I hear something about Jazz music and I know it originates from New Orleans. It orginally came from New Orleans. It started as blues from when the black people would sing when they were slaves under the whites. After that, black people in America started to spizz up their blues and play it on instruements.They called it "Jass" but to the whites, it was known as "Jazz".
And that is how it originated. that's correct. Jazz is an original American musical art form which originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States out of a confluence of African and European music traditions It was originally called Jass but became Jazz - the style was developed by black musicians/bands in New Orleans and the South.
The first jazz recording was made in 1917. Recordings of Jazz did not begin until 1917.
Even the geographic location of the earliest Jazz experiments and the parties involved have been the subject much controversy. Many Jazz writers have pointed out that the non-Jazz elements from which Jazz was formed, the Blues, Ragtime, Brass Band Music, Hymns and Spirituals, Minstrel music and work songs were ubiquitous in the United States and known in dozens of cities. Why then, they reason, should New Orleans be singled out as the sole birthplace of Jazz? These writers are overlooking one important factor that existed only in New Orleans, namely, the black Creole subculture.
The Creoles were free, French and Spanish speaking Blacks, originally from the West Indies, who lived first under Spanish then French rule in the Louisiana Territory. They became Americans as a result of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and Louisiana statehood in 1812. The Creoles rose to the highest levels of New Orleans society during the 19th century. They lived in the French section of the city east of Canal Street and became prominent in the economic and cultural life of the section. The above imformation is correct (except the one about jazz coming from blues - they both developed simultaneously from similar musical styles and influences).
I will add a pet theory of mine.
In the 1880's, classical European composers - particualrly of the French school of thought - we expanding out of tertiary harmony and trying out quartal and quintal harmonic systems. Considering the large population of French speakers in New Orleans at the time, AND considering the fact that jazz is commonly harmonized with chords built in fourths (though expressed in terms of tertiary harmony) - I wonder if one wasn't a direct influence on the other?
The melodies and rhythms tend to be african and carribean influenced, but the harmony seems to express this outgrowth from the Impressionist/post-romantic era.
Just a thought. | 