Jazz
Overview
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American
communities in the Southern United States
. It was born out of a mix 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
. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue note
s, improvisation
, polyrhythm
s, syncopation
, call-response, and the swung note.
The word "jazz"
(in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast
slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland
dating from the early 1910s, big band
-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop
from the mid-1940s, free jazz
and a variety of Latin jazz
fusions
, such as Afro-Cuban
, from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion
from the 1970s, acid jazz
from the 1980s (which combines funk
and hip-hop elements), and nu jazz
in the 1990s.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
communities in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. It was born out of a mix 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
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, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue note
Blue note
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...
s, improvisation
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...
, polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
s, syncopation
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 but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
, call-response, and the swung note.
The word "jazz"
Jazz (word)
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...
(in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast
West Coast of the United States
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. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland
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.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
dating from the early 1910s, big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
from the mid-1940s, free 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...
and a variety of Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
fusions
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, such as Afro-Cuban
Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz is an early form of Latin jazz that mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with harmonies and musical timbre typical of Bebop. It was developed in the early 1940s by both Cuban musicians and Jazz musicians, with Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauza, Machito and Stan Kenton among some of the most notable...
, from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
from the 1970s, acid jazz
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...
from the 1980s (which combines funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, 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...
and hip-hop elements), and nu jazz
Nu jazz
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...
in the 1990s.
Discussions
Quotations
"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."
Duke Ellington
"Jazz is the false liquidation of art—instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture."
Theodor Adorno, quoted in The Sociology of Rock by Simon Frith, 1978. ISBN 0094602204.
"Jazz is something Negroes invented, and it said the most profound things—not only about us and the way we look at things, but about what modern democratic life is really about. It is the nobility of the race put into sound ... jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping. It is the hardest music to play that I know of, and it is the highest rendition of individual emotion in the history of Western music."
Wynton Marsalis
"There is nothing but jazz."
Konrad Stragier in a poem
"Jazz is not a 'form' but a collection of tags and tricks."
Ernest Newman. The Sunday Times, "The World of Music", 4 September 1927.
"If you have to ask, you'll never know."
Louis Armstrong when asked to define the rhythmic concept of "swing", quoted in Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz by John F. Szwed, 2000. ISBN 0786884967.
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."
Lyric from Frank Zappa's "Be-Bop Tango"
"Music is a journey. Jazz is getting lost."
John O'Farrell 'The Best a Man Can Get' (1999)
"Jazz is sex."
Katherine Boeyen (2007 Midnight Jazz Project)
Encyclopedia
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American
communities in the Southern United States
. It was born out of a mix 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
. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue note
s, improvisation
, polyrhythm
s, syncopation
, call-response, and the swung note.
The word "jazz"
(in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast
slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland
dating from the early 1910s, big band
-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop
from the mid-1940s, free jazz
and a variety of Latin jazz
fusions
, such as Afro-Cuban
, from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion
from the 1970s, acid jazz
from the 1980s (which combines funk
and hip-hop elements), and nu jazz
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.
marches to the present day. 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. 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
'", "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".
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". 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”. In a 1988 interview, trombonist J.J. Johnson said, "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will".
While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation
is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues
was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response
pattern, a common element in the African American
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
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. The jazz soloist is supported by a rhythm section
who "comp", by playing chords and rhythms that outline the song structure and complement the soloist. 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
and the improviser'.
In New Orleans and Dixieland
jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised countermelodies. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangement
s were either written
or learned by ear and memorized—many early jazz performers could not read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these arrangements. Later, in bebop
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. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz
abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression
, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The avant-garde
and free jazz
idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.
summed it up by saying, "It's all music." Some critics have even stated that Ellington's music was not jazz because it was arranged and orchestrated. On the other hand Ellington's friend Earl Hines
'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."
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". 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 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.
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. The word began as West Coast slang
around 1912, the meaning of which varied but did not refer to music or sex. The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune
. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans appears in a November 14, 1916 Times-Picayune article about "jas bands."
The word jazz makes one of its earliest appearances in San Francisco baseball writing in 1913. 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. 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.
By 1808 the Atlantic slave trade
had brought almost half a million Africa
ns to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa
and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them. Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square
, in New Orleans until 1843; there were similar gatherings in New England
and New York
. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work song
s and field holler
s. The African tradition made use of a single-line melody and call-and-response
pattern, but without the European concept of harmony. Rhythms reflected African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led to blue note
s in blues and jazz.
In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin
, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk
dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show
performers in blackface
popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation
with European harmonic accompaniment. Louis Moreau Gottschalk
adapted African-American cakewalk music, South American, Caribbean and other slave melodies as piano salon music. Another influence came from black slaves who had learned the harmonic style of hymn
s and incorporated it into their own music as spirituals. The origins of the blues
are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. Paul Oliver
has drawn attention to similarities in instruments, music and social function to the griot
s of the West African savannah
.
The abolition of slavery led to new opportunities for the education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide "low-class" entertainment in dances, minstrel show
s, and in vaudeville
, by which many marching bands formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime
developed.
Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African American musicians such as the entertainer Ernest Hogan
, whose hit songs appeared in 1895; two years later Vess Ossman
recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo
solo "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William H. Krell
published his "Mississippi Rag" as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin
published his Harlem Rag, that was the first rag published by an African-American. The classically trained pianist Scott Joplin
and the acknowledged "king of ragtime" produced his "Original Rags" in the following year, then in 1899 had an international hit with "Maple Leaf Rag
". He wrote numerous popular rags, including, "The Entertainer
", combining syncopation, banjo figurations and sometimes call-and-response, which led to the ragtime idiom being taken up by classical composers including Claude Debussy
and Igor Stravinsky
. Blues
music was published and popularized by W. C. Handy
, whose "Memphis Blues
" of 1912 and "St. Louis Blues" of 1914 both became jazz standard
s.
had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. Many early jazz performers played in venues throughout the city; the brothels and bars of the red-light district
around Basin Street
, called "Storyville
". was only one of numerous neighborhoods relevant to the early days of New Orleans jazz. In addition to dance bands, numerous marching bands played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American and European American community. The instruments used in marching band
s and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands mixing self-taught and well educated African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from around 1914 on, Afro-Creole
and African American musicians playing in vaudeville
shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.
The cornet
ist Buddy Bolden
led a band often mentioned as one of the prime movers of the style later to be called "jazz". He played in New Orleans around 1895–1906. No recordings remain of Bolden. Several tunes from the Bolden band repertory, including "Buddy Bolden Blues", have been recorded by many other musicians. (Bolden became mentally ill and spent his later decades in a mental institution.)
Afro-Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton
began his career in Storyville. From 1904, he toured with vaudeville
shows around southern cities, also playing in Chicago
and New York
. His "Jelly Roll Blues
", which he composed around 1905, was published in 1915 as the first jazz arrangement in print, introducing more musicians to the New Orleans style.
In the northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe
's symphonic Clef Club
orchestra in New York
which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall
in 1912. The Baltimore
rag style of Eubie Blake
influenced James P. Johnson
's development of "Stride
" piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides the rhythm and bassline.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band
made the music's first recordings early in 1917, and their "Livery Stable Blues
" became the earliest released jazz record. That year numerous other bands made recordings featuring "jazz" in the title or band name, mostly ragtime or novelty records rather than jazz. In September 1917 W.C. Handy's Orchestra of Memphis recorded a cover version of "Livery Stable Blues." In February 1918 James Reese Europe
's "Hellfighters" infantry band took ragtime to Europe during World War I
, then on return recorded Dixieland standards including "Darktown Strutters' Ball
".
New Orleans brass bands are a lasting influence contributing horn players to the world of professional jazz with the distinct sound of the city while helping black children escape poverty. The leader of the Camelia Brass Band
, D'Jalma Ganier, taught Louis Armstrong
to play trumpet.
(from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies
becoming lively venues of the "Jazz Age
", an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes. Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring 20s. Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote “...it is not music at all. It’s merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion.”
Even the media began to denigrate jazz. The New York Times took stories and altered headlines to pick at Jazz. For instance, villagers used pots and pans in Siberia to scare off bears, and the newspaper stated that it was Jazz that scared the bears away. Another story claims that Jazz caused the death of a celebrated conductor. The actual cause of death was a fatal heart attack (natural cause).
From 1919 Kid Ory
's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles
where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings. However, the main centre developing the new "Hot Jazz" was Chicago
, where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson. That year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith
, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers.
Bix Beiderbecke
formed The Wolverines in 1924. Also in 1924 Louis Armstrong
joined the Fletcher Henderson
dance band as featured soloist for a year, then formed his virtuosic Hot Five
band, also popularizing scat singing
. Jelly Roll Morton
recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings
in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers
. There was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette
's orchestra and Paul Whiteman
's orchestra. In 1924 Whiteman commissioned Gershwin
's Rhapsody in Blue
, which was premièred by Whiteman's Orchestra. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson
's band, Duke Ellington
's band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club
in 1927) in New York, and Earl Hines
's Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928). All significantly influenced the development of big band-style swing jazz.
s, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie
, Cab Calloway
, Jimmy
and Tommy Dorsey
, Duke Ellington
, Benny Goodman
, Fletcher Henderson
, Earl Hines
, Glenn Miller
and Artie Shaw
.
Swing was also dance music. It was broadcast on the radio 'live' nightly across America for many years especially by Hines and his Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra broadcasting coast-to-coast from Chicago, well placed for 'live' time-zones. Although it was a collective sound, swing also offered individual musicians a chance to 'solo' and improvise melodic, thematic solos which could at times be very complex and 'important' music.
Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians and black bandleaders white ones. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman
hired pianist Teddy Wilson
, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton
and guitarist Charlie Christian
to join small groups. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues
used small combos, uptempo music, and blues chord progressions. Jump blues drew on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. Kansas City Jazz
in the 1930s as exemplified by tenor saxophonist Lester Young
marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s.
which began in 1934. Belgian guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt
popularized gypsy jazz
, a mix of 1930s American swing, French dance hall "musette
" and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel. The main instruments are steel stringed guitar, violin
, and double bass
. Solos pass from one player to another as the guitar and bass play the role of the rhythm section
. Some music researchers hold that it was Philadelphia's Eddie Lang
and Joe Venuti who pioneered the guitar-violin partnership typical of the genre, which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records
in the late 1920s.
" music, harkening back to the original contrapuntal
New Orleans style. This was driven in large part by record company reissues of early jazz classics by the Oliver, Morton, and Armstrong bands of the 1930s. There were two populations of musicians involved in the revival. One group consisted of players who had begun their careers playing in the traditional style, and were either returning to it, or continuing what they had been playing all along, such as Bob Crosby
's Bobcats, Max Kaminsky
, Eddie Condon
, and Wild Bill Davison
. Most of this group were originally Midwesterners, although there were a small number of New Orleans musicians involved. The second population of revivalists consisted of young musicians such as the Lu Watters
band. By the late 1940s, Louis Armstrong
's Allstars band became a leading ensemble. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Dixieland was one of the most commercially popular jazz styles in the US, Europe, and Japan, although critics paid little attention to it.
and dissonance
into jazz; the dissonant tritone
(or "flatted fifth") interval became the "most important interval of bebop" and players engaged in a more abstracted form of chord-based improvisation which used "passing" chords, substitute chords, and altered chord
s. The style of drumming shifted as well to a more elusive and explosive style, in which the ride cymbal
was used to keep time, while the snare and bass drum were used for accents.
