Jazz Heritage/The Roots of Jazz

Africa is the home of live, which spread to atomic number 63 and all throughout America. directlys idle words medicinal drug is influenced by the diametrical countries mentioned. There atomic number 18 medicinal drugal traditions and cultural traditions orgasm from Africa, Europe and America which contributed to the big(p) of lead right away. As hit the sack demonstrable, it was come to in red-hot siege of Orleans (Yurochko 3). To check understand why get by sounds the way it does today, it is best to examine its root one by one, country by country. Africa The life in Africa is centered around the peck.All its members participate in E truly(prenominal) activity, function and religious rite in the tribe. Afri backside tribes were highly interactive and participatory because all of its members constantly establish a way to contribute and coopera housete and common gatherings and functions (Yurochko 3). From this, it washstand be inferred that the medical specialt yal activities of the tribe were a exchangeable interactive and participatory. Because of these characteristics, the medicine they created was fully of dynamics. No single member of the African tribe just sit down. No one just listened. All of them were tied to everything that was happening in the tribe.As a result, music was functional as it was properly suitable to all the activities and events in the tribe (Bjorn and Gallert 178). What was unique in Africa was how spate listened to music. In this country, one can non find a single concert hall. Everybody self-collected themselves in just one area to listen to music. Listening to music was a significant part of the tribes lives. In Africa, there were contrasting types of sounds fit for different types of occasions. There was music for marriage, death and births. There was music even for chopping down a tree, or clearing out a path.What music was to Africans was a social glue that united all members of the tribe unneurotic (Y urochko 3). Meanwhile, the characteristics of African music can explain why discern music rooted from Africa. African music makes the body perform. It means that the music alone involves the body by making it dance, sway to the bind, clap, and pound a rod on the ground. Apart from the musicians themselves, all members of the audience were also fall in the fun. Africa music makes everyone sing, too (Bjorn and Gallert 178). Africans used different musical instruments like aerophones, idiophones and cordophones.The deep sound of the music was mainly acquired from the ram. African music was full of drums which came in different shapes and sizes. The drum was their main instrument which Africans produced from hollowed out logs and gourds. Across the source of the drum was a stretched animal skin (Bjorn and Gallert 178). What makes chouse so African is its rhythm, since African music is highly characterized by the emphasis on rhythm. hybrid rhythms and polyrhythms were make by Afr ican drummers, both of which were major contributors to the driving enduringness of farting or African music (Bjorn and Gallert 178).The beat of crawl in and the beat of African music can be demonstrated by creating a single beat, and dividing it into deuce. The opposite half should be given two claps to a single beat. The other hand will be given 3 claps to a single beat. This is a simple polyrhythm compared to how much jazz has developed through time. The basic principle behind jazz beats is two beats against one (Bjorn and Gallert 179). African sound involvems unorganized, and this is what jazz is all about. It is because of the more(prenominal) complex polyrhythm found in African music. Each beat of the drum has an already set rhythm.Then again, once this beat is combined with other drums which also have their own set rhythms, then that is where the complicated sound is produced (Bjorn and Gallert 180). Another characteristic of African sound which can be found in jazz mu sic is the pentatonic de musical scale. A pentatonic scale can best be seen in a piano. The scale is defined by five notes, thus the term penta-tonic, with the chords C, D, E, G and A. This musical scale can also be found in the music of Peru, Mexico, Scotland and japan (Salzman and the American Studies Association 961). In Africa, singers sing and the members of the audience respond.African musicians can also chant a melody, and the rest of the people in the locus react with the type of response already established in the society. In Africa, this is called call and response, which is also highly used in jazz. In jazz, though, the way people respond is different. This can be seen in umteen churches with people singing jazz praise songs (Salzman and the American Studies Association 961). The characteristics of jazz can be traced back to the African musics characteristics, too, in which bending tones, falsetto, buzzes in the voice, raspy tones and vocal manipulation can be found.No vocal sound is ever produced. Letting out their feelings and expressing themselves by belting out what and how they were feeling an emotion contributed to the very distinct characteristics