Transcript Jazz Timeline

Jazz Timeline
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Origins
Players
Cultures
Styles
Characteristics
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEGTu7yoQmo
What is Jazz?
• "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know" Louis Armstrong
• Objectifies United States Culture
• Synthesizes African and European Culture
• First evident in New Orleans
An Academic Definition:
• Jazz is a genre of American music that
originated in New Orleans circa 1900
characterized by strong, prominent meter,
improvisation, distinctive tone colors &
performance techniques, and dotted or
syncopated rhythmic patterns.
• But Jazz is so much more than that!
1600s
• The story begins some four • They were transported
hundred years ago when the
English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese and Dutch
competed for control of the
Atlantic slave trade. It's
estimated that by 1860,
more than 10 million
Africans had been captured
and transported to the
Americas. This human
atrocity ravaged populations
primarily in regions we now
call Ghana, Togo, Benin and
Nigeria.
mostly to the Caribbean
Islands and Spanish colonies
in Central and South
America. Only an estimated
6 percent of these victims of
slavery were traded in
British North America. Far
from homogeneous, they
were diverse in linguistic,
ethnic, and spiritual
heritages. This diversity was
reflected in their rich
musical traditions.
Atlantic Slave Trade: Volume and Destination
1700s
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Slavery took a slightly different cultural turn in the
French-dominated city of New Orleans, founded in
1718. Here, free colored people called Creoles coexisted with whites and slaves. Creoles were the
racially mixed children of French slave masters and
enslaved African women. These biracial children
were given more privileges than black children. They
were often educated in the finest schools, trained as
musicians, and allowed access to white society.
According to custom, many French slave owners
would free their slaves—and, especially their Creole
children--immediately prior to their own death
•With freedom, Creoles were able to achieve opportunities
in society and wealth that approximated the status and
rights of white people.
•However, when the Spanish took over New Orleans in
1764, Creoles lost their social and economic status,
a change that forced them to look for work.
•Many became traveling musicians, a phenomenon that
would evolve into the Southern minstrel show.
•These Creole musicians and their descendants became
the primary inventors of early jazz.
Minstrel
Show
•Started around the 1830’s
•American entertainment consisting of comic skits
and variety acts, dancing and music
•Performed by white people in “black face” and black
people in black face after the Civil War.
• Lampooned black people in disparaging ways
• By the turn of the century, Vaudeville replaced Minstrel
Shows
1800’s
Racial segregation was a harsh reality in 19th century
America. It led to universal double standards, where
virtually all conditions and opportunities for blacks
were inferior to those of white people.
Though African Americans were no longer enduring
slavery, they were still subjected to abusive and cruel
treatment of a largely racist culture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JtD_YpyXYU
The 1871 concert tour of The Jubilee Singers of Fisk
University marks an historic threshold in the
development of American music.
The Jubilee Singers toured the US and Europe,
performing traditional work songs and spirituals in their
regular choir repertoire.
They provided white audiences in both continents with
their very first exposure to the lives and music of black
Americans.
The music was extremely popular and people called the
song form of a spiritual, “a jubilee”.
Meanwhile, in the 1890's, the earliest forms of jazz
began to emerge in New Orleans
Creole musicians were combining the elements of West
African work songs, slave spirituals, minstrel and
vaudeville shows, and rural blues expression with the
European brass band instruments and harmonies.
RAGTIME
ORIGINS:
Ragtime developed in African American communities
throughout the southern parts of the country.
Bands would combine the structure of marches
with black songs and dances such as the cakewalk.
Scott Joplin “King of Ragtime”
1867 – 1917