The History of Jazz Top Jazz Artists Culture of Jazz Instruments of Jazz Jazz Subgenres
Jazz originated in New Orleans at the end of the 19th century. The roots of jazz come primarily from the African-American community and other ethnic groups in New Orleans. The genre continued to develop into the beginning of the 20th century as brass bands played in parades, funerals, concerts, and political rallies. They became known as ragtime bands as New Orleans became a center of major entertainment. The creation and development of swing dance came hand-in-hand with jazz.
New Orleans jazz began to spread to other cities and before long, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band created the first commercial jazz recording in 1917 while playing in New York City, which caused a national craze for jazz and introduced it to the world. Bands started playing all around the United States and even in Europe. These bands were considered dance bands through their incorporation of swing dance with their musical creations.
Since 1917, jazz continued to develop and evolve. It began to stray away from the more traditional New Orleans jazz with the creations of bebop and avant-garde. It became the unrivaled popular music in America in the 1930s and 1940s which became known as the Swing era.
After the Swing Era of jazz, other forms of music started to become more popular. This included Rock and Roll, Disco, and Country. The popularity of jazz continued to decline with the introduction of Rap, Hip-Hop and even EDM.
You can see the popularity of jazz spike starting in 1930 and become the singular most popular music of all time before declining in around 1945.
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Joe Goodacre