Jazz History 01

1. Jazz History
Prof. David Larsen
Part 1
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2. What is jazz?
America's first art Music. A
combination of marches, spirituals,
the blues, and folk music; jazz is an
amalgamation of American Culture.
Created in the American South
during the height of Jim Crow
segregation laws, jazz became a
world wide phenomenon that
changed all Western Music.
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3. What is Jazz?
Jazz is an American Musical Art Form known for
high degrees of virtuosic instrumental performance,
improvisation, and personal expression.
Jazz began as a pop culture idiom, but attained a
high degree of musical sophistication and a place in
the permeant core of western music.
Much like classical music is studied at Universities.
Jazz many has high level scholars, composers, and
performers.
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4. What is Jazz?
Jazz is a diverse musical genre that contains many
sub-genres including bop, hard bop, trad. jazz, fusion,
latin, and many more.
Jazz is an evolving art form that tends to consume and
utilize elements of other art forms. Many artists today
mix jazz with punk, rock, hip-hop, and ska.
Inversely, Jazz changed the landscape of music in
many other genres, prompting great composers like
Claude Debussy and George Gershwin to write music
in a Jazz Style.
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5. What is Jazz?
Jazz has also become part of the worlds lexicon of
music. It can be found in virtually every country on
the globe and is very popular in places like Japan,
France, and Germany.
After the advent of Jazz, virtually all musical art
forms embraced its style and performance
practices, which led to a world wide acceptance of
improvisation and new instruments like saxophone,
drum set, and electric guitar.
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6. What is Jazz?
Things that Jazz is not:
A music that belongs to a specific "Race"
Jazz music was developed by a "culture" of people in
the American South. Probably in the predominately
Black, Creole, and Colored neighborhoods of New
Orleans, LA.
These different groups of individuals, forced to live near
each other by racist practices in the south, brought
many musical experiences together to form a new form
of musical expression.
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7. What is Jazz?
Remember: "Race" is a scientific term to
categorize a person by physical traits. "Culture" is
a term for the art, language, and morals that a
group of people create.
A "Culture" can be created by any number of races
together or separately.
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8. What does Jazz sound like?
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9. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Timbre (Pronounced "Tamber") is quality of
sound. The way an instrument sounds, often
described with words like "dark", "light",
"heavy", "soft". The reason why a trumpet
sounds different than a saxophone. Timbre has
no accepted scale, so the values are purely
subjective.
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10. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Texture: in contrast with timbre, texture is the
combination of many different sounds to create
a complete musical piece. Texture can refer to
both musical instruments and specific musical
techniques like "double time", "ballad", or "rock".
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11. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Ensemble: a group of instruments or voices
performing together.
Wind Instruments: any instruments that require a
person to blow air into them to play. The slang
term is "horns".
Rhythm Sections: piano, drum, bass, guitar or
other instruments used to accompany music.
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12. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Pitch: pitch is the actual sound you hear,
measured in Hertz. This is a scientific unit and is
measured precisely. It is used to tune and
regulate instruments.
Note: a note is the name given to a pitch by
musicians. Note names use letters of the
alphabet, A B C D E F G. Each time a musician
plays this series of notes, the letter names
repeat, but the pitch continues to change with
each new note. 12

13. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Chord Changes: or simply "Changes", are the
underlying harmony to a piece of music. This is
not specific to jazz.
Chord: is two or more pitches played
simultaneously. In Western Music these chords
are generally found stacked in "thirds", know as
Tertian Harmony.
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14. What is Jazz?
Terms to know about Jazz:
Melody: the melody of a piece is the
recognizable tune. It is generally written by a
composer and is fairly unchanged from
performance to performance.
Improvisation: is the act of creating or altering a
melody during performance. With no specific
rules, improvisation is a very broad term.
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15. In Review
Terms to know:
Timbre: Quality of sound
Texture: Combination of sounds
Ensemble: Group of instruments or voices
Wind Instruments: Instrument played with air
Rhythm Section: Piano, bass, drums and or
guitar 15

16. In Review
Terms to know:
Pitch: Sound measured in Hertz
Note: Name given to a pitch
Chord: Two or more pitches at once
Chord Changes: The harmony of a piece
Melody: The recognizable tune of a song
Improvisation: The act of creating a melody on demand
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