Jazz is a musical tradition and style of music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in
African American communities in the
Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century
American popular music. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of
blue notes,
improvisation,
polyrhythms,
syncopation, 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 in 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, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz, free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s (which added funk and hip-hop influences), and Nujazz in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local national and regional musical cultures, its aesthetics being adapted to its varied environments and giving rise to many distinctive styles.
Definition
Jazz can be very hard to define because it spans from
Ragtime waltzes to 2000s-era fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions—using the point of view of European music history or African music for example—but jazz critic
Joachim Berendt argues that all such attempts are unsatisfactory. 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".
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: arrangements 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 in the middle. 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.
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 Ellington 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. 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
, African-Americans dance to banjo and percussion.]]
By 1808 the
Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million
Africans 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, as were similar gatherings in
New England and
New York. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included
work songs and
field hollers. 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 notes in blues and jazz.
Virginia Minstrels in 1843, featuring tambourine, fiddle, banjo and
bones.]]
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
hymns 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
griots of the West African
savannah.
1890s–1910s
Ragtime
in 1907]]
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 shows, 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 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 standards. 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 bands 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.
around 1905.]]
The cornetist 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".
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.
Swing
The 1930s belonged to popular
swing big bands, 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.
Louis Armstrong was a much-imitated innovator of early jazz.]]
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.
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 France 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 (guitar) and
Joe Venuti (violin) who pioneered the
gypsy jazz form, which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on
Okeh Records in the late 1920s.
1940s and 1950s
Dixieland revival
in 1953]]
In the late 1940s there was a revival of "
Dixieland" 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.
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
chromaticism 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 chords. 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.
at Expo 67, 1967, Montreal, Quebec. Bassist Larry Gales seen in background.]]
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.
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 jazz, 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 musicians for further detail.
Hard bop
Hard bop is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music that incorporates influences from
rhythm and blues,
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. (See also
List of Hard bop musicians)
Modal jazz
Modal jazz is a development beginning in the later 1950s which takes the
mode, 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
, a key figure in European free jazz]]
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.
1960s and 1970s
Latin jazz
Latin jazz combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as
conga,
timbale,
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
Brazilian jazz 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.
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 Coltrane,
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.
Soul jazz
Soul jazz was a development of
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
improvisations 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.)
Jazz fusion
in 1989]]
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 1970s 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, and 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 pedals, 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 albums praising Jazz Fusion.
Jazz funk
Developed by the mid-1970s, is characterized by a strong
back beat (
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
riffs, 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 synthesizers. 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.
Other trends
There was a resurgence of interest in jazz and other forms of African American cultural expression during the
Black Arts Movement 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.
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 jazz 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, and
Wayne Shorter 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.
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.,
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 (saxophones–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,
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 jazz 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. 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.
Punk jazz and jazzcore
performing in 2006.]]
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, 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.
See also
Glossary of jazz and popular musical terms
Jazz poetry
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 Music
Timeline of jazz education
Notes
References
Adorno, Theodor. "Prisms." The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. 1967.
Allen, William Francis, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McLim Garrison, eds. 1867. Slave Songs of the United States. New York: A Simpson & Co. Electronic edition, Chapel Hill, N. C.: Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000.
Joachim Ernst Berendt, Günther Huesmann (Bearb.): Das Jazzbuch. 7. Auflage. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-003802-9
Burns, Ken, and Geoffrey C. Ward. 2000. Jazz—A History of America's Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Also: The Jazz Film Project, Inc.
.
Carr, Ian. Music Outside: Contemporary Jazz in Britain. 2nd edition. London: Northway. ISBN 978-0-9550908-6-8
Collier, James Lincoln. The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History (Dell Publishing Co., 1978)
Davis, Miles.
Elsdon, Peter. 2003. "The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, Edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Review." Frankfürter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 6:159–75.
Gang Starr. 2006. Mass Appeal: The Best of Gang Starr. CD recording 72435-96708-2-9. New York: Virgin Records.
Giddins, Gary. 1998. Visions of Jazz: The First Century New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195076753
Godbolt, Jim. 2005. A History of Jazz in Britain 1919–50 London: Northway. ISBN 0-9537040-5-X
Gridley, Mark C. 2004. Concise Guide to Jazz, fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN 0131826573
Kenney, William Howland. 1993. Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904–1930. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195064534 (cloth); paperback reprint 1994 ISBN 0195092600
.
Mandel, Howard. 2007. Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz. Routledge. ISBN 0415967147.
Porter, Eric. 2002. What Is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics and Activists. University of California Press, Ltd. London, England.
Ratliffe, Ben. 2002. Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings. The New York Times Essential Library. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0805070680
Scaruffi, Piero: A History of Jazz Music 1900–2000. 2007. Omniware. ISBN 978-0-9765531-3-7
Schuller, Gunther. 1968. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. Oxford University Press. New printing 1986.
Schuller, Gunther. 1991. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945. Oxford University Press.
Searle, Chris. 2008. Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzmon. London: Northway. ISBN 978-0-9550908-7-5
Szwed, John Francis. 2000. Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0786884967
Vacher, Peter. 2004. Soloists and Sidemen: American Jazz Stories. London: Northway. ISBN 978-0953704040
Yanow, Scott. 2004. Jazz on Film: The Complete Story of the Musicians and Music Onscreen. (Backbeat Books) ISBN 0879307838
External links
Jazz Foundation of America
Jazz @ the Smithsonian
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame website
Red Hot Jazz.com
Jazz at Lincoln Center website
* Jazz At Lincoln Center Hall of Fame
American Jazz Museum website
JAZZRADIO.com – free Internet radio covering numerous Jazz sub-genres
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
Category:African-American culture
Category:African American music
Category:American styles of music