of jazz music. The tones were also not organized. As a listener listens to a jazz music, he will mostly find the singer reciting words ad lib (Henson 48). Europe Europe influenced jazz music through harmony and instrumentation. The harmonies in jazz music are characterized by diatonic scale. Jazz music is highly diatonic, and diatonic, in this case, is an expanded version of the pentatonic scale coming from Africa.Chord progressions from the European or Western sound influenced todays jazz music. Europe contributed a big part of the instrumentation of jazz. Instruments from Europe used in jazz music are clarinets, trombones and trumpets. Most of the European instruments used gave jazz music its symphonic nature (Henson 48). The birthplace of jazz music is mainly in bran-new Orleans. The people of the urban center make use of what they were hearing from Africa and Europe, combined the different techniques and various musical expressions to technically call the new genre jazz (Henson 48). sweet Orleans New Orleans was undeniably successful in giving birth to jazz because of various components. One of these factors is its location. Since New Orleans is located at the bakshis of the Mississippi River, it was easy for people to bring in jazz to the area. The river made it easy for New Orleans to export music to different part of the globe, too, which made the music genre jazz, became frequent in a very short period of time upon its conception (Brown 74). The Mississippi River was a very important factor in making jazz a popular genre because it has touched various states in America.several(prenominal) states which were considered areas for slaves contributed in New Orleans highly divers(a) population. Since the city became a busy seaport, it also developed into becoming the gateway to the islands of the Caribbean (Henson 48). It is also important to study the demographics of the people in New Orleans as this is related to the festering of jazz. The city is a very unique one because even before it was a state of America, it has been under the flags of France and Spain. When one would visit New Orleans, one would see how diverse the population is because of the different ethnic groups found in the city.Because of the diverse population, there was also a diverse culture. Cultural diversity helped in improving the quality of jazz music (Brown 74). The races inhabiting the city defined jazz music. The different cultures taking place made jazz what it sounds today. Since French people were among those who were occupying New Orleans, the tradition where they allowed males to have their mistresses was a big influence to the music. Several men chose women who were light skinned, and they went for those who had mixed blood. Most of these women were found i n the Confederate part of New Orleans.Because of this, the group of lower class blacks grew and became known to the city (Henson 48). The black creoles were widely accepted in New Orleans, especially by the white society. However, it didnt stay this way for too long. They received the same privileges and rights from the government. In 1984, a law was passed by the Louisiana Legislature which suggested that people with African blood were labeled as Negros. Because of this, the black creoles were driven away from New Orleans. They had no choice but to join the black culture (Henson 48).The connective of the pure blacks and the black creoles (cross between black and light-skinned) gave birth to the full development of a new music which is now referred to as jazz. Slaves from different move of the globe who were pushed to the United States possessed nothing but their clothing. Then again, they brought not only clothes in the United States, but music, too. They brought their heritage and culture. They share their musical practices in the United States, specifically in New Orleans (Brown 74). Because of the struggle of the black culture, New Orleans slowly became identified as the city of refuge for blacks.All freed slaves and escaped slaves fled to New Orleans. They all gathered in Congo Square during Sundays because this was their only chance to be together and celebrate their culture. During these days, they all participated in the African culture where they played drums, sing and danced (Henson 48). New Orleans is then the breeding ground of musical activity. legion(predicate) musical ensembles can be found here, like brass bands, musicales, opera companies and orchestras. Up to this day, there are still musical parties being held in the city.What made jazz sound disorganized and highly syncopated today is the merging of the musical influences of black slave culture and the black creoles. Their different cultures and distinct musical style made jazz sound like it does today. How jazz is being played is merely a result of the conjugation of different tempos, beats and styles through time. Examples of African musical activities that highly influenced todays jazz music are rhythmic emphasis, African field holler, interactive music and the call and response ritual. All of these found a space into the style of jazz (Brown 74).