These divergences from the jazz mainstream of the time initially met with a divided, sometimes hostile response among fans and fellow musicians, especially established swing players, who bristled at the new harmonic sounds. To hostile critics, bebop seemed to be filled with "racing, nervous phrases". Despite the initial friction, by the 1950s bebop had become an accepted part of the jazz vocabulary. The most influential bebop musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker
, pianists Bud Powell
and Thelonious Monk
, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie
and Clifford Brown
, and drummer Max Roach
.
, which favoured long, linear melodic lines. It emerged in New York City
, as a result of the mixture of the styles of predominantly white jazz musicians and black bebop musicians, and it dominated jazz in the first half of the 1950s. The starting point were a series of singles
on Capitol Records
in 1949 and 1950 of a nonet
led by trumpeter Miles Davis
, collected and released first on a ten-inch and later a twelve-inch as the Birth of the Cool
. Cool jazz recordings by Chet Baker
, Dave Brubeck
, Bill Evans
, Gil Evans
, Stan Getz
and the Modern Jazz Quartet
usually have a "lighter" sound which avoided the aggressive tempos and harmonic abstraction of bebop. Cool jazz later became strongly identified with the West Coast jazz
scene, but also had a particular resonance in Europe, especially Scandinavia, with emergence of such major figures as baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin
and pianist Bengt Hallberg
. The theoretical underpinnings of cool jazz were set out by the blind Chicago pianist Lennie Tristano
, and its influence stretches into such later developments as Bossa nova
, modal jazz, and even free jazz. See also the List of Cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians for further detail.
, gospel music
, and blues
, especially in the saxophone
and piano
playing. Hard bop was developed in the mid-1950s, partly in response to the vogue for cool jazz
in the early 1950s. The hard bop style coalesced in 1953 and 1954, paralleling the rise of rhythm and blues. Miles Davis
' performance of "Walkin' ", the title track of his album
of the same year, at the very first Newport Jazz Festival
in 1954, announced the style to the jazz world. The quintet Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, fronted by Blakey
and featuring pianist Horace Silver
and trumpeter Clifford Brown
, were leaders in the hard bop movement along with Davis.
, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Previously, the goal of the soloist was to play a solo that fit into a given chord progression
. However, with modal jazz, the soloist creates a melody using one or a small number of modes. The emphasis in this approach shifts from harmony to melody. The modal theory stems from a work by George Russell, but again Miles Davis
unveiled this shift to the rest of the jazz world with Kind of Blue
, an exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz and the best selling jazz album of all time. Other innovators in this style include Jackie McLean
, John Coltrane
and Bill Evans
, also present on Kind of Blue, as well as later musicians such as Herbie Hancock
.
Free jazz
and the related form of avant-garde jazz
broke through into an open space of "free tonality" in which meter, beat, and formal symmetry all disappeared, and a range of World music
from India, Africa, and Arabia were melded into an intense, even religiously ecstatic or orgiastic style of playing. While loosely inspired by bebop, free jazz tunes gave players much more latitude; the loose harmony
and tempo
was deemed controversial when this approach was first developed. The bassist Charles Mingus
is also frequently associated with the avant-garde in jazz, although his compositions draw from myriad styles and genres. The first major stirrings came in the 1950s, with the early work of Ornette Coleman
and Cecil Taylor
. In the 1960s, performers included John Coltrane
, Archie Shepp
, Sun Ra
, Albert Ayler
, Pharoah Sanders
, and others. Free jazz quickly found a foothold in Europe in part because musicians such as Ayler, Taylor, Steve Lacy
and Eric Dolphy
spent extended periods in Europe. A distinctive European contemporary jazz (often incorporating elements of free jazz but not limited to it) flourished also because of the emergence of musicians (such as John Surman
, Zbigniew Namyslowski
, Albert Mangelsdorff
, Kenny Wheeler
and Mike Westbrook
) anxious to develop new approaches reflecting their national and regional musical cultures and contexts. Keith Jarrett
has been prominent in defending free jazz from criticism by traditionalists in the 1990s and 2000s.
, timbales
, güiro
, and claves
, with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments (piano, double bass, etc.). There are two main varieties: Afro-Cuban jazz
was played in the US right after the bebop period, while became more popular in the 1960s. Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement in the mid-1950s as bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie
and Billy Taylor
started Afro-Cuban bands influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Xavier Cugat
, Tito Puente
and Arturo Sandoval
. Brazilian jazz such as bossa nova
is derived from samba
, with influences from jazz and other 20th century classical and popular music styles. Bossa is generally moderately paced, with melodies sung in Portuguese or English. The style was pioneered by Brazilians João Gilberto
and Antônio Carlos Jobim
. The related term jazz-samba describes an adaptation of bossa nova compositions to the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz
and Charlie Byrd
.
Bossa nova
was made popular by Elizete Cardoso
's recording of Chega de Saudade on the Canção do Amor Demais
LP
, composed by Vinícius de Moraes (lyrics) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (music). The initial releases by Gilberto and the 1959 film Black Orpheus
brought significant popularity in Brazil
and elsewhere in Latin America
, which spread to North America via visiting American jazz musicians. The resulting recordings by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz cemented its popularity and led to a worldwide boom with 1963's Getz/Gilberto
, numerous recordings by famous jazz performers such as Ella Fitzgerald
(Ella Abraça Jobim
) and Frank Sinatra
(Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim
) and the entrenchment of the bossa nova style as a lasting influence in world music for several decades and even up to the present.
, Miles Davis
, Bill Evans
, Charles Mingus
, Wayne Shorter
and Herbie Hancock
. Generally, the term post-bop is taken to mean jazz from the mid-sixties onward that assimilates influence from hard bop
, modal jazz
, the avant-garde
, and free jazz
, without necessarily being immediately identifiable as any of the above.
Much "post-bop" was recorded on Blue Note Records
. Key albums include Speak No Evil
by Wayne Shorter
; The Real McCoy
by McCoy Tyner
; Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock
; Miles Smiles
by Miles Davis; and Search for the New Land
by Lee Morgan
(an artist not typically associated with the post-bop genre). Most post-bop artists worked in other genres as well, with a particularly strong overlap with later hard bop
.
which incorporated strong influences from blues
, gospel
and rhythm and blues
in music for small groups, often the organ trio
, which partnered a Hammond organ
player with a drummer and a tenor saxophonist. Unlike hard bop
, soul jazz generally emphasized repetitive grooves and melodic hooks, and improvisation
s were often less complex than in other jazz styles. Horace Silver
had a large influence on the soul jazz style, with songs that used funky and often gospel
-based piano vamps. It often had a steadier "funk" style groove, different from the swing rhythms typical of much hard bop. Important soul jazz organists included Jimmy McGriff
and Jimmy Smith
and Johnny Hammond Smith, and influential tenor saxophone
players included Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Stanley Turrentine
. (See also List of soul-jazz musicians.)
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion
was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix
. All Music Guide states that "..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate." However, "...as rock became more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop
and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music
, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces." Miles Davis made the breakthrough into fusion in 1970 with his album Bitches Brew
. Musicians who worked with Davis formed the four most influential fusion groups: Weather Report
and Mahavishnu Orchestra emerged in 1971 and were soon followed by Return to Forever
and The Headhunters
. Although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of jazz's significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hard bop scene into fusion. Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd time signatures, syncopation, complex chords and harmonies. In addition to using the electric instruments of rock, such as the electric guitar, electric bass, electric piano and synthesizer keyboards, fusion also used the powerful amplification, "fuzz" pedals, wah-wah pedal
s, and other effects used by 1970s-era rock bands. Notable performers of jazz fusion included Miles Davis
, keyboardists Joe Zawinul
, Chick Corea
, Herbie Hancock
, vibraphonist Gary Burton
, drummer Tony Williams, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty
, guitarists Larry Coryell
, Al Di Meola
, John McLaughlin
and Frank Zappa
, saxophonist Wayne Shorter
and bassists Jaco Pastorius
and Stanley Clarke
. Jazz fusion was also popular in Japan where the band Casiopea
released over thirty fusion albums.
In the twenty-first century, almost all jazz has influences from other nations and styles of music, making jazz fusion as much a common practice as style. The host of a progressive radio
jazz program, Passport to Modern Jazz on KRVS-FM, D'Jalma Garnier
, plays New Orleans jazz from all periods, as well as latest contemporary and avant-garde
, like the Bulgaria
n wedding band Ivo Papasov that successfully fuses Bulgarian folk using the kaval
with American free jazz instrumentation and riffs.
(groove), electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers. The integration of Funk
, Soul
and R&B
music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is indeed quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riff
s and jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
At the jazz end of the spectrum, jazz-funk characteristics include a departure from ternary rhythm (near-triplet), i.e. the "swing", to the more danceable and unfamiliar binary rhythm, known as the "groove". Jazz-funk also draws influences from traditional African music, Latin American
rhythms and Jamaican reggae
, most notably Kingston band leader Sonny Bradshaw
. A second characteristic of jazz-funk music is the use of electric instruments, and the first use of analogue electronic instruments notably by Herbie Hancock
, whose jazz-funk period saw him surrounded on stage or in the studio by several Moog synthesizer
s. The ARP Odyssey
, ARP String Ensemble
and Hohner D6 Clavinet
also became popular at the time. A third feature is the shift of proportions between composition and improvisation. Arrangements, melody and overall writing were heavily emphasized.
and Black nationalist
period of the early 1970s. Musicians such as Pharoah Sanders
, Hubert Laws
and Wayne Shorter
began using African instruments such as kalimbas, cowbells, beaded gourds and other instruments not traditional to jazz. Musicians began improvising jazz tunes on unusual instruments, such as the jazz harp
(Alice Coltrane
), electrically amplified and wah-wah pedaled jazz violin (Jean-Luc Ponty
), and even bagpipes (Rufus Harley
). Jazz continued to expand and change, influenced by other types of music, such as world music
, avant garde classical music
, and rock and pop music. Guitarist John McLaughlin
's Mahavishnu Orchestra played a mix of rock and jazz infused with East Indian
influences. The ECM
record label began in Germany in the 1970s with artists including Keith Jarrett
, Paul Bley
, the Pat Metheny Group
, Jan Garbarek
, Ralph Towner
, Kenny Wheeler
, John Taylor
, John Surman
and Eberhard Weber
, establishing a new chamber music
aesthetic, featuring mainly acoustic instruments, and sometimes incorporating elements of world music
and folk music
.
styles. Wynton Marsalis
strove to create music within what he believed was the tradition, creating extensions of small and large forms initially pioneered by such artists as Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington
. In the 2000s, straight-ahead jazz
continues to appeal to a core group of listeners. Well-established jazz musicians, such as Dave Brubeck
, Wynton Marsalis
, Sonny Rollins
, Wayne Shorter
and Jessica Williams
continue to perform and record. In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of young musicians emerged, including US pianists Brad Mehldau
, Jason Moran
and Vijay Iyer
, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel
, vibraphonist Stefon Harris
, trumpeters Roy Hargrove
and Terence Blanchard
, saxophonists Chris Potter
and Joshua Redman
and bassist Christian McBride
.
