Genres: The Basics
From the syncopated rhythms of bebop to the experimental textures of avant-garde and fusion, jazz encompasses a rich tapestry of genres, each contributing unique expressions of improvisation and cultural influence.
Ragtime is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces (often called "rags") are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. "Maple Leaf Rag", "The Entertainer", "Fig Leaf Rag", "Frog Legs Rag", and "Sensation Rag" are among the most popular songs of the genre. An example of ragtime jazz is found here.
Dixieland also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band (which shortly thereafter changed the spelling of its name to "Original Dixieland Jazz Band"), fostered awareness of this new style of music. A revival movement for traditional jazz began in the 1940s, in reaction to the orchestrated sounds of the swing era and the perceived chaos of the new bebop sounds. The essential elements of dixieland were the traditional front lines consisting of trumpets, trombones, and clarinets, and ensemble improvisation over a two-beat rhythm. By the 1940s, the term "Dixieland" was applied to early jazz. An example of Dixieland jazz is found here.
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era. Swing has its roots in 1920s dance music ensembles, which began using new styles of written arrangements, incorