Rabu, 27 Februari 2008

Jazz music: Past, present and future

Articles below are peer ranked for quality and written on the same subject.
  • By Stanley W. Shura
    An Unabashedly Biased Commentary on Jazz 'Must Haves' I think it would be rather bold to try to write to the... read more
  • By Bryan W. Alaspa
    When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me l... read more
  • By Nora Nick Katsourakis
    My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hop... read more
  • By DN-inc
    Jazz is the original American musical art form which originated in African American communities in the Southern Unite... read more
  • By Tony Ypenburgh
    Still remember a pleasant August summer evening in 1951, driving by the Oslo Fjord with some friends, taking in the c... read more
  • By Kefilwe Das Past
    Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly....read more
  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


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By Stanley W. Shura

An Unabashedly Biased Commentary on Jazz 'Must Haves'

I think it would be rather bold to try to write to the history and current practices in and of jazz in one article. Either that or, hey, I just don't have the endurance or attention span to attempt such a comprehensive undertaking and/or analysis. I can, however, offer a starting point that I think would provide a jazz newcomer to some delicious and EVER so exciting pieces of and moments in jazz music. I can in no way begin to know all of what is good and great in the vast discography of jazz which, by now is closing in on the century mark. You can look as far back as Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and the heavyweights in blues and gospel, in vaudville and yes, even the burlesque, and find some claim to the rich history and collective flavors that make up the stew we today enjoy as much as ever. I can tell you to go drink up and absorb yourself in the musical treasures of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, "Lady Day", even the sultry and sumptuous Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey - both of very early blues and jazz legendome, Dave Brubeck, Bud Powell, Alice Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and as you can see the naming of the greats becomes tedium alone - and it won't be enough to begin to have sampled the treasure that exists.

The irony that I must point out straight away, is that I am of course referring to and recommending jazz that has already been performed and recorded. The great jazz albums you listen to today, will be the same thing that your parents or grandparents or great-grandparents listened to, perhaps minus the static and scratches of the vinyl of yesteryear, when the ultimate spirit of jazz is one of improvization. The lifeblood of jazz today is the same as it was nearly a hundred years ago, and that is the live performance. The very definition of jazz is spontaneity and experimentation and the collective sharing of a musical moment - IN the moment!

That said - the philosophy and ultimate ideal of jazz as an experience and music form is so SOOO mouth-wateringly preserved in the ironic medium of replayable recordings. So, jazz the style is and must be available to those of us who could never have heard 'the Birdman' do with his saxophone stuff that makes most of his heirs rather jealous. It is valuable to hear it now - even if the 'jazz moment' is gone forever.

So that's my pitch to go out and EXPERIENCE jazz that is happening today. But if you want to hear what incredible stuff happened up until now, I have a very slanted, opinionated, and one-sided "you GOTTA get" selection of tunes, albums, and artists, and some tidbits to give a little context.

To start, I generally do NOT recommend what I'm about to recommend - except to the person trying to survey an entire style. That said, I'd check out some compilations and "best of"s. And, the Ken Burns series on jazz is pretty comprehensive and informative.

Some of my favorites are McCoy Tyner, John Coltrane, The Badplus, Thelonius Monk, Michel Camilo (especially his 'One More Once', Tierney Sutton (she does a silky and *spot on* version of Autumn Leaves), Dave Brubeck (he's famous for 'Take 5', but you gotta hear his Blue Rondo a la Turk'!).

The must haves (or cliche'd must haves!) include:
Miles Davis (trumpet)
Charlie Parker (alto sax)
Joshua Redman (alto, soprano AND tenor saxes)
Sonny Rollins (tenor sax)
Bill Evans (a jazz piano virtuoso!)
Duke Ellington (piano, conductor, composer)
Glenn Miller (ugh - but swing is part of jazz, so....)

Some others to sample:

SINGERS:
Ella Fitzgerald
Sarah Vaughan
Billy Holiday
Take Six (I can't believe I almost forgot these ever so harmonically astute a' capellists!)

