History of American Jazz

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The History of American Jazz Jazz begun when World War I had just ended and a social revolution was on its way. The Jazz movement affected the United States history and future music industry in many ways. Initially, the first jazz is said to have been played by funeral bands that wailed music full of soul and sadness as the followed horse drawn hearses down the streets of New Orleans. It was blues music though (Winfieled 157). The first place of jazz has many origins: New Orleans, St Louis, Memphis and Kansas city are just a few. Many historians mark the start of the “Jazz Age” on November 12 1917 when the Navy closed a neighborhood called Storyville in the city of New Orleans. The navy feared for its sailors so they closed Storyville’s brothels and nightclubs, forcing hundreds of New Orleans musicians to search elsewhere for their livelihoods (Friedwald 157). But New Orleans was and still remains an important jazz center. The ethnic rainbow of people who went to the bars and whorehouses were a big part of the development of jazz. The city had been under Spanish and French rule because of the Louisiana Purchase. By 1900 it was a blend of Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Slavic and many blacks originally brought in as slaves. Jazz musicians began moving north to take up residence several dozen of them landing in the great migratory target of Chicago alone (Shipton 132). From Chicago jazz quickly migrated to New York City that is where jazz became popular on the radio (Shipton 137) The first jazz bands contained a rhythm section consisting of a string bass, drums, and a guitar or banjo, and a melodic section with one or two cornets, a trombone, a clarinet, and sometimes even a violin. Year’s later jazz was taken over by large orchestras. A society jazz contained fifteen or more musicians. Today there is a renewed interest in the big band era, even

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