Jazz is a style of music that brings different kinds of music styles into one. The main dominant music styles in Jazz are African music and blues music. It was also deeply influenced by Spanish music, gospel music, and brass bands. This music started in New Orleans in the state of Louisiana near the end of the 1800’s, but did not really become popular until the beginning of the 1900’s.
Jazz is considered emotional music as it uses different unique notes. Jazz Musicians create songs that contain a variety of rhythms which can change throughout the song. The 1920’s was the golden age of jazz music in the United States. Once it became one of the most popular music styles in the country, talented jazz players moved their activities to bigger cities like New York.
Famous jazz musicians were the kings of the Jazz Age. Extremely talented people like Louis Armstrong are still known and appreciated to this day.
Improvised music based on emotions
Most jazz songs were often improvised depending on what the musicians felt the moment they were playing their songs. This allowed so many ways of communicating different feelings through instruments. In jazz bands, while playing a song, each musician would often get the chance to play solo. Musicians would use these solo times to play differently and try to move and impress the audience with clever musical tricks.
The 1920’s, the Jazz Age
Although it had been around for decades, jazz started to boom with the economy booming at the start of the 1920’s. It was so popular that historians call this era the Jazz Age. Mind you, during the 1920’s, alcohol was banned according to prohibition. However, it was a very popular activity to go to jazz clubs, listen to music, and drink! A Club that served alcoholic drinks along with jazz music was known as a speakeasy. They would usually serve homemade, low-quality alcohol.
Jazz evolution
Jazz music always seemed to be alive and moved on its own, so it was only normal for jazz to keep evolving over time. In the 1930’s when dancing was the most popular hobby, jazz morphed itself into swing music. People danced happily along with its rhythms. In the 1940’s when instruments were able to produce more advanced sounds, a version of jazz named bebop came out. During the 40’s, bebop dominated the music world. Many music styles that came up in the following decades were affected by or based on jazz, such as hip hop and rock music.
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