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a brief history of jazz
One of the major questions that will go forever unanswered is "How did jazz start?" The first jazz recording was in 1917 but the music existed in at least primitive forms for 20 years before that. Influenced by classical music, marches, spirituals, work songs, ragtime, blues and the popular music of the period, jazz was already a distinctive form of music by the time it was first documented.
The chances are that the earliest jazz was played by unschooled musicians in New Orleans marching bands. ...
Since cornetist Buddy Bolden (the first famous musician to be considered a jazz player) formed his band in 1895, one can use that year as a symbolic birthdate for jazz. ... Although some New Orleans musicians traveled up North, jazz remained strictly a regional music until the World War I. ... 30, 1917 a white group immodestly called "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band" recorded "Darktown Strutters Ball" and "Indiana" for Columbia. ... ) became a best-seller and jazz was discovered, sort of. ... Jazz became a fad for a few years (as promoters rushed to make money off of the new music) and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919 was a sensation in London. However it would be a few years before black jazz musicians were recorded, leading some observers at the time to the false conclusion that whites (and the ODJB in particular) had invented the music! A backlash later on led to others feeling that only blacks could play jazz and that all of the white players were poor imitations. ...
In 1920 Mamie Smith recorded the first blues, "Crazy Blues," and the jazz fad was soon supplanted by a blues craze. However jazz continued to progress and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (one of the first groups to feature short solos) in 1922 sounded a decade ahead of the ODJB. 1923 was a key year for jazz because during that year King Olivers Creole Jazz Band (which had among its sidemen cornetist Louis Armstrong and clarinetist Johnny Dodds), blues singer Bessie Smith and pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton all made their recording debuts. While King Olivers band would be considered the definitive ensemble-oriented New Orleans group, Louis Armstrong would soon permanently change jazz.
In the early 1920s Chicago was the center of jazz. ... Armstrong, through his explosive, dramatic and swinging solos with Henderson, was extremely influential in changing the way that jazz musicians phrased and in opening up possibilities for improvisers. ...
The 1920s became known as "The Jazz Age" (although as much for its liberal social attitudes as for its music).
Approximate Word count = 2091
Approximate Pages = 8.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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