1. “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Swing)”
Jazz in America:
The Curious Student’s Guide

2. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” ~ An Early Jazzman
What Is Jazz?
“If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” ~ An Early Jazzman

3. Jazz swings! Jazz improvises!

4. Jazz Is… One of America’s greatest contributions to the arts.
A handy window into American history.

5. Jazz is emotional! Jazz is fun!

6. Jazz Is…
…Grounded in swinging 4/4 time with the blues as a touchstone.
…A musical reflection of defiance or at least of antagonistic cooperation.
…A music formed by the marriage of black and white musical traditions in the United States.

7. Jazz is popular music!
Jazz is changing music!

8. Jazz Is…
“An art form that is constantly inspiring and renewing.” ~ Patricia Barber

9. What Makes Jazz?

10. Improvisation
Instead of being played strictly from written notes, much of jazz is improvised, or made up as the musicians go along.

11. Syncopation
In syncopated music, rhythms are created in which the emphasis shifts from the strong beat to the weak beat, or so that the different rhythms play with each other.

12. Blue Note
A bent or slurred note. Playing blue notes will create unique harmonies and often will convey a deeply emotional feel.

13. Complex Rhythm
Rhythm is made not only by a drum, but by the accents played by different members of a jazz ensemble.

14. The Drums of Congo Square
“The rhythms that the drummers beat out in the dusty sunlight made the people standing around want to move their heads in time, tap their feet, and dance, too. That is one of the things about jazz: it always makes people want to move. Jazz music is music to move to, to dance to—not just to listen to.” ~ Langston Hughes

15. The Story of Jazz

16. Jazz is a music that first took shape in the cosmopolitan and musically sophisticated milieu of New Orleans in the early part of the twentieth century.

17. Jazz grew out of the many strands of vernacular American music that had found a home in New Orleans—among them ragtime and blues.

18. Jazz was brought to life and nurtured by African-American musicians.

19. African Americans incorporated Western and African instruments and dances into new musical styles.

20. The musical styles and traditions of Africa have made jazz music what it is today.

21. While the roots of jazz are indelibly vocal, it evolved into primarily an instrumental genre, with its long series of innovations coming from instrumentalists.

22. Jazz is a music in which theme and variations play a large role, and in which each player has the potential role of composer.

23. Jazz can be played on any instrument and by ensembles of any size.

24. Jazz evolved with American culture.

25. America was determined to have fun after World War I and wanted to cheer itself up during the Great Depression.

26. Jazz caught the mood of the times, and radio broadcasts and phonograph records brought it into almost every home.

27. Varieties of Jazz

28. Swing
A style of jazz in the 1930s characterized by a steady, lively, and fluid rhythm.

29. Big Band
A style of jazz of the 1930s and 1940s played by large orchestras, which relied on written music.

30. Bebop
A style of jazz pioneered in the 1940s and 1950s marked by rhythmic accents and a jagged beat.

31. Cool Jazz
A lyrical type of jazz that became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s; also called West Coast jazz.

32. Free Jazz
A style of jazz of the early 1960s marked by a sense of mysticism and a return to African roots.

33. Fusion
A musical style of the late 1960s and early 1970s that blends elements of jazz with rock music.

34. Soul Jazz
A gospel-influenced style of jazz; also called funk.

35. Legends of Jazz Music
Two Pioneers

36. Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong
Armstrong’s influence was, and remains, so seminal that any study of Jazz must inevitably return to the work of this master trumpet player and vocalist.
He mesmerized New York with his trumpet playing, singing, and scatting, the vocal technique he invented that used nonsense syllables to imitate instruments.

37. Louis Armstrong

38. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington
Ellington expanded the scope of jazz numbers, paving the way for his trademark “symphonic jazz” as well as proving himself a sensitive and imaginative pianist.

39. Duke Ellington

40. Legends of Jazz Music
Instrumentalists

41. Count Basie

42. Benny Goodman

43. Dizzy Gillespie

44. Charlie Parker

45. Thelonious Monk

46. Legends of Jazz Music
Vocalists

47. Ella Fitzgerald

48. Billie Holiday

49. The Language of Jazz Ballad Blues Call-and-Response
A slow song or musical composition.
Blues
A type of music in which rhythmic phrases are repeated; also characterized by songs about hard times and bad luck.
Call-and-Response
An African song type in which a lead singer calls out and the group answers with a repeated phrase.

50. Improvisation Ragtime Riggs
When musicians invent things as they go along.
Ragtime
A type of piano music marked by a “jumping,” syncopated rhythm.
Riggs
Single rhythmic phrases repeated over and over, used in blues and jazz.

51. Syncopation
When the accent of a rhythm shifts from the strong beat to the weak beat; used in ragtime.

52. Resources for Curious Students
Books
The History of Jazz, Ted Gioia
Jazz: A History of America’s Music, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
Visions of Jazz, Gary Giddins
The Library of Congress
William Gottlieb’s Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz (All the images in this slide show are from this collection.)

53. Websites All About Jazz All Music Guide Downbeat JazzEd Jazz Online
Jazz Times

54. Bibliography Carlin, Richard. Jazz. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1991.
Hayes, Malcolm. 20th-Century Music: 20s & 30s—Between the Wars. Milwaukee, WI: Gareth Stevens, 2002.
Lee, Jeanne. Jam! The Story of Jazz Music. New York, NY: Rosen, 1999.
Schoenberg, Loren. The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Jazz. New York, NY: Perigee, 2002.