Portal:Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music, linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions.
As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.
The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. (Full article...)
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Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.
David H. Rosenthal contends in his book Hard Bop that the genre is, to a large degree, the natural creation of a generation of African-American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music. Prominent hard bop musicians included Horace Silver (pictured), Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis and Tadd Dameron. (Full article...)
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Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new "swing" style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of the melody line to fit the emotion was revolutionary. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
- ... that Bill Barber (pictured) played tuba on a number of Miles Davis albums including Birth of the Cool, Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain?
- ... that Danny Barcelona was a Filipino American self-taught drummer for Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars jazz band?
- ... that Rob Mazurek's avant-garde Chicago Underground projects began as a workshop at local jazz club The Green Mill?
July 2007
"Livery Stable Blues" by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, recorded on 26 February 1917
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Featured articles
Featured lists
Billboard Latin Music Award for Latin Jazz Album of the Year
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male
Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album
List of awards and nominations received by Norah Jones
Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album
List of 1920s jazz standards
List of 1930s jazz standards
List of pre-1920 jazz standards
List of songs recorded by Pink Martini
Good articles
75 (album)
500 Club
1980 (album)
Amar pelos dois
Audrey's Dance
Ayers Rock (band)
Tony Bennett
Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West
Blue Gardenia (album)
Brazilian Dreams
Jaki Byard
Eva Cassidy
Cheek to Cheek (album)
Club Harlem
Coltrane for Lovers
Eddie Costa
Dark Magus
Susie Diamond
Digging Your Scene
Art Farmer
Feelings (Zonke song)
Feminist Improvising Group
Tommy Flanagan
Éva Gauthier
Max Geldray
Goin' Home (Archie Shepp and Horace Parlan album)
Guitar (Sonny Sharrock album)
Hammond organ
Hanky Panky (Madonna song)
Heart of a Woman (album)
Nat Hentoff
Gwyneth Herbert
Elmo Hope
I'm Breathless
Hasaan Ibn Ali
Industrial Zen
Jack Johnson (album)
Johnny's Theme
Just Chillin'
Wynton Kelly
Kind of Blue
Kisses on the Bottom
Philip Larkin
LifeTimes
Live in Tokyo (Charles Tolliver album)
Love for Sale (Bilal album)
Paco de Lucía
Seth MacFarlane
Major thirds tuning
Shelly Manne
Mannenberg
Dodo Marmarosa
Matriarch of the Blues
Megitza
Brad Mehldau
Mulgrew Miller
Money Jungle
Nature Boy
New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light
Noise in music
Ioan Gyuri Pascu
Ralph Patt
Richie Powell
Progressive music
A Retrospective (Pink Martini album)
Diane Schuur
Horace Silver
Nina Simone
Frank Sinatra
Sincerity Is Scary
Smalls Paradise
Buster Smith
Solo (Gonzalo Rubalcaba album)
Songs of Experience (David Axelrod album)
Songs of Innocence and Experience (Allen Ginsberg album)
Sooner or Later (Madonna song)
The Stanley Clarke Band
Stardust (1927 song)
Supernova (Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio album)
Craig Taborn
Takin' My Time
Art Tatum
Ten Freedom Summers
Third Stone from the Sun
The Tic Code
Bobby Timmons
To the Stars (album)
Tone cluster
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live!
Lennie Tristano
Until the Quiet Comes
Mal Waldron
Amy Winehouse
Winter in America
Wu Hen
Did you know? articles
75 (album)
500 Club
500 Miles High
1924 in jazz
Loretta Ables Sayre
Annette A. Aguilar
Akokan (album)
Joey Alexander
Arclight (album)
Are You Going with Me?
Leo Arnaud
At the Pershing: But Not for Me
At World's Edge
Ayers Rock (band)
Backatown
BadBadNotGood
Ballad
Butch Ballard
Bill Barber (musician)
Danny Barcelona
Earl Belcher
Graeme Bell
Dennis Berry
Big Neighborhood
Erin Bode
Bop City
Bossa Nova U.S.A.
Boston Hotel Buckminster
Brazilian Dreams
Breaking It Up!
Karen Briggs (musician)
Roy Brooks
Burnt Sugar
Yvonne Busch
Ozzie Cadena
California Jazz Conservatory
The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco
Centipede (band)
Doc Cheatham
Cheek to Cheek (album)
Chucho's Steps
Club Harlem
Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis
John Coltrane Home
Louis Cottrell Jr.