PIANISTS:
Abdullah Ibrahim: this guy and his trio (usually a trio) are as mellow-toned, yet rhythmically vibrant as I've ever heard. Their stamina is amazing, as I bore witness to one night at the Regattabar in Cambridge. They played a whole set - melding one piece into another without stopping. I didn't like that too much. I was impressed. But even if THEY didn't need to take a breath, aesthetically and aurally I sure could have. Very simple and understated left hand, and a dynamic sensitivity by Ibrahim reminiscent of the finest "touch" in jazz piano - Bill Evans. Harmonically and texturally *extremely* intelligent and attentive bass playing, and some of *THE* tightest drumming any rhythm section or trio ever had!

Bill Evans: I'm just a wee bit afraid to write of this giant. His chops approach a classical level of sophistication the likes of which I am almost out of my element to appreciate. Delicate is a word that, sitting next to Evans, looks like some boorish, loud-mouthed drunk with beer belly exposed and belches to share! His is a rather poignant biography. His silver lining definitely had a cloud (actually a syringe), but *oh* did his silver lining EVER shine so beautifully!
Cyrus Chestnut - you just *have* to hear his 'Baroque Impressions'. Chestnut doubtless swings, but it's equally obvious he has spent some time battling Bach's 'Well Tempered Clavier'.

Donal Fox - you wanna hear Bach flow seamlessly into straight ahead style and back, I'm even more awed by Fox than by Cyrus Chestnut's 'Baroque Impressions'. A technique that you can tell by the third bar of any set has been bought and paid for by many hours and years in the woodshed.

Herbie Hancock (I swear his sound *defined* the innovation and soundscape of the 70's, and he has been modern, relevant, and versatile his whole career. He can play straight ahead jazz, cool jazz, free jazz, as well as funk, soul, disco AND rock/pop! You can doubtless hear him being used or sampled somewhere in the hip hop world too, I'm sure)

McCoy Tyner (yes, he's my favorite, so I mention him twice! ;)) I am in love with his raw power and harmonic guts. His use of fourths excites the hell out of me.

DRUMMERS:
they begin and end with Elvin Jones! (okay - obviously biased opinion - but his work with Coltrane and Tyner - and as a guru/leader in his own band, as well as a saucy and gracious sense of humor, greatly endeared me to him!)

BASSISTS:
Charles Mingus (bass player, conductor, composer, and SUCH unique arrangements and ensemble texture)

Ron Carter - the one and only, a man as big as his instrument, and chops to have kept up with Coltrane at his 'sheetiest' intensity which produced THE sax players Holy Grail - Giant Steps. Carter is still on the scene as a much sought after bill, with ticket prices that dwarf most others on the schedule - and rightfully so. And we must not forget his disciple:

Christian McBride - who I cannot wait to hear again after too many years since seeing him live. Mr. McBride! When are you coming back to Cambridge to play?

I could go on and on....I hope these will wet your whistle! :) I hope you are just as inspired and thrilled as I am to hear the music that remains as relevannt and important today as it ever did when it was the 'popular' music of its day. Go out there and find out for yourself. It's still living. It's still breathing.

Go take it in!

Learn more about this author, Stanley W. Shura.

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Jazz music: Past, present and future
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  • By Kefilwe Das Past
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  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


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Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By Bryan W. Alaspa

When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me love jazz and I am willing to bet that he will help you love it as well. This was back in the day when I was in college and working on my first radio station and the idea of listening to jazz was about the same as being asked to listen to recordings of a dentist's drill for me.

I worked there with another DJ and he and I started a kind of competition to see who could get away with playing the longest song. With jazz, this is not hard to do. Some albums by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett have songs well over twenty minutes on each side of the vinyl record. So, I would spend time looking at the run-times of each song, looking for the longest. It was while doing this I pulled out the vinyl copy of Davis' "Kind of Blue."

I played the track called "All Blues." Normally, the purpose of playing the long cut was that it gave you the freedom to play computer games, get up and walk around the building, or call friends back in the dorms and chat for a long time before you had to do anything. This time, however, when I put on the song, I found myself sitting there, actually listening and hypnotized. Before I knew it, I had listened to the entire song.

I knew then that jazz was something that had potential for me. I spoke to another DJ who had more experience playing jazz. He told me that the best way to get an instant classic jazz collection would be to buy nearly every Miles Davis album. Then look at the musicians who played with him, his side-men, and then buy at least one album from each of them.