In the United States, several musicians and groups explored the more experimental end of the spectrum, including trumpeters Rob Mazurek
and Cuong Vu
, saxophonist Ken Vandermark
, guitarist Nels Cline
, bassist Todd Sickafoose
, keyboardist Craig Taborn
, drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, guitarist John Scofield
and the groups Medeski Martin & Wood
and The Bad Plus
. Outside of the US, the Swedish group E.S.T.
and British groups Acoustic Ladyland
, Led Bib
and Polar Bear
gained popularity with their progressive takes on jazz. A number of new vocalists have achieved popularity with a mix of traditional jazz and pop/rock forms, such as Diana Krall
, Norah Jones
, Cassandra Wilson
, Kurt Elling
and Jamie Cullum
.
, Kenny G
, Kirk Whalum
, Boney James
and David Sanborn
. Smooth jazz received frequent airplay with more straight-ahead jazz in "quiet storm
" time slots at radio stations in urban markets across the U.S., helping to establish or bolster the careers of vocalists including Al Jarreau
, Anita Baker
, Chaka Khan
and Sade
. In this same time period Chaka Khan released Echoes of an Era
, which featured Joe Henderson
, Freddie Hubbard
, Chick Corea
, Stanley Clarke
and Lenny White
. She also released the song "And the Melody Still Lingers On (Night in Tunisia)" with Dizzy Gillespie
reviving the solo break from "Night in Tunisia".
In general, smooth jazz is downtempo (the most widely played tracks are in the 90–105 BPM range), layering a lead, melody-playing instrument (saxophone
s–especially soprano
and tenor
–are the most popular, with legato electric guitar
playing a close second) over a backdrop that typically consists of programmed electronic drum rhythms, synth pads and samples. In his Newsweek
article "The Problem With Jazz Criticism" Stanley Crouch
considers Miles Davis
' playing of fusion as a turning point that led to smooth jazz. In Aaron J. West's introduction to his analysis of smooth jazz, "Caught Between Jazz and Pop" he states,
developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and influenced by jazz-funk
and electronic dance music
. Jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers
and Donald Byrd
are often credited as forerunners of acid jazz. While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. Nu jazz
is influenced by jazz harmony and melodies, there are usually no improvisational aspects. It ranges from combining live instrumentation with beats of jazz house
, exemplified by St Germain
, Jazzanova
and Fila Brazillia
, to more band-based improvised jazz with electronic elements such as that of The Cinematic Orchestra
, Kobol
, and the Norwegian
"future jazz" style pioneered by Bugge Wesseltoft
, Jaga Jazzist
, Nils Petter Molvær
, and others. Nu jazz can be very experimental in nature and can vary widely in sound and concept.
Jazz rap
developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and incorporates jazz influence into hip hop
. In 1988, Gang Starr
released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie
's 1962 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic
released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith
. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy
(Wild Pitch
, 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues
, sampling Charlie Parker
and Ramsey Lewis
. Gang Starr also collaborated with Branford Marsalis
and Terence Blanchard
.Groups making up the collective known as the Native Tongues Posse
tended towards jazzy releases; these include the Jungle Brothers
' debut Straight Out the Jungle
(Warlock, 1988) and A Tribe Called Quest
's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
(Jive
, 1990) and The Low End Theory
(Jive, 1991). The Low End Theory has become one of hip hop's most acclaimed albums, and earned praise too from jazz bassist Ron Carter
, who played double bass on one track. Rap duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth
incorporated jazz influences on their 1992 debut Mecca and the Soul Brother
. Beginning in 1993, rapper Guru
's Jazzmatazz
series used jazz musicians during the studio recordings. Though jazz rap had achieved little mainstream success, jazz legend Miles Davis
' final album (released posthumously in 1992), Doo-Bop
, was based around hip hop beats and collaborations with producer Easy Mo Bee
. Davis' ex-bandmate Herbie Hancock
returned to hip hop influences in the mid-nineties, releasing the album Dis Is Da Drum in 1994.
The relaxation of orthodoxy concurrent with post-punk
in London and New York City led to a new appreciation for jazz. In London, the Pop Group
began to mix free jazz, along with dub reggae, into their brand of punk rock. In NYC, No Wave
took direct inspiration from both free jazz and punk. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch
's Queen of Siam, the work of James Chance and the Contortions
, who mixed Soul
with free jazz
and punk
, Gray, and the Lounge Lizards, who were the first group to call themselves "punk jazz
".
John Zorn
began to make note of the emphasis on speed and dissonance that was becoming prevalent in punk rock and incorporated this into free jazz. This began in 1986 with the album Spy vs. Spy
, a collection of Ornette Coleman
tunes done in the contemporary thrashcore
style. The same year, Sonny Sharrock
, Peter Brötzmann
, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson
recorded the first album under the name Last Exit, a similarly aggressive blend of thrash and free jazz. These developments are the origins of jazzcore, the fusion of free jazz with hardcore punk.
In the 1990s, punk jazz and jazzcore began to reflect the increasing awareness of elements of extreme metal
(particularly thrash metal
and death metal
) in hardcore punk. A new style of "metallic jazzcore" was developed by Iceburn
, from Salt Lake City, and Candiria
, from New York City, though anticipated by Naked City and Pain Killer. This tendency also takes inspiration from jazz inflections in technical death metal
, such as the work of Cynic
and Atheist
.
, Graham Haynes
, Cassandra Wilson
, Geri Allen
, Greg Osby
etc.) who emerged in New York with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression. With a strong foothold as well as in the tradition represented by Charlie Parker
and John Coltrane
as in contemporary African-American groove music and with a high degree of musical skills, the saxophonists Steve Coleman
, Greg Osby
, and Gary Thomas
developed unique and complex, nevertheless grooving musical languages. In the 1990s most participants of the M-Base movement turned to more conventional music but Steve Coleman
, the most active participant, continued developing his music in accordance with the M-Base concept. In a long research process he developed a philosophical and spiritual concept connecting with certain cultural efforts that express fundamental aspects of nature and human existence in a holistic way. Steve Coleman
found these efforts all over the world and they reach far back into ancient times. Thus, he gave his music a specific meaning which is similar to the intentions of religious music, of European composers like J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven
, as well as of musicians in the tradition represented by John Coltrane
. In accordance to this spiritual perspective, Coleman’s music became rather advanced in several aspects. His audience decreased a bit but his music and concepts have been a heavy influence on many musicians - both in terms of music-technique and of the music’s meaning. Hence, “M-Base” changed from a movement of a loose collective of young musicians to a kind of informal Steve Coleman
“school” with a much advanced but already originally implied concept.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
communities in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. It was born out of a mix 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
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, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue note
Blue note
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...
s, improvisation
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...
, polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
s, syncopation
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 but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
, call-response, and the swung note.
The word "jazz"
Jazz (word)
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...
(in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast
West Coast of the United States
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. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland
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.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
dating from the early 1910s, big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
from the mid-1940s, free 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...
and a variety of Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
fusions
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, such as Afro-Cuban
Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz is an early form of Latin jazz that mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with harmonies and musical timbre typical of Bebop. It was developed in the early 1940s by both Cuban musicians and Jazz musicians, with Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauza, Machito and Stan Kenton among some of the most notable...
, from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
from the 1970s, acid jazz
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...
from the 1980s (which combines funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, 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...
and hip-hop elements), and nu jazz
Nu jazz
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...
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 difficult to define because it spans from RagtimeRagtime
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...
marches to the present day. 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. 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
Swing (jazz performance style)
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...
'", "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".
While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation
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...
is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily 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...
was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response
Call and response (music)
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...
pattern, a common element in the African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
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
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 11th century to present times...
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. The jazz soloist is supported by a rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...
who "comp", by playing chords and rhythms that outline the song structure and complement the soloist. 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
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...
and the improviser'.
In New Orleans and Dixieland
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.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised countermelodies. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangement
Arrangement
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...
s were either written
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; 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...
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
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
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. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz
Modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late 1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is characterized by Miles Davis's "Milestones" Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performers include...
abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The avant-garde
Avant-garde jazz
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 ...
and free 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...
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. 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 EllingtonDuke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
summed it up by saying, "It's all music." Some critics have even stated that Ellington's music was not jazz because it was arranged and orchestrated. On the other hand Ellington's friend Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
'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."
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". 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 jazz critic Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic, author, and director, best known for his longtime work with The Village Voice. Born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College, Iowa, in 1970...
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.
Etymology of "Jazz"
The origin of the word jazz is one of the most sought-after word originsEtymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
in modern American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
. The word's intrinsic interest—the American Dialect Society
American Dialect Society
The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society publishes the academic journal, American Speech...
named it the Word of the Twentieth Century
Word of the year
The word of the year, sometimes capitalized as Word of the Year and abbreviated WOTY or WotY, refers to any of various assessments as to the most important word or expression in the public sphere during a specific year....
—has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. The word began as West Coast slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
around 1912, the meaning of which varied but did not refer to music or sex. The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans appears in a November 14, 1916 Times-Picayune article about "jas bands."
The word jazz makes one of its earliest appearances in San Francisco baseball writing in 1913. 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. 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.
Origins
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
had brought almost half a million Africa
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...
ns to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them. Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square
Congo Square
Congo Square is an open space within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street north of the French Quarter. The Tremé neighborhood is famous for its history of African American music....
, in New Orleans until 1843; there were similar gatherings in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work song
Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....
s and field holler
Field holler
Field Hollers as well as work songs were African American styles of music from before the American Civil War, this style of music is closely related to spirituals in the sense that it expressed religious feelings and included subtle hints about ways of escaping slavery, among other things...
s. The African tradition made use of a single-line melody and call-and-response
Call and response (music)
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...
pattern, but without the European concept of harmony. Rhythms reflected African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led to blue note
Blue note
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...
s in blues and jazz.
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk
Cakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
performers in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation
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 but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
with European harmonic accompaniment. Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works...
adapted African-American cakewalk music, South American, Caribbean and other slave melodies as piano salon music. Another influence came from black slaves who had learned the harmonic style of hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s and incorporated it into their own music as spirituals. The origins of the blues
Origins of the blues
Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. No specific year can be cited as the origin of the blues, largely because the style evolved over a long period of time and existed in approaching its modern form before the term blues was introduced, before the...
are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. Paul Oliver
Paul Oliver
-Biography:Oliver was a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development , and from 1978-88 was Associate Head of the School of Architecture. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Gloucestershire...
has drawn attention to similarities in instruments, music and social function to the griot
Griot
A griot or jeli is a West African storyteller. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards...
s of the West African savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
.
