Jazz - The Rich History and Features of a Vibrant Style

Jazz is arguably the root of all popular contemporary styles of music. As jazz pianist John Lewis once said: “Rock is just another kind of jazz.” Born in New Orleans, the style has a fascinating history that we’ll be digging into today. Read on and find out what sets this spirited style apart.

European Ingredients and an African Chef

“I like to compare jazz to cooking,” says jazz drummer Pierre Courbois. “Almost all of the ingredients come from Europe, but the chef is from Africa. The twelve-note system, the chords and all of the instruments used in jazz are strictly European, with the harmonies stemming from none other than German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s work, who may or may not have been inspired by Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, which is being looked into by researchers as we speak.” French immigrants in and around New Orleans played an important role in the origin story of jazz. The same goes for Jewish Americans like composers George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers (from Rodgers & Hammerstein).

“Jazz is multi-cultural world music that couldn’t have come into existence without either the European ingredients or its African chefs,” Pierre says. Rooted in the African community in the southeast of the United States, jazz emerged at the start of the 20th century. New Orleans is considered the cradle of jazz because it’s the melting pot where the different styles that fuelled jazz – so blues, American folk, European folk and marching music, and ragtime – came together. The most significant features of jazz, especially early jazz, are blue notes, syncopated rhythms (focus on the off-beat), swing and, above all, improvisation.

New Orleans Jazz

Folk Dances and Marching Music

During the time of slavery in the United States, Black people weren’t allowed to have musical instruments, which changed after slavery was abolished in 1862. Like most other non-Europeans, African cultures don’t use ‘our’ twelve-note system, but a five-note (pentatonic) system that doesn’t include the third and seventh interval, which made it difficult for the formerly enslaved African-Americans to properly intonate those intervals playing European instruments. That led to the invention of blue notes: a slightly lower-tuned major third and major seventh. To this day, blue notes are commonly used across the entire breadth of pop music. The first thing that the freed African-Americans played was European folk dance and marching music, which they played from the top off their heads since they couldn’t read music. In practice, that meant they were improvising all the time, and they weren’t as concerned about tight timing either. “African musicians count less strictly than European musicians,” Pierre explains. Add up blue notes, improv and loose timing and it’s easy to see the original framework for jazz. The final, unmistakably African element is syncopation. In syncopated rhythms, it’s the off-count that’s stressed, usually just before the count. “This actually doesn’t apply to the backbeat, so the accent on the second and fourth count,” Pierre remarks. “That originates from European marching music, or more specifically, Swiss marching drums. What is true, however, is that Black musicians made the backbeat much more prominent.”

Scott Joplin is one of the most important ragtime pioneers and helped lay the foundation for jazz.

Ragtime and Marching Bands

Today, jazz is thought of by many people as an ‘intellectual’ or ‘high-brow’ style, which is in stark contrast to its origins. Back in the day, jazz (originally spelled as ‘jass’) was mainly played in brothels in New Orleans’ red-light district, Storyville, but it wasn’t long before it reached the far corners of the world, sprouting a large number of subgenres over time.

One of the styles that jazz was born from is ragtime: a style that reached its high point between 1890 and 1910, is predominantly played on a piano, and is generally difficult to play, even when it’s written down. One of the most well-known ragtime composers is Scott Joplin who, among other classics, wrote ‘The Entertainer’. Ragtime is characterised by big rhythmic leaps played with the left hand.

During the heydays of ragtime, there were a lot of marching bands in New Orleans that played both funerals and dance music mainly with wind instruments, which explains the important role of brass and woodwind instruments in jazz. Needless to say, the Belgian inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax, also played an important role in jazz instrumentation.

Trumpeter, singer and band leader Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971) is a legendary name in jazz.

The Spread of Jazz

After the turn of the 20th century, musicians in the Storyville district in New Orleans are by no means struggling to get by, allowing the local music scene to develop quickly. At the same time, the infamous neighbourhood was shook by one ruckus and another, so the local council decided to act, after which a number of musicians decided to spread their wings and move to places like Chicago, spreading jazz all over the United States, and later Europe. As white music once inspired Black musicians to create jazz, in turn, jazz also inspired white musicians. This began in New Orleans around 1917 when white musicians developed a style called dixieland, which is considered to be the ‘white’ version of early New Orleans jazz.

As a newfound style, jazz was met with a fair bit of resistance. In the 1920s, a lot of people found the style decadent — to no avail. The upswing of jazz couldn’t be slowed down anymore, as jazz legends like Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971), one of the key figures in not just jazz but all of music history, had already started doing their thing.

The Dawn of Big-Bands

The roaring twenties also saw the emergence of various jazz formations that paved the way for the swing jazz of big bands that dominated the 1930s, fronted by band leaders and arrangers like Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and, a bit later, Glenn Miller. Swing is incredibly danceable music and was an extremely big hit at the time. The 1930s and 40s also marked the years when the first careful and precarious steps were taken towards mixed orchestras that consisted of Black and white musicians. “Segregation bogged down the development of music,” says Pierre. “Thankfully, musicians tried to steer clear of it as much as they could, but it still took several decades before Black and white musicians were able to make music together without any consequences.”

As swing and big-bands gained popularity, jazz started to become more complex, maturing as a style. The chords got richer, and so did the ever-more melodious and intricate solos that were improvised over them. “Jazz never stopped embracing complexity ever since,” says Pierre. “That’s why rich chords and complex harmonics and melodies are inextricably linked with jazz.” In the 1930s, jazz blew over to Europe, where it made landfall in France first. One well-known formation of the time is the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Belgian guitar-virtuoso Django Reinhardt also helped propagate jazz across Europe. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is a big name in current jazz who’s known for revisiting early New Orleans jazz and plays in period-accurate orchestras.

