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Minstrelsy jazz
Minstrelsy in America, for all of its frivolous humor and popularity, was an exploitative form of musical theater that exaggerated real-life black circumstances and reinforced dangerous stereotypes during the 19th and 20th centuries. -
First ragtime peices published
Ragtime probably got its name from the phrase “ragged time,” a colorful description of African American polyrhythm. Ragtime music is characterized by a syncopated melodic line and regularly accented accompaniment, evolved by black American musicians in the 1890s and played especially on the piano. 1897 first ragtime pieces published. -
Stride music
Orchestral jazz also encouraged the ripening of the most orchestral brand of jazz piano, initially known as “Harlem style” but eventually recognized internationally as stride. -
The New Orleans style
New Orleans musicians continued to develop their own distinctive style. New Orleans bands usually relied on ragtime-type compositions with multiple strains (as well as the novel structure of the twelve-bar blues. -
The swing era
The swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Swing bands used an upright or double bass instead of the tuba, which had often characterized dixieland, and played repeated "riffs" to give the music its propulsive rhythmic force. -
Blues
The blues began to emerge: a new poetic genre marked by its unusual three-line stanza. Earlier forms of folk poetry usually fell into stanzas of two or four lines, but the blues took the two-line couplet and repeated the first line. -
Bebop music
Bebop had the effect of removing jazz from the mainstream of popular music
Art music instead of entertainment
Completely black invention
Music for listening instead of dancing
Centered in New York City -
Cool jazz
The omnipresence of the word “cool” in present-day American speech derives in large measure from its association with modern jazz. By the early 1950s, “cool” was used to describe a particular school of jazz born out of bebop that had a light, laid-back, reticent quality.