Ragtime
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s, and in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
, by which many marching bands formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime
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...
developed.
Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African American musicians such as the entertainer Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan was the first African American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show and helped create the musical genre of ragtime....
, whose hit songs appeared in 1895; two years later Vess Ossman
Vess Ossman
Vess Ossman was a leading 5-string banjoist and popular recording artist of the early 20th century.-Biography:...
recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
solo "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William H. Krell
William Krell
William Henry Krell composed what is regarded as the first rag or ragtime composition in 1897 called Mississippi Rag, published in New York by S. Brainard's Sons and copyrighted on January 27, 1897...
published his "Mississippi Rag" as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin
Tom Turpin
Thomas Million John Turpin was an African-American composer of ragtime music.Tom Turpin was born in Savannah, Georgia, a son of John L. Turpin and Lulu Waters Turpin. In his early twenties he opened a saloon in St...
published his Harlem Rag, that was the first rag published by an African-American. The classically trained pianist Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
and the acknowledged "king of ragtime" produced his "Original Rags" in the following year, then in 1899 had an international hit with "Maple Leaf Rag
Maple Leaf Rag
The "Maple Leaf Rag" is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. As a result Joplin was called the "King...
". He wrote numerous popular rags, including, "The Entertainer
The Entertainer (rag)
"The Entertainer" is sub-titled "A rag time two step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.Its structure is: Intro AA BB A CC Intro2 DD....
", combining syncopation, banjo figurations and sometimes call-and-response, which led to the ragtime idiom being taken up by classical composers including Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
and Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
. Blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily 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...
music was published and popularized by W. C. Handy
W. C. Handy
William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....
, whose "Memphis Blues
The Memphis Blues
"The Memphis Blues" is a song described by its composer, W.C. Handy, as a "Southern Rag." It was self-published by Handy in September, 1912 and has been recorded by many artists over the years.-"Mr. Crump":...
" of 1912 and "St. Louis Blues" of 1914 both became jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
s.
New Orleans music
The music of New OrleansMusic of New Orleans
The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has...
had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. Many early jazz performers played in venues throughout the city; the brothels and bars of the red-light district
Red-light district
A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
around Basin Street
Basin Street
Basin Street or Rue Basin in French, is a street in New Orleans, Louisiana. It parallels Rampart Street one block lakeside, or inland, from the boundary of the French Quarter, running from Canal Street down 5 blocks past Saint Louis Cemetery...
, called "Storyville
Storyville
Storyville was the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1897 through 1917. Locals usually simply referred to the area as The District.-History:...
". was only one of numerous neighborhoods relevant to the early days of New Orleans jazz. In addition to dance bands, numerous marching bands played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American and European American community. The instruments used in marching band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
s and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands mixing self-taught and well educated African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from around 1914 on, Afro-Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
and African American musicians playing in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
ist Buddy Bolden
Buddy Bolden
Charles "Buddy" Bolden was an African American cornetist and is regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of rag-time music which later came to be known as jazz.- Life :...
led a band often mentioned as one of the prime movers of the style later to be called "jazz". He played in New Orleans around 1895–1906. No recordings remain of Bolden. Several tunes from the Bolden band repertory, including "Buddy Bolden Blues", have been recorded by many other musicians. (Bolden became mentally ill and spent his later decades in a mental institution.)
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
began his career in Storyville. From 1904, he toured with vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
shows around southern cities, also playing in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. His "Jelly Roll Blues
Jelly Roll Blues
"Original Jelly Roll Blues," usually shortened to and known as "Jelly Roll Blues," is an early jazz fox-trot composed by Jelly Roll Morton. He recorded it first as a piano solo in Richmond, Indiana, in 1924, and then with his Red Hot Peppers in Chicago two years later, titled as it was originally...
", which he composed around 1905, was published in 1915 as the first jazz arrangement in print, introducing more musicians to the New Orleans style.
In the northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African American music scene of New York City in the 1910s.-Biography:...
's symphonic Clef Club
Clef Club
The Clef Club was a popular entertainment venue and society for African American musicians in Harlem, achieving its largest success in the 1910s. Incorporated by James Reese Europe in 1910, it was a combination musicians' hangout, fraternity club, labor exchange, and concert hall, across the street...
orchestra in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in 1912. The Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
rag style of Eubie Blake
Eubie Blake
James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...
influenced James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson
James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...
's development of "Stride
Stride piano
Harlem Stride Piano, Stride Piano, or just Stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly in the New York, during 1920s and 1930s. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and...
" piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides the rhythm and bassline.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band
Original Dixieland Jass Band
The Original Dixieland Jass Band were a New Orleans, Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz single ever issued. The group composed and made the first recordings of many jazz standards, the most famous being Tiger Rag...
made the music's first recordings early in 1917, and their "Livery Stable Blues
Livery Stable Blues
"Livery Stable Blues" is a 1917 jazz composition copyrighted by Ray Lopez and Alcide Nunez. It was famously recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band on 26 February 1917 and, with the flip side "Dixie Jass Band One-Step" , became the first jazz recording ever released...
" became the earliest released jazz record. That year numerous other bands made recordings featuring "jazz" in the title or band name, mostly ragtime or novelty records rather than jazz. In September 1917 W.C. Handy's Orchestra of Memphis recorded a cover version of "Livery Stable Blues." In February 1918 James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African American music scene of New York City in the 1910s.-Biography:...
's "Hellfighters" infantry band took ragtime to Europe during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, then on return recorded Dixieland standards including "Darktown Strutters' Ball
Darktown Strutters' Ball
"Darktown Strutters' Ball" is a popular song by Shelton Brooks, published in 1917. The song has been recorded many times and is considered a popular and jazz standard....
".
New Orleans brass bands are a lasting influence contributing horn players to the world of professional jazz with the distinct sound of the city while helping black children escape poverty. The leader of the Camelia Brass Band
Camelia Brass Band
The Camelia Brass Band was a brass band from New Orleans, founded by Wooden Joe Nicholas around 1917 or 1918....
, D'Jalma Ganier, taught Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
to play trumpet.
The Jazz Age
Prohibition in the United StatesProhibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
(from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
becoming lively venues of the "Jazz Age
Jazz Age
The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
", an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes. Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring 20s. Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote “...it is not music at all. It’s merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion.”
Even the media began to denigrate jazz. The New York Times took stories and altered headlines to pick at Jazz. For instance, villagers used pots and pans in Siberia to scare off bears, and the newspaper stated that it was Jazz that scared the bears away. Another story claims that Jazz caused the death of a celebrated conductor. The actual cause of death was a fatal heart attack (natural cause).
From 1919 Kid Ory
Kid Ory
Edward "Kid" Ory was a jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born in Woodland Plantation near LaPlace, Louisiana.-Biography:...
's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings. However, the main centre developing the new "Hot Jazz" was Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson. That year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers.
Bix Beiderbecke
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...
formed The Wolverines in 1924. Also in 1924 Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
joined the Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
dance band as featured soloist for a year, then formed his virtuosic Hot Five
Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five
The Hot Five was Louis Armstrong's first jazz recording band led under his own name.It was a typical New Orleans jazz band in instrumentation, consisting of trumpet, clarinet, and trombone backed by a rhythm section...
band, also popularizing scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
. Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were one of the most influential jazz bands of the early-to-mid 1920s. The band was a combination of New Orleans and Chicago musicians who helped shape Chicago Jazz and influenced many younger jazz musicians....
in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers
Red Hot Peppers
Red Hot Peppers was a recording jazz band led by Jelly Roll Morton from 1926-1930. It was a seven- or eight-piece band formed in Chicago that recorded for Victor and featured the best New Orleans-style freelance musicians available, including cornetist George Mitchell, trombonist Kid Ory,...
. There was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette
Jean Goldkette
John Jean Goldkette was a jazz pianist and bandleader born in Patras, Greece. Goldkette spent his childhood in Greece and Russia, and emigrated to the United States in 1911....
's orchestra and Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
's orchestra. In 1924 Whiteman commissioned Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
, which was premièred by Whiteman's Orchestra. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
's band, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club
Cotton Club
The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem, New York City that operated during Prohibition that included jazz music. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith,...
in 1927) in New York, and Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
's Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928). All significantly influenced the development of big band-style swing jazz.
Swing
The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s, in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, Jimmy
Jimmy Dorsey
James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...
and Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
, Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
and Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....
.
Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians and black bandleaders white ones. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
hired pianist Teddy Wilson
Teddy Wilson
Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...
, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
and guitarist Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
to join small groups. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
used small combos, uptempo music, and blues chord progressions. Jump blues drew on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. Kansas City Jazz
Kansas City Jazz
Kansas City Jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri and the surrounding Kansas City Metropolitan Area during the 1930s and marked the transition from the structured big band style to the musical improvisation style of Bebop...
in the 1930s as exemplified by tenor saxophonist Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s.
Beginnings of European jazz
Outside of the United States the beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz emerged in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de FranceQuintette du Hot Club de France
Quintette du Hot Club de France was a jazz group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli, and active in one form or another until 1948....
which began in 1934. Belgian guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
popularized gypsy jazz
Gypsy jazz
Gypsy jazz is an idiom often said to have been started by guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in the 1930s. Because its origins are largely in France it is often called by the French name, "Jazz manouche," or alternatively, "manouche jazz," even in English language sources...
, a mix of 1930s American swing, French dance hall "musette
Bal-musette
Bal-musette is a style of French music and dance that first became popular in Paris in the 1880s.Auvergnats settled in large numbers in the 5th, 11th, and 12th districts of Paris during the 19th century, opening cafés and bars where patrons danced the bourrée to the accompaniment of musette de...
" and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel. The main instruments are steel stringed guitar, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. Solos pass from one player to another as the guitar and bass play the role of the rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...
. Some music researchers hold that it was Philadelphia's Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...
and Joe Venuti who pioneered the guitar-violin partnership typical of the genre, which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records
Okeh Records
Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...
in the late 1920s.
Dixieland revival
In the late 1940s there was a revival of "DixielandDixieland
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.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
" music, harkening back to the original contrapuntal
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
New Orleans style. This was driven in large part by record company reissues of early jazz classics by the Oliver, Morton, and Armstrong bands of the 1930s. There were two populations of musicians involved in the revival. One group consisted of players who had begun their careers playing in the traditional style, and were either returning to it, or continuing what they had been playing all along, such as Bob Crosby
Bob Crosby
George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:...
's Bobcats, Max Kaminsky
Max Kaminsky (musician)
Max Kaminsky was a jazz trumpeter and bandleader of his own orchestra .-Biography:Kaminsky was born in Brockton, Massachusetts...
, Eddie Condon
Eddie Condon
Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....
, and Wild Bill Davison
Wild Bill Davison
Wild' Bill Davison was a fiery jazz cornet player who emerged in the 1920s, but did not achieve recognition until the 1940s...