The history of jazz is the history of America. Jelly Roll Morton was supposedly the first to mass market jazz. Some debate if he really "invented" the genre. He had a business card claiming he did, but he also loved to talk and he loved to brag. Whether you like his brand of jazz or not, the musical genre would not be where it is today without Jelly Roll.

One of the most influential musicians was Louis Armstrong. Most of you probably know him from his "What a Wonderful World" song, but he did a lot more for the music than just that one tune. He helped launch jazz into the modern era. Even Miles Davis said that all modern jazz musicians, including himself, owed a debt to Louis.

In the modern world, my favorite musician is Wynton Marsalis. Not only is he a great horn player in the tradidion of Louis and Miles, but he is passionate about the music and about passing along the traditions of jazz to younger musicians. In each case, throughout the history of jazz, the great ones always found the young talent and nurtured them. Herbie Hancock got some of his biggest audiences by playing with Miles Davis, for example.

I think jazz is alive and well today. This is evidenced by Herbie Hancock winning a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It surprised many, but not me. Hancock is one of the finest jazz musicians alive today and it proves that jazz music is far from dead.

Learn more about this author, Bryan W. Alaspa.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
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  • By Kefilwe Das Past
    Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly....read more
  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


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Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By DN-inc

Jazz is the original American musical art form which originated in African American communities in the Southern United States such as New Orleans around the 1920's.

Jazz has, from its early 20th century inception, spawned a variety of sub genres from New Orleans,La Around the early 1900s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, Bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin-jazz fusions such as Brazilian jazz and Afro-Cuban from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz-rock fusion from the 1970s and later developments such as acid jazz and so on.

Slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them.
Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at the Place Congo, or Congo Square in New Orleans until 1843, as were similar gatherings in New England and New York.
African music was largely functional for work or ritual and included work songs and field hollers.
In the African tradition they had a single-line melody and a call-and-response pattern, but without the Western concept of harmony.
Rhythms reflected African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led to blue notes in blues and jazz.

In New Orleans, many early jazz performers played in the brothels and bars of red-light district around Basin Street called "Story-ville".
Many marching bands played at Festive funerals arranged by the African American community.
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.

A black musical spirit (involving rhythm and melody) was bursting out of the confines of European musical tradition, even though the performers were using European styled instruments.
"Afro-Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton began his career in Story-ville.
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.

Jazz will be around for a long time and has not stop gaining ground since it was established, different forms of jazz has developed over time ranging from Cool Jazz, Bebop, Jazz fusion, Soul Jazz to Smooth Jazz, Quiet storm, Acid Jazz and Jazz Rap thats Jazz Fused with Hip Hop bringing Jazz into the New age and the Hip Hop Culture.

Learn more about this author, DN-inc.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
  • By Stanley W. Shura
    An Unabashedly Biased Commentary on Jazz 'Must Haves' I think it would be rather bold to try to write to the... read more
  • By Bryan W. Alaspa
    When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me l... read more
  • By Nora Nick Katsourakis
    My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hop... read more
  • By DN-inc
    Jazz is the original American musical art form which originated in African American communities in the Southern Unite... read more
  • By Tony Ypenburgh
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  • By Kefilwe Das Past
    Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly....read more
  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


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Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By Tony Ypenburgh

Still remember a pleasant August summer evening in 1951, driving by the Oslo Fjord with some friends, taking in the calming scenes and listening to the radio. Then all of a sudden there was this mesmerizing sound from the radio; told everybody to be quiet, for it was incredibly magic! At the end of the number the DJ let us know it was the Erroll Garner trio. It was absolutely captivating, and ever since the age of 18, I'm still spellbound by his phenomenally
innovative piano style; some 57 years later!

Erroll had a specifically unique talent and gift; it is well known that he couldn't read a note as big as the moon, nonetheless, he could make any old ditty sound symphonically romantic with beautiful harmonic phrasings, or perform at a high upbeat tempo. But his sense of the Latin beat was just incredible; especially the Bossa Nova of the '60s and '70s era.

Also, with being ambidextrous, he would be able to create incomparable rhythms with his left hand, which his lagging right hand would play against completely separate, enabling his performance to reach heights where no pianist had ever been before. In addition, to enhance his pianistic skills even more, his auditory and optic senses were connected, referred to as kinesthesia, it caused Erroll to see a kaleidoscope of colors while playing.

