The History of Jazz

Jazz began in the early 20th century, evolving into a major musical art form and in this feature we examine it’s origins until the present day.
Beginning with trying to define the word, we will explore the importance of  US cities like New Orleans, Chicago and New York in the development of jazz; key musical movements from the 1930′s until the 1950s such as Swing, Be-Bop, Cool Jazz and Modal Jazz, developments from the 1960s until the present such as Free Jazz, and contemporary jazz.
We will also examine some of the major artists who have helped shaped jazz over the years, the key albums, some useful terms and also list some recommended books for people to explore further.
WHAT IS JAZZ?
is:
…a type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and a regular rhythm…
The online dictionary Wikipedia says it is:
…an American musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music tradition. The style’s West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note.
But where did the actual word come from? The origin is elusive.
Although it is now used to refer to a form of music the earliest known references to jazz are in the sports pages of various West Coast newspapers covering baseball in 1912.
LA Times
The Los Angeles Times of April 2nd, 1912, referred to Portland Beavers pitcher Ben Henderson:
“…I got a new curve this year,” softly murmured Henderson yesterday, “and I’m goin’ to pitch one or two of them tomorrow. I call it the Jazz ball because it wobbles and you simply can’t do anything with it…”
Whilst this had nothing to do with music, it shows that the word was in use by 1912.
As with many words that evolved from slang, there is no definitive origin but the now-obsolete slang term ‘jasm’, meaning ‘spirit, energy or vigour’, is dated to 1860 in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang and could be considered a leading candidate for the source of ‘jazz’.
Although jazz as we know it is widely considered to have evolved in New Orleans, the word began to be applied to music in Chicago around 1915.
Chicago Tribune
The earliest known use of jazz in relation to music is from theChicago Daily Tribune on July 11, 1915:
Blues Is Jazz and Jazz Is Blues . . . The Worm had turned — turned to fox trotting. And the “blues” had done it. The “jazz” had put pep into the legs that had scrambled too long for the 5:15. . . At the next place a young woman was keeping “Der Wacht Am Rhein” and “Tipperary Mary” apart when the interrogator entered. “What are the blues?” he asked gently. “Jazz!”
Examples in Chicago continued over the next year, with the term beginning to extend to other cities by the end of 1916. By 1917 the term had caught on, although sometimes it was called ‘jass’.
One of the ironies of jazz is that although its history is fairly well documented, trying to define it is much harder. Jazz music evolved in the ghettos of New Orleans at the end of the 19th century and gradually spread to Chicago and New York in the 1920s as African Americans moved north in search of a better life.
The 1930s saw the emergence of swing bands led by Duke Ellington and soloists like Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.
But over the next 70 years as different forms emerged with Be-Bop in the 1940s, Cool jazzin the 1950s, Modal jazz in 1960s and Fusion in 1970s it became ever harder to pin down what a working definition of jazz itself. Part of the reason is that jazz remains an organic art form which continues to grow.
Although it may be hard to easily define, many people have given their take on what jazz means to them. Here are a selection of quotes from famous jazz figures:
  • “By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with” – Duke Ellington
  • “…jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping. It is the hardest music to play that I know of, and it is the highest rendition of individual emotion in the history of Western music.” – Wynton Marsalis
  • “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” - Louis Armstrong (when asked to define the rhythmic concept of “swing”)
  • “When they study our civilization two thousand years from now, there will only be three things that Americans will be known for: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music. They’re the three most beautiful things Americans have ever created.” – Gerald Early
  • “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” – Miles Davis
  • “Master your instrument, Master the music, and then forget all that **** and just play.” – Charlie Parker
But how did jazz begin?
ORIGINS
By early 19th century the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves had mostly come from West Africa and brought with them tribal musical traditions.
Unlike European musical traditions, African music focused on rhythm rather than harmony. When the African five note (pentatonic) scale met the European seven note (diatonic) scale, different hybrids evolved. The most important of these hybrids were Blues and Ragtime.
Blues was the song form that became central to Jazz and it formed in the 19th century from a mix of African and Christian music. Around 1835 there were plantation brass bands and touring minstrel troupes were singing and playing early versions of the blues by the 1840s.
The actual phrase “the blues” is a reference to the Blue Devils, meaning low spirits, melancholy, and sadness. An early reference to “the blues” can be found in George Colman’s one act farce Blue Devils from 1798.
Though the use of the phrase in African American music may be older, it can be traced back to 1912, when Hart Wand’s “Dallas Blues” became the first copyrighted Blues composition.
Although we could now define “the blues” musically as certain chord structures and lyric ideas that originated in West Africa, audiences in America identified it as the music of the rural south, especially the Mississippi Delta.
The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the l920’s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry.
Ragtime was a syncopated European style of piano music that evolved from the march but was often played with an African-style rhythm. As the forerunner of Jazz it became fully developed in the 1890s but it is difficult to pinpoint when Jazz actually emerged, or who actually started it.
The abolition of slavery led to new opportunities for education of freed African-Americans, but strict segregation meant there were limited employment opportunities. Black musicians provided “low-class” entertainment at dances, minstrel shows, and in vaudeville, and many marching bands formed.
Black pianists played in bars, clubs and brothels, and ragtime developed. The emergence of mature ragtime is usually dated to 1897, the year in which several important early rags were published. In 1899, “Maple Leaf Rag” by Scott Joplin was published, which became a hit and demonstrated more depth and sophistication than earlier ragtime.