. Most of this group were originally Midwesterners, although there were a small number of New Orleans musicians involved. The second population of revivalists consisted of young musicians such as the Lu Watters
Lu Watters
Lucius "Lu" Watters was a trumpeter and bandleader of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band in the "West Coast revival" of Dixieland music...
band. By the late 1940s, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
's Allstars band became a leading ensemble. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Dixieland was one of the most commercially popular jazz styles in the US, Europe, and Japan, although critics paid little attention to it.
Bebop
In the early 1940s bebop performers helped to shift jazz from danceable popular music towards a more challenging "musician's music." Differing greatly from swing, early bebop divorced itself from dance music, establishing itself more as an art form but lessening its potential popular and commercial value. Since bebop was meant to be listened to, not danced to, it used faster tempos. Beboppers introduced new forms of chromaticismChromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
and dissonance
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
into jazz; the dissonant tritone
Tritone
In classical music from Western culture, the tritone |tone]]) is traditionally defined as a musical interval composed of three whole tones. In a chromatic scale, each whole tone can be further divided into two semitones...
(or "flatted fifth") interval became the "most important interval of bebop" and players engaged in a more abstracted form of chord-based improvisation which used "passing" chords, substitute chords, and altered chord
Altered chord
In music, an altered chord, an example of alteration, is a chord with one or more diatonic notes replaced by, or altered to, a neighboring pitch in the chromatic scale...
s. The style of drumming shifted as well to a more elusive and explosive style, in which the ride cymbal
Ride cymbal
The ride cymbal is a standard cymbal in most drum kits. It maintains a steady rhythmic pattern, sometimes called a ride pattern, rather than the accent of a crash...
was used to keep time, while the snare and bass drum were used for accents.
These divergences from the jazz mainstream of the time initially met with a divided, sometimes hostile response among fans and fellow musicians, especially established swing players, who bristled at the new harmonic sounds. To hostile critics, bebop seemed to be filled with "racing, nervous phrases". Despite the initial friction, by the 1950s bebop had become an accepted part of the jazz vocabulary. The most influential bebop musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, pianists Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, and drummer Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
.
Cool jazz
By the end of the 1940s, the nervous energy and tension of bebop was replaced with a tendency towards calm and smoothness, with the sounds of cool jazzCool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
, which favoured long, linear melodic lines. It emerged in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, as a result of the mixture of the styles of predominantly white jazz musicians and black bebop musicians, and it dominated jazz in the first half of the 1950s. The starting point were a series of singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
on Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
in 1949 and 1950 of a nonet
Nonet (music)
In music, a nonet is a composition which requires nine musicians for a performance, or a musical group that consists of nine people. The standard nonet scoring is for wind quintet, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass, though other combinations are also found...
led by trumpeter Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, collected and released first on a ten-inch and later a twelve-inch as the Birth of the Cool
Birth of the Cool
Birth of the Cool is a compilation album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 1957 on Capitol Records. It compiles twelve songs recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950...
. Cool jazz recordings by Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
, Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
and the Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Percy Heath , and Kenny Clarke . Connie Kay replaced Clarke in 1955...
usually have a "lighter" sound which avoided the aggressive tempos and harmonic abstraction of bebop. Cool jazz later became strongly identified with the West Coast jazz
West coast jazz
West Coast jazz refers to various styles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged,...
scene, but also had a particular resonance in Europe, especially Scandinavia, with emergence of such major figures as baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin
Lars Gullin
Lars Gunnar Victor Gullin was a Swedish jazz baritone saxophone player, occasional pianist and composer closest in playing style to United States Cool school players, with a full tone, but also a lightness uncommon with baritone saxophonists and an influence from Swedish folk music, which helps...
and pianist Bengt Hallberg
Bengt Hallberg
Bengt Hallberg is one of Sweden's most influential jazz musicians. He studied classical piano from a very early age, and at 13 years old he wrote his first jazz arrangement. In 1949 he recorded with the Swedish alto saxophonist Arne Domnérus for the first time, an association which has continued...
. The theoretical underpinnings of cool jazz were set out by the blind Chicago pianist Lennie Tristano
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...
, and its influence stretches into such later developments as Bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
, modal jazz, and even free jazz. See also the List of Cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians for further detail.
Hard bop
Hard bop is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music that incorporates influences from rhythm and bluesRhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
, gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily 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...
, especially in the saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
playing. Hard bop was developed in the mid-1950s, partly in response to the vogue for cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
in the early 1950s. The hard bop style coalesced in 1953 and 1954, paralleling the rise of rhythm and blues. Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
' performance of "Walkin' ", the title track of his album
Walkin'
-Performers:*Miles Davis - Trumpet*Lucky Thompson - Tenor saxophone *J. J. Johnson - Trombone *David Schildkraut - Alto saxophone *Horace Silver - Piano*Percy Heath - Bass*Kenny Clarke - drums...
of the same year, at the very first Newport Jazz Festival
Newport Jazz Festival
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the...
in 1954, announced the style to the jazz world. The quintet Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, fronted by Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
and featuring pianist Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
and trumpeter Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, were leaders in the hard bop movement along with Davis.
Modal jazz
Modal jazz is a development beginning in the later 1950s which takes the modeMusical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Previously, the goal of the soloist was to play a solo that fit into a given chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
. However, with modal jazz, the soloist creates a melody using one or a small number of modes. The emphasis in this approach shifts from harmony to melody. The modal theory stems from a work by George Russell, but again Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
unveiled this shift to the rest of the jazz world with Kind of Blue
Kind of Blue
Kind of Blue is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released August 17, 1959, on Columbia Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22, 1959...
, an exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz and the best selling jazz album of all time. Other innovators in this style include Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, also present on Kind of Blue, as well as later musicians such as Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
.
Free 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...
and the related form of avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz
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 ...
broke through into an open space of "free tonality" in which meter, beat, and formal symmetry all disappeared, and a range of World music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
from India, Africa, and Arabia were melded into an intense, even religiously ecstatic or orgiastic style of playing. While loosely inspired by bebop, free jazz tunes gave players much more latitude; the loose harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
and tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
was deemed controversial when this approach was first developed. The bassist Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
is also frequently associated with the avant-garde in jazz, although his compositions draw from myriad styles and genres. The first major stirrings came in the 1950s, with the early work of Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
and Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
. In the 1960s, performers included John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
, Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
, Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
, and others. Free jazz quickly found a foothold in Europe in part because musicians such as Ayler, Taylor, Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
and Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy
Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...
spent extended periods in Europe. A distinctive European contemporary jazz (often incorporating elements of free jazz but not limited to it) flourished also because of the emergence of musicians (such as John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
, Zbigniew Namyslowski
Zbigniew Namyslowski
Zbigniew Namysłowski is a Polish jazz alto saxophonist, flautist, cellist, trombonist, pianist and composer born in Warsaw, perhaps best-known for appearing on the Krzysztof Komeda album "Astigmatic"...
, Albert Mangelsdorff
Albert Mangelsdorff
Albert Mangelsdorff was one of the most accredited and innovative trombonists of modern jazz who became famous for his distinctive technique of playing multiphonics.-Biography:...
, Kenny Wheeler
Kenny Wheeler
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....
and Mike Westbrook
Mike Westbrook
Michael John David 'Mike' Westbrook is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces.-Early work:Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay...
) anxious to develop new approaches reflecting their national and regional musical cultures and contexts. Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
has been prominent in defending free jazz from criticism by traditionalists in the 1990s and 2000s.
Latin jazz
Latin jazz combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as congaConga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
, timbales
Timbales
Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...
, güiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
, and claves
Claves
Claves are a percussion instrument , consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone), consisting of a pair of short Claves (Anglicized pronunciation: clah-vays, IPA:[ˈklαves]) are a percussion instrument (idiophone),...
, with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments (piano, double bass, etc.). There are two main varieties: Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz
Afro-Cuban jazz is an early form of Latin jazz that mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with harmonies and musical timbre typical of Bebop. It was developed in the early 1940s by both Cuban musicians and Jazz musicians, with Dizzy Gillespie, Mario Bauza, Machito and Stan Kenton among some of the most notable...
was played in the US right after the bebop period, while became more popular in the 1960s. Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement in the mid-1950s as bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor
Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in...
started Afro-Cuban bands influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
, Tito Puente
Tito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...
and Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval
Arturo Sandoval is a jazz trumpeter and pianist. He was born in Artemisa, in the newest renamed Artemisa Province, Cuba....
. Brazilian jazz such as bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
is derived from samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
, with influences from jazz and other 20th century classical and popular music styles. Bossa is generally moderately paced, with melodies sung in Portuguese or English. The style was pioneered by Brazilians João Gilberto
João Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...
and Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
. The related term jazz-samba describes an adaptation of bossa nova compositions to the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
and Charlie Byrd
Charlie Byrd
Charlie Lee Byrd was a famous and versatile American guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia. His earliest and strongest musical influence was Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy guitarist. Byrd became the American guitarist who best understood and played Brazilian music, especially the Bossa Nova genre...
.
Bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
was made popular by Elizete Cardoso
Elizete Cardoso
Elizeth Moreira Cardoso , was a singer and actress of great renown in Brazil....
's recording of Chega de Saudade on the Canção do Amor Demais
Canção do Amor Demais
Elizete Cardoso's 1958 album Canção do Amor Demais is officially considered the first bossa nova album, mostly because it was the first time João Gilberto's guitar beat was heard. With all songs on the LP composed by Vinícius de Moraes and Antonio Carlos Jobim, it had an immense influence on the...
LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, composed by Vinícius de Moraes (lyrics) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (music). The initial releases by Gilberto and the 1959 film Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval...
brought significant popularity in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and elsewhere in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, which spread to North America via visiting American jazz musicians. The resulting recordings by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz cemented its popularity and led to a worldwide boom with 1963's Getz/Gilberto
Getz/Gilberto
Getz/Gilberto is a jazz bossa nova album released in 1964 by the American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, and featuring composer and pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim. Its release created a bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally...
, numerous recordings by famous jazz performers such as Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
(Ella Abraça Jobim
Ella Abraça Jobim
Ella Abraça Jobim or Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook is a 1981 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald, devoted to the songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim....
) and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
(Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim is a 1967 studio album by Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim.The tracks were arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman and his orchestra....
) and the entrenchment of the bossa nova style as a lasting influence in world music for several decades and even up to the present.
Post bop
Post-bop jazz is a form of small-combo jazz derived from earlier bop styles. The genre's origins lie in seminal work by John ColtraneJohn Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
and Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
. Generally, the term post-bop is taken to mean jazz from the mid-sixties onward that assimilates influence from hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
, modal jazz
Modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late 1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is characterized by Miles Davis's "Milestones" Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performers include...
, the avant-garde
Avant-garde jazz
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 ...
, and free 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...
, without necessarily being immediately identifiable as any of the above.
