#jazzp

[heppenfeld]

Endless by Keith Jarret Standars Trio (from Changeless)

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[1920s-jazz-dance]

Jazz

Jazz started in the early 20th century in the American south. As a blend of blues, folk, march, and ragtime music, it was diverse and expressive. It was born out of a mix of African rhythm and european music traditions and featured musical qualities that were unusual at the time such as swing notes, polyrhythmic syncopation, call and response patterns and, most importantly, improvisation.

Improvisation is what made jazz, and later scat, different from previous styles of music. Just like the popular dances of the decade allowed the performer to have a huge amount of freedom and deviate from the set norm, jazz did the same thing by allowing the musician to interpret the music anyway they wanted to.

[1920s-jazz-dance]

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 15, 1894. She began to sing at a young age and in 1923 signed a contract with Columbia Records. One of her early recordings, “Downhearted Blues” was very popular and sold over 800,000 copies making her one of the most successful jazz musicians of the time.

[1920s-jazz-dance]

Louis Armstrong

Born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, he helped introduce and make scat popular and is probably the best known jazz musician of all time. In 1924, he made his first recordings as a band leader with his Hot Five,and later his Hot Seven. His best known songs of the 1920’s were “Ain’t Misbehaving” and “Heebie Jeebies”.

[1920s-jazz-dance]

Jelly Roll Morton

He was born in 1890 in New Orleans to a Creole family and learned classical piano and guitar at a young age. He was one of the pioneers of jazz and is considered to be one of the best composers of that era. He formed a group called Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers and demonstrated that a jazz band could be both spontaneous and organized at the same time. His biggest hit was The Black Bottom Stomp, recorded in 1926.