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Some artists, like Jelly Roll Morton, were present and performed both ragtime and jazz styles during the period the two genres overlapped. Although Blues and Ragtime were crucial to development of Jazz, the way in which they intersected is hard to pin down. A similar sense of ambiguity surrounds where Jazz was actually born, but there is one city which dominates the early years: New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans was originally a French settlement and a melting pot for all kinds of people in the 19th century. It didn’t officially become part of the United States of America until 1803 with The Louisiana Purchase.
This was when the U.S under President Thomas Jefferson paid $15,000,000 for the Louisiana territory, which back then encompassed 23% of North America.
Louisiana Purchase
The effect of this was that it retained its cosmopolitan European character longer than other American cities. At the turn of the 20th century it had proportionally more opera companies, symphonies and music halls than any other American city.
The traditional music and songs of European countries such as France, Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Italy could be heard in the music halls and brass bands – which were common in French villages since Napoleon – were popular.
New Orleans had a legacy of racial diversity and throughout the 19th century the city had a French-speaking upper class named the Creoles.
Historically, the name ‘Creole’ was used in early generations to refer to colonists of French descent who had been born in Louisiana and were thus native to the territory, compared to new immigrants. It then referred exclusively people of European descent but it also was used for black slaves who were born in Louisiana rather than those born and transported as slaves from West Africa.
These were people who were a mixture of mainly French, Spanish, African American, and Native-American heritage. They were often educated, academically and musically, in the classical European manner and there was little discrimination against them in the 19th century.
At the beginning of the 1800s, the population of New Orleans was roughly half black and half white. Half of the blacks were ‘workers’, the other half were slaves and the captive Africans continued to be brought into the city throughout the 19th century.
During this French and Spanish colonial era, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work and they gathered in a square where they would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music.
Congo Square today
Congo Square today
This eventually became known as ‘Congo Square’ and as African music had been suppressed in the Protestant colonies and states, the weekly gatherings here became famous and were an important step in influencing what would later become jazz.
After the Louisiana Purchase, American settlers moved to the city and working class blacks were moved out of the better neighbourhoods and jobs. By 1890 racial discrimination was directed towards the Creoles and sophisticated creole musicians moved into the same areas and began to play alongside black musicians who liked to improvise.
One of the unintended effects of the Civil War was that there was a sudden supply of cheap military marching band instruments. This meant that the music of late 19th century New Orleans was dominated by brass bands and they played at all kinds of events including: parades, dances and funerals.
Storyville in New Orleans
Storyville in New Orleans
In 1897 the city created a legal red-light district namedStoryville.
The streets of this district were often filled with walking musical processions (Mardi Gras, dances and funerals) and the music was mainly handled by two groups: working class blacks and Creoles of colour.
It is this fusion of the earthy, bluesy music of Blacks and the technical skill of Creoles that many scholars see as the origin of what we now know as Jazz.
The instruments used in marching bands and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands of primarily self-taught African American musicians, many of whom came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early jazz.
They travelled throughout black communities in the Deep South and from around 1914 Afro-Creole and African American musicians playing in vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.
Many early jazz musicians credited Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden and his band with being the originators of what came to be known as ‘jazz’, though the term wasn’t in common use at the time. He is credited with creating a looser, more improvised version of ragtime and adding blues to it, although sadly no known recordings of Bolden have survived.
Poster for Jelly Roll Blues in 1915
Poster for Jelly Roll Blues in 1915
Afro-Creole pianist Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton began his career in Storyville. From 1904, he toured with vaudeville shows around southern cities, also playing in Chicago and New York.
His “Jelly Roll Blues,” which he composed around 1905, was published in 1915 as the first jazz arrangement in print, introducing more musicians to the New Orleans style.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band made the first jazz recordings early in 1917 as their “Livery Stable Blues” became the earliest Jazz recording.
That year numerous other bands made recordings featuring “jazz” in the title or band name, mostly ragtime or novelty records rather than jazz.
In September 1917 W.C. Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis recorded a cover version of “Livery Stable Blues”. In February 1918 James Reese Europe’s “Hellfighters” infantry band took ragtime to Europe during World War I, then on return recorded Dixieland standards including “The Darktown Strutter’s Ball”.
However, it remains a strange irony that some of the classics of ‘New Orleans’ jazz recorded in the 1920s by Joe Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong were actually made in another U.S. city – Chicago.
CHICAGO
In 1900, most of America’s black population lives in the South but over the next few decades many migrated north for a better life as America’s industrial economy grew.
Jazz at the Savoy in Chicago during the 1920s
Jazz at the Savoy in Chicago during the 1920s
Chicago in the 1920s became the centre of this migration north and soon became a place where cabaret and dance joints thrived.
One factor that helped trigger this boom was Prohibition which was voted in not long after migrants from the south arrived.
These new laws that banned alcohol led to an enormous boom in bootleg liquor and illegal drinking clubs called ‘speakeasies’. It was in these places that jazz thrived as people looking for a drink wanted music to accompany it.
When the Storyville was closed down in 1917, many of the jazz players moved north to Chicago. In 1918 Joe ‘King’ Oliver left New Orleans and moved to Chicago where he formed his famous Creole Band, which became famous at Lincoln Gardens on the South Side of the city.
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
In 1922, King sent for a gifted young trumpeter he had taught in New Orleans named Louis Armstrong.
When Oliver brought Armstrong into his band he doing an unconventional thing by adding a second cornet player.
Whilst Oliver never strayed far from the melody and beat Armstrong adopted a more improvisational style which helped revolutionise jazz music. Previously it had been an ensemble form of music but Armstrong helped pave the way for later musicians with his revolutionary playing style.
With his distinctive voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, showing great skill in bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. By the 1920s the New Orleans jazz community had found a new home in Chicago and the population of the city’s South Side grew to 100,000.
