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Jazz Origins. The history of jazz music is deeply linked to and embedded with the history of New Orleans. As ragtime and the blues began to circulate, New Orleans incubated music that would come to be called jazz, and the unique social construction of the city provided a cadre of musicians as well as an audience to support and sustain a particular form of musical expression.
Feb 24, 2017 · The word “blues” already existed in popular song distribution for sad songs and love songs, so many song titles had “blues” in them long before blues music saw print. To provide an idea of what this early blues sounded like, here is Hattie Ellis singing her own composition, “ Desert Blues ,” in a field recording by John and Ruby Lomax made in Texas in 1939.
Jan 22, 2024 · Blues Influence on Jazz Rhythm. The blues had a profound influence on the rhythmic aspects of jazz, shaping its grooves, syncopation, and overall feel. The rhythmic characteristics of the blues, with its emphasis on swing and a relaxed yet vibrant pulse, became integral to the development of jazz rhythm.
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The blues is a form of secular folk music created by African Americans in the early 20th century, originally in the South. Although instrumental accompaniment is almost universal in the blues, the blues is essentially a vocal form. Blues songs are usually lyrical rather than narrative because the expression of feelings is foremost.
Where did the blues get its name?
In the 19th century the English phrase blue devils referred to the upsetting hallucinations brought on by severe alcohol withdrawal. This was later shortened to the blues, which described states of depression and upset, and it was later adopted as the name for the melancholic songs that the musical genre encapsulates.
How did the blues begin as a musical genre?
The origins of the blues are poorly documented, but it is believed that after the American Civil War (1861–65), formerly enslaved African Americans and their descendants created this genre while working on Southern plantations, taking inspiration from hymns, minstrel show music, work songs and field hollers, ragtime, and popular music of the Southern white population.
Why is the blues considered the “Devil’s music”?
Although instrumental accompaniment is almost universal in the blues, the blues is essentially a vocal form. Blues songs are lyrical rather than narrative; blues singers are expressing feelings rather than telling stories. The emotion expressed is generally one of sadness or melancholy, often due to problems of love but also oppression and hard times. To express this musically, blues performers use vocal techniques such as melisma (sustaining a single syllable across several pitches), rhythmic techniques such as syncopation, and instrumental techniques such as “choking” or bending guitar strings on the neck or applying a metal slide or bottleneck to the guitar strings to create a whining voicelike sound.
As a musical style, the blues is characterized by expressive “microtonal” pitch inflections (blue notes), a three-line textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form. Typically the first two and a half measures of each line are devoted to singing, the last measure and a half consisting of an instrumental “break” that repeats, answers, or complements the vocal line. In terms of functional (i.e., traditional European) harmony, the simplest blues harmonic progression is described as follows (I, IV, and V refer respectively to the first or tonic, fourth or subdominant, and fifth or dominant notes of the scale):
Phrase 1 (measures 1–4) I–I–I–I
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Phrase 2 (measures 5–8) IV–IV–I–I
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The blues inside the music—the self-styling, the low furor, the professions of pride and desire—was given a narrower berth. In the 1950s, many jazz musicians migrated away from dance music and into the small combos of bebop. The blues’ core truths stayed lodged inside of it, but they were often relegated to instrumental expression.
Early blues music was very slow and emotional using simple harmonies with a vocalist accompanied by a guitar. Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson made the blues style very popular in the 1920s.
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Jazz and Blues. Leading up to the 1920s, African American music came to the attention of the white music industry and white music audiences. In 1912 W. C. Handy became the "Father of the Blues" with his composition, Memphis Blues. His inspiration for the style came from an African American musical practice of singing away one's sorrows to move ...
