| The folk songs and plantation dance music of | | | | own musical customs of band music for black |
| black Americans have much to say about the | | | | funeral processions and street parades. Today, |
| early jazz. These types of music came about all | | | | this kind of jazz is occasionally known as classic |
| the way through the Southern United States at | | | | jazz, traditional jazz, or Dixieland jazz. New |
| some point in the eighteen hundreds. | | | | Orleans was the musical home of the first |
| Ragtime, a musical technique that influenced early | | | | distinguished players and originators of jazz. Jazz |
| jazz, emerged from the St. Louis, Missouri, area in | | | | soon broaden from New Orleans to the other |
| the late 1890's. It rapidly became the most | | | | parts of the country. |
| popular music style in the United States. Ragtime | | | | The 1920's have been called the golden age of |
| was a vigorous and syncopated assortment of | | | | jazz it the jazz age. Commercial radio stations, |
| music, primarily for the piano, that give emphasis | | | | which first appeared in the 1920's, featured live |
| to a formal composition. | | | | performances by the growing number of jazz |
| A conventional jazz band would consist of a front | | | | musicians. New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, |
| line of a trumpet, trombone and clarinet or the | | | | Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, and The City of |
| saxophone, and a rhythm section of drums, a | | | | New York were all significant centers of jazz. |
| bass, a piano, and often times a guitar or banjo. | | | | A group of Midwest youths developed a type of |
| The blues is a type of music that has always | | | | improvisation and arrangement that became |
| been an imperative part of jazz. The blues was | | | | known as Chicago style jazz. While in The City of |
| especially widespread in the American South. Its | | | | New York, a musician named as James P. Johnson |
| mournful scale and uncomplicated repeated | | | | popularized a musical style from ragtime which is |
| harmonies helped shape the character of jazz. | | | | known as stride piano. In stride piano, the left |
| Jazz instrumentalists have long exploited the blues | | | | hand plays alternating notes single notes and |
| as a vehicle for improvisation. | | | | chords that move up and down the scale the |
| Completely developed jazz music in all probability | | | | scale while the right hand plays solo melodies, |
| started off in New Orleans at the | | | | accompanying rhythms, and interesting chordal |
| commencement of the nineteen hundredths. New | | | | passages. Johnson strongly influenced other jazz |
| Orleans style jazz came forward from the city's | | | | pianists. |