Even white audiences were drawn to the new music with special concerts by the King Oliver band being held at Lincoln Gardens. The distinctive Chicago style of jazz which originated in the south was sometimes called “Dixieland” or “Hot Jazz”.
Louis Armstrong’s recordings with his Chicago-based Hot Seven band (which included members of his New Orleans Hot Five) came out during this period. There was an emphasis on solos, faster tempos, string bass and guitar, which replaced the traditional tuba and banjo.
Important musicians in the Chicago style include Muggsy Spanier, Jimmy McPartland, Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Frank Teschemacher and Frank Trumbauer.
A radio in the 1920s
A radio in the 1920s
Another important development around this time was the firstcommercial radio broadcasts in 1920, which in a couple of years had seen over 500 stations sprout up.
Meanwhile, another American city was becoming important in the development of jazz.
NEW YORK
Whilst New York did not have the same jazz traditions as New Orleans and Chicago, in the 1920s it was becoming the centre of the recording industry.
Don Ricos NY jazz band in the 1920s
Don Ricos New York jazz band in the 1920s
One artist who came to prominence at this time in the Big Apple was a bandleader named Paul Whiteman, who had great success with ‘symphonic jazz’ arrangements.
Calling himself the ‘King of Jazz’, he sold three million copies of his first record in 1922. In 1924 he staged a concert in New York’s Aeolian Hall and that saw the premiere of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ by George Gershwin.
Around the same time Whiteman was crowning himself the king of jazz, another bandleader named Fletcher Henderson was making waves.
Incorporating more improvisational jazz within his big band style he found a way of using saxophones and brass sections in new and innovative ways. In 1924 he brought Louis Armstrong over from Chicago to join his band in New York, which added another dimension to his sound.
In the 1920s Black poetry, art, literature and music came flourished and the district of Harlem be came an epicentre for this cultural change.
It wasn’t just in the night spots that Harlem buzzed – there were even rent parties and ‘parlour socials’ which saw tenants hire musicians to play in their own homes, charging a small fee to cover the rent. These open houses provided an outlet for such musicians as Fats Waller and James P Johnson.

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Duke Ellington had already made a name for himself with his Kentucky Club Orchestra and in 1927 his group of musicians became the house band at Harlem’s Cotton Club.
He held court at this legendary club during its most celebrated period from 1927 to 1931.
However, as the Depression deepened after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the recording industry took a dive, dropping over 90% by 1933.
Ellington and his orchestra survived the hard times by taking to the road in a series of tours and a weekly radio broadcast helped maintain his popularity.
The so called ‘Jazz Age’ was about to end but the Swing Age was just around the corner.
SWING
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply ‘swing’, is a form of jazz that evolved in the early 1930s and had become a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States.
Part of its origins lie in the fact that the terrible social conditions of the Depression saw jazz luminaries like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins go to Europe to play.
In 1922 the jazz bandleader and arranger Fletcher Henderson formed his own band, and through their residencies at the Club Alabam and Roseland, quickly gained a reputation as one of the best bands in New York.
For a time his ideas of arrangement were heavily influenced by those of Paul Whiteman, but when Louis Armstrong joined his orchestra in 1924 Henderson realized there was more potential in jazz band orchestration.
His band also featured the arranging talents of Don Redman (from 1922 to 1927) and together they established the formula for Swing music. The two concocted the recipe every swing band played from, which saw sections ‘talking’ to one another.
Swing uses a strong anchoring rhythm section which supports a lead section that can include brass instruments, including trumpets and trombones, woodwinds including saxophones and clarinets or stringed instruments including violin and guitar; medium to fast tempos; and a “lilting” swing time rhythm.
The verb “to swing” is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic “groove” or drive. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise a new melody over the arrangement.
Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
One of the key figures in the development of this new style wasBenny Goodman, a prodigiously gifted bandleader and clarinetist. In 1934, Goodman’s Orchestra was selected as a house band for the “Let’s Dance” radio program.
Since he needed new charts every week for the show, his friend John Hammond suggested that he purchase some Jazz charts from Henderson and many of Goodman’s hits from the swing music were arranged by Henderson for his own band in the late 20s and early 30s.
In August 1935 Goodman’s band played the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles and when his trumpeter Bunny Berigan played his solos on Henderson’s versions of “Sometimes I’m Happy” and “King Porter Stomp,” the crowd went wild this new type of swing music.
This famous concert and the spread of radio helped Goodman become a national star and Swing and dance soon became intertwined.
Meanwhile, in Kansas a simpler and more blues orientated style of jazz had been brewing through the 1920s with The Benny Moten Band and in particular their saxophonist Ben Webster and pianist William “Count” Basie.
When Moten died in 1935 after a surgical procedure, Basie formed a new band, which included many Moten alumni, with the important addition of tenor saxophone player Lester Young.
Basie’s sound was famous for a “jumping” beat and the accents of his own piano. His band around 1937 included: Lester Young and Herschel Evans (tenor sax), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Walter Page (bass), Earle Warren (alto sax), Buck Clayton and Harry Edison (trumpet), Benny Morton and Dickie Wells (trombone).
He also showcased some of the most notable blues singers of the era including a certainBillie Holiday. Despite the explosion of Swing, it was still a music with a rigid set of rules and one thing that has marked the development of jazz is the need to break rules.
However, the next movement was to break them in new and controversial ways that few could have predicted.
BEBOP
Bebop or ‘bop’ is essentially a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos and improvisation based on harmonic structure rather than melody.
