SANSUKTAWEESUB 1

Nakamol Gain Sansuktaweesub

Ms. Orana Meenongwha
English 10/10:04
May 25, 2017

The Beginning of Jazz Music in New Orleans, United States

Introduction

Jazz music is known by people throughout the world and is considerably popular

among the worlds famous musicians because of the improvisation that is the most significant

and rare component comparing to other types of music known nowadays. Jazz music consists of

mainly the origin of blues and ragtime(syncopated way of performing music) which refers to the

early type of music of the African Americans that adapted from the Caucasians music form and

also was influenced by mixed European harmonic structure and the Africans rhythm (Schuller,

2017). There are mainly four elements included in Jazz music which are the blues scale,

syncopation, swing and creative freedom which have been developed since its very beginning,

has been evolving through time. Blues scale refers to the unique kind of music scale that can

convey and reach to the core of emotional satisfaction, mostly sadness and depression, which

leads to the unique of Jazz music comparing to other kinds of music. Syncopation refers to the

style of playing upbeats, without syncopation, Jazz music will be boring. Swing refers to the way

of performing music based on a triplet subdivision of the beat. Creative freedom refers to the

improvisations(Barlar, 2017). The worlds Jazz musicians throughout history have had unique

ways to perform jazz music by applying the ways from others or making up individually such as

Louis Armstrong the trumpeter, Miles Davis the trumpeter, Duke Ellington the pianist, or John
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Coltrane the Saxophonist. What makes Jazz music alive until nowadays? Improvisations take a

significant part of keeping Jazz music alive because each musician has their own attractive ways

of performing distinctly to the audiences. Rather than the complexity and artistic elements of

Jazz, the history of Jazz music was even more complex in terms of its evolution and how it has

become Jazz music nowadays. It is said that Jazz music was originally started in America

among the African Americans in New Orleans, United States.The history of jazz music was not

clearly determined in terms of date and time, but in periods.

What is Jazz music?

In a globalized world, music has been involved in human activities throughout

history. There are many types of music created at certain times and countries such as classical,

rock, and jazz music. Jazz is known as a type of music which was developed from African

American people which is freely performed by the musicians improvisational skills. Music was

significantly important in African peoples routines which was also present in god worshipping

and entertaining. Jazz music mainly refers to creative thoughts and ideas in order to make

improvisation. Jazz music includes all music components which other types of music consist of

such as the combination of classical music and folk music that Jazz music and Blues music have

in common, also, the rhythms used in rap of hip hop songs can be matched with the drum solo

pattern in Jazz music. Jazz, from its very beginning, has been evolving through time. As

mentioned in the introduction, Jazz music was combined the origin of blues, ragtime and also

gospel. Blues is a type of music which have the same origin with Jazz, but began in Mississippi.

Blues music have the exact style of playing as the musicians are allowed to play for 12 bars, but

Jazz music has no limitation of performing. Ragtime refers to the music which was particularly

in Missouri using syncopation skills in order to perform. Gospel was a type of music which later
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became R&B and soul music nowadays. There are mainly four elements included in Jazz music

which are the blues scale, syncopation, swing and creative freedom. Typically, people are

familiar with the time signature 4/4 in music that describes about a song that is divided in

sections, which is called bars, by the value of each note and the length of a song. First notes of

the bars (sections that are divided in the song) will be mainly accented, another three will be

played normally. In Swing, the song will accent the second and the fourth notes of each bar in

the song and varies in different types of terms such as 6/8, 9/8 or 12/8 rather than 4/4.

