Jazz: an American Art Form

Jazz, an American Art Form

Music is a form of humanly organized sound. Many think that music creates desire. One type of music is a form called Jazz. Jazz is an American art form that was created in the early 20th century in New Orleans which spawned many great artists with its own form progressively changing throughout the century.

Jazz originated from pop music styles of the 1800s that were blended to satisfy social dancers. During the next 100 years, it began to be recognized as a style of its own, with roots from New Orleans. The birth of jazz into its own style began with influences from the French, Creole, and African Americans that lived in New Orleans during the 1890s. The French and Creole influence brings European style of music into jazz and African American influences the modification of the European style into an American style of music. The African Americans would modify the European style of music to fit their own customs with improvisation and syncopated rhythms. This became the base definition of New Orleans jazz during this period of time.

New Orleans was a sea port which created tourism from around the world with many indoor and outdoor social events. These social events required music prior to the event and a dance the followed. As most of these social events were held outside, large brass bands were selected so that the music could be heard outdoors. The brass bands were many made up of coronets and trombones, but began to include woodwind instruments like the clarinet and saxophone. With there being such an abundance of work in this period, many artists had to modify and improvise in order to create new music to sound new and fresh at each event. The musicians in the band practiced very hard to be creative. Each member showed off their talents with instrumental solos that seemed to work together seamlessly while creating new music each night. This improvisation and soloing became the basis of a jazz band.

Many...