Swing

Jazz is a distinctly American creation. Developed in the early 1920s, it combined aspects of several musical traditions, including ragtime and the blues. It is also rooted in musical styles from Cuba, the Caribbean, and West Africa. Its birthplace is attributed as the American South, primarily New Orleans, Louisiana, which was home to a culturally and racially diverse population. It was the blending and borrowing of these key musical traditions over many years that led to what is now recognized as jazz.

A jazz ensemble can be formed of a wide variety of instruments but generally consists of piano, bass, drums, and brass such as saxophone, trumpet, or trombone. As a musical style, jazz is “very rhythmic[,] has a forward momentum called ‘swing,’ and uses ‘bent’ or ‘blue’ notes” (“What Is Jazz?” National Museum of American History). The music is usually highly syncopated, and it can shift or change abruptly. This is due in part to the most unique and distinctive aspect of jazz: its reliance on improvisation. Musicians perform solos that they invent as they play rather than relying on pre-scored music. Other musicians in the ensemble play in response to the improvisation in an adaptation of call-and-response style.