It might well be that most of his compositions in the hundreds are so melodically beautiful with the immense special gifts he possessed. Composing was a random happening during a concert performance, or at a studio recording, in a Mozart like manner; it simply just came to him quite often, while playing at whatever venue. One of the examples of that gifted mastery was his recorded performance of 1955 at Carmel, CA, the continued best seller "Concert
by the Sea," with the spontaneous "Mambo Carmel" at the spot.

But, of all his splendid compositions, still on top might well be the universal "Misty" which he heard in his mind during an airplane trip. All throughout, Erroll was invited to play at luxurious lounges, concert halls, and premium jazz clubs around the world, and often played with symphony orchestras in America and Europe where he would give encore after encore; for, the audience would not let him go. It is an enormous loss to the world therefore, that he succumbed from a massive heart attack on June 2, 1977, at the young age of 54. But, thanks to the recording technology, Erroll can be enjoyed listening to for years at end.

As was Erroll's statement, "I always play what I feel, I always feel like me, but I'm a different me every day. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don't."

Learn more about this author, Tony Ypenburgh.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
  • By Stanley W. Shura
    An Unabashedly Biased Commentary on Jazz 'Must Haves' I think it would be rather bold to try to write to the... read more
  • By Bryan W. Alaspa
    When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me l... read more
  • By Nora Nick Katsourakis
    My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hop... read more
  • By DN-inc
    Jazz is the original American musical art form which originated in African American communities in the Southern Unite... read more
  • By Tony Ypenburgh
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  • By Kefilwe Das Past
    Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly....read more
  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


View All Articles on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By Kefilwe Das

Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly important to appreciate the great artists such as Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk etc. However, it is the philosophy behind Jazz that separates it from most other genres of music.

The first acknowledgment that should be made when trying to understand Jazz is that it is an underground form of music. In mainstream music, many artists are playing purely for money. They feel no measure of passion for their work whatsoever. They produce music in order to satisfy listeners.

The main reason that jazz is an underground art form is that its purpose is NOT to satisfy the listeners. True jazz musicians purely use jazz as a medium to discover, express their emotions and push the boundaries of jazz music. Playing jazz is a personal and unique experience to every jazz musician. The primary reason that people listen to a specific jazz artist is that they can appreciate and understand what the artist is trying to achieve.

Why is Jazz underground? This is because it is primarily an instrumental form of music and secondarily because it often has an obscured or non-existent beat. These days the average person desires simple and catchy melodies with lyrics that are easily understood and a strong beat. However, Jazz is often insulting to a first time listener. It presents you with confusing and intimidating rhythmic and melodic figures and this is then further obscured by the abstract concept of improvisation. This means that the listener must work hard to try and interpret what is being played. Improvisation is a key factor that turns the average listener away from jazz as many cannot comprehend the concept of improvising over a series of chords. It can be said that Jazz intends to be underground music. However, those who persevere are very much rewarded. The pleasure gained from listening to an artist journey through new and exciting territory results in emotions of joy that are indescribable.

To start your journey into the rich and complex tapestry that Jazz weaves, I suggest the following artists:

Louis Armstrong
Miles Davis
Dave Brubeck
Hank Mobley
Herbie Hancock
Bill Evans
Nat King Cole
Oscar Peterson
John Coltrane (the work with Miles Davis)

For the fans keen to extend their knowledge I suggest,

Dave Liebman
Jaki Byard
Andrew Hill
Wayne Shorter
Ornette Coleman
Eric Dolphy
Joe Henderson
Miles Davis (fusion years)
Jimmy Smith
John Coltrane (Later Years)
John Scofield
Medeski Martin and Wood
Courtney Pine

Learn more about this author, Kefilwe Das.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
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    When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me l... read more
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    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


View All Articles on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By Everett Autumn

The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where he came from is essential for a better appreciation of this modern and innovative idiom that has spread around the world. Although Louis was born in New Orleans in 1901, it is necessary to get a grasp of the social migrations that occurred from the fields of the plantations to the urban centers, like New Orleans in the latter half of the nineteenth century. After the Civil War and the Emancipation of the Slaves the cities became the host to a growing population of recently freed slaves. This was especially true of southern cities like New Orleans.