Saxophonist Charlie Parker is one of the biggest names in bebop.

The Rise of Bebop

Dixieland (the white version of New Orleans jazz) experienced a revival throughout the 1940s and 50s. At the same time, there’s another development in jazz: bebop. Unlike the popular and danceable classic jazz, bebop is ‘musician’s music’. It’s meant to be listened to, not danced to. The tempo is dialled up in bebop, and beboppers take musical complexity even further than traditional jazz musicians with even more intricate chord-based improv. Bebop is characterised by transitional chords, chord substitution and altered chords.

The style of drumming evolved too, becoming more expressive and more explosive. The continuous rhythms were played with a ride cymbal and (foot-operated) hi-hats, while the snare and kick drum were used for accents. While swing musicians initially opposed bebop, claiming it was too skittish, the new style was ultimately accepted. Big-name bebop pioneers include Charlie Parker (saxophone), Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk (piano), Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown (trumpet), Charles Mingus (bass) and Max Roach (drums).

Dave Brubeck Quartet
At the end of the 1940s, ‘cool jazz’ emerged as a counter movement to bebop, in part driven by pianist Dave Brubeck.

After Bebop

Near the end of the 1940s, the nervous energy and tension of bebop was replaced by the calmer and more amicable sound of cool jazz — a style marked by long, linear melodies that are also less complex and more light-hearted than bebop licks. Big, familiar names in cool jazz include Miles Davis and Chet Baker (trumpet), Stan Getz (saxophone) and Dave Brubeck (piano).

Halfway through the 1950s, a bebop spin-off called hardbop popped up. Hardbop takes its cues from blues, rhythm-and-blues (which emerged at the same time), and gospel. Significant hardbop musicians include Miles Davis again, Art Blakey (drums), Horace Silver (piano) and Clifford Brown again (trumpet). “As a jazz musician myself, I feel most at home in the hardbop wheelhouse,” says Pierre. “It’s less complicated than bebop and easier to dance to. The songs are also more laden with emotion and are played with more intensity.” In the 1960s, the world was introduced to another style of jazz: free jazz. This avant-garde-esque style is characterised by liberal tonality and has no strict rules regarding chords, time signatures and structure.

“In other words, ‘ultimate freedom’…BORING,” Pierre says facetiously but also somewhat seriously. “Free jazz would become a style defined by a lot of rules that told musicians what they could and couldn’t do.” Promoted by heavyweights like Ornette Coleman (saxophone and other instruments) and Albert Ayler (saxophone), free jazz remained an important chapter in jazz. Pierre himself helped lay the foundation for European free jazz. “Which was called free music because a lot of folks unjustly figured it wasn’t jazz anymore,” Pierre adds.

Charlie Byrd

Latin Jazz and Other Spin-Offs

In the 1960s, jazz crossed over to Latin, resulting in Latin jazz. One of the new style’s pioneers was guitarist Charlie Byrd.

From the 1960s on, a large number of jazz subgenres emerged, the most significant being soul jazz, jazz fusion, jazz funk, smooth jazz, acid jazz and jazz rap. Soul jazz sprouted from hardbop and is clearly inspired by rhythm & blues and gospel. It’s played by small formations (e.g. organ trios consisting of a Hammond player who also took care of the bass, a drummer and a guitarist or tenor saxophonist) and is characterised by repeating grooves. Important Hammond organists in soul jazz include Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff (check out our article on the Hammond organ for more info).

Jazz fusion, meanwhile, features rock rhythms and electronic instruments and was popularised by, among others, Miles Davis, pianists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, drummer Tony Williams, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

Then there’s jazz funk (which focus on powerful grooves and analogue synths), smooth jazz (a jazz-pop hybrid style), acid jazz (inspired by EDM) and jazz rap (also known as jazz hip-hop). Can we expect more fresh spin-offs from jazz? “I doubt it,” says Pierre. “New styles are created when existing styles are mashed up. As far as jazz goes, I think every style out there has already been mixed with it at some point. That said, it’s safe to say that there have been more developments in music in the last hundred years than in the thousand years before that.”

Good to Know

Jazz Standards

The most defining element of jazz is improvisation. This is why jazz musicians like to play compositions that are perfect for improv. Throughout the years, a large number of suitable compositions have basically become embedded in all jazz musicians’ collective memory. These are known as jazz standards: a huge repertoire of songs that are well-known among both musicians and their audiences. Jazz standards are also often played during jam sessions, and you can find them bundled up in books like The Real Book, The New Real Book, The Fake Book and the more recently published 557 Swing & Bebop Standards. Anyone who’s studied jazz at a conservatory will be more than familiar with these books since they’re required reading.

Church Modes and Jazz

What do church modes and jazz have in common? Well, a lot actually. The dorian, phrygian and lydian modes, for example, are commonly used in jazz. It was jazz pianist Bill Evans and a few others who first started using the Gregorian modes, and both Miles Davis and John Coltrane have often used them to their advantage.

The Bible for Jazz Musicians

For many jazz musicians, the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky is their musical bible. Nicolas Slonimsky (1926-1967) was a Russian-born Jewish-American composer, conductor, music critic and writer who’s credited with several important publications, including his incredibly well-read thesaurus. “Ironically, Slonimsky didn’t even like jazz,” Pierre remarks.