The Origins of Jazz

Although many believe it to have originated in New Orleans, the ascent of jazz music into popular entertainment is difficult to constrict to one specific area or state. In addition, this is partly because nothing of what early jazz bands played was ever written down as much of it was improvised by early jazz musicians; furthermore, even if they were documented, the technology of musical notation cannot accurately describe the feel of the improvised performance that comprised much of early jazz. The origin of jazz is also difficult to place in one specific state because jazz music evolved and adapted according to the change in the conditions of the time in which the musician had experienced it; consequently, jazz expanded rapidly and jazz performers were constantly changing the original sound of jazz, creating new branches of the original. For example, the origins of jazz trace back to the sound of Creole subculture's response to racial issues of the time specific to New Orleans; however, jazz was immediately responsive to the atmosphere of the speakeasies and the illegal virtues that the mobster audience inspired-- resulting in a much different sounding jazz.

Jazz was extremely important to American history because it reflected the pure emotions of the era in which the jazz musicians would live in, allowing future people to have a sense of how living in conditions such as the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression would have felt.
For examples, most of the jazz music in the 1920's were written for Broadway, and therefore encompassed non-realistic realities because the 1920's were a time of unprecedented prosperity; however, jazz music would transition into a more serious tone during and proceeding the crash of the stock market in 1929. One classic example of the reflection of the emotional impact that the Great Depression caused was the song, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" The sounds of the song, along with its' lyrics, convey the degree of poverty and desperation that consumed that era of American history. Furthermore, examples such as "This is the Army" and "Oklahoma" would reflect the complex transition of the time of depression into war during the time of the first World War, and would later reflect the disposition that music and entertainment should distract or relieve its' audience of the major agents of stress that began to impact not only American history, but world history as well.

Most Interesting Link

In all honesty, this link isn't too interesting in itself. However, it did make me realize that although I had read and understood much of the conceptual importance of the sound of jazz, I had not yet experienced it myself. Therefore, I was inspired to create a short playlist of the famous jazz music in the 1920's and post it to my blog so that my classmates could also experience the sound of jazz in the time period we are learning about. In addition, two of the Louis Armstrong songs' (What a Wonderful World & Hello Dolly!) lyrics can be found at the link above in order to further the experience of the jazz culture of that time period as you can hear and read the words simultaneously.

References

1) A History of Jazz Music

2) The Origins of Jazz