Portal:Jazz
Welcome to the jazz portal
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues, ragtime, European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.
As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.
The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. (Full article...)
Selected articles -
Selected image
Related portals
Selected biographies -
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that although George Balanchine incorporated jazz dance-inspired choreography in his ballet Concerto Barocco, those elements are now gone?
- ... that Albert Gumble and Owen Murphy's music score for the Broadway musical Red Pepper was dismissed by one critic as not "real music" because of its embrace of jazz?
- ... that Atlanta's "quicker picker-upper" aired martial arts movies, professional wrestling, jazz music, and Japanese-language programming?
- ... that Tim Kinsella made most of the lyrics for Cap'n Jazz's only album, Shmap'n Shmazz, during his first experience with psilocybin mushrooms?
- ... that jazz fusion and funk musician Mark Lettieri graduated with a degree in marketing?
- ... that Japanese jazz cafés often require customers to be silent?
More did you know...
- ... that the 1932 jazz standard "Moten Swing" was an important development in the move towards a freer form of orchestral jazz and the development of swing music?
- ... that an agent liked the sound of Onzy Matthews's band and music but expressed concern after seeing the band was racially mixed?
- ... that as of January 2014, Desfado by fado singer Ana Moura has not dropped from the Portuguese Albums Chart Top 20 since its release in November 2012?
- ... that U.S. President Bill Clinton participated in a jam session at Reduta Jazz Club (pictured) during a 1994 visit to the Czech Republic?
January/February 2014
Selected recording
Jazz by topic
Quality content
Categories
Things you can do
Create an article on a jazz-related subject
Suggest new selected articles and images for the portal here
Add new selected articles here
Add new selected biographies here
Add new selected images here
The Jazz WikiProject
The Jazz WikiProject works to improve the quality of jazz-related articles on Wikipedia. Please join us!
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus