Jazz Music on Pitara Kids Network

Where did Jazz Originate?

Fri, 20 Dec 2002 06:12:23 +0000

One has just to blow a note on a sax and your feet start tapping to the rhythm and your body starts swaying to the music. That’s Jazz for you. Ragtime, hip-hop, be bop, cool, blues – the very names make your finger snap and do a Texas two-step, no?

Jazz has often been called the only art form to originate in the United States, though even this is not exactly true. Jazz, is a kind of music that was sung or played by the African slaves in the plantations of America. In the 18th and 19th century, Africans were lured or kidnapped from their villages and sold in faraway America as slaves to work in large plantations.

What are the Various Jazz Styles?

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 11:12:25 +0000

Jazz originated from the American South in the 18th century as a form of music sung by African slaves employed in the many plantations. Jazz music was influenced by different cultures from a combination of African folk music and rhythms to Caribbean and black American music.

Various styles of playing evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries as musicians started to improvise. This was because early musicians did not have formal training in Western classical music and those that did began to introduce European harmonies and forms into Jazz and made the pattern of music uneven.