceptions was Duke Ellington and his big band, who played several types of music from Blues to Gospel to Jazz and more.
    • The most popular type of radio show was a "potter palm," an amateur concert and Big-band Jazz performance broadcast from New York and Chicago.

  • Literature

    • At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the specter of World War I.
    • As such, the period is also often referred to as the Jazz Age.
    • Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is often described as the epitome of the "Jazz Age" in American literature.

  • Prohibition

    • Prohibition had a large effect on music in the United States, specifically Jazz.
    • Speakeasies became far more popular during the Prohibition era, partially influencing the mass migration of Jazz musicians from New Orleans to major northern cities like Chicago and New York.
    • This movement led to a wider dispersal of Jazz, as different styles developed in different cities.
    • Because of its popularity in speakeasies and its advancement due to the emergence of more advanced recording devices, Jazz became very popular in a short amount of time.
    • Jazz was also at the forefront of the minimal integration efforts of the time, as it united mostly black musicians with mostly white crowds.

  • The Lost Generation

    • At the same time, Jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the horrors of World War I.
    • As such, the period is also often referred to as the Jazz Age, with F.
    • Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, often described as the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.
    • Scott Fitgerald used to epitomize the Jazz era and the attitude of post-World War I America.