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Jazz started to flourish when the First World War had ended in the 1918. Jazz is a combination of many different cultural ideas that started out in New Orleans, St. Louis and Kansas City. The root of jazz comes from the combination of traditional African music. Since the beginning of jazz, jazz had branched out into many different styles that it is nearly impossible to generalize the whole concept of jazz. Jazz blossomed during the roaring twenties where people were experimenting with art and music, the flapper redefined womanhood, dancing, and the veto of the 19th amendment. The roaring twenties was a sense of freedom for many people, t was a time when people started to loosen up and enjoy life. It was the period of dramatic social and political change.
African Americans were brought to American as slaves to due labor work for the white man. African Americans were striped from their families, friends, and identity. As slavery continues for more than two hundred years, African Americans started to lose and forget their cultural identity. As slavery continues, some Africans tried their best to reeducate and contain their African roots, traditions, and customs. Some examples of their cultural identity are music and text which later on evolved to the formation of jazz. Much African music came from spiritual and religious text that was pasted on to them for centuries. This combination of African music, rhythm, text, and traditions has formed the concept of jazz.
Many different instruments are used to conduct jazz but the ultimate instruments that are used are trumpets, saxophones, trombones, double bass and drums. When these instruments are played, it gives you a sense of excitement and a drive to move and create motion. When listening to jazz you tend to hear syncopation and accents that gives jazz the suspenseful feeling.
Jazz has many different genres such as the blues, ragtime, bebop, Dixieland and etc. They are practically extremes of one another but yet they are related to the tree of jazz. Jazz cannot be specified as a single genre or theme, examples are the blues and bebop. The blues has a very mellow and sad context to it that tends to make you feel alone and lonely which is usually performed with piano, guitar, and harmonica. The Blues usually tell stories of struggle and sorrow where on the other hand bebop has that exciting and energetic feel to it because of the instruments that are played like the saxophone, trumpet, piano, trombone, drums and bass. Bebop artist Thelonious Monk, a pianist and composer once said "if you really understand the meaning of bebop, you understand the meaning of freedom." In the 1940's bebop also called modern Jazz was known for its fast speed, complicated melodies and confusing harmonies.
Jazz was a big element in American history, not only for its enrichment of music but for bring people together to express the same concept of emotion. Even though jazz started out with tension due to slavery, it ended up bringing people together and breaking barriers of racial aggregation. John Denver once said "Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same."
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