Jazz

Jazz is a broad family of musical styles rather than a form with one fixed recipe. Improvisation—creating or reshaping musical ideas during a performance—is often central, alongside written melodies, arrangements, and recurring forms. Syncopated rhythms, expressive phrasing, interaction among musicians, and distinctive instrumental or vocal sounds are common features, but they vary widely. A familiar tune can therefore sound markedly different in the hands of different performers or even in repeated performances by the same musician.

Jazz took shape around the turn of the twentieth century in New Orleans, initially within the city's African American community. Its development drew on African American musical traditions, including blues and ragtime, as well as spirituals, work songs, dance music, and brass-band practices. The city's varied musical life brought different traditions into contact, but jazz's early history cannot be separated from the creativity and contributions of Black musicians. The style was first learned and passed on largely by ear, in settings that included dance halls, public events, and small ensembles.

Musicians carried jazz beyond New Orleans as they traveled and found work in other cities. A 1917 Victor recording of “Livery Stable Blues” by the Original Dixieland Jass Band is often identified as an early landmark in jazz recording. The Library of Congress cautions that the familiar “first recording” story is complicated: this was a white band, while the music drew on Black New Orleans musicians and traditions whose contributions were often overlooked in commercial accounts. Recordings helped the music reach a much wider audience, and radio, touring, and later international travel further expanded its reach.

In the 1920s, soloists such as Louis Armstrong helped make improvisation a more prominent part of jazz performance. Large dance orchestras and the swing style became especially popular in the 1930s. During and after the Second World War, bebop musicians developed a more harmonically and rhythmically intricate approach, usually intended for attentive listening rather than dancing. Later musicians explored cool jazz, hard bop, modal and free jazz, jazz-rock fusion, and combinations with musical traditions from elsewhere. These labels describe important currents, not sealed-off categories: musicians have repeatedly drawn on earlier styles and reworked them.

Jazz has served as dance music, popular entertainment, and an art form for concentrated listening, while its techniques have influenced many other kinds of music. Its history is also connected to African American cultural expression and the struggle against racism. Today musicians around the world contribute to the tradition, making jazz both locally rooted and international. UNESCO proclaimed 30 April as International Jazz Day in 2011, presenting the observance as a way to foster appreciation of jazz's contribution to peace, dialogue, mutual understanding, and more inclusive societies.