For everybody involved this was like traveling down a new highway without a road map. Vigilantes were on the rise and so for many of the men and women, who had once worked on the plantation, it was a desperate migration to the cities. In their new and strange environment black workers tried to find employment alongside the growing population of immigrant laborers.

The urban arrivals brought some important parts of their rural culture with them, most notably the churches. Here music was a key ingredient, plus it was the one place, where they were allowed to do anything that remotely resembled a native African-American culture. Everything done within the church was deeply rooted with a musical expression.

Over the first few decades of living in the city, clubs were formed where, the ex-slave population could meet and mingle. Musical combos sprung up that played lively party music, probably an offshoot of the church music. By the turn of the century negro music had developed to the point, where some of the musicians were in demand at white functions and so there actually developed a competition and comradeship among the musicians.

Also of importance were the lighter-skinned "Creole" musicians, who had been playing music in New Orleans for generations. They were usually students of classical music or at least popular tunes. They could read music and sometimes they had a good ear, but that was not absolutely necessary. Socially, they formed a buffer-zone and a go-between in the dealings that occurred the whites and blacks. Only in French-friendly New Orleans did this social structure develop in such a major way.

From this fascinating cultural milieu ragtime music developed. The rag in ragtime came from the expression "ragging the tune", which was the colloquial slang for musical improvisation. It did not refer to the way the musician dressed, for well-tailored stage clothes were usually available to most all musicians.

At first most black musicians had to have a good ear to play in the band, for they were not able to read sheet music. Eventually as they mingled with the Creoles, many learned how to read sheet music, and so the music "from the plantation" became a little bit more structured.

At the turn of the century, Ragtime was starting to catch on, not just in New Orleans, but also in other cities around the country. Musicians were even starting to experiment with the layering of sound and breakaway musical interludes. The groundwork was now being laid for a major breakthrough in contemporary music. The only thing that was needed was a catalyst.

Next came Louis Armstrong, who was just beginning to show some real musical talent around the night clubs and juke joints of New Orleans. Then World War I broke out. To help the war effort the young man had to take on a job. He hauled coal for the duration of the war, but once that conflict ended Armstrong went back to being a full-time musician.

On stage it soon became apparent that "Satchmo" was a master at "playing by ear" and "ragging the tune". He would take a melody and play it in a subsidiary way that perfectly complemented the original score. Soon half the brass section of a ragtime band would be doing this and so modern jazz began. Eventually, each musician would take his departing notes and lines in a different direction, thus forming a multi-layered and completely innovative approach to rhythm and sound.

Louis left New Orleans for Chicago, where he was really able to further develop what he had begun in New Orleans. After a while the New Orleans trumpet player had a white manager and was not only touring the United States, but Europe as well. He essentially became the unofficial roving "Ambassador of Jazz".

From here the music really took off, and over time, other centers of jazz innovation evolved, but nothing could ever match the cultural complexity of New Orleans at the turn of the century.

After Chicago, New York became an important center for this new creative style of musical innovation. Charlie Parker a sax-player from the Midwest moved to the Big Apple and embarked on a short but amazing career. Since then New York has remained the center of Modern Jazz, but a West Coast style did develop. There was also bebop jazz, whose prime practitioner was Thelonius Monk. Dave Brubeck, a part of the West Coast school, had one of the most popular jazz recordings of all times, called "Take Five". Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Chuck Mangione, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins are just a few of the great names in jazz history.

Today jazz theory is taught in conservatories and universities around the world. A talented and budding musician can obtain a degree in Jazz Music, a turn of events that Louis might see with quite a bit of irony and amusement, if he was alive today. New York may still be the center of the jazz world, but it has become a place, where a talented musician might journey to, instead of the fervent, birthing ground that New Orleans once was.

Jazz has gone international and is likely to stay that way. The next great artist could just as easily come from the fjords of Norway as the veld of South Africa. This ever popular idiom has tapped into the treasure of world music and probably right at this very moment there are talented youth learning to incorporate their own indigenous traditions with those of Modern Jazz.

