The essence of the appeal of Jazz music has expanded from the use of elements found in spiritual and hymn music, bluegrass hillbilly music, African drumming, blues, impressionist, and classical traits to newer sounds. Jazz music became popular from radio and underground clubs that influenced other parts of the world. For instance, Europe’s French Jazz scene created Gypsy Jazz and South America’s Brazilian and Afro-Cuban Jazz sounds. Not only did make it’s mark on the world, but it also found its way back to its roots through urban contemporary gospel music of percussion as well as brass instruments.
Today the contemporary gospel music uses guitars, keyboard, piano, drums and brass instruments for their sound. One can usually tell during the ballads how Jazz chord harmonies are used in the keyboard and piano.
If you don’t know the difference between one style of jazz and another, this article is for you. Read on if you want to up your cool quotient while discussing Hot Jazz:
Classic Jazz: More popularly called ‘New Orleans jazz’ because of its origins, classic jazz originated in the late 1800’s – early 1900’s with brass bands performing for dances and parties using an assortment of musical instruments including the trombone, saxophone, tuba, clarinet, cornet, guitar, bass, drums and cornet. At the time, musical arrangements varied significantly from one performance to another.
Hot Jazz: Pioneered by Louis Armstrong, hot jazz was characterized by improvised solos that built up to an emotional and ‘hot’ crescendo that was supported by bass, drums and guitar or banjo.
Bebop: Immortalized by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker who engaged in chordal improvisations, Bebop was a complete deviation from mainstream jazz that was typically derived from the melodic line.
Bossa Nova: Initiated as “Brazilian jazz” by Brazilian’s Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto, Bossa Nova is a blend of seductive Brazilian samba rhythms, classical European harmonies and West Coast cool. Adopting the Bossa Nova style, West Coast saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd gave this jazz form a huge boost in the United States around 1962.
Hard Bop: From the middle of 1950’s the church’s spiritual and gospel roots of African style returned to the Jazzmusic which assisted in the making of Rhythm and Blues. One example of this music is Davis’ work titled “Walkin”.
Mainstream: From the 1950’s era, Jazz improvisation changed from single line melodic ornamentation to chordal which appeared again as a loose form of Jazz music in the later part of the 1970’s and 1980’s. This style was influenced by the cool, classical, and hard bop Jazz styles.
Jazz music is not a simple style that can easily be defined except as free music that can easily meld into other styles of music to take it to another level. Jazz music itself is an innovation of African, Impressionist, Spiritual, Hymnal, Blues and Blue Grass hillbilly music simultaneously combined into a music masterpiece. The essence of the sound of Jazz music comes from the different musical elements from each part its origins as putting pieces of a puzzle together into one cohesive entity.
