Birthplaces Blueprints
This Southern port city, emerging primarily from African American communities in the late 19th century, is the cradle of jazz.
What is New Orleans, Louisiana?
This legendary Belgian-born Romani guitarist co-founded the classic Gypsy Jazz style alongside violinist Stéphane Grappelli.
Who is Django Reinhardt?
This "Empress of the Blues" saved Columbia Records from financial collapse with her smash 1923 debut single "Downhearted Blues."
Who is Bessie Smith?
His 1925–1928 Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings single-handedly shifted jazz from a collective group improvisation to a soloist’s art form.
Who is Louis Armstrong?
Louis Armstrong’s 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies" is historically credited with popularizing this wordless, improvisational vocal style.
What is scat singing?
Traditional jazz emerged from a primary musical fusion of these two pre-existing genres.
What are Blues and Ragtime?
Distinct from American big bands, a classic jazz manouche ensemble is characteristically absent of these three common instruments.
What are drums, saxophones, and piano?
To navigate the indignities of Jim Crow segregation while touring the American South as a highly paid star, Bessie Smith traveled in this custom, 72-foot-long transport.
What is her own private railroad car?
Duke Ellington established this exotic, growling brass texture style during his famous late-1920s residency at Harlem's Cotton Club.
What is the "Jungle Style"?
This is the specific three-horn "front line" of a classic New Orleans jazz band and their musical roles.
What is the trumpet/cornet (melody), clarinet (counter-melody), and trombone (low glissandos/roots)?
Unlike the improvised jazz that followed it, this syncopated, piano-driven predecessor popular from 1890 to 1910 was fully composed and written down.
What is Traditional Ragtime?
This is the specific string-only instrumentation that defines a traditional Gypsy Jazz ensemble.
What are lead guitar, rhythm guitars, double bass, and violin (or accordion)?
Discovering her voice when she nervously pivoted from dancing to singing at the Apollo Theater, she became the first African American woman to win a Grammy in 1958.
Who is Ella Fitzgerald?
This composer and arranger was Duke Ellington's indispensable "alter ego" and creative partner who penned the orchestra's theme song, "Take the 'A' Train."
Who is Billy Strayhorn?
This improvisational technique involves a soloist staying very close to the original melody of a song while adding subtle ornamentation and rhythmic alterations.
What is melodic paraphrase?
He earned the title "King of Ragtime" by blending African American syncopation with classical European structures in masterpieces like "Maple Leaf Rag.
Who is Scott Joplin?
These two minor scales are frequently employed in Gypsy Jazz to give its melodies their distinct, exotic flavor.
What are the Harmonic minor and Hungarian minor scales?
In 1939 at Café Society, Billie Holiday transformed this haunting Abel Meeropol anti-lynching poem into an explicit medium for civil rights protest.
What is "Strange Fruit"?
Count Basie revolutionized jazz piano by rejecting dense stride patterns in favor of this highly economical style.
What is a minimalist, space-oriented touch?
This term refers to the practice of band sections trading syncopated, repeating musical phrases back and forth antiphonally.
What is riffing?
This "Father of the Blues" published the historic 1914 breakthrough "The Saint Louis Blues," marrying 12-bar folk blues with sophisticated ragtime syncopation.
Who is W.C. Handy?
In a Gypsy Jazz ensemble, this is the French term for the heavy, percussive, unamplified rhythm guitar strumming technique that replaces the drum kit.
What is la pompe (the pump)?
Ella Fitzgerald scored a million-selling commercial hit in 1938 with Chick Webb’s orchestra by jazzing up this traditional children's nursery rhyme.
What is "A-Tisket, A-Tasket"?
Premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1943, this ambitious, 45-minute extended concert suite by Duke Ellington depicted the history of the African American experience.
What is "Black, Brown and Beige"?
Often contrasted with jazz's expressive pitch slides, this classical vocal term refers to singing a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes.
What is melisma?