The Evolution Of African American Music

The Evolution of African American Music

African American music came about from the Africans that were enslaved and brought over to America. They were separated from their language and history. The way they were able to preserve some of their culture is through music, which was limited to vocals and rhythm, and dance. The type of African music called “sorrow songs” which were sung due to the hard labor and cruelty the slaves had to encounter, were made into Blues which became popular in the Deep South. From Blues came Jazz, Behop, Rhythm and Blues (R&B), Soul, and Rap.

The Blues is a style of music that contains themes such as love, sex, betrayal, poverty, drinking, bad luck, and itinerant lifestyle. The early Blues emerged in from Texas, Louisiana, and the Piedmont region and the Mississippi Delta. The blues was typically played by solo musicians who played on the acoustic guitar, piano, or harmonica. They played at weekend parties, picnics, and juke joints and this type of music pertained to the agricultural laborers. The community of African Americans that created the blues started to escape from the South due to the harsh Jim Crow laws. Many started to migrate to the North. Due to the new environment and not wanted to be reminded of the hardship from slavery, the sound of blues started to change. For example, Blues artist Muddy Waters changed from playing the acoustic guitar to the electric guitar and the sound of blues had a more electrified blues sound and this lead the way to the creation of Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll.

Jump Blues is a type of Blues with a regular beat and oriented around a singer. It was the first style of “Rhythm and Blues” which is explained to have “Originated in 1949 as “a catch-all te...

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...d Rock and Rock, the door was opened for African Americans. Chuck Berry, Little Richard and other African American artists were able to gain success. Since rock and roll originated within the lower classes and a segregated ethnic group, many middle-class whites thought it was tasteless. Rock and roll records were banned from a great amount of radio stations and schools.

Jazz is a style of that went through a number of phases. At the same time as Jazz, there was a style of music called Behop that somewhat dominated. Miles Davis “was a prime mover in the “cool” school, which emphasized melody and “leaned toward an aesthetic that less is more” (Ethan Goffman). Davis’ styles soon evolved to modal Jazz which contained complex rhythms. Taking a fast and furious direction came hard bop and cool jazz which emphasized solos. The popularity of Jazz soon started to fade away.