Introduction

The genre of jazz has always been challenging to describe. By its very nature, jazz is a music formed from a combination of influences. In its infancy, jazz was a melting pot of military brass bands, work songs and field hollers of U.S. slaves during the 19th century, European harmonies and forms, and the rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean. Later, the Blues and the influence of Spanish and French Creoles who possessed European Classical training nudged jazz further in its development. Jazz has always been a world music in the sense that music from around the globe has been embraced and incorporated. This is still true today. At the present time, there seem to be as many stylistic variations within jazz as there are performers. At best, we can approximate the characteristics of the music and find a category in which to place it, but this is more for the convenience of the aficionado than a realistic representation of any actual delineation of the music or musicians. Jazz musicians do not wake up one morning and declare to be a Bebop player or a Cool Jazz player from that day forward. Rather, each musician seeks to make the music his own, combining whatever influences feel most personal, and allows the critic or fan to assign his music to a particular category.

The origin of the word jazz is obscure, at best. The word itself was in use at least as early as 1913 in San Francisco by sports editor William “Spike” Slattery, used as a part of baseball slang referring to pep and enthusiasm. Later, the word was used in reference to a type of music, reaching Chicago by 1915, but was not heard of in New York until a year later. Early jazz musicians stated that the word did not appear in New Orleans until 1917. Other sources offer different possibilities for the word’s origin, including the Creole patois jass, referring to strenuous activity, especially sexual intercourse, but also used of Congo dances; from jasm (energy, drive) of African origin; a word connected to the Jasmine perfume worn by prostitutes in the New Orleans red-light district; and in reference to individuals, for example Chicago musician Jasbo Brown. Duke Ellington never approved of the word, preferring instead to refer to the music as Negro music or American music.

At the turn of the 20th century, the influences of European syncopation were brought into the piano stylings of Black musicians performing in bars, clubs, and brothels, while minstrel shows and vaudeville were providing opportunities for other Black musicians as well. It was syncopation that defined the music called Ragtime and which would lead to the off-beat accented nature found in much of jazz music ever since. Ragtime pianists included Joseph Lamb, Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, Luckey Roberts, and the composer of the popular “Maple Leaf Rag,” Scott Joplin. In addition to performances by pianists, Ragtime selections could be heard performed by brass bands and dance bands. A precursor to the exciting Stride Piano, Ragtime was at its height between 1890 and 1920.

Following World War I, the style of piano known as Stride was developed and dominated by James P. Johnson (considered the “father” of Stride Piano), Willie “the Lion” Smith, and Fats Waller, among others. These mostly East Coast musicians performed pieces at blazing speeds outlining both the bass notes and harmony in the left hand while playing the syncopated melody in the right. It was from within Stride Piano that the swing feel, one of a loping nature rather than a strict rigid one, began to surface. In clubs and other venues, pianists would participate in “cutting contests” to determine who could outplay the other. Improvisation, one of the core elements associated with jazz music, began to surface during this time.

Being the major port city that it was, New Orleans served as the perfect location for the development of jazz. If there was a birthplace of jazz, most would point to New Orleans. Brothels and bars, dances and parties all required music, and jazz was the music of choice. Among the earliest of those cited as one of the first to perform the new music that would become known as jazz was cornet player Buddy Bolden. Though no recordings of him exist, stories of his amazing sound and volume have been told throughout the intervening years. Pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton adapted the earlier music of Ragtime to the lighter interpretation of the new music. Jelly Roll, who claimed to have invented jazz and was known to have spent time as a pool hustler, loan shark, pimp, and gambler, became a significant figure in furthering the music. Among the better-known performers and bandleaders of the Early Jazz New Orleans style are included cornetist Joe “King” Oliver, trombonist Kid Ory, and clarinetist/saxophonist Sidney Bechet. The music, along with much of the population, migrated north to Chicago, where a young Louis Armstrong was to change the music forever.

The first recording of jazz was in 1917 in New York City, recorded not by one of the outstanding bands of Black musicians who had developed the music, but by an all-White band named the Original Dixieland Jazz (or “Jass”) Band. The two sides (“Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jazz Band One Step”) were released by the Victor Talking Machine Company as a novelty, but they soon became a huge hit. The band broke up in the mid-1920s.

