Jazzin It Up

"Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will." J.J. Johnson

Jazz music is a genre of music created by African Americans in the Southern region of the United States. Restrictions along with the lack of opportunities due to segregation made Blacks find another avenue for employment, which was entertainment. African American musicians were able to provide what was considered "low class" entertainment through  minstrel shows, dance, vaudeville most of their audiences in bars, clubs, and brothels. The genre known as ragtime was the predecessor to Jazz and appeared as sheet music African Americans made this genre popular. Scott Joplin would become known as the "King of Ragtime."

 

Down to the Bayou....New Orleans
The brothels and bars n the red-light district around Basin Street also known to New Orleans's natives as "Story Ville," this neighborhood was significant to the early days of New Orleans jazz. Marching bands and dance band instruments would become the basic instruments of jazz.

These instruments include brass and reeds used  by the European 12-tone scale and drums small bands mixing self-taught and well educated African Americans, most of them performed in the lavish funeral-procession role in the development of early jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from 1914 on Afro-Creole and African American musicians that performed in vaudeville exposed jazz music to Western and Northern regions of the United States. Jazz has created many sub genres within the genre and Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong are jazz music favorites.