History of Jazz

Jazz rooted from Western and African musical traditions. This blend formed the jazz basis for ragtime, band music, blues, and others from which early jazz evolved. It was not until 1910 that jazz flourished in New Orleans, in a place named Dixieland. This growth of jazz gave birth to regional jazz styles. Among the proponents were Buddy Bolden and his jazz band, Kid Ory, Joe Oliver and Freddie Keppard.

Jazz then took the musical scene in Chicago in 1920s, and created a focal point with the birth of Chicago Jazz. The new jazz style improved the music through the contributions of jazz musicians like Eddie Condon, Earl Hines, and Benny Goodman.

New York also became a seat for jazz culture when large orchestras were integrated, jazz piano style invented, and growth of ragtime jazz in the 1920s. Among the jazz proponents were Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, and Coleman Hawkins.

By the 1930s, the swing became prominent style of jazz. The jazz groups were composed mainly of large bands, and among them is Benny Goodman’s jazz orchestra. Swing is a dance music that gave musicians the choice to improve jazz melodies and themes and resulted to complex jazz. Also from this era is the famous boogie-woogie. Boogie-woogie is a piano style jazz, with the tempo was speeded up. This jazz style was often played on the blues chord progression.

In the early 1940s, the “jump music” style of jazz came into the scene and was known as the era of “jumping the blues”. This jazz style used small combo blues chord progressions and up-tempos, based on the boogie-woogie.
During World War II, jazz bands were dissolved due to military drafting and gave rise to small jazz combos. Since the famous jazz musicians were in the military, the young ones got the exposure. They created a revolution in jazz called the bebop jazz. This was the first jazz style that was not used for dancing and its popularity shifted to elite jazz listeners. Bebop musicians expanded the harmonic boundaries of jazz superior to earlier jazz styles. The bebop jazz proliferated from 1944 to 1955. During this time, the rise of artistic approach to jazz and innovation of jazz conventions came about.
By the late 1950s, free jazz and avant-garde jazz, derived from bebop, were born. Free jazz uses a loose harmony and unconventional tempo. Avant-garde jazz is more defined and harmonious but the improvised parts are like those in free jazz.
During the late 1960s up to the late 1970s, the cross between jazz and rock was created. This fusion created so much dismay to jazz purist. Artists famous in the fusion jazz scenes were Miles Davis, Chick Corea and Larry Young.
In the 1980s, the jazz community split. The elite chose to the pure jazz styles while others chose fusion jazz. Drums became active in jazz music tones were innovated to be rougher and more tensed. In the 1990s, there rose a subtle and refined style of jazza and was referred to as “smooth jazz”, otherwise know as “cool jazz”. Smooth jazz was receiving a lot of exposures and was indeed very popular.
Upon the turn over of the century, jazz hit the pop charts alongside with other contemporary music. Artists like Norah Jones, Erykah Badu, Diana Krall, Amy Winehouse and Jamie Cullum became prominent in the jazz scene.