Much "post-bop" was recorded on Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
. Key albums include Speak No Evil
Speak No Evil
Speak No Evil was one of several albums Shorter recorded for Blue Note in 1964. At the same time, he was also active in Miles Davis's band, and so it is unlikely that Speak No Evil received any special attention at the time of its release. But the passage of time has led to the album being...
by Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
; The Real McCoy
The Real McCoy (album)
The Real McCoy is the seventh album by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner and his first released on the Blue Note label. It was recorded on April 21, 1967 following Tyner's departure from the John Coltrane Quartet and features performances by Tyner with Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones. Producer...
by McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
; Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
; Miles Smiles
Miles Smiles
Miles Smiles received general acclaim from jazz critics upon its release, receiving praise for its original compositions, the quintet's chemistry and playing, and Davis's phrasing. CODA editor John Norris praised the quintet's "mastery of sensitive interaction" and wrote that they "must be one of...
by Miles Davis; and Search for the New Land
Search for the New Land
Search for the New Land is an album by jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan. A hard bop set with a group of well-known jazz musicians, Search for the New Land was recorded before The Sidewinder was released and is considered more abstract than its popular predecessor...
by Lee Morgan
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...
(an artist not typically associated with the post-bop genre). Most post-bop artists worked in other genres as well, with a particularly strong overlap with later hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
.
Soul jazz
Soul jazz was a development of hard bopHard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
which incorporated strong influences from blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily 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...
, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
and rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
in music for small groups, often the organ trio
Organ trio
An organ trio, in a jazz context, is a group of three jazz musicians, typically consisting of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and either a jazz guitarist or a saxophone player. In some cases the saxophonist will join a trio which consists of an organist, guitarist, and drummer, making it a quartet...
, which partnered a Hammond organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
player with a drummer and a tenor saxophonist. Unlike hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
, soul jazz generally emphasized repetitive grooves and melodic hooks, and improvisation
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...
s were often less complex than in other jazz styles. Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
had a large influence on the soul jazz style, with songs that used funky and often gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
-based piano vamps. It often had a steadier "funk" style groove, different from the swing rhythms typical of much hard bop. Important soul jazz organists included Jimmy McGriff
Jimmy McGriff
James Harrell McGriff was an American hard bop and soul-jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who developed a distinctive style of playing the Hammond B-3 organ.-Early years and influences:...
and Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
and Johnny Hammond Smith, and influential tenor saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
players included Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Stanley Turrentine
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
. (See also List of soul-jazz musicians.)
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
. All Music Guide states that "..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate." However, "...as rock became more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music
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...
, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces." Miles Davis made the breakthrough into fusion in 1970 with his album Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...
. Musicians who worked with Davis formed the four most influential fusion groups: Weather Report
Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...
and Mahavishnu Orchestra emerged in 1971 and were soon followed by Return to Forever
Return to Forever
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...
and The Headhunters
The Headhunters
The Headhunters are an American jazz-funk fusion band, best known for their albums they recorded as a backing band of jazz keyboard player Herbie Hancock during the 1970s. Hancock's debut album with the group, Head Hunters, is one of the best-selling jazz/fusion records of all time.-History:Herbie...
. Although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of jazz's significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hard bop scene into fusion. Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd time signatures, syncopation, complex chords and harmonies. In addition to using the electric instruments of rock, such as the electric guitar, electric bass, electric piano and synthesizer keyboards, fusion also used the powerful amplification, "fuzz" pedals, wah-wah pedal
Wah-wah pedal
A wah-wah pedal is a type of guitar effects pedal that alters the tone of the signal to create a distinctive effect, mimicking the human voice...
s, and other effects used by 1970s-era rock bands. Notable performers of jazz fusion included Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, keyboardists Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, vibraphonist Gary Burton
Gary Burton
Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist.A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated...
, drummer Tony Williams, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...
, guitarists Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...
, Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola
Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...
, John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
and Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, saxophonist Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
and bassists Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....
and Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
. Jazz fusion was also popular in Japan where the band Casiopea
Casiopea
, named as a misspelling of the constellation Cassiopeia, was a Japanese jazz fusion band that was formed in 1976 by guitarist Issei Noro, bassist Tetsuo Sakurai and keyboardist Hidehiko Koike. In 1977, keyboardist Minoru Mukaiya and drummer Takashi Sasaki joined the group, leaving Hidehiko out of...
released over thirty fusion albums.
In the twenty-first century, almost all jazz has influences from other nations and styles of music, making jazz fusion as much a common practice as style. The host of a progressive radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
jazz program, Passport to Modern Jazz on KRVS-FM, D'Jalma Garnier
D'Jalma Garnier
D'Jalma Garnier III is a musician and composer best known for Creole and Cajun fiddle and "outside" musical compositions and collaborations with other artists....
, plays New Orleans jazz from all periods, as well as latest contemporary and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, like the Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n wedding band Ivo Papasov that successfully fuses Bulgarian folk using the kaval
Kaval
The kaval is a chromatic end-blown flute traditionally played throughout Azerbaijan, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, southern Serbia , northern Greece , Romania , and Armenia...
with American free jazz instrumentation and riffs.
Jazz funk
Developed by the mid-1970s, is characterized by a strong back beatBeat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
(groove), electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers. The integration of Funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, 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...
, Soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is indeed quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
s and jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
At the jazz end of the spectrum, jazz-funk characteristics include a departure from ternary rhythm (near-triplet), i.e. the "swing", to the more danceable and unfamiliar binary rhythm, known as the "groove". Jazz-funk also draws influences from traditional African music, Latin American
Latin American music
Latin American music, found within Central and South America, is a series of musical styles and genres that mixes influences from Spanish, African and indigenous sources, that has recently become very famous in the US.-Argentina:...
rhythms and Jamaican reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, most notably Kingston band leader Sonny Bradshaw
Sonny Bradshaw
Cecil "Sonny" Bradshaw C.D. , known as the "dean of Jamaican music", and the "musician's musician", was a Jamaican bandleader, trumpeter, broadcaster, and promoter who was a major figure in Jamaican music for more than sixty years.-Biography:Bradshaw was born in 1926 in Kingston, the only child of...
. A second characteristic of jazz-funk music is the use of electric instruments, and the first use of analogue electronic instruments notably by Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, whose jazz-funk period saw him surrounded on stage or in the studio by several Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
s. The ARP Odyssey
ARP Odyssey
The ARP Odyssey was an analog synthesizer introduced in 1972. Responding to pressure from Moog Music to create a portable, affordable "performance" synthesizer, ARP scaled down its popular 2600 synthesizer and created the Odyssey, which became the best-selling synthesizer they made.The Odyssey is...
, ARP String Ensemble
ARP String Ensemble
The ARP String Ensemble, also known as the Solina String Ensemble, is a fully polyphonic multi-orchestral ARP Instruments, Inc. synthesizer with a 49-key keyboard, produced by Solina from 1974 to 1981. The sounds it incorporates are violin, viola, trumpet, horn, cello and contrabass. The keyboard...
and Hohner D6 Clavinet
Clavinet
A Clavinet is an electrically amplified keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various...
also became popular at the time. A third feature is the shift of proportions between composition and improvisation. Arrangements, melody and overall writing were heavily emphasized.
Other trends
There was a resurgence of interest in jazz and other forms of African American cultural expression during the Black Arts MovementBlack Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement or BAM is the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka...
and Black nationalist
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
period of the early 1970s. Musicians such as Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
, Hubert Laws
Hubert Laws
Hubert Laws is an American flutist and saxophonist with a 40+ year career in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Alongside Herbie Mann, Laws is probably the most recognized and respected jazz flutist...
and Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
began using African instruments such as kalimbas, cowbells, beaded gourds and other instruments not traditional to jazz. Musicians began improvising jazz tunes on unusual instruments, such as the jazz harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
(Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
), electrically amplified and wah-wah pedaled jazz violin (Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...
), and even bagpipes (Rufus Harley
Rufus Harley
Rufus Harley, Jr. was an American jazz musician of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry, known primarily as the first jazz musician to adopt the Scottish great Highland bagpipe as his primary instrument.-Biography:Although born near Raleigh, North Carolina, at an early age Harley moved with...
). Jazz continued to expand and change, influenced by other types of music, such as world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, avant garde classical music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, and rock and pop music. Guitarist John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
's Mahavishnu Orchestra played a mix of rock and jazz infused with East Indian
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
influences. The ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
record label began in Germany in the 1970s with artists including Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
, Paul Bley
Paul Bley
Paul Bley, CM is a pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing.-Biography:...
, the Pat Metheny Group
Pat Metheny Group
The Pat Metheny Group is a jazz group founded in 1977. The core members of the group are guitarist and bandleader Pat Metheny, composer, keyboardist and pianist Lyle Mays , and bassist and producer Steve Rodby...
, Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
, Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.-Biography:...
, Kenny Wheeler
Kenny Wheeler
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....
, John Taylor
John Taylor (jazz)
John Taylor is a British jazz pianist; he has occasionally performed on the organ and the synthesiser. He is one of Europe's most celebrated jazz pianists and composers.-Performing career:...
, John Surman
John Surman
John Douglas Surman is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music as a basis...
and Eberhard Weber
Eberhard Weber
Eberhard Weber is a German double bassist and composer. As a bass player, Weber is known for his highly distinctive tone and phrasing...
, establishing a new chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
aesthetic, featuring mainly acoustic instruments, and sometimes incorporating elements of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
and folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.
1980s–2010s
In 1987, the US House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill proposed by Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr. to define jazz as a unique form of American music stating, among other things, "...that jazz is hereby designated as a rare and valuable national American treasure to which we should devote our attention, support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated."Traditionalist and Experimental divide
In the 1980s, the jazz community shrank dramatically and split. A mainly older audience retained an interest in traditional and straight-ahead jazzStraight-ahead jazz
Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
styles. Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
strove to create music within what he believed was the tradition, creating extensions of small and large forms initially pioneered by such artists as Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
. In the 2000s, straight-ahead jazz
Straight-ahead jazz
Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
continues to appeal to a core group of listeners. Well-established jazz musicians, such as Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
, Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
and Jessica Williams
Jessica Williams
Jessica Jennifer Williams is an American pianist and composer who has deep roots in jazz. She has been called "one of the top jazz pianists of today."-History:...
continue to perform and record. In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of young musicians emerged, including US pianists Brad Mehldau
Brad Mehldau
Brad Mehldau is an American jazz pianist. Besides leading his own group, the Brad Mehldau Trio, he has performed with many renowned artists, including Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Larry Grenadier, Peter Bernstein, Jeff Ballard, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Kurt...
, Jason Moran
Jason Moran (musician)
Jason Moran is a jazz pianist and composer who debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of stride piano, avant-garde jazz,...
and Vijay Iyer
Vijay Iyer
Vijay Iyer is a jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, producer, electronic musician, and writer based in New York City.-Biography:Born in 1971 and raised in Rochester, New York, Vijay Iyer is the son of Indian Tamil immigrants to the US. He received 15 years of Western classical training on violin...
, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Kurt Rosenwinkel is an American jazz guitarist and keyboardist who came to prominence in the 1990s.-Biography:He attended the Berklee School of Music for two and a half years before leaving in his junior year to tour with Gary Burton, the dean of the school at the time...
, vibraphonist Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"...
, trumpeters Roy Hargrove
Roy Hargrove
Roy Anthony Hargrove is an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music, in 1997, and in 2002...
and Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. Since he emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard has been a leading artist in jazz...