The 1939 recording of “Body and Soul” by Coleman Hawkins is an important antecedent of bebop. Hawkins’ willingness to stray from the ordinary resolution of musical themes and his playful jumps to double-time marked a departure from existing jazz.
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
The recording was popular; but more importantly, from a historical perspective, Hawkins became an inspiration to a younger generation of jazz musicians, most notably to a young musician in Kansas City named Charlie Parker.
In 1935 the jazz clubs in Kansas City, Missouri were thriving with joints open all night and about 15 bands in the town including artists like Lester Young, Count Basie and Mary Lou Williams.
It was in this environment that a 15 year old self taught alto sax player named Charlie Parker quit school to become a musician.
After some difficult early performances he joined Jay McShann’s swing band where he began playing with the harmonic potential in the chords, which meant he had more notes to juggle with in his high speed solos.
In 1939, Parker moved to New York City and after leaving McShann’s band, joined forces with Earl Hines for one year. Also in this band was trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, with whom Parker was to form a memorable partnership.
Unfortunately, this period is virtually undocumented because of the strike of 1942-1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which no official recordings were made.
Nevertheless we know that Parker joined a group of young musicians in after-hours clubs in Harlem such as Clark Monroe’s Uptown House and (to a lesser extent) Minton’s Playhouse.
These young iconoclasts included Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian, and drummer Kenny Clarke.
The beboppers’ attitude was summed up in a famous quotation attributed to Monk by Mary Lou Williams: “We wanted a music that they couldn’t play” – “they” being the (white) bandleaders who had taken over and profited from swing music.
The group played in venues on 52nd Street including the Three Deuces and The Onyx.
Initially this new type of jazz was rejected and disdained by many older, more established, traditional jazz musicians, who disdained their younger counterparts.
Louis Armstrong said:
“That’s got nothing to do with jazz. That’s Chinese music” whilst Tommy Dorsey even said that it: “set music back 20 years”.
However, some musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman, were more responsive and even participated in jam sessions and recording dates with the new approach.
Because of the 2-year Musicians’ Union recording ban on all commercial recordings from 1942-1944 (part of a struggle to get royalties from record sales for a union fund for out-of-work musicians), much of bebop’s early development was not captured for posterity.
This meant bebop from the likes of Parker, Gillespie, Monk and Powell didn’t receive the attention it deserved outside of limited radio exposure.
It was not until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, that Parker’s collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a substantial effect on the jazz world.
On November 26, 1945 Parker led a record date for the Savoy label, marketed as the “greatest Jazz session ever.” The tracks recorded during this session include “Koko”, “Now’s the Time”, “Billie’s Bounce”, and “Thriving on a Riff”.
Although he would struggle with heroin addiction for much of his career, which led to an untimely death at just 35 years of age in 1955, Parker would have a lasting influence on the world of jazz and beyond.
He embodied the idea of the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than just a popular musician. His style influenced countless peers on every instrument and, like Louis Armstrong; he changed the sound of jazz music.
Although Bebop was a development that divided the jazz world at the time, it was an evolution rather than a revolution.
Although the new rhythmic accents were unpredictable, they still used Swing’s four four beat and although it improvised over chords (instead of melodies), these chords were just modified from the old ones.
The reaction to bebop would be a smoother sound that built on its many innovations.
COOL JAZZ
Miles Davis
Miles Davis
In the late 1940′s jazz musicians across America were under the spell of Charlie Parker and started playing more as soloists than musicians to play alongside.
It was only time before a backlash set in and the development of ‘cool jazz’ in the 1950s evolved directly from bebop.
Essentially it was a mixture of bop with certain aspects of swing that had been overlooked or temporarily discarded.
Dissonances were smoothed out, tones were softened, arrangements became important again and the rhythm section’s accents were less jarring.
In 1948 a young trumpeter named Miles Davis assembled a nine piece band for a few gigs in New York. They played a three week engagement at the Royal Roost, at Broadway and 47th Street.
Miles insisted that a sign be put up outside of the club saying: “Arrangements by Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis”.
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The following year, that group of musicians recorded the landmark album The Birth of the Cool, which was a reaction to the explosive, bluesy style of Bebop.
Gil Evans was a young Canadian brought in by Davis and he had studied European classical composers like Debussy, as well as jazz pioneers like Duke Ellington.
This and the fact that he and Gerry Mulligan had developed their initial ideas working for the Michael Tower Orchestra would influence the sound of cool jazz.
The orchestra featured instruments such as the French horn and tuba, which hadn’t really been used in jazz before. The softer emotional and timbral shading of the new sound was a marked change from the jazz of the swing-era.
Another variety of “cool jazz” was that of the pianist Lennie Tristano and his students, notably the saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh.
Tristano’s music is very different from what Evans and his colleagues were up to: its ‘coolness’ was a matter of emotion as he required saxophonists to play with a ‘purer’ tone.
It was a style of jazz that was slower and more contemplative and although the break with bebop can be exaggerated – most of the musicians were drawn from the bebop scene and many continued to play in that style for years afterward – it inspired a whole school of jazz musicians, particularly in California.
Despite its impact in the New York scene, cool jazz later became strongly identified with the West Coast jazz scene.
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Californian group The Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded the popular cool jazz album ‘Time Out’ in 1959, featuring the single ‘Take Five’, which rose to number two on the Billboard “Pop Albums” chart.
The Cool Jazz influence stretches into such later developments as bossa nova, modal jazz (especially Davis’s ‘Kind of Blue’ in 1959), and even free jazz (in the form of Jimmy Giuffre’s 1961-1962 trio).
Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music, Chet Baker rose to prominence as a leading name in cool jazz in the 1950s.
Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1952 and made an immediate impact with Mulligan’s baritone sax and Baker’s trumpet combining to great effect.
Rather than playing identical melody lines in unison like bebop giants Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the two would complement each other’s playing with contrapuntal touches, and it often seemed as if they had telepathy in anticipating what the other was going to play next.
The Quartet’s version of “My Funny Valentine”, featuring a memorable Baker solo, was a major hit, and became a song with which Baker was intimately associated.
Unsurprisingly, as there was a reaction to cool jazz and it came in the form of ‘hard bop’ – an extension of bebop that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, especially in the saxophone and piano playing.
Hard bop evolved in the mid-1950s as a reaction to cool jazz – paralleling the rise of rhythm and blues – and the compositions tended to be based on original chord changes rather than just blues progressions and pop songs.
Hard bop musicians were more likely to create arrangements that used several horns in harmony, both during the head and for riffs as interludes or during solos.
Ironically it was Miles Davis who helped usher the new style in with a famous performance of “Walkin’” – the title track of his latest album, at the inaugural Newport Jazz Festival in 1954.
The quintet Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, fronted by Blakey and featuring pianist Horace Silver and trumpeter Clifford Brown, also became prominent exponents in the hard bop movement along with Davis.
MODAL JAZZ
In the late 1950s modal jazz started to evolve – a form which took the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation.
Previously, the goal of the soloist was to play a solo that fit into a given chord progression, but with modal jazz, the soloist creates a melody using one or a small number of modes.
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The emphasis in this approach shifts from harmony to melody and in 1959 Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue, one of the best selling jazz albums of all time in the modal framework.
It is now regarded as one of the most important jazz records ever made but and is an exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz.
The recording sessions took place at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City on March 2 and April 22 of 1959.
The album is based entirely on modality in contrast to his earlier work with the hard bop style of jazz with its complex chord progression and improvisation.
Included on these sessions was tenor saxophonist John Coltrane who, throughout the 1960s, would explore the possibilities of modal improvisation more deeply than any other jazz artist.
The rest of the musicians on the album were alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, pianistsBill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb.
This record is considered a kind of test album in many conservatories focusing on jazz improvisation. The compositions “So What” and “All Blues” from Kind of Blue are considered contemporary jazz standards.
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While Davis’ explorations of modal jazz were sporadic throughout the 1960s, it was Coltrane who would extensively explore the limits of modal improvisation and composition with his own classic quartet, featuring Elvin Jones (drums), McCoy Tyner (piano), and Reggie Workman and Jimmy Garrison (bass).
Several of Coltrane’s albums from the period are recognized as seminal albums in jazz more broadly, but especially modal jazz: Live! at the Village Vanguard (1961), Crescent (1964), A Love Supreme (1964), and Meditations (1965).
Compositions from this period such as “India,” “Chasin’ the Trane,” “Crescent,” “Impressions,” as well as standards like “My Favorite Things” and “Greensleeves” have entered the jazz repertoire.
Coltrane’s modal explorations gave rise to an entire generation of saxophonists that would then go on to further explore modal jazz (often in combination with jazz fusion), such as Michael Brecker, David Liebman, Steve Grossman, and Bob Berg.
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Another innovator in the field of modal jazz was the pianistHerbie Hancock, who had risen to fame working in Miles Davis’s ‘Second Great Quintet’.
It was in this group where Hancock made his mark as an innovative pianist – he found new ways to use common chords but also used chords that were rare in jazz up to that point.
Hancock went on to do a number of solo works, the 5th of which was the album Maiden Voyage, who’s title track became a famous modal piece.
FREE JAZZ
Although many jazz styles and trends had evolved throughout its history, in the 1950s a group of jazz musicians decided to take jazz in new and radical directions.
What eventually became known as ‘free jazz’ started when different musicians disregarded conventional meter and beat in a new style of avant-garde playing.
This new style gave players much more freedom to experiment, although the loose harmony and tempo was controversial when it first appeared.
The mid-1950s recordings of Ornette Coleman (‘Something Else!’ and ‘’) and the first two albums by Cecil Taylor (‘Jazz Advance’ and ‘Looking Ahead’) mark the beginnings of free jazz, though they still remain rooted in bebop and hard bop styles.
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When Coleman moved from the West Coast to New York and signed to Atlantic Records, things moved to a new level with a 1960 recording titled ‘Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation’. The name stuck to the movement as a whole.
In the 1960s, performers such as John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders also took free jazz into new directions.
The 60s were a time of huge social upheaval in America with the civil rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King.
This was reflected in jazz as many artists explored the new landscape of jazz that was free from the conventions of previous decades. Archie Schepp was a jazz musician and political activist who was one of the first to use free and passionate jazz to support the struggle of black Americans.
Other artists followed, with drummer Max Roach making the ‘We Insist – Freedom Now Suite’ and Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins were combining their talents for ‘The Freedom Suite’.
Charles Mingus had been ahead of the curve in lacing his jazz with modern European classics and Cecil Taylor & Anthony Braxton followed his lead.
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Free jazz also surfaced in Europe – partly because US musicians such as Ayler, Taylor, Steve Lacy and Eric Dolphy toured extensively in Europe – and a distinctive European contemporary jazz flourished.
Musicians such as John Surman, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Albert Mangelsdorff, Kenny Wheeler and Mike Westbrook emerged and found new ways of reflecting their national musical cultures.
Whilst some of the jazz old guard might not have approved of the new ‘free’ jazz by the likes of Ornette and Cecil, some were re-energised by the changes taking place.
By the mid-60s John Coltrane was moving in and out of free jazz and his new quartet of McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), Elvin Jones (drums) and Elvin Jones (drums) made their mark with records such as ‘Ascension’, ‘Meditation’ and ‘Kulu Se Mama’.
Even Miles Davis, who initially seemed opposed to free jazz, put together a ‘liberated’ group of Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on keyboards, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums.
Artists such as Sun Ra – who proclaimed he was from Saturn – and Eric Dolphy also took this form of jazz in new and exciting directions. However, by the end of the 1960s bebop and cool jazz were seen as well past their sell by date.
After the death of John Coltrane in 1967 it seemed free jazz was going the same way as a younger generation became entranced by rock music. But as the 1970s began with sales of jazz records declining, a new form would emerge that was influenced by rock sounds that were dominating the music industry.
LATIN JAZZ
Latin-influenced jazz is characterized by Latin dance rhythms combined with jazz melodies and chord progressions. Latin influences began to enter mainstream American popular music in the 1930′s.
During the 1950′s and 1960′s these influences became particularly strong, with Latin dances such as the mambo, cha-cha-cha, samba, and bossa nova becoming popular in the United States.
Latin jazz combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as conga, timbale, güiro, and claves with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments (e.g. piano, double bass).
There were two main kinds of this jazz: Afro-Cuban (which surfaced in the US directly after bebop) and Brazilian, which became more popular in the 1960s.
Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement in the mid-1950s as bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor who started Afro-Cuban bands influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente and Arturo Sandoval.
Brazilian jazz such as bossa nova is derived from samba, with influences from jazz and other 20th century classical and popular music styles. Bossa is generally moderately paced, with melodies sung in Portuguese or English.
The style was pioneered by Brazilians like João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim.
FUSION
In the late 1960s and early 1970s jazz was in a state of crisis with traditional forms dying out and sales declining.
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It was in this period that a hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments, and the highly amplified stage sound of rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix.
Miles Davis – along with his band of musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Ron Carter – had still been carving out a niche for innovative and experimental jazz.
He also worked with a new wave of musicians such as Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul on keyboards (mostly electric), John McLaughlin (electric guitar), Dave Holland (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums).
In 1969 he recorded the landmark album Bitches Brew, which was released in June 1970, an album that rejected traditional jazz rhythms in favour of a looser, rock-influenced improvisational style.
It divided critics but sold over half a million copies and marked a turning point in modern jazz. The unconventional style and revolutionary sound would help kick start the jazz rock genre and be an influence on future generations of rock and funk musicians.
By 1971 two influential fusion groups formed: Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of jazz’s significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hard bop scene into fusion.
Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd time signatures, syncopation, and complex chords and harmonies.
In addition to using the electric instruments of rock, such as the electric guitar, electric bass, electric piano, and synthesizer keyboards, fusion also used the powerful amplification, “fuzz” pedals, wah-wah pedals, and other effects used by 1970s-era rock bands.
Notable performers of jazz fusion included: Chick Corea who fused keyboards with Latin music; John McLaughlin who combined free jazz guitar with Indian sitar music; Gato Barbieri who mixed free jazz saxophone with Brazilian music; Abdullah Ibrahim who fused keyboards with African music and pianist Keith Jarrett who’s ‘Koln Concert’ album became the best selling solo piano concert of all time.
MODERN JAZZ
Since the 1980s, the jazz community has split into different directions which have included such diverse sub genres as straight-ahead jazz, Acid jazz, smooth jazz, nu jazz and even jazz rap.
Part of the split has been down to musicians keen on keeping alive the traditions of classical jazz and those who believe that jazz’s real tradition was one of experimentation and not regurgitating its past glories.
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Wynton and Branford Marsalis were brothers that emerged in the 1980s as two prodigiously gifted musicians from New Orleans and felt that the history and traditions of jazz had been neglected.
Wynton was a dazzling trumpet player and headed what some observers felt was a ‘neo-classical’ jazz movement, or in other words one that openly celebrated its past.
In the early 1980s, a lighter commercial form of jazz fusion called ‘pop fusion’ or “smooth jazz” became successful and garnered significant radio airplay.
Smooth jazz saxophonists included Grover Washington Jr., Kenny G and Najee. and the more radio friendly nature led to more radio airplay in urban markets across the U.S., helping to establish or bolster the careers of vocalists including Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Sade.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several subgenres fused jazz with popular music, such as Acid jazz, nu jazz, and even jazz rap.
Acid jazz and nu jazz combined elements of jazz and modern forms of electronic dance music. Whilst nu jazz is influenced by jazz harmony and melodies, there are usually no improvisational aspects.
Jazz rap fused jazz and hip-hop: Gang Starr recorded “Words I Manifest,” “Jazz Music,” and “Jazz Thing”, sampling Charlie Parker and Ramsey Lewis, and collaborating with Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard.
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Beginning in 1993, the rapper Guru in his ‘Jazzmatazz’ series used jazz musicians during the studio recordings.
In the 2000s, straight-ahead jazz continues to appeal to a core of listeners with well-established jazz musicians such as Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter continuing to perform and record.
In this time a number of younger musicians emerged including US pianists Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Terence Blanchard, and saxophonists Chris Potter and Joshua Redman.
The more experimental end of the spectrum has included Norwegian pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, the internationally popular Swedish trio E.S.T. and US bassist Christian McBride.
Toward the more dance or pop music end of the spectrum are St Germain who incorporates some live jazz playing with house beats and Jamie Cullum who plays a particular mix of Jazz Standards with own more pop-oriented compositions.
KEY LISTENING
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New Orleans Around 1900
Chicago, New York and Swing
Bebop
Cool Jazz
Hard Bop
Funk
Modal Jazz
Fusion
The Modern Era
RECOMMENDED READING
USEFUL TERMS
  • Arrangement (or Chart): The written adaptation of a composition for a particular group of instruments.
  • Attack: The act or style of initiating a sound on an instrument.
  • Backbeats: The second and fourth beats in a four-beat measure. European classical music emphasises beats one and three; Jazz usually accents the back or ‘after’ beats.
  • Ballad: A slow song, usually with lyrics that tell a story.
  • Bebop (or bop): The first modern style of jazz that evolved in the 1940s with young players such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell. The emphasis was on complexity, harmonic improvisation and technical virtuosity.
  • Blues: (1) A form normally consisting of 12 bars, staying in one key and moving to IV at bar 5. (2) A melodic style, with typical associated harmonies, using certain ‘blues scales’, riffs and grace notes. (3) A musical genre, ancestral to jazz and part of it. (4) A feeling that is said to inform all of jazz.
  • Brass: In a big band, the trumpet and trombone sections (which could also include instruments such as the French horn, tuba)
  • Call-and-response: In a jazz group setting, it is the alternation of a solo statement with an ensemble reply. Historically, its evolution can be traced back to Africa and the British church service.
  • Chord: Three or more notes played simultaneously that outline a scale.
  • Chord changes (or changes): The sequence of chords that provides the harmonic structure of a composition.
  • Cool Jazz: A small-group Jazz style that originated in the 1950s with Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool and is often identified with “West Coast Jazz”. It is characterised by subdued expression and a deeper, more intellectual approach.
  • Counterpoint: Two or more melodies (each strong enough to stand alone) played simultaneously to produce a single musical fabric.
  • Cross-rhythm: A rhythm that conflicts with the original rhythm.
  • Dixieland: A style of jazz (sometimes referred to as Hot jazz or New Orleans jazz) which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York by New Orleans bands in the 1910s. It combined brass band marches, ragtime and blues with collective, polyphonic improvisation by trumpet (or cornet), trombone, and clarinet over a “rhythm section” of piano, guitar, banjo, drums, and a double bass or tuba.
  • Free Jazz: An approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s, which although it varied widely, was a reaction to the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and ’50s. Each in his or her own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempos.
  • Front line: The main soloists within a group, often the horn players.
  • Funk: A sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat (or groove), electrified sounds and synthesizers. The integration of Funk, Soul, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs, and jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
  • Fusion: A musical genre that merges jazz with elements of other styles of music, particularly funk, rock, R&B, electronic, and world music, but also pop, classical, and folk music, or sometimes even metal, reggae, ska, country and hip hop.
  • Hard Bop: A style of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or “bop”) music. Hard bop incorporates influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing.
  • Improvisation: A spontaneous musical ‘mini-composition’ in which a musician (or sometimes a group) deviates from the original theme (or song or tune) with as much ingenuity as they can manage without abandoning the original theme.
  • Jam session: An informal performance by musicians who usually don’t play together.
  • Modal Jazz: A style of Jazz based on modes (types of scales) instead of chord changes that liberated jazz musicians from the constraints of Bop. Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s My Favourite Things are examples of the form.
  • Obligato: A razzle-dazzle countermelody, played ‘behind’ the soloist, often for great effect. An example would be Lester Young’s saxophone playing behind Billie Holiday’s vocals.
  • Polyrhythm: Two or more rhythms played at the same time.
  • Ragtime: A ‘pre-Jazz’ hybrid that combined European harmonies with the syncopated rhythms of balck folk music. Scott Joplin would be a notable example.
  • Riff: A simple musical phrase that’s traded back and forth by soloists in small group Jazz (usually spontaneous) or by (brass and wind) “sections” in big band Jazz (usually prewritten).
  • Scale: A series of notes arranged in ascending or descending order.
  • Scat singing: A vocal style in which singers use their voice as an instrument with improvised melodies and rhythms.
  • Stride: A post-Ragtime piano style where the pianist’s left hand may alternately play bass notes and chords. It was looser and more improvisational than Ragtime and artists who used it would include James P Johnson and Count Basie.
  • Swing (noun): A dance-orientated big band music that became popular during the 1930 with artists like Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
  • Swing (the verb): A feeling of rhythmic urgency and drive, often by playing different rhythms at the same time.
  • Syncopation: A distinctive approach to rhythm in which one part plays the strong beats whilst the other accents the backbeats.
A TIMELINE OF JAZZ
  • ca 1890 – Bass first used in Jazz
  • 1892 – First Rag composition by Tom Turpin called “Harlem Rag”
  • 1894 – Dee Dee Chandler builds kick-peddle for bass drum
  • 1897 – First published ragtime composition by William Krell “Mississippi Rag”
  • 1917 – Jazz was first recorded by The Original Dixiland Jass Band
  • ca 1920 – ‘Jass’ becomes ‘Jazz’
  • ca 1920 – Vic Burton invents Hi-Hat cymbal
  • 1922 – First Black Jazz recording done by Kid Ory
  • 1923 – Louis Armstrong makes his first recording
  • 1924 – Henderson adds third trumpet to the Big Band
  • 1926 – Louis Armstrong introduces scat singing with his album “Heebie Jeebies”
  • 1927 – Henderson adds second trombone to jazz band
  • 1928 – First great soloist – Louis Armstrong
  • 1928 – First Boogie Woogie composition
  • 1928 – Redman adds fourth reed to the Big Band
  • ca 1930 – Jazz Bassists get rid of the bow and started plucking.
