Influence Of Jazz Music

Madeline Davis

Lars

MUS113

09/18/2017

4th hr (contrast)

These days there are not many millennials, if any at all; besides everyone in our class, that listen to this early Polyphonic Jazz style from the 1920s. But this style of “collective improvisation” was the hit of that time. This style of music was heavily syncopated with accenting the offbeat by having rhythms that pulled off the main pulse (beat) of the song. The earlier form of syncopated music was called Ragtime music since it created a very ragged rhythm. It was a combination of European classical music and African syncopation. Ragtime music was popular from the mid-1890s up until the start of the national craze for jazz music in the early 1920s. Jazz was not only influenced by ragtime but was also heavily influenced from the blues of the deep south. Blues originated in the late 19th century and was more of a mellow or melancholy flow style that created a repetitive effect called a groove. These two styles of music, both ragtime and blues, synthesized to create Jazz. In listening to “Tiger Rag” by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and “Dipper Mouth Blues” by the Creole Jazz Band, it was apparent of the multiple style influences of early jazz music.

Their band consisted of both a frontline and rhythm section. The frontline, like most other Jazz Bands, contained a cornet, a clarinet and a trombone, while the rhythm section was very versatile. One interesting fact that the book gives about these rhythm sections of early jazz recordings is that most times brass instruments were left out because the low frequency would make the needle of the acoustic recording machine jump. In many cases at live performances, the rhythm section would include a guitar or banjo and a string bass or