, saxophonists Chris Potter
Chris Potter (jazz saxophonist)
Chris Potter is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Potter spent most of his childhood in Columbia, South Carolina where his mother taught psychology at the University of South Carolina...
and Joshua Redman
Joshua Redman
Joshua Redman is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who records for Nonesuch Records. He won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991.-Biography:...
and bassist Christian McBride
Christian McBride
Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...
.
In the United States, several musicians and groups explored the more experimental end of the spectrum, including trumpeters Rob Mazurek
Rob Mazurek
Rob Mazurek is an American composer, jazz musician, and visual artist originally from Chicago, Illinois. Mazurek now resides in São Paulo Brazil.-Biography:...
and Cuong Vu
Cuong Vu
is a jazz trumpeter and vocalist.Born in Saigon, he left Vietnam with his family at the age of five in 1975, settling in Bellevue, Washington...
, saxophonist Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...
, guitarist Nels Cline
Nels Cline
Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...
, bassist Todd Sickafoose
Todd Sickafoose
Todd Sickafoose is an American jazz and rock bassist originally from the San Francisco Bay Area who now lives in Brooklyn, New York.He is best known for playing bass with Ani DiFranco, but he has also led his own group called, "Todd Sickafoose's Blood Orange".Sickafoose has been a member of the...
, keyboardist Craig Taborn
Craig Taborn
Craig Taborn is an American keyboardist and composer. Playing piano, organ, and Moog synthesizer, Taborn has worked mostly in jazz, although he also does dark ambient and techno music....
, drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, guitarist John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...
and the groups Medeski Martin & Wood
Medeski Martin & Wood
Medeski Martin & Wood is an American jazz trio formed in 1991, consisting of John Medeski on keyboards and piano, Billy Martin on drums and percussion, and Chris Wood on double bass and bass guitar....
and The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus are a jazz trio from the United States, consisting of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King, originating from Minneapolis, MN.-History:...
. Outside of the US, the Swedish group E.S.T.
Esbjörn Svensson Trio
Esbjörn Svensson Trio was a Swedish jazz piano trio formed in 1993 consisting of Esbjörn Svensson , Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström . Its music has classical, rock, pop, and techno elements. It lists classical composer Béla Bartók and rock band Radiohead as influences...
and British groups Acoustic Ladyland
Acoustic Ladyland
Acoustic Ladyland are a London based jazz/punk band consisting of Pete Wareham on vocals, tenor and baritone saxophone, Seb Rochford on drums, Chris Sharkey on Guitar and Ruth Goller on bass guitar....
, Led Bib
Led Bib
Led Bib are a modern jazz group from London, England. Their fourth album, Sensible Shoes, was shortlisted for the 2009 Mercury Prize.- History :...
and Polar Bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
gained popularity with their progressive takes on jazz. A number of new vocalists have achieved popularity with a mix of traditional jazz and pop/rock forms, such as Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country, blues and folk music into her...
, Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling
Kurt Elling is an American jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist and vocalese performer. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling first became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church...
and Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...
.
Smooth jazz
In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called pop fusion or "smooth jazz" became successful and garnered significant radio airplay. Smooth jazz saxophonists include Grover Washington, Jr.Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...
, Kenny G
Kenny G
Kenneth Bruce Gorelick , better known by his stage name Kenny G, is an American, adult contemporary and smooth jazz saxophonist. His fourth album, Duotones, brought him breakthrough success in 1986...
, Kirk Whalum
Kirk Whalum
Kirk Whalum is an American smooth jazz saxophonist and songwriter. He toured as Whitney Houston's opening act for several years. Whalum has also recorded a series of well received solo albums and film soundtracks, with music ranging from pop to R&B to smooth jazz...
, Boney James
Boney James
Boney James, is a saxophonist, songwriter and producer who popularized urban jazz...
and David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
. Smooth jazz received frequent airplay with more straight-ahead jazz in "quiet storm
Quiet storm
Quiet storm is a late-night radio format, featuring soulful slow jams, pioneered in the mid-1970s by then-station-intern Melvin Lindsey at WHUR-FM, in Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson's like-titled hit single, released in 1975 as the title track to his third solo album, lent its name to the format...
" time slots at radio stations in urban markets across the U.S., helping to establish or bolster the careers of vocalists including Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
, Anita Baker
Anita Baker
Anita Baker is an American R&B/soul jazz singer-songwriter. To date, Baker has won eight Grammy Awards, and has four platinum albums and two gold albums to her credit....
, Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...
and Sade
Sade Adu
Helen Folasade Adu OBE , is a British singer-songwriter, composer, and record producer. She first achieved success in the 1980s as the frontwoman and lead vocalist of the Brit and Grammy Award winning English group Sade.-Biography:Sade was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria...
. In this same time period Chaka Khan released Echoes of an Era
Echoes of an Era
Echoes of an Era is an album by American R&B/jazz singer Chaka Khan with Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White, released in 1982 on Elektra Records....
, which featured Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson
Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...
, Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
and Lenny White
Lenny White
Leonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
. She also released the song "And the Melody Still Lingers On (Night in Tunisia)" with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
reviving the solo break from "Night in Tunisia".
In general, smooth jazz is downtempo (the most widely played tracks are in the 90–105 BPM range), layering a lead, melody-playing instrument (saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
s–especially soprano
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
and tenor
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
–are the most popular, with legato electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
playing a close second) over a backdrop that typically consists of programmed electronic drum rhythms, synth pads and samples. In his Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
article "The Problem With Jazz Criticism" Stanley Crouch
Stanley Crouch
Stanley Crouch is an American music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, and novelist, perhaps best known for his jazz criticism, and his novel Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?- Biography :...
considers Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
' playing of fusion as a turning point that led to smooth jazz. In Aaron J. West's introduction to his analysis of smooth jazz, "Caught Between Jazz and Pop" he states,
I challenge the prevalent marginalization and malignment of smooth jazz in the standard jazz narrative. Furthermore, I question the assumption that smooth jazz is an unfortunate and unwelcomed evolutionary outcome of the jazz-fusion era. Instead, I argue that smooth jazz is a long-lived musical style that merits multi-disciplinary analyses of its origins, critical dialogues, performance practice, and reception.
Acid jazz, nu jazz and jazz rap
Acid jazzAcid 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...
developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and influenced by jazz-funk
Jazz-funk
Jazz-funk is a sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat , electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers...
and electronic dance music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. Jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers
Roy Ayers
Roy Ayers is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer and vibraphone player. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk .- Biography :Ayers...
and Donald Byrd
Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II, is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a...
are often credited as forerunners of acid jazz. While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. Nu jazz
Nu jazz
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...
is influenced by jazz harmony and melodies, there are usually no improvisational aspects. It ranges from combining live instrumentation with beats of jazz house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, exemplified by St Germain
Saint Germain (musician)
St. Germain is the stage name of Ludovic Navarre, a French musician. His style has been described as being a combination of house and nu jazz music.-Career:...
, Jazzanova
Jazzanova
Jazzanova is a German Berlin-based DJ/producer collective consisting of Alexander Barck, Claas Brieler, Jürgen von Knoblauch, Roskow Kretschmann, Stefan Leisering, and Axel Reinemer. Formed in 1995, the group is one of the foremost proponents of the nu-jazz, chillout and jazz house styles of music...
and Fila Brazillia
Fila Brazillia
Fila Brazillia was an electronica collaboration from Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire in North-East England. Formed in 1990 by Steve Cobby and David McSherry...
, to more band-based improvised jazz with electronic elements such as that of The Cinematic Orchestra
The Cinematic Orchestra
The Cinematic Orchestra is a British jazz and electronic outfit, created in 1997 by Jason Swinscoe. The band is signed to Ninja Tune independent record label. In addition to Swinscoe, the band includes PC former DJ Food member on turntables, Luke Flowers , Tom Chant , Nick Ramm , Stuart McCallum ...
, Kobol
Kobol (band)
Kobol is a duo from Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. It is formed by Ignacio Chávez and Argel Cota. They define their music as "a mixture of jazzy natural low tempo beats, freestyle DSP jams, sly acoustic impressions with dubby vibes".-Albums:...
, and the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
"future jazz" style pioneered by Bugge Wesseltoft
Bugge Wesseltoft
Jens Christian Bugge Wesseltoft is a Norwegian jazz musician, pianist, composer and producer. He has his own label named Jazzland Records. In the 1990s, Bugge has made a transition from Nordic jazz traditions exemplified by the ECM record label to a style sometimes referred to as "future jazz" or...
, Jaga Jazzist
Jaga Jazzist
Jaga Jazzist is an experimental jazz band from Norway that rose to prominence when the BBC named their first album, A Livingroom Hush , the best jazz album of 2002. The core of the band are brothers and main songwriters Lars and Martin Horntveth...
, Nils Petter Molvær
Nils Petter Molvær
Nils Petter Molvær also known as NPM is a Norwegian jazz trumpeter, composer, and producer. Molvær is considered a pioneer in fusing jazz and electronic music, showcased on his best-selling album Khmer, released by the German record label ECM in October 1997 in Europe and early 1998 in North...
, and others. Nu jazz can be very experimental in nature and can vary widely in sound and concept.
Jazz rap
Jazz rap
Jazz rap is a sub-genre of hip hop which incorporates jazz influences, developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The lyrics are often based on political consciousness, Afrocentricity, and general positivism...
developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and incorporates jazz influence into hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
. In 1988, Gang Starr
Gang Starr
Gang Starr was an influential East Coast hip hop duo that consisted of the late MC Guru and DJ/producer DJ Premier. Their style combined elements of New York jazz and hip hop.-Background:...
released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
's 1962 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic
Stetsasonic
Stetsasonic was an American hip hop group formed in 1979 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It is remembered as one of the first hip hop crews to use a live band, and the group's positive, uplifting lyrics made it forerunners of alternative hip hop and jazz hip...
released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith, Jr. is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with important free jazz artists such as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith And The Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion / Quiet Storm /...
. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy
No More Mr. Nice Guy (Gang Starr album)
No More Mr. Nice Guy is the debut album by hip hop duo Gang Starr, which was released in 1989 . Although it was regarded as a critical success amid the first wave of alternative hip hop acts such as Jungle Brothers and De La Soul. No More Mr. Nice Guy remains somewhat overshadowed by the highly...
(Wild Pitch
Wild Pitch Records
Wild Pitch Records was a hip hop record label started in the mid 1980s by Stuart Fine and was eventually distributed by EMI and eventually acquired by Jay Faires, who tried to reactivate it as part of his short-lived JCOR Entertainment label...
, 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues
Mo' Better Blues
Mo' Better Blues is a 1990 drama film starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, and Spike Lee, who also directed. It follows a period in the life of a fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam as a series of bad decisions result in his jeopardizing both his relationships and his playing career...
, sampling Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...
. Gang Starr also collaborated with Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
and Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. Since he emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard has been a leading artist in jazz...
.Groups making up the collective known as the Native Tongues Posse
Native Tongues Posse
The Native Tongues is a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats. Its principal members are the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe...
tended towards jazzy releases; these include the Jungle Brothers
Jungle Brothers
The Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop group that pioneered the fusion of jazz and hip-hop and also became the first hip-hop group to use a house-music producer. The group began performing in the mid-1980s and released its first album, Straight Out the Jungle, in July 1988...
