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Jazz Music |
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| Jazz has been called America's classical music,
and for good reason. Along with the blues, its forefather, it is one of the first truly
indigenous music to develop in America, yet its unpredictable, risky
ventures into improvisation gave it critical cache with scholars that blues lacked. At the outset, jazz was dance music, performed by
swinging big bands. Soon, the dance elements faded into the background and improvisation
became the key element of the music. As the genre evolved, the music split into a number
of different styles, from the speedy, hard-hitting rhythms of be-bop and the laid-back,
mellow harmonies of cool jazz to the jittery, atonal forays of free jazz and the earthy
grooves of soul jazz. What tied it all together was a foundation in the blues, a reliance
on group interplay and unpredictable improvisation. Throughout the years, and in all the
different styles, those are the
qualities that defined jazz. Main Types of JAZZ :Big Band/Swing Bop Cool Free Jazz/Avant Garde Fusion Hard Bop Latin Jazz/World Fusion New Orleans Jazz Soul Jazz/Groove Although Big Bands -- meaning a jazz group that features over 10 musicians -- have played a variety of different styles in jazz history, from bop to free jazz, it usually is understood to refer to the '30s and '40s, the classic era of swing. During that time, most of the jazz groups were Big Bands and they played a robust, invigorating style of swing that derived from New Orleans jazz. Swing was dance music, yet it offered individual musicians a chance to improvise musically fresh, technically complex solos. Since swinging Big Bands led by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey were extraordinarily popular, the terms became interchangeable in the public eye. It may be disingenuous to call all Big Bands "swing" -- just like all "swing" isn't performed by Big Bands -- but the two are forever tied together, since they matured simultaneously. Furthermore, Big Bands from different genres, whether it's cool jazz or jazz-rock, often borrow from the Swing Big Band tradition. |
music is LIFE!
music soothes even the savage beast
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