Historical Events
This early 20th-century demographic shift relocated millions of African Americans from the rural South to cities like Chicago and Detroit, directly facilitating the spread of New Orleans jazz.
What is the Great Migration?
Rooted in West African musical traditions and preserved in work songs and spirituals, this antiphonal exchange between leader and group remains foundational to jazz phrasing and improvisation.
What is call and response?
He composed "The Entertainer" and was the most prominent musician in the ragtime genre.
Who is Scott Joplin?
Speakeasies operating illegally during this 1920–1933 period created steady employment for jazz musicians.
What is Prohibition?
By contradicting the prevailing metrical hierarchy and accenting off-beats rather than structurally strong pulses, this rhythm device—rooted in African musical traditions—became a defining feature of ragtime and jazz.
What is syncopation?
He is also known as "Satchmo," plays trumpet, and has a gutteral, raspy singing voice.
Who is Louis Armstrong?
The 1917 shutdown of this legally sanctioned New Orleans red-light district displaced musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton and hastened jazz’s migration northward.
What is Storyville, New Orleans?
This technique involves the spontaneous creation of melodic lines over a harmonic progression, a defining characteristic distinguishing jazz from fully notated European art music.
What is improvisation?
Known for writing with specific musicians’ timbres in mind—such as Johnny Hodges’ alto saxophone and Cootie Williams’ growl trumpet—this composer expanded jazz orchestration into a highly individualized art.
Who is Duke Ellington?
Centered in a Manhattan neighborhood during the 1920s, this cultural movement fostered writers like Langston Hughes and musicians such as Duke Ellington, helping elevate jazz from dance music to art music.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
Emerging in the 1940s, this jazz style is characterized by fast tempos, complex harmonies, and virtuosic improvisation, with innovators like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie leading the movement.
What is bebop?
This female jazz vocalist was known for her signature behind-the-beat phrasing.
Who is Billie Holiday?
In 19th-century New Orleans, enslaved and free people of color gathered on Sundays at this public square, where ring shouts (call and response singing) and drumming preserved and demonstrated West African musical traditions foundational to jazz.
What is Congo Square?
These bands formed out of African American regiments of the Union army post-Civil War and later morphed into New Orleans-Style Jazz.
What are syncopated jazz bands?
Known for his distinctive trumpet tone and economy of notes, this innovator continuously redefined jazz styles—from the understated textures of cool jazz to the electric experimentation of fusion.
Who is Miles Davis?