Jazz is a music genre There are several approaches to genre. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green lists the madrigal, the motet, the canzona, the ricercar, and the dance as examples of genres . According to Green, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre - both are violin concertos - but different in form. Mozart's Rondo that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry communities in the Southern United States The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States. Because of the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, including Native Americans, early European settlements of English, Ulster Scots, from a confluence of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno, salsa, grunge and hip hop. In addition, the American.^[1] Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the diatonic pitches with emotive blue-notes. Blue notes are, improvisation Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act. This invention cycle occurs most, polyrhythms Polyrhythm [is] a general an nonspeciific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney , syncopation In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be stressed. "If a part of the measure that is usually unstressed is, and the swung note In music, a swung note or shuffle note is a performance practice, mainly in jazz-influenced music, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. It follows similar principles to notes inégales of the Baroque and Classical music eras. A swing or shuffle rhythm is the.^[2] However, Art Blakey Arthur "Art" Blakey , also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader has been quoted as saying, "No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa".^[3]

The word "jazz" The origin of the word jazz is one of the most sought-after word origins in modern American English. The word's intrinsic interest — the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century — has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well-documented. As discussed in more detail below, jazz began as a West Coast (in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast The West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon and Washington.[citation needed] The United States Census Bureau groups the five states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii together as the Pacific region slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago in about 1915.

From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s. Dixieland jazz combined brass band marches, French Quadrilles, ragtime and blues with collective, dating from the early 1910s, big band The big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz, a style of music which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big bands evolved with the times and continue to today. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, singers , and-style swing Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets and trombones, woodwinds including from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians' argot some time during the first two years of American involvement in the Second World War. This style of jazz from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz One of the contribution of Latins to America, Latin jazz gained popularity in the late 1940s fusions Jazz fusion, is a musical fusion genre that developed in the late 1960s from a mixture of elements of jazz such as its focus on improvisation with the rhythms and grooves of Rock and Blues and the beats and heavily amplified electric instruments and electronic effects of rock. While the term "jazz rock" is often used as a synonym for & such as Afro-Cuban Cuban jazz is a type of Latin jazz, played at first in Cuba, then in New Orleans, and later still in New York and Puerto Rico and Brazilian jazz, free jazz Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion Jazz fusion, is a musical fusion genre that developed in the late 1960s from a mixture of elements of jazz such as its focus on improvisation with the rhythms and grooves of Rock and Blues and the beats and heavily amplified electric instruments and electronic effects of rock. While the term "jazz rock" is often used as a synonym for & from the 1970s, acid jazz Acid jazz is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop, particularly looped beats. It developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance: jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Grant Green are often credited as forerunners of acid jazz. Acid from the 1980s (which added funk Funk is a music genre that originated in the late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a and hip-hop Hip hop is an artistic sub-culture that originated in the 1970s in the inner city Jamaican American, African American, and Latino American urban community of New York City. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of Hip-Hop Culture: MCing, DJing, b-boying, and graffiti writing. Other elements include beatboxing influences), and Nujazz Nu jazz is an umbrella term coined in the late 1990s to refer to music that blends jazz elements with other musical styles, such as funk, soul, electronic dance music, and free improvisation. Also written nü-jazz or NuJazz, it is sometimes called electronic jazz, electro-jazz, e-jazz, jazztronica, jazz house, phusion, "neo-jazz" or in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local national and regional musical cultures, its aesthetics being adapted to its varied environments and giving rise to many distinctive styles.

Definition

Jazz can be very hard to define because it spans from Ragtime Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged", rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published as popular sheet music for piano. It was a waltzes to 2000s-era fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions—using the point of view of European music history or African music for example—but jazz critic Joachim Berendt argues that all such attempts are unsatisfactory.^[4] One way to get around the definitional problems is to define the term “jazz” more broadly. Berendt defines jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with European music"; he argues that jazz differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time, defined as 'swing In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding. The term "swing" is also used to'", "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role"; and "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician".^[4]

Travis Jackson has also proposed a broader definition of jazz which is able to encompass all of the radically different eras: he states that it is music that includes qualities such as "swinging", improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being 'open' to different musical possibilities".^[5] Krin Gabbard claims that “jazz is a construct” or category that, while artificial, still is useful to designate “a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition”.^[6]

While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act. This invention cycle occurs most is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created primarily within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. It corresponds to the call-and-response pattern in human communication and is found as a basic element of musical form, such as verse-chorus form, in many pattern, a common element in the African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry oral tradition. A form of folk music which rose in part from work songs and field hollers of rural Blacks, early blues was also highly improvisational. These features are fundamental to the nature of jazz. While in European classical music Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period elements of interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment are sometimes left to the performer's discretion, the performer's primary goal is to play a composition as it was written.

In jazz, however, the skilled performer will interpret a tune in very individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience, interactions with fellow musicians, or even members of the audience, a jazz musician/performer may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will. European classical music has been said to be a composer's medium. Jazz, however, is often characterized as the product of egalitarian creativity, interaction and collaboration, placing equal value on the contributions of composer and performer, 'adroitly weigh[ing] the respective claims of the composer A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media[clarification needed]. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright[specify] and the and the improviser'.^[7]

In New Orleans and Dixieland Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s. Dixieland jazz combined brass band marches, French Quadrilles, ragtime and blues with collective, jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised countermelodies. By the swing Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets and trombones, woodwinds including era, big bands A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. Big bands evolved with the times and continue to today. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, singers, and a were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangements The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structure& were either written Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of musical notation; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens. Use of the term "sheet" is intended to differentiate music on paper from an or learned by ear and memorized – many early jazz performers could not read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these arrangements. Later, in bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians' argot some time during the first two years of American involvement in the Second World War. This style of jazz the focus shifted back towards small groups and minimal arrangements; the melody (known as the "head") would be stated briefly at the start and end of a piece but the core of the performance would be the series of improvisations in the middle. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing (or contradicting) a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. Chords and chord theory are generally known as harmony, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode.^[8] The avant-garde Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which improvisation may take place. This structure may be and free jazz Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.

Debates

There have long been debates in the jazz community over the definition and the boundaries of “jazz”. Although alteration or transformation of jazz by new influences has often been initially criticized as a “debasement,” Andrew Gilbert argues that jazz has the “ability to absorb and transform influences” from diverse musical styles.^[9] While some enthusiasts of certain types of jazz have argued for narrower definitions which exclude many other types of music also commonly known as "jazz", jazz musicians themselves are often reluctant to define the music they play. Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader summed it up by saying, "It's all music."^[10] Some critics have even stated that Ellington's music was not jazz because it was arranged and orchestrated.^[11] On the other hand Ellington's friend Earl Hines Earl Hines was born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Duquesne, Pennsylvania. His father was a cornetist and leader of Pittsburgh's Eureka Brass Band, his stepmother a church organist. Hines at first intended to follow his father's example and play cornet but "blowing" hurt him behind the ears — while the piano didn't. He took classical's twenty solo "transformative versions" of Ellington compositions (on Earl Hines Plays Duke Ellington recorded in the 1970s) were described by Ben Ratliff, the New York Times jazz critic, as "as good an example of the jazz process as anything out there."^[12]

Commercially oriented or popular music-influenced forms of jazz have both long been criticized, at least since the emergence of Bop. Traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed Bop, the 1970s jazz fusion era [and much else] as a period of commercial debasement of the music. According to Bruce Johnson, jazz music has always had a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form".^[5] Gilbert notes that as the notion of a canon of jazz is developing, the “achievements of the past” may become "…privileged over the idiosyncratic creativity...” and innovation of current artists. Village Voice The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper in New York City, United States featuring investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts reviews and events listings for New York City. It is also distributed throughout the United States on a pay basis jazz critic Gary Giddins argues that as the creation and dissemination of jazz is becoming increasingly institutionalized and dominated by major entertainment firms, jazz is facing a "...perilous future of respectability and disinterested acceptance." David Ake warns that the creation of “norms” in jazz and the establishment of a “jazz tradition” may exclude or sideline other newer, avant-garde forms of jazz.^[5]

Etymology of "Jazz"

The origin of the word jazz is one of the most sought-after word origins in modern American English.^{[citation needed]} The word's intrinsic interest—the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century—has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well-documented. The word began as West Coast slang around 1912, the meaning of which varied but did not refer to music or sex. It came to refer to the music in Chicago around 1915. The music was played in New Orleans prior to that time but was not referred to by that name.

The word jazz makes one of its earliest appearances in San Francisco baseball writing in 1913.^[13] Jazz was introduced to San Francisco in 1913 by William (Spike) Slattery, sports editor of the Call, and propagated by a band-leader named Art Hickman. It reached Chicago by 1915 but was not heard of in New York until a year later.^[14] One of the first known uses of the word appears in a March 3, 1913, baseball article in the San Francisco Bulletin by E. T. "Scoop" Gleeson.^[15]

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