NEDERLAND -- The history of jazz as a musical style is complex, weaving, and often debated. However, the origins of jazz can be traced back to a particular time and place – early 20th-century New Orleans.
The state’s Black American community, a combination of Creole culture, African tradition, and pepperings of European influences, primarily meshed the informal stylings of blues with the syncopated rhythms of ragtime to build a new style.
This formed the style of “jass,” further developed from the sounds of work songs and field hollers sung by African slaves, American South hymns and gospels, and New Orleans brass bands. The first jazz recording was created on February 26, 1917, when the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded the novelty song “Livery Stable Blues.”
The 1920s, dubbed by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the “Jazz Age,” saw the musical and cultural explosion of jazz through performances in speakeasies during Prohibition. The style quickly spread across the United States, played by Black and white Americans alike, and grew into more specific styles.
Jazz embraced improvisation in both vocals and instrumentation as its influences grew. World War II resulted in a jazz upheaval with musicians drafted and increased prices for resources, forcing many big bands to dissolve. By the end of World War II, however, jazz exploded again, with styles such as rhythm and blues and bebop fleshed out after their inception during the war.
In the 1950s, composer and theorist George Russell proposed a new approach to improvisation, emphasizing musical scales over chord progressions. Miles Davis applied this approach to his 1959 album Kind of Blue, making an immediate impact.
Alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman eliminated harmonic progression entirely, forming the concept of “free jazz,” and pianist Cecil Taylor developed kinetic compositions, abandoning song forms, fixed rhythms, and accompanist and soloist hierarchies.
For over a century, jazz has formed a unique stamp in musical history, spreading not just across the United States but across the entire world. Initially, jazz was often dismissed as too noisy and discordant and labeled an assault on moral values. Now, though, jazz has been fully embraced as an important part of American culture.
For local jazz performances in the Peak to Peak area, be sure to head to Knotted Root Brewing Company, located at 250 North Caribou Street in Nederland, every Sunday starting at 5 p.m. for Jazz Sundays.
Also, get ready for the 2025 Ned Jazz and Wine Festival, which will be hosted in Nederland’s Chipeta Park on Saturday, August 23 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. To learn more about the event and get tickets, be sure to head to nedjazzwine.com.
The information in this article was sourced from “A Brief History of Jazz” published by Levine Music, the Smithsonian Folkways article “Jazz” by Dr. John Edward Hasse, and the BBC article “The mysterious origins of jazz” by Christian Blauvelt.
