Jazz
At its inception at the beginning of the 20th century, jazz was an American idiom
developed from ragtime, blues and popular music of its day, propelled by strongly
syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, and, to varying degrees, improvisational
solo and section work. Its debt to blues included intentional distortions of pitch,
especially in the flatting or slurring of notes, and smearing of instrumental
timbres; in its earliest schools, jazz was emphatically dance-oriented. Its subsequent
genesis has spawned increasingly varied and disparate sub-genres and styles, spreading
regionally from Southern centers to generate distinct schools and dialects in
St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, New York and beyond. Key styles include, but
are not limited to, traditional (or Dixieland) jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz,
free jazz and fusion; recent years have seen renaissances for older styles and
new fusions alike, from the "New Traditionalists" of the '80s to the acid jazz
and hip-bop of the '90s, stirring frequent debate even as they reinvent and extend
the jazz influence across new generations.
Bop/Bebop
Genre of modern jazz that evolved in the mid-1940s. Involved extensive improvisation
and severely revamped chord structures, unusually accented rhythmic phrasing,
and frenzied solos. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were among the first and
best-known bop players. Improvisation Playing or singing in a way that departs
from the written structure of a song by changing the melody, harmony, rhythm,
etc.; or simply creating music spontaneously without any original foundation.
Blues A popular music form that originated with African Americans, usually based
on a simple 12-bar musical pattern. Blues songs often have a melancholy tone and
deal with the hardship and sadness of life and love.
Swing
As a musical technique, the use of syncopation in a way that's virtually too random
or subtle to be notated or even described. Swing involves a departure from the
written score by maintaining the underlying beat, but playing the melody between
and around the beat in a freer fashion than is written. More commonly, swing refers
to what we now call "big band" jazz of the 1930sÑmusic performed by groups which
generally featured several of each instrument, improvising in some cases, and
playing to a steady beat that was good for dancing.
Fusion
A term for musical cross-pollination; usually refers to a period in the 1970s
when jazz artists incorporated rock elements in their work (and rock artists used
elements of jazz in theirs.) John McLaughlin is considered a pioneer of jazz/rock
fusion.
Syncopation
In music, the deliberate placement of accented rhythmic or melodic notes away
from the regular beat in a measure. Jazz has almost always involved syncopation,
but most Western popular music contains at least some syncopated passages.
