Types Of Jazz
The fact that you like Jazz music does not really say a lot about you, if you come to think that there are way too many different types of Jazz. Jazz music originated solely in the United States and can be considered the musical collision of American and African cultures. By early 1808 the slave trade brought about half a million African people to the United States, who also brought with them their musical traditions of melody, rhythm and color tone, which are characterized by the centrality of improvisation, which is rightfully regarded as the key element of jazz music. The onset began in New Orlean, which was a big city that accommodated the most jazz bands (at least thirty) in the begging of 1900s, while lavish festivals featuring African-based dances to drums where organized by the early of the 17th century.
Slowly but surely the various types of Jazz music started developing and Jazz spread all around the word. The fact that from its early American beginning, it incorporated many different national, regional and local music cultures, is really what accounts for the birth of so many different types of jazz music. The list is too long: ragtime jazz, New Orleans jazz dating from the early 1910s, swing, Kansas City and Gypsy jazz from the 1930s and 1940s, Chicago style jazz, bebop from the mid-1940s, Bossa Nova, Hard Bop, West Coast jazz, ska jazz, cool jazz, Indo jazz, avant-garde jazz, soul jazz, modal jazz, chamber jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz, smooth jazz, jazz fusion and jazz rock, jazz funk, acid jazz, ethno jazz, jazz rap, cyber jazz, nu jazz.
Instead of going through this whole list in this article, we will only explain a few things about the most common types of Jazz music among them. One cannot but start from what is called ragtime jazz: this is basically where the origin of Jazz music lies, and it was the raw material that was brought by African people as their musical heritage. Soon after this musical heritage blended with Coon songs and ‘Jig Bands’, the result being the creation of the first type of Jazz in music history.
A few adaptations in popular melodies, as well as minor adjustments is terms of rhythm, marked the line between ragtime Jazz and its next evolutionary step, namely classic jazz. Classic jazz, which was shaped around the 19oos, had a solo oriented style, and it includes a variety of musical instruments like the clarinet, the saxophone, the guitar, drums, bass, najo, tuba, and of course the clarinet.
About twenty or thirty years later, young Jazz players that were ‘new’ in the business started experimenting with already existing types of Jazz, thus creating movement called Chicago style. Chicago style was harmonic and innovative at the same time; plus it was one of those types of Jazz that you need to be a very skilled as a musician in order to be able to play it.
As for the last of the various types of Jazz that is definitely worth mentioning is Bosa Nova. Bosa Nova became a part of the American music culture around the 1960s, and it brought to the table a unique hypnotic rhythm that originated from Brazil. Bosa nova songs were written either in English or in Portugese.