Learn more about this author, Everett Autumn.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
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Jazz music: Past, present and future

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by Tyson Williams

The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on to Memphis, St. Louis and finally Chicago. Jazz helps to calm the soul from a hard day of any kind.
Jazz was based on African-American life-styles. Jazz travels back to the African tribal drum beats and European music structures. A quote was made by Robert Goffin in 1934 that "Jazz, like any artistic phenomenon, represents the sum of an addition. The factors of this addition are, to my mind, African music, French and American music and folklore."
Around the year of 1891 a barber in New Orleans started to play his cornet and began to blow the first notes of jazz. He didn't know he had began the history of Jazz. The 'jazz age' of the 1920's into 1930's then the modern jazz began in the 1950's.
Early jazz performers used blues to help emotions. Musicians artists to name a few- Don Redman, Ma Rainey and early works of Louis Armstrong.
Early jazz went from modern, to hot jazz it got so good it went from hot jazz to bebop in 1940 then 1960 free Jazz to soul jazz and 1990 jazz became smooth jazz.
Jazz became popular around the world. All types of Jazz has played in clubs but the most popular is smooth jazz. Free and Soul jazz help with poetry or expressing deep feelings from the heart.
Jazz has made a huge en-pact on communities. From newbies to oldies. Hate to say it but the new generation had taking over. And jazz will never die.

Learn more about this author, Tyson Williams.

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Jazz music: Past, present and future
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Jazz music: Past, present and future

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By Nora Nick Katsourakis

My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hopping ships, in romantic hotel hideaways, the music that was piped in for our amusement was Louis Armstrong. He is not dead in Greece, he rules.

Actually on board ship, the ship's band played Louis Armstrong, and the white Greek sang his songs and his voice was like an Elvis impersonator's but convincing. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and Louis Armstrong's work lives on and probably influences the thoughts and motivations of those people living in Greece who are exposed to his music.

I remember seeing Louis Armstrong performing on television and I am tempted to say it was on the Ed Sullivan show but I would have to check my memory with fact. The only facts that most of us know about jazz was that it originated in New Orleans, Louisianna, or maybe I am wrong. That it was developed by musicians who were into progressive music and thus the term progressive jazz was formulated and that jazz musicians were a proud advocate of real American music mixed with Negro spirituals. I could be wrong.

What is of interest though is that countries like Greece that are amusingly anti American for you see they see America as being a land that discriminates and has racial bias. What is of interest is that countries like Greece who are anti American because they are not afraid of criticizing America since they are openly under the protection of Russia, what I see as of interest is that Greece has chosen Louis Armstrong, his music that is, because it is for them a symbol of an artist who was in their eyes probably disciminated against and managing by sheer will power to produce a music that is like magic. Actually to hear the music of Louis Armstrong played on board a tour bus is magical when looking out and seeing the ruins of thousand of years and remembering.

Jazz took a turn for the worst though when a certain politician assumed its identity. I don't think musicians should be assumed by politicians. But that is my personal bias. Jazz and the saxophone and Louis Armstrong, are hitting Greece like an American success story being emulated by a self important Greek intellectual class probably to the financial detriment of their own struggling secret majority.

And, perhaps, that is what jazz is, a minority of musicians, without racial conscienceness playing music and hitting notes for their own entertainment and for the good of their own souls. If jazz is a mixture of American swing and Negro spiritual then playing Louis Armstrong in Greece is an mixture of ancient classic and modern imitation.

Learn more about this author, Nora Nick Katsourakis.

Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future
  • By Stanley W. Shura
    An Unabashedly Biased Commentary on Jazz 'Must Haves' I think it would be rather bold to try to write to the... read more
  • By Bryan W. Alaspa
    When it comes to jazz, the name you need to start with is Miles Davis. Miles Davis is the jazz artist that made me l... read more
  • By Nora Nick Katsourakis
    My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hop... read more
  • By DN-inc
    Jazz is the original American musical art form which originated in African American communities in the Southern Unite... read more
  • By Tony Ypenburgh
    Still remember a pleasant August summer evening in 1951, driving by the Oslo Fjord with some friends, taking in the c... read more
  • By Kefilwe Das Past
    Past, Present and Future of jazz eh? This is not the way that jazz should be discussed. It is certainly....read more
  • By Everett Autumn
    The key to understanding American jazz is understanding Louis Armstrong. Knowing who he was and where.....read more
  • By Tyson Williams
    The legend of jazz was created in New Orleans then move toward the river named Mississippi River and on....read more


View All Articles on:
Jazz music: Past, present and future

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