Responding to an invitation to join the band of Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago in 1922 and began playing second trumpet (to Joe’s first) in Oliver’s very popular Creole Jazz Band. After moving on to play with different bandleaders and singers, Armstrong recorded the Hot Fives recordings in 1925 under his own name. These recordings, along with the subsequent Hot Sevens, proved to alter the direction of jazz. The music that had been one of collective improvisation, in which each member of the band improvised their parts based on traditional roles, now became one that highlighted the soloist and utilized a more formalized approach to the arrangements. These recordings by Armstrong are considered among the most influential in the history of jazz.

Jazz of the 1920s included such artists as Blues singer Bessie Smith and cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, and the bands of Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, and Jean Goldkette. The success of these larger bands led the way into the development of the Swing or Big Band era, in which Swing music as the preeminent style of dance music was established. Jazz was to become the popular music of the people during the Swing era and would not hold that distinction again.

With the success of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, assisted in no small part by his band’s tenure as the house band at New York’s Cotton Club from 1927 to 1930, big bands began to flourish. Among these were the bands born from Kansas City, Chicago, and New York City, including those of William “Count” Basie, Chick Webb, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunce-ford, Harry James, the Dorsey brothers, and more. It was in ballrooms such as the Savoy in New York where a “battle of the bands” would take place squaring two bands off against each other, with the enthusiastic audience of dancers determining the winner. Jazz had finally become commercialized, and it spread nationwide. Many point to the 1935 Benny Goodman Band performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles as marking the start of the Swing era. Dances such as the Lindy Hop, Shag, and others became the rage.

Restrictions on transportation and resources brought about by World War II and a recording strike by the musicians’ union from August 1942 to mid-1944 made it hard for the public to hear music on the radio or on recordings that was new. During this time, the recording companies featured vocalists singing with vocal groups, rather than with big bands. Singers such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and others began to catch the interest of the public while interest in the bands themselves began to wane. At the same time, a new style of jazz that featured instrumentalists emphasizing improvisation in a small group setting was developing largely without public awareness.

Bebop became the latest stage of jazz development during the 1940s and was led by innovators including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, and others. Sessions at the New York establishments Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown House functioned as the laboratory for the development of Bebop. The changes to the music included more rapidly occurring chord progressions, an emphasis on technical virtuosity, less emphasis on arrangements, and a vastly increased emphasis on improvisation. This development, though fulfilling to the jazz musician, served to change the music from being a popular music to that of an art music, less appreciated by the general public. As popularity in vocalists rose, interest in the newest style of instrumental jazz decreased. Performers were no longer playing jazz to entertain the public. Instead, they were working on pushing the music to a more sophisticated level, and appealing to fewer listeners outside of the die-hard aficionados. Though big bands were continuing to perform, the decreasing public interest forced many to disband, cut personnel, or resort to heavy traveling between performances.

As if in reaction to the elite demands of the Bebop style, two branches that departed from Bebop began to form. One, which would be known as Cool Jazz, returned to an emphasis on arrangement and linear lines, decreased the emphasis on improvisation, and looked to combine instruments typically not associated with jazz to form new timbres. Instruments such as French horn, tuba, muted brass, and a preference for a lighter, warmer sound to the ensemble were embraced. Though not the first music to be recorded in the Cool Jazz style, the Miles Davis–led sessions of 1949 and 1950, which later were released as Birth of the Cool, served as a marker for the new style. For years to come, musicians would be classified as more “cool” or “bop,” depending on their sound and arrangements. Notable musicians associated with Cool Jazz include Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, pianist Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and saxophonist Lee Konitz.

As Cool Jazz was becoming established, another version of jazz was arising as well, that of Hard Bop. With Hard Bop, a return to a more Blues-focused, “earthy” path was preferred. Musicians were not as focused on the technical wizardry that had been so important to the Bebop style, and groups began to incorporate a Rhythm and Blues component, further allowing the listener to embrace the style. Hard Bop is also sometimes referred to as Funky Jazz or as Soul Jazz. Significant artists associated with the Hard Bop style include Horace Silver, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Stitt, and Lee Morgan. Popular in the 1950s and 1960s, Hard Bop remains an important component to a typical jazz performer’s development to this day. With its repetitive, “groove”-like approach, audience members feel musically and intellectually challenged but still connected to the performers onstage.