Syncopation refers to the way of performing music. As the musicians normally perform a 4/4

song by accenting the first note and the third note, syncopation requires the musicians to perform

by playing the upbeats of the song which means that the 2nd note and the 4th note will instead

be accented. Jazz music can widely be performed with any kinds of musical instruments

depending on the musicians interpretation. The musical instruments that significantly involved

in jazz music are saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass, drums, and guitar and some other

woodwind and brass instruments. The unique mark of Jazz music which differentiate Jazz music

from other types of music is that Jazz is freely performed and has more complex musical

structure. The songs performed are noticeably consisted of the sounds of bass. It includes the

melody and the instrument of the song which even though Jazz music is mainly performed

without the vocal. The improvisation is also a big difference between other types of music and

the musicians passionate way of performing. Due to the improvisation, the musicians are

required to have massive amount of passion in order to perform the best jazz song. To conclude,

jazz is quite complicated to be understood by its fundamental structure, however, its history is

amazing and inspiring in order to study Jazz music.

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History of Jazz music

The history of jazz can be divided into nine periods. Jazz was developed from the

African American slaves who established themselves in New Orleans during the late 19th

Century. It was not really jazz at the beginning, in fact, it was started as blues period. Blues is

expressed from sadness and depression from pressure pushed by the bosses of those African

American slaves, and also requires plenty of listening skills and adequate remembrance. African

Americans could slightly remember how to perform that music so the improvisational skills

were developed and adapted. The New Orleans period started which was the place that was full

of bars and restaurants, there were lots of Caucasian and African musicians in the city. On that

occasion, African Americans were slaves serving for the Caucasian Americans. As they were

allowed to own some musical instruments such as drums, they have developed their local music.

From the sounds of horns and drums, military marching bands and opera, combining with the

bar music and songs from churches, merged together creating a new type of music; Jazz(New

Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, 2017). The certain dance moves were created during

this period and were popular among everyone throughout the city. Louis Armstrong was born in

New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 4th, 1901 and was one of the influential original jazz

musicians(Schuller, 2017). Armstrong developed the idea of musicians playing during breaks

that expanded into musicians playing individual solos; "Pops" and "Satchmo". Also, he could

perform perfect jazz solo improvisation that made him truly admirable by all the people. The

Original Dixieland Jazz Band or also called The ODJB was claimed to be the first Jazz band in

the history. During 1920 until 1930 was the time for Chicago period in which the 1st World War

was on the go. People from New Orleans moved to Southside, Chicago. The music was

confusingly altered due to the combination of Chicago peoples local music and the New

Orleans jazz. Continuously, the swing period of jazz history had begun. Swing is performed
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during the musicians dual music performance with each other. Swing as a jazz style first came

out during the Great Depression. Swing dance moves had become the national dance and big

bands were playing this style of music. Big bands include the string instruments, basses and

hi-hats. Leaders such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, and

Benny Goodman led some of the greatest bands of the period. One of the most significant

figures in music history, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, in

Washington, D.C. As a pianist, composer, and bandleader, Ellington was one of the creators of

the big band sound, which fueled the Swing period. Moving on to the Bebop period in 1940s,

which the music was pushed up by the swing, gave birth to another type of jazz. Bebops main

rhythm is dashing and is led by pianos, basses, drums and some other percussions. Mainly,

saxophones and trumpets are the instruments which are usually soloed. Bebop was for the

audiences who listened rather than the ones that danced, and was performed by smaller bands.

Dizzy Gillespie the trumpet man was born in in Cheraw, South Carolina in 1917. First, he

studied Music with his father and later on met musicians such as Thelonious Monk and Charlie

Parker. Together they experimented with jazz and came up with the bebop sound. As a teacher,

he was influential and inspirational for people at that time until nowadays. He also introduced

some Latin American music to combine with jazz creating various types of jazz music. Followed

by the cool jazz period, the music is much smoother and cozier than bebop is. It was popular

among the Eastern American musicians. Free jazz period was about the improvisation and

chorus among octet bands. Finally, the fusion period, or another word, Jazz rock, was about to

combine the musical instruments with electrical musical instruments. The improvisations were

used and mixed with some rock music tastes, leading to nowadays music. In a nutshell, jazz

music was developed significantly over time in order to become nowadays jazz music(Duangjit,

2015).
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How has Jazz music evolved through time?

