We will provide, something old, something new and a little something contemporary and covered several times a week. For lovers of Classic Jazz, Jazz fusion, Jazz-Rock, Avant-garde jazz, Acid jazz, Jazz-funk, Ethno jazz, Nu jazz, Bebop, Soul Jazz. Jazz is a style of music which emerged in America around the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century. There are many styles of jazz, but broadly speakin
g jazz is characterised by improvisations, syncopations (offbeat accents) and swung rhythms. Improvised playing is not based on a written score but on the mood of the moment. Jazz Origins
Duke Ellington
Jazz musician Duke Ellington
Black music came over to America with the African slaves. African music combined with the music of the white European settlers to produce new styles of music including blues and ragtime. Towards the end of the nineteenth-century marching bands were popular in America. Black musicians began to jazz up the marches, adding syncopated rhythms, 'bending' notes and improvising on the melodies. Trad (traditional) jazz emerged in the early twentieth century in Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans. Jazz soon spread away from its origins in the deep South, and Jazz bands in different American cities developed distinctive local styles. New Orleans style
In the 'New Orleans style', a single instrument plays the main tune while the other instruments (typically string bass, banjo, clarinet, trumpet and drums) improvise around it. Chicago style
In the 'Chicago style' bands were larger - including saxophones, trumpets and trombones. Bandleaders arranged the tunes and played the solos. Louis Armstrong had an orchestra which he played and sang in 1930s. He often growled bent notes and produced sounds on the trumpet that had never been heard before. Big Bands
As bands became larger, they were called Big Bands. Duke Ellington led one of the greatest bands of the 1930s and '40s. He used few solos and concentrated on the band sound. Ellington was a great composer, producing many pieces for stage and television in his 50-year career.
