The JAZZ Story

An Outline History of Jazz

In the span of less than a century, the remarkable native American music

called Jazz has risen from obscure folk origins to become this country's

most significant original art form, loved and played in nearly every land on

earth.

Today, Jazz flourishes in many styles, from basic blues and ragtime

through New Orleans and Dixieland, swing and mainstream, bebop and

modern to free form and electronic. What is extraordinary is not that Jazz

has taken so many forms, but that each form has been vital enough to

survive and to retain its own character and special appeal. It takes only

open ears and an open mind to appreciate all the many and wide-raging

delights jazz has to offer.

THE ROOTS

Jazz developed from folk sources. Its origins are shrouded in obscurity, but

the slaves brought here from Africa, torn from their own ancestral culture,

developed it as a new form of communication in song and story.

Black music in America retained much of Africa in its distinctive rhythmic

elements and also in its tradition of collective improvisation. This heritage,

blended with the music of the new land, much of it vocal, produced more

than just a new sound. It generated an entire new mode of musical

expression.

The most famous form of early Afro-American music is the spiritual.

These beautiful and moving religious songs were most often heard by

white audiences in more genteel versions than those performed in rural

black churches. What is known as gospel music today, more accurately