  • 1930 – First Vibes used in Jazz by Lionel Hampton
  • 1931 – Ellington adds third trombone
  • 1935 – Audience goes wild at a Benny Goodman concert at the Polomar Ballroom in Los Angeles.
  • ca 1940 – First Electric Guitar used in Jazz
  • 1942 – AFM Recording Ban because Broadcasting companies refused to pay royalties to artists for their music.
  • 1942 – Billboard magazine publishes the first black record chart under the title Harlem
  • Hit Parade
  • 1944 – Royalty payments to musicians begins and the recording ban is lifted
  • 1944 – Trumpeter Miles Davis arrives in New York to study at Julliard School of Music and begins playing with Parker and Gillespie.
  • 1945 – Dizzy Gillespie records Be-Bop
  • 1947 – Billie Holiday is convicted for possession of heroin.
  • 1947 – Chano Pozo introduces Afro-Cuban jazz in New York
  • 1948 – Gillespie’s Cuban drummer, Chano Pozo, is shot dead in Harlem
  • 1948 – Columbia Records introduces the first long-playing vinyl discs
  • 1949 – Pianist Lennie Tristano records early examples of free jazz improvisation
  • 1949 – Norman Graz pairs Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson with bassist Ray Brown at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall.
  • 1949 – The club Birdland, named after Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, opens on Broadway.
  • 1950 – Thelonious Monk is arrested for possession of drugs and banned from performing in NY nightclubs for six years.
  • 1952 – Charlie Parker records sessions with strings and Latin repertoire for Mercury.
  • 1952 – Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartet records ‘My Funny Valentine’
  • 1952 – Duke Ellington records ‘It Dont Mean a Thing if it Aint Got That Swing’
  • 1953 – Benny Goodman’s band goes on tour with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars eventually leading to a fight that ends with Goodman having a nervous breakdown.
  • 1955 – Pianist Lennie Tristano experiments with overdubbing
  • 1956 – Bassist Charlie Mingus records ‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’, breaking new ground in collective improvisation.
  • 1957 – Brandies University commissions Third Stream works by Charles Mingus and
  • others.
  • 1958 – Miles Davis records ‘Milestones’, featuring early modal jazz.
  • 1958 – Bill Evans records “Everybody Digs Bill Evans” with the influential modal track Peace Piece.
  • 1959 – Miles Davis records “Kind of Blue” which pioneers modal jazz and becomes a classic.
  • 1959 – Billie Holiday is arrested for possession of drugs and dies soon after
  • 1959 – Dave Bruebeck and his quartet record ‘Time Out’ which includes Paul
  • Desmond’s hit ‘Take Five’.
  • 1959 – Cassette tapes are introduced in the US
  • 1960 – Trumpeter Miles Davis records ‘Sketches of Spain’ which uses Flamenco music
  • 1960 – Ornette Coleman records Free Jazz
  • 1962 – Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd record ‘Desafinado’ which sparks renewed interest in Bossa Nova.
  • 1966 – Duke Ellington receives the President’s Gold Medal of Honor.
  • 1966 – Cecil Taylor records ‘Unit Structures’ which is an experimental album that resembles contemporary classical music.
  • 1967 – John Coltrane makes his last recordings and dies soon after of liver disease
  • 1967 – Herbie Hancock introduces electric piano to popular jazz in Miles Davis’ group.
  • 1969 – Composer Gunther Schuller completes his book ‘early Jazz’, the first critical
  • study of the origins of the music.
  • 1969 – Miles Davis records ‘Bitches Brew’ the first important fusion album.
  • 1970 – The group The Weather Report is formed. Their music is approached in the same manner as Classical music is.
  • 1970 – Saxophone player Albert Ayler does Free Jazz with elements of New Orleans
  • 1970 – Jazz music is suffering due to Rock and Popular music
  • 1971 – The Fusion group, Weather Report records their first LP
  • 1971 – Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul form the Free Jazz group Circle.
  • 1972 – Thelonious Monk shuts himself up in the home of Baroness Nica de
  • Koenigswarter. He remains there until his death in 1982. (Charlie Parker also died in
  • Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter’s apartment in 1955. Not the same place, but and
  • interesting fact.)
  • 1974 – Vibraphone player Gary Burton hires Berklee College of Music teaching
  • colleague Pat Metheny to join his quintet. They record the album ‘Ring’
  • 1975 – Miles Davis Retires. He will not play for four years.
  • 1976 – Thelonious Monk’s last public appearance is at the Newport Jazz Festival.
  • 1977 – Chuck Mangione releases ‘Feels So Good’ it sells millions of copies and the
  • short format is heard on commercial radio stations from coast to coast.
  • 1979 – Charles Mingus dies on January 5th at the age of 56. That same day 56 whales become beached on the shores of Mexico.
  • 1980 – Miles Davis begins to get back into Jazz after four years retirement
  • 1981 – The Sony Walkman is introduced to the public.
  • 1982 – The CD is introduced to the general public.
  • 1984 – Wynton Marsalis wins a Grammy for Jazz and a Grammy for Classical. He later states that Jazz is the harder of the two to play.
  • 1985 – The most successful fusion group Weather Report break up.
  • 1989 – Miles Davis’ autobiography is released
  • 1990 – Gunther Schuller reconstructs and records Chales Mingus’ ‘Ephitaph’
  • 1991 – Wynton Marsalis becomes the artistic director of the Jazz at the Lincoln Center
  • program.
  • 1995 – Jazz becoming popular again. A number of major and minor Jazz record labels
  • are launched or revived.
  • 1997 – Jazz museum opens in Kansas City
at 5:52 PM

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