Countdown—Time in Outer Space
Katy de la Cruz
Jackie Davis
Debo Band
Dena DeRose
Desfado
Dirty Hands, Dirty Face
Diversi
Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)
Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live
Dunbar Hotel
Big Joe Duskin
Geoff Eales
Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall
Echo (Dave Burrell album)
Effortless Mastery
Feminist Improvising Group
First Course
Mircea Florian (musician)
Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection
Éva Gauthier
Tino di Geraldo
Julia Gerity
Grace's Little Belmont
Jimmy Greene
Groovin' High
Bobbye Hall
Marion Harris
Harris Theater (Chicago)
Have Ya Got Any Gum, Chum?
The Hazel Scott Show
Cornelis Hazevoet
Duke Henderson
Gwyneth Herbert
Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles
Here We Go Again (Ray Charles song)
Carl Hogan
Elmo Hope
Hot 8 Brass Band
Ilse Huizinga
Luděk Hulan
Lloyd Hunter
I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)
Hasaan Ibn Ali
In Your Own Sweet Way
In for a Penny, In for a Pound
Infinity (K-Space album)
International Sweethearts of Rhythm
It's Too Bad
Paul Jackson (bassist)
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jazz (word)
Jivin' in Be-Bop
John Jorgenson Quintet
Johnny's Theme
Jumpin' at the Woodside
Hans Otto Jung
Murray Kane
Wynton Kelly
Sibongile Khumalo
Live at Fillmore West
Grace Knight
Pannonica de Koenigswarter
Cal Lampley
Last Chance Disco
Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album
Booker T. Laury
The Legendary Buster Smith
Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music
Mel Lewis
Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano
LifeTimes
Lincoln Theater (Los Angeles)
Livery Stable Blues
Wendell Logan
Love Devotion Surrender
Clyde Lucas
Alex Machacek
Machito
Dennis Mackrel
Major thirds tuning
Miriam Makeba
Mannenberg
Wingy Manone
Dodo Marmarosa
Onzy Matthews
Rob Mazurek
The Meeting (Art Ensemble of Chicago album)
Megitza
Brad Mehldau
Melbourne Jazz Co-operative
Melomani
Helen Merrill
Roscoe Mitchell
Térez Montcalm
Moody 4B
Moten Swing
Don Moye
The Muffins
My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne album)
Never Can Say Goodbye: The Music of Michael Jackson
Nine Million Bicycles
Johnny Noble
Noise in music
Charlie Nothing
Now Is the Time (Jeff Lorber Fusion album)
Ogunde (song)
Eva Olmerová
The Orckestra
The Original Salty Dogs Jazz Band
Orthotonics
Ory's Creole Trombone
Out of the Ordinary Festival
P53 (album)
P53 (band)
Panamericana Suite
Papa Celestin's Golden Wedding
Paradise Club (Atlantic City, New Jersey)
Johnny Parker (jazz pianist)
Ioan Gyuri Pascu
Ralph Patt
Vincent Peirani
Pico and Sepulveda
Richie Powell
Andrés Prado
Vlasta Průchová
Quartet San Francisco
Don Randi
The Real Ambassadors
Reduta Jazz Club
Rosetta Reitz
Maurice Rocco
Wolfram Röhrig
Walter Roland
B. A. Rolfe
David Rothenberg
Jan Rychlík
Same as You
Irene Scruggs
See See Rider
Mátyás Seiber
Dani Siciliano
Frank Sinatra
Sincerity Is Scary
Jiří Šlitr
Slon (album)
Smalls Jazz Club
Solo (Gonzalo Rubalcaba album)
The Songs for the One
Sounding Point
Source (album)
Carmen Souza
Space Jazz
Esperanza Spalding
Pinetop Sparks
Squirrel Nut Zippers
The Stanley Clarke Band
Stardust (1927 song)
Stars Fell on Alabama
Statue of Billie Holiday
Strange Liberation
Dira Sugandi
Supernova (Gonzalo Rubalcaba Trio album)
Craig Taborn
A Time for Love (Arturo Sandoval album)
To the Stars (album)
To the One
Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town
Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!
Nat Towles
Jiří Traxler
Jeff Tyzik
Urbanus (album)
Van Lingle Mungo (song)
Karel Velebný
Nilüfer Verdi
Ronnie Verrell
Mose Vinson
We Say Mabuhay
Bob Weinstock
Fritz Weiss
Herb Wiedoeft
Gary Williams (singer)
Anna Mae Winburn
Windward Passages
Michael Wollny
Wonder Gardens
World's Fair (album)
Worth Waiting For
Howard Wyeth
Your Mother's Son-In-Law
Your Songs