' debut Straight Out the Jungle
Straight Out the Jungle
Straight out the Jungle is the debut album from hip hop group Jungle Brothers. The album marked the beginning of the Native Tongues collective, later featuring popular artists like De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Black Sheep....
(Warlock, 1988) and A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest
A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is the debut album by the alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, released April 17, 1990 on Jive Records. Though the album was well-received critically, it had little mainstream appeal. The album did earn the band a devoted following,...
(Jive
Jive Records
Jive Records was a record label based in New York City, operating under RCA Music Group. Jive was primarily known for a string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s, and in teen pop and boy bands in the late 1990s. The word "jive" was inspired by Township Jive, a form of South African...
, 1990) and The Low End Theory
The Low End Theory
The Low End Theory is the second album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Released on September 24, 1991 through Jive Records, the album produced three singles: "Check the Rhime," "Jazz ," and "Scenario."-Conception:...
(Jive, 1991). The Low End Theory has become one of hip hop's most acclaimed albums, and earned praise too from jazz bassist Ron Carter
Ron Carter
Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
, who played double bass on one track. Rap duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth
Pete Rock & CL Smooth
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth are a hip-hop duo from Mount Vernon, New York. They made their debut with their 1991 EP, All Souled Out and followed with 1992's Mecca and the Soul Brother LP.-The Golden Age :...
incorporated jazz influences on their 1992 debut Mecca and the Soul Brother
Mecca and the Soul Brother
Mecca And The Soul Brother is the critically acclaimed 1992 debut album from the Mount Vernon duo, Pete Rock & CL Smooth. The album contains their best known song, "They Reminisce Over You ." To date, Mecca and the Soul Brother has been widely acclaimed as one of the greatest Hip hop albums of all...
. Beginning in 1993, rapper Guru
Guru (rapper)
Keith Edward Elam , better known by his stage name Guru, was an American emcee and member of the hip-hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts...
's Jazzmatazz
Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1
Guru's Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1 is a jazz rap album by alternative hip hop artist Guru, released on May 18, 1993 on Chrysalis Records. This album is one of the first albums to combine a live jazz band with hip hop production and rapping. It is the first such project to feature established rappers...
series used jazz musicians during the studio recordings. Though jazz rap had achieved little mainstream success, jazz legend Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
' final album (released posthumously in 1992), Doo-Bop
Doo-Bop
Doo-Bop was jazz innovator Miles Davis' final studio album, which would have marked the beginning of the artist's turn to hip-hop-oriented tracks. However, Davis died on September 28, 1991, at which time only six tunes for the album had been completed...
, was based around hip hop beats and collaborations with producer Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee
Osten Harvey, Jr., better known by his stage name Easy Mo Bee, is a hip hop/R&B record producer, known for production work for late 80's artists such as Big Daddy Kane, but most notable for his affiliation with Bad Boy Records in its early years and his heavy production involvement in The Notorious...
. Davis' ex-bandmate Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
returned to hip hop influences in the mid-nineties, releasing the album Dis Is Da Drum in 1994.
Punk jazz and jazzcore
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
in London and New York City led to a new appreciation for jazz. In London, the Pop Group
Pop group
Pop group may refer to:* a band that plays some genre of popular music* a band that plays pop music * The Pop Group, a British post-punk band* Pop! , a 2000s UK pop group...
began to mix free jazz, along with dub reggae, into their brand of punk rock. In NYC, No Wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
took direct inspiration from both free jazz and punk. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...
's Queen of Siam, the work of James Chance and the Contortions
James Chance and the Contortions
James Chance and the Contortions, led by saxophonist and vocalist James Chance, were one of the original punk jazz groups of the New York No Wave music scene. Their first recording, credited solely as Contortions, was on the 1978 compilation, No New York, produced by Brain Eno...
, who mixed Soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
with free 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...
and punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, Gray, and the Lounge Lizards, who were the first group to call themselves "punk jazz
Punk jazz
Punk jazz describes the amalgamation of elements of the jazz tradition with the instrumentation or conceptual heritage of punk rock...
".
John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
began to make note of the emphasis on speed and dissonance that was becoming prevalent in punk rock and incorporated this into free jazz. This began in 1986 with the album Spy vs. Spy
Spy vs Spy (album)
Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman is a 1989 album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn, featuring the compositions of Ornette Coleman performed in the brief intense style of Zorn's hardcore miniatures....
, a collection of Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
tunes done in the contemporary thrashcore
Thrashcore
Thrashcore is a fast tempo subgenre of hardcore punk that emerged in the early 1980s. Thrashcore is essentially sped-up hardcore punk, with bands often using blast beats. Songs can be very brief, and thrashcore is in many ways a less dissonant, less metallic forerunner of grindcore...
style. The same year, Sonny Sharrock
Sonny Sharrock
Warren Harding "Sonny" Sharrock was an American jazz guitarist. He was once married to singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he sometimes recorded and performed....
, Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...
, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson
Ronald Shannon Jackson
Ronald Shannon Jackson is an American jazz drummer. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas.Jackson is notable for his unusual approach to his instrument, which draws as much inspiration from military and parade bands as from traditional jazz drumming.He is the only person to have recorded and performed...
recorded the first album under the name Last Exit, a similarly aggressive blend of thrash and free jazz. These developments are the origins of jazzcore, the fusion of free jazz with hardcore punk.
In the 1990s, punk jazz and jazzcore began to reflect the increasing awareness of elements of extreme metal
Extreme metal
Extreme metal is a loosely defined umbrella term for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the early 1980s. The term usually refers to a more abrasive, harsher, underground, non-commercialized style or sound nearly always associated with genres like black metal,...
(particularly thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
and death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
) in hardcore punk. A new style of "metallic jazzcore" was developed by Iceburn
Iceburn
Iceburn, known later as the Iceburn Collective, was a musical group formed in 1991 in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A., by guitarist/vocalist/composer Gentry Densley, the sole constant member through multiple personnel changes. They were known for their unique style that combined elements of jazz,...
, from Salt Lake City, and Candiria
Candiria
Candiria are an American band from Brooklyn, New York. They blend various styles of music, including heavy metal, hardcore, jazz, hip hop and ambient. Candiria have often dubbed their sound "urban fusion".- History :...
, from New York City, though anticipated by Naked City and Pain Killer. This tendency also takes inspiration from jazz inflections in technical death metal
Technical death metal
Technical death metal is a musical subgenre of death metal that focuses on complex rhythms, riffs and song structures. Technical experimentation in death metal began in the late '80s and early '90s by bands such as Death, Atheist and Cynic...
, such as the work of Cynic
Cynic (band)
Cynic is an American progressive rock band, incorporating experimental music, alternative, metal and jazz fusion elements, founded in Miami, Florida and currently based in Los Angeles, California. Their first album, Focus, released on September 14, 1993, is widely regarded as a landmark release of...
and Atheist
Atheist (band)
Atheist is a technical death metal band from Florida, founded in 1984, whose music combines metal riffs with subtle Latin music arrangements and jazz fusion.- History :...
.
M-Base
The M-Base movement was started in the 1980s by a loose collective of young African-American musicians (Steve ColemanSteve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
, Graham Haynes
Graham Haynes
Graham Haynes is an American cornetist, trumpeter and composer, the son of jazz drummer Roy Haynes....
, Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country, blues and folk music into her...
, Geri Allen
Geri Allen
Geri Allen is an American composer/pianist educator jazz pianist, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Allen has worked with many of the greats of modern music, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette,...
, Greg Osby
Greg Osby
Greg Osby is an American jazz saxophonist who plays mainly in the free jazz, free funk and M-Base idioms.-Biography:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Osby studied at Howard University, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music, with Andy McGhee...
etc.) who emerged in New York with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression. With a strong foothold as well as in the tradition represented by Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
and John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
as in contemporary African-American groove music and with a high degree of musical skills, the saxophonists Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
, Greg Osby
Greg Osby
Greg Osby is an American jazz saxophonist who plays mainly in the free jazz, free funk and M-Base idioms.-Biography:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Osby studied at Howard University, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music, with Andy McGhee...
, and Gary Thomas
Gary Thomas
Gary Thomas is an American jazz saxophonist and flautist from Baltimore, Maryland. He is a member of Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition band and has worked with John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Greg Osby, Wayne Shorter, Ravi Coltrane, Cassandra...
developed unique and complex, nevertheless grooving musical languages. In the 1990s most participants of the M-Base movement turned to more conventional music but Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
, the most active participant, continued developing his music in accordance with the M-Base concept. In a long research process he developed a philosophical and spiritual concept connecting with certain cultural efforts that express fundamental aspects of nature and human existence in a holistic way. Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
found these efforts all over the world and they reach far back into ancient times. Thus, he gave his music a specific meaning which is similar to the intentions of religious music, of European composers like J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, as well as of musicians in the tradition represented by John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
. In accordance to this spiritual perspective, Coleman’s music became rather advanced in several aspects. His audience decreased a bit but his music and concepts have been a heavy influence on many musicians - both in terms of music-technique and of the music’s meaning. Hence, “M-Base” changed from a movement of a loose collective of young musicians to a kind of informal Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman
Steve Coleman, born , is an African American saxophone player, spontaneous composer, composer and band leader. His music and concepts have been a heavy influence on contemporary jazz.-Chicago:...
“school” with a much advanced but already originally implied concept.
See also
- Glossary of jazz and popular musical termsGlossary of jazz and popular musical termsThis is a list of jazz and popular musical terms that are likely to be encountered in printed popular music songbooks and vocal scores, big band scores, jazz and rock concert reviews, and album liner notes...
- Jazz poetryJazz poetryJazz poetry is poetry that "demonstrates jazz-like rhythm or the feel of improvisation". During the 1920s, several poets began to eschew the conventions of rhythm and style; among these were Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and E. E. Cummings...
- List of jazz festivals
- List of jazz guitarists
- List of jazz institutions and organizations
- List of jazz pianists
- List of jazz violinists
- List of jazz vocalists
- Museum of African American MusicMuseum of African American MusicThe Museum of African American Music is a Smithsonian-affiliated museum being built in Newark, New Jersey. The museum is the center of a larger project to revitilize The Coast/Lincoln Park district in Newark. The museum will feature various genres of African-American music, including gospel, blues,...
- Timeline of jazz education
- Cape JazzCape jazzCape jazz is a genre of jazz, similar to the popular music style known as marabi, though more improvisational in character, which is performed in the very southern part of Africa...
External links
- Jazz Foundation of America
- Jazz @ the Smithsonian
- Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians
- Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame website
- Jazz Artist and Discography Resource
- Red Hot Jazz.com
- Jazz at Lincoln Center website
- American Jazz Museum website
- The International Archives for the Jazz Organ
- Classic and Contemporary Jazz Music
- The Jazz Archive at Duke University
- Jazz Festivals in Europe
- Free 1920s Jazz Collection available for downloading at Archive.org
- A List of Jazz Lists