What Style of Music Is Known as Americas Art Music?

A statue of Duke Ellington stands outside the Howard Theatre, where the jazz legend played shows in the District earlier he moved to New York. (Kyoko Takenaka /For the Washington Post)

Risky. Dangerous. S cary. A way to break the rules.

We're non talking most failing to study for your final math examination or disobeying your parents. We're talking well-nigh a type of music chosen jazz.

Some people say that jazz is America's only true art form. That's because it began here, hundreds of years ago, in the fields where blackness people worked as slaves and made up songs to laissez passer time, to express themselves and to keep alive the culture and traditions of their African homelands. Information technology wasn't chosen jazz then, merely the manner the slaves were playing and singing music was dissimilar and special.

The music of America's black people came to exist called jazz in the South in the early 1900s; New Orleans, Louisiana, is often called the birthplace of jazz. Despite slavery'south having ended in 1865, African Americans withal didn't have the same rights as white Americans. But jazz was music that both black and white people could relish. By the 1920s, jazz was growing in popularity and included influences from Europe equally well as Africa.

Jazz has all the elements that other music has: It has tune; that'south the tune of the vocal, the part you're most likely to call up. It has harmony, the notes that make the melody sound fuller. It has rhythm, which is the heartbeat of the song. But what sets jazz apart is this cool thing chosen improvisation. That means making it up on the spot. No music in front of y'all. No long discussion with your bandmates. You but play.

(David McLimans/For the Washington Post)

"It's more free. It'due south more soulful," says Geoffrey Gallante, xi, a 6th-grader at Stratford Landing Elementary Schoolhouse in Alexandria. Geoffrey is such a good musician that he has appeared at the Kennedy Middle and has been on tv set lots of times; he has even played with the band on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

In jazz, Geoffrey says, "information technology's easy to express your emotions. In classical, . . . you get the sheet music and you read it top to bottom. Yous're more than focused on technically making it perfect. . . . In jazz, your master focus is . . . being creative and using your imagination."

What makes jazz unique

It'due south non that jazz songs don't accept recognizable melodies. They practice, but that's merely a small part of it. In jazz, a melody begins a song, just and so each musician will take turns improvising, playing all kinds of crazy notes: high, low, long, short, gravelly and articulate.

The performers who are non soloing are playing quietly in the background, or comping, short for accompanying. And so at the cease of the song, the melody returns. Improvising is what makes a jazz vocal different every time you hear it, unlike any pop vocal you lot hear on the radio.

Another thing that sets jazz autonomously is its approach to rhythm. Think of "The Star-Spangled Imprint." When y'all hear that vocal, it probably doesn't make yous want to tap your foot. There are no rhythmic surprises, or what is called syncopation, in nearly presentations of "The Star-Spangled Imprint." Jazz musicians, on the other mitt, "swing" notes, which means they alter the length of notes, holding some longer and making others shorter.

Jazz and D.C.

Washington has an important identify in jazz history. In 1920, the city had the largest population of blackness people in the country. That's effectually the time that a very famous jazz piano player, Knuckles Ellington, was playing around town.

Born in Washington in 1899, Ellington every bit a kid wanted to play baseball instead of the pianoforte. That's why he sold peanuts, popcorn and candy at the games of the Washington Senators. (That was the baseball team here and so.) But his parents played the pianoforte, and so he started taking lessons when he was 7 or 8 years former.

By 1920, he was playing small-scale shows at the Howard Theatre, where blackness musicians played to generally black audiences. When he was 24, he moved to New York, but he didn't forget his home town. He called his ring the Washingtonians and subsequently he returned to perform at another famous Washington spot, the Lincoln Theatre. (Both the Lincoln Theatre and the Howard Theatre, where a statue of Ellington stands, still exist.)

Why is jazz cool?

Geoffrey Gallante was 4 years old when he picked up the trumpet. Now he practices 3 hours a day, mostly classical pieces. But what he really loves playing is jazz. Information technology's the spontaneity of jazz — that ways at that place's no planning ahead of time — that he really loves. He can walk into a club that he has never visited, with guys he has never seen, and simply play.

"The [band leader] says, 'What practise y'all want to play, and what key?' [I] tin can get up there and accept a blast. With classical, you have to plan everything. You need to practise. . . . It's a whole big production. With jazz, you but walk up and you say, 'Hey, I want to do this. . . . Let's go.' "

Now that does sound scary — in a very absurd way.

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/all-about-jazz-a-unique-form-of-american-music/2012/05/24/gJQA4bswnU_story.html

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