As with much of society, jazz began to seek a deeper, more meaningful exploration of the personal experience. The late 1950s saw the development of Modal Jazz, which was based on less harmonic variety while emphasizing a more personalized improvisational approach that was based on only one or two scales or only a few notes. The challenge for the performer became communicating more with less and on the development of motivic ideas. Modal Jazz shifted the focus from harmony to melody. In 1959, Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, a quintessential Modal Jazz recording. The recording featured pianist Bill Evans, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, who was to become a significant figure in the world of Free Jazz.

Reflecting the societal unrest of the 1960s, Free Jazz, akin to Avant-Garde Jazz, looked to relieve the music from previous restraints in the areas of tonality, form, melodicism, and instrumentation. Though not truly free from all structure, Free Jazz allows the performer to explore ideas that are contrived almost spontaneously, resulting in a performance that is never the same twice. Different instrumentation of ensembles such as the use of two basses, two drum sets, or the use of multiphonics (the production of more than one tone at a time on one’s instrument through multiple vibrations achieved by singing while playing or playing two instruments simultaneously) are welcome in Free Jazz. A goal of Free Jazz is that of expressing the music to the highest possible personal degree without regard for traditional performance practice. Leaders of the Free Jazz movement include Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane (A Love Supreme), the AACM, and Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz). Interestingly, Free Jazz found stronger acceptance in Europe than in the United States, with many accomplished Free Jazz artists choosing to spend extended periods of time there.

The music of Latin America has been influential since the early days of jazz. Jelly Roll Morton referred to it as the Spanish tinge, without which “you will never be able to get the right seasoning for jazz” (The Complete Library of Congress Recordings, 2005). Latin Jazz is a term used to refer more generally to music that adopts characteristics of the music of Cuba, Africa, Brazil, and/or Puerto Rico. Afro-Cuban Jazz was featured in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor during the 1950s, and more contemporary artists such as Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, and Tito Puente are considered influential performers of Latin Jazz. The Samba and Bossa Nova were brought to the attention of the public by Brazilians João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim. American performers including Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd performed jazz Sambas and Bossa Novas to wide public acclaim.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a merging of Rock or Funk music and electronics with jazz produced the Jazz Fusion and Jazz-Rock style. Artists such as Miles Davis (Bitches Brew, 1970), Herbie Hancock (Head Hunters, 1973), the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Weather Report incorporated electric keyboards, electric bass, synthesized sounds, and various electronic sound effects into the music. During the 1980s and 1990s, Great Britain developed an approach that was termed Acid Jazz, a style that combines elements of jazz, Funk, and Hip-hop. Led in large part by saxophonist Steve Coleman, a collective of African-American jazz musicians from New York began utilizing an approach to performance they termed M-base (short for “macro-basic array of structured extemporization”). Though developed as an approach to creating music, critics and the public adopted the term as referring to the music that resulted from the process. M-base strives to express the experiences, culture, and philosophy of the players, and therefore the performer’s approach to the music can and will change, depending on the artist’s own personal development.

Jazz in the present day offers a rich mixture of all the styles described above and has regularly begun to incorporate world musics. Jazz has an audience, but the audience is divided into many sections. Traditionalists point to the Early Jazz styles of New Orleans and Chicago. Those who grew into adulthood in the 1930s see the great bands of the Swing era as the pinnacle of jazz, remembering the band battles, Lindy Hop, and vocal stylings of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald as jazz at its best. Lovers of Bebop still want to hear music reminiscent of the groups of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell, music that was intended to challenge the listener and the performer. The Cool Jazz sounds of Dave Brubeck, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Chet Baker brought jazz to an audience that required the familiarity and structure of form, melody, and arrangements in order to appreciate the music. Hard Bop and Free Jazz provided the reconnection African-Americans desired to a music that originally felt like their own but that had begun to lose its way. Those seeking a higher plane of aesthetic experience related to the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and the recordings they made years ago are still being explored for their depth of introspection and reflection. Many who grew up with Rock and Roll find the Jazz Fusion stylists to be most accessible and engaging.

Regardless of personal preference, each of the jazz traditions mentioned above remains well represented by jazz musicians of today. For every group or performer who seeks to carry on the legacy of past jazz masters by recreating and paying homage to specific performers or styles, there is another group or performer who is looking toward the next new fusion of jazz with other styles. Jazz is, at its core, music of the people that reflects a personal expression of the human experience. Always changing, always growing, and always celebrating expression of the individual, jazz will continue to exist as long as mankind continues to search for meaning.