Jazz music has been evolving through time. Due to the musicians various ways of

improvisation, it allows others to adapt and apply those techniques onto their performance and

moreover, to create newer types of jazz. Many musicians came up with their unique

performances throughout the history which have kept Jazz music alive until today. Talking about

trumpeters, the one who has been the most influential of all time, was Miles Davis. He was

indeed famous and the most famous and lasting album was Kind of Blues. He was considered

as the sweetest trumpeter of all time. People nowadays still adore him and his songs as they were

legendary. Another legendary jazz musician was a saxophonist called John Coltrane. He had his

own unique saxophone accents which appeared in My Favorite Things song which was one of

his works. There has been also a jazz pianist of all time. This will have lots of influence on

peoples perspectives of jazz music in the future. Nowadays, there are still some of the

traditionalists who still play totally original jazz, bebop, blues and swing such as the trumpeter

Wynton Marsalis. There are also contemporary mainstream jazz artists who perform jazz music

with Hard Bop instrumentation and musical forms. They have more difficult and complex chords

and deeper and varied emotions expressed, for instance, Terence Blanchard who plays the

trumpet. Another kind of people is Anything goes jazz artists. These artists will make

combinations with other types of music such as saxophonist Dave Liebman and trumpeter Dave

Douglas(MenDetails, 2015). Nowadays women take part in jazz music performance more than

they used to do in the past. People can get in touch with jazz easier due to more advanced

technology such as Youtube, Facebook, and many social medias which allow people to search

for almost every jazz music composed since in the past until nowadays. Students are educated

about the jazz music history and taught to play different kinds of musical instruments. In the
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future, there will be various types of jazz music as the improvisation is changed and evolved

every day by different musicians depending on the audiences interests. All in all, traditional jazz

should be conserved and protected as well as newer types of jazz should be developed so that

they are able to attract people continuously and jazz music will not die out when time passes by.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, jazz music is a type of music that has been developed from

blues and ragtime music during the 19th century. It is known as a type of music which was

developed from African American people which is freely performed by the musicians

improvisational skills. There are mainly four elements included in Jazz music which are the

blues scale, syncopation, swing and creative freedom. In order to understand jazzs components,

one should study about jazzs history. The history of jazz has begun in the late 19th century and

can be briefly divided into 9 periods. At the beginning, the music came from the expression of

the African American people that were under pressure from their slavery. Jazz started in New

Orleans and became widespread throughout the world. In addition, jazz music also requires a

band of musical instruments combining with brass instruments and also the woodwinds.

However, nowadays and in the coming future, jazz music will be developed and altered by

combining with other types of music and might eventually create a new type of music. Less than

before, people can recognize jazz music and can distinguish less types of music due to the more

interest in lyrics rather than the instrument and music components. Yet, there are currently some

musicians that have got creative skills and are able to perform their own unique music which are

outstanding and admired by lots of people. Therefore, all music including jazz are the tools for

people to get to know each other and talk in musical language in the society. Some people have
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got few friends in the school/career societies, but since they are known for their musical skills,

they are more accepted in their societies. Above all, jazz music and also other types of music are

important in everyday life and actually have impacts on nowadays society.

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References

Schuller, G. (19 April 2017). JAZZ music. Retrieved from https://global.britannica.com/art/jazz

Duangjit, W. (n.d.). (jazz). Retrieved from

http://mcpswis.mcp.ac.th/html_edu/cgi-bin/mcp/main_php/print_informed.php?id_count

_inform=14806

New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation. (2017). Birthplace of Jazz. Retrieved from

http://www.neworleansonline.com/neworleans/music/musichistory/jazzbirthplace.html

Barlar, N. (2017). What Is Jazz? - History, Characteristics & Instruments. Retrieved from

http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-jazz-history-characteristics-instruments.html

Ds Top 7
MenDetails. (23 July 2015). M . Retrieved from

https://www.mendetails.com/life/7-jazz-musicians/
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Appendix