The Age of Jazz
The Roaring 20s became a thriving environment for the music of the Jazz Age. While the birth of Jazz was the 1920s, the longstanding influence that this genre of African American music has made is evident in the subsequent decades through different iterations and styles, and still continues to influence our music 100 years later. Blues, African rhythms, European harmonies, and more musical components combined to make the swinging jazz music that we know and love.
Brief Jazz Basics Through the Century
The 1920s
This era of jazz is well known for wild trumpet solos, scat singing, and improvisation.
The 1930s
Jazz was now America’s popular music. The style of Swing Jazz became a way to escape the hardships of the Great Depression. The rise of the popularity in radio usage allowed for Swing to reach all corners of the nation far and wide.
The 1940s
BeBop has hit the scene! It deviated from the jazz styles of the previous decades by straying away from dance music to focusing on musical complexity. The tempos were faster, the harmonies were more complex, and the rhythms were more advanced.
The 1950s
The 50s introduced more iterations of jazz. Cool Jazz embraced more relaxed tempos. Hard Bop, an extension of Bebop, was a fusion of other styles such as gospel and blues. And Modal Jazz was an art of musical improvisation.
The 1960s
Free Jazz was about breaking away from tradition. It revolved heavily around improvisation, experimentation, and unrestrained expression.
The 1970s
Fusion was a combination of improvisation, funk, and rock.
The 1980s
The 8s was the era of Neo-Traditionalism and Smooth Jazz- both of which were very different from each other. Neo-Traditionalism preserved the musical traits of early jazz, while Smooth Jazz was influenced by the new music styles of the decade.
The 1990s
Jazz is now fully blended with the technological advances in music and the new genres of music to create Acid Jazz and Nu Jazz. The music was danceable and distinctive.
Present Day
Just as in the previous decades, Jazz continues to consistently evolve. It builds upon what was established before and incorporates what new music styles come after. Jazz nowadays is blended with Hip Hop, R&B, and music form other ethnicities.
Notable Jazz Artist
Basie
William Basie, or Count Basie in the Jazz world, was a talented bandleader in the 1920s. He is considered the “King of Swing” due to his style of jazz which was excellent dance music. His career took off in 1924 when he moved to Harlem and began playing in traveling vaudeville circuits. He was a band manager for a band until the bandleaders death in 1935 which was when Basie joined the band himself. This helped him to boost his career until he formed his own band, Barons of Rhythm. This new band performed in clubs and bars, gaining fame until they traveled to New York to record their first album. The band then appeared in several notable films in the 40s, further boosting their status in the Jazz world.
