New Orleans is credited with the origins of Jazz music!
The history of New Orleans music and its impact on the beginnings of jazz were affected by many factors: social change, forward thinking, and individuals with a desire to express their lives through their music. It was a culture of people telling stories and living what they played and wrote.
The first signs of jazz began developing just before the turn of the 20th century. During the 1880s there was an eclectic mix of music happening in New Orleans: gospel, blues, military marches, rags, and brass bands. It was the brass bands that made their way into saloons and “Storyville,” a red-light district that was extremely popular in the 1890s. These brass bands mainly consisted of a cornet playing the melody, a clarinet on counterpoint, tuba or trombone for bass lines, and some sort of percussion. In 1898, after the United States defeated Spain and claimed Puerto Rico, U.S. troops primarily returned home through New Orleans. Many of these soldiers brought back different brass instruments from Europe and sold them to the local musicians living in New Orleans. Soon after, there was a brass band on almost every block, and the beginnings of blues could be heard nearly everywhere. At this time, the instruments were being played to imitate the sound of the human voice.
New Orleans has always differed from other cities when it comes to its music scene. Like so many others, New York City’s scene was largely based around competition: which musicians were the best, and who would get the gig. New Orleans was essentially a party city, and that effected its music greatly. Because of this party atmosphere, there was always a demand for music at every kind of event imaginable, paid or not. Music was not just entertainment then — it was a way of life and a soundtrack to the culture. The culture was racially integrated, as was the music (unlike most other cities at the time.)
At the turn of the century, many New Orleans musicians headed north to Chicago and New York City. There they began incorporating the music they learned in New Orleans into the music up North, heavily influencing the scene with their syncopated mix of rag, blues, and brass band style music. At this time in history, this kind of music did not fall under the name “jazz.” Jazz orchestras were called syncopated orchestras, a trend which continued until 1917 when the first references to “jazz” began to appear.
In 1917 the first jazz record was released: Jack “Papa” Laine’s Original Dixieland Jass Band — but jazz was still a loosely used term. It wasn’t until Jelly Roll Morton came on the scene, with his fusion of rag and blues, that a clearer representation of the beginning of jazz was tangible. But the person to change music forever was trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, who really departed from the music of Dixieland, rag, and blues. Armstrong’s style of playing and singing changed the way his contemporaries approached music; he is said to have influenced jazz more than any other artist.
The emergence of jazz out of blues, ragtime, and old gospel was not just a change in style and composition, but a change in how music was received in culture. The new focus on the “performer” made way for a focus on a new kind of composition. Though this change didn’t happen over night, jazz was an overwhelming success in its early forms, although it took dozens of musicians, changing and experimenting, to develop the kind of music that was then brought to cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE
Loading ...
Comments