Jazz: the birth and history of an American music

In a New Orleans cabaret, a trumpet launches a phrase no one has ever heard and no one will ever hear the same way twice. The pianist answers, the double bass walks, the drums swing — and suddenly the whole room breathes to the same syncopated pulse. No score sets down what is happening: the music is invented on the spot, carried by a joyful, feverish tension. This moment, repeated millions of times for more than a century, has a name: jazz.

Jazz was born at the turn of the twentieth century in the American South, and more precisely in New Orleans, from the meeting of African-American musical traditions and the European instrumentarium. A music of improvisation founded on swing and blue notes, within a few decades it became the first great American musical form exported to the entire world. To understand jazz is to follow how the creativity of an oppressed community reshaped the music of the twentieth century.

Roots: from the cotton field to Congo Square#

Jazz has its roots in the African-American experience. Before it come the work songs sung in the fields, the spirituals of the Black churches, and above all the blues, born in the Mississippi Delta, with its blue notes — those slightly lowered notes that give the singing its bittersweet colour. To these is added ragtime, a syncopated piano music popularised by Scott Joplin from the 1890s.

In New Orleans, one place served as a crucible: Congo Square, where, from the era of slavery, African-Americans were permitted to gather on Sundays to dance and make music to rhythms inherited from Africa. The city — a former French and Spanish colony, a cosmopolitan port and crossroads of cultures — offered the ideal ground: brass bands, dance orchestras, funeral music. From this ferment, around 1900-1917, a new music emerged.

Jazz was not composed: it was invented, night after night, by musicians who turned into freedom what history had imposed on them.

A grammar of the moment#

The singularity of jazz lies in improvisation: the musician does not simply perform a theme, but reinvents it while playing, creating spontaneous variations over a chord grid. This freedom rests on a few pillars: the swing, that distinctive rhythmic sway that "makes the music move"; the blue notes inherited from the blues; and the syncopation, the art of shifting the accent where the ear does not expect it.

The first jazz recording dates from 1917: it is the Original Dixieland Jass Band, an orchestra of white musicians, that cut the first record — the paradox of a music of Black invention whose first commercial trace falls to whites, an early sign of the racial tensions that would run through its whole history. The figure of Buddy Bolden, a legendary New Orleans cornetist, haunts the origins: a reputed pioneer of the style, he left not a single recording.

The Jazz Age and the era of Louis Armstrong#

In the 1920s — the Roaring Twenties — jazz became the sound of an era, so much so that the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald christened the decade the Jazz Age. The closing of the Storyville red-light district in New Orleans in 1917, then the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the North, spread the music to Chicago, New York, across the whole country.

One figure dominates: Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), a trumpeter and singer of genius who, through the power of his playing and the invention of his solos, tipped jazz from a collective music towards the art of the soloist. His Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, in the late 1920s, remain founding peaks. His gravelly voice and his scat (singing in improvised syllables) made him a worldwide icon.

The golden age of swing and the bebop revolution#

The 1930s were those of swing and the big bands: large dance orchestras, written and arranged, that filled the ballrooms. Duke Ellington, leading his orchestra at Harlem's Cotton Club, raised jazz to the rank of art music; Count Basie and Benny Goodman — crowned "king of swing" — set all of America dancing. Jazz became the country's dominant popular music.

In reaction to this entertainment music, bebop exploded in the 1940s. Faster, more complex, made to be listened to and not danced to, it was carried by the saxophonist Charlie Parker and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. Then came Miles Davis, a tireless innovator: cool jazz, modal jazz with the album Kind of Blue (1959), one of the best-selling records in the genre's history, and later jazz-rock. With each generation, jazz reinvents itself without disowning itself.

A planetary legacy#

Today, jazz is recognised as one of the great contributions of the United States to world culture, taught in conservatories, celebrated each 30 April by an International Jazz Day established by UNESCO. From Paris to Tokyo, living scenes perpetuate and renew its spirit, proof that a music born on the margins can become a universal language.

From the blues of the fields to the New York clubs, jazz made improvisation a major art and freedom a musical principle. To discover it is to hear the beating heart of twentieth-century America — and to learn English is to be able to catch on the wing the lyrics of a standard, to understand what a gravelly voice murmurs, and to step fully into that endless conversation.

FAQ#

Where and when was jazz born? Jazz was born at the turn of the twentieth century, around 1900-1917, in New Orleans, in the American South, from the meeting of African-American musical traditions (blues, ragtime, work songs, spirituals) and the European instrumentarium.

What characterises jazz? Jazz is defined by improvisation, swing (a distinctive rhythmic sway), the blue notes inherited from the blues, and syncopation. The musician reinvents the theme while playing rather than performing a fixed score.

Who is Louis Armstrong? Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) is an American trumpeter and singer regarded as one of the fathers of jazz. Through the power of his solos, he moved jazz from collective music to the art of the soloist, and popularised scat singing.

What is bebop? Bebop is a jazz style that appeared in the 1940s, faster and more complex, made to be listened to and not danced to. Its major figures are the saxophonist Charlie Parker and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.