Frequently Asked Question

Q: What are Jazz and its history?
A: a American genre of music started in the Black and Creole communities of New Orleans emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. It is characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and swing.

In Chicago circa.1915 Jazz was spelled 'Jass' as slang. Jazz features, brass and woodwind instruments and piano are particularly associated with jazz, although guitar,bass and occasionally the violin, harp, bagpipes or organ are also used; styles by decades of popularity include1910's Dixieland (early), 1920's swing (traditional),1930's big band, 1940's bebop, 1950's cool, 1960's hard bop, 1970's fusion jazz (including 1980's free, avant garde, acid jazz) emerging now as smooth jazz. So-called jazz purisit would not include this style. However the musicians still can play and meet the criteria of improvisation, syncopation, and swing, although much is commercialized to make a living. Smooth Jazz (1990's until now) is in essence is what the JazzeOne calls ‘soft bop’ and has much popularity in both the older and younger multi-racial Jazz community.

While Jazz originated in the Afro-American communities it has spread universally to other countries and in my opinion really has no race or color limits. Europe and Asia were big recipients of Jazz in the 30's and 40's as the depression, drugs, war and racial discrimination had an impact on America. As a result some Black musicians were force to leave America because of the lack of work. The prohibition and illegal joints however, kept the music alive during these times. Latin Jazz also become big during the late big band era of the 40's.

Jazz continued to flourish as America's favorite music until the 1950's with the onset of rock n roll, soul, rhythm and blues, county  and pop music began to spring up or morphed into the preferred genres. ~the JazzeOne