Portal:Jazz/Genres

Introduction

Welcome to Wikipedia's portal for jazz music.

The first music called jazz originated with southern blacks, however the accepted cultural birth place of this style of music is New Orleans, Louisiana, United States around the start of the 20th century. Jazz uses blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation, and blends African American musical styles with Western music technique and theory. Jazz musician and teacher Bill Evans, described jazz as more than just a musical genre but a process of making music whereby, "one minutes music is made in one minute's time". This is a key difference to composed music where there is less spontaneous creation of music and only limited space for the artist's own interpretation. (more)

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Dixieland music is a style of jazz. Dixieland developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s, and was, for a period, quite popular among the general public. It is often considered the first true type of jazz, and was the first music referred to by the term jazz (before 1917 often spelled jass). An interesting theory behind the name change from jass to jazz is that an establishment which would feature this music would often have a sign outside, in the form of a chalkboard, announcing it would be featuring "jass". Someone would inevitably come along and rub the "j" out. Changing the spelling to "jazz" sounds similar and would alleviate the problem of being left with a lewd word on the sign. (more)

See also

• List of jazz genres

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Categories

Jazz genres