Jazz is a musical form that has its roots in American and European classical music, intertwined with African and slave folk songs and the influences of West African culture. It developed in the United States in the early 20th century, with New Orleans playing a key role in its evolution. The city's population was more diverse than anywhere else in the South, and people of African, French, Caribbean, Italian, German, Mexican, and American Indian descent, as well as English ancestry interacted with each other. This mix of cultures resulted in a unique blend of musical styles that would eventually become known as jazz. At first, jazz was mostly used for dancing.
However, as the genre evolved, people began to sit and listen to jazz performances. This evolution was led by a series of brilliant musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Jazz developed a number of different styles, including traditional jazz, swing, bebop, fresh jazz and jazz-rock. At the same time, jazz spread from the United States to many parts of the world. Today, jazz musicians and festivals can be found in dozens of countries.
Jazz is one of the largest U. S. exports to the world. Jazz is a musical form that is often characterized by improvisation and syncopated rhythms. It is influenced by both European harmonic structure and African rhythms.
It developed partially from ragtime and blues. Jazz also features polyphonic ensembles, varying degrees of improvisation, deliberate deviations in tone and the use of original timbres. The development of jazz began in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century. Early attempts to define jazz as music whose main characteristic was improvisation proved to be too restrictive and largely false since composition, arrangement and ensemble have also been essential components of jazz for most of its history. The jazz era culminated with the historic Benny Goodman concert of 1938 at Carnegie Hall. This event brought together musicians of various ethnicities to play jazz inside this sacred hall.
Nick La Rocca, the cornetist and composer of the Original Dixieland Jass Band claimed that he invented jazz himself; however Buddy Bolden had a much better claim or even Creole artist Morton who was undoubtedly the first to write jazz as scores and always said he had invented it. Recordings and performances by Bunk Johnson and George Lewis spurred a national jazz revival movement which provided opportunities for traditional jazz musicians who persist today. Most early classical composers such as Aaron Copland, John Alden Carpenter and even Igor Stravinsky were attracted by its instrumental sounds and timbres, unusual effects and inflections of jazz interpretation (metal deaf, glissandos, scoops, curves and stringless ensembles) as well as its syncopations. The most important jazz creator and the first great jazz soloist (improviser) was trumpet player Louis Armstrong. The first commercial jazz recording was made in 1917 by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band which proved tremendously popular and helped bring the music to enthusiastic audiences across the country. Certain types of jazz (or at least music adjacent to jazz with artists recognized as jazz musicians) have used straight rather than balanced eighth notes while preserving other elements that we associate with music. The relaxed Cool Jazz of Birth of the Cool by Miles Davis, The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Lennie Tristano school was marketed as a softer alternative to the more fiery sounds of bebop. Jazz musicians like to play their songs in their own different styles so you can listen to a dozen different recordings of the same song but each one will sound different. At this point, jazz from the 20s and 30s was already beginning to give way to the Big Band era although musicians such as Ellington and Armstrong would continue to develop jazzy until their death. Similarly blues has appeared in most great jazz in one form or another (although it could be said that it is less present in much of contemporary jazz) but there are other genres that use elements of blues without being considered jazzy.
