What is jazz?

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Jazz Music
Introduction
Known to be one of the long, smooth sounding music, jazz has spread all over the world, from America to Africa and even Asia, it has been heard on radio plays, seen in the television entertainment news and on live performance. A music genus which was instigated back in the 19th c and early 20th c with the African American communities composed of both the West African and the New Orleans in the United States. Jazz is composed of two major music stylistics which are the blues and the ragtime. Most jazz artists develop their lyrics and music right as they perform and not as previously recorded (“What is Jazz?” n.p.). Although jazz music has its origin within the black, scholars around the world have acknowledged jazz as one of America’s original form of art.
Different intellectuals have a diverse definition of jazz as music; for instance, critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt defines it as a form of music which has its roots from the United States through the understanding between the Negro and the European music. Travis Jackson also defined jazz as music that comprised of qualities like swing, creating, group interaction, emerging individual voice and being clear to different musical possibilities. Mark Gridley, (Author of jazz styles: history and analysis) defined jazz in four different ways; one, it’s a strict definition this meant that swing and improvisation are compulsory, two, family resemblances, this meant that whatsoever seemed like jazz is jazz, and lastly he defined it as jazziness this means that it’s a multidimensional concept.

According to a book edited by David Ake Jazz/Not Jazz, jazz music is a non-monolithic genre of music that is also controversial and hard to clearly determine or fully identify (Ake 1). Lastly, the national museum of American history explains shortly that jazz is a kind of music that improvisation is usually an important part. It explains clearly that considerable skill is needed when performing the solo music, jazz is rhythmic, and uses the swing feeling together with bent or blue notes and hear the call-and-response mode of singing (“Groups/famous jazz musicians” n.p.).
Jazz Artists, Background, and Their Musical Style
Since the existence of jazz music, there has been a lot of singers and composers, but I will look at a few. One is Wynton Marsalis, the famous and greatest jazz musician, bandleader and composer, literate and advocator of the American culture, born in America, New Orleans, Louisiana, Wynton has advanced all round in music from the music foursomes to big bands. He has also gone through the chamber music ensembles to the symphony orchestras, from tap dance to ballet, and going all the way to jazz and classical music and this has set him up as one of the international biggest singer artist and composer.
He uses the trumpet as his instrument to play jazz music. Wynton style composition was the blues symphony. He used the blues and ragtime rhythms together with symphonic orchestrations to establish a new type of fun of classical repertoire. He continued and expanded his repertoire for symphony orchestra with swing symphony, thus introducing multipart layers of joint improvisation. He went on and added a violin concerto which was composed for the violin Nicola Benedetti of which the concerto was in four ways, Rhapsody, Rhonda, blues, and hootenanny. Wynton was a successful artist that led him to winning the Grammy Awards between the years 1983 and 1987 (“Biography” n.p.).
Miles Davis is a trumpet player, and bandleader, one of the world’s instrumentalists in the development of jazz, a Grammy award winner. Born in 1926, Illinois at the age of 18, he has been on the road to hunt for music. During his lifetime in 1949, he released a nine-piece band with uncommon additions, like the French horn, trombone, and tuba. With his love of jazz music miles performed and recorded various articles, for example round midnight at the Newport jazz festival. This performance gunned him a huge recording contract with the Columbia records; also he recorded Porgy and Bess and kind of blues which became biggest jazz albums and the hugest selling jazz album. Others are Bitches Brew and many more. Though miles became a drug addict, his jazz music lasted for long.
Buddy Bolden is also an artist who made huge imprints in the growth of jazz music, especially by the use of a style commonly known as New Orleans. His popularity led him to be identified as King Bolden. Some of his major recordings that are on air until today include Careless Love and My Buckets’ Got a Hole in It.
Works Cited
Ake, David A. Jazz Cultures. U of California P, 2002.
“Biography” Wynton Marsalis Official Website, www.wyntonmarsalis.org/about/bio. Accessed 18 Feb. 2018
“Groups/famous Jazz Musicians.” Bio, A&E Television Networks, www.biography.com/people/groups/famous-jazz-musicians. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018
“What is Jazz” National Museum of American History, Feb. 2016, www.americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/education/what-jazz. Accessed 18 Feb. 2018