Jazz Music Essay

Louis Armstrong, an influential figure in the Jazz world, once said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Over time, jazz has kept its essential elements and original style, even as new styles have developed. Jazz, in its most basic form, is defined as “music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities,” by Travis Jackson, a Professor of American Music. Improvisation, being the key element in every type of jazz, must be present for a piece to be considered jazz music. This element turns jazz musicians into composers and is essential to jazz styles of music. Another thing unique to jazz is its approach to rhythm. The
Dixieland jazz sounds are created when an instrument plays the melody or a variation on it, and the other instruments improvise around that melody. This works in jazz’s key element of improvisation. Next, swing jazz. Jazz music reached its height during the swing era. Swing music is unique in its strong rhythmic drive and “call-and-response” usage. As we discussed earlier, jazz music is unique in its rhythm, particularly swing, an element prominently incorporated in swing jazz, hence the name. Without this rhythmic element, swing music would not have the original jazz style. Mainstream jazz is considered to be extremely complex in nature, but it still contains important elements of jazz, including subtle use of rhythm, improvisation along with pre-arranged introductions, and “blues notes.” Despite introductions that are composed ahead of time, Mainstream still has the important element of improvisation. This shows us that jazz has evolved from the original style in to new styles that incorporate new and different elements. Funky Jazz, basically Mainstream’s alter ego, even contains the elements essential to original jazz style. Many of the original Funky jazz pieces were influenced heavily by blues and contain an abundance of “blues notes.” The rhythm of funky jazz is very simple, but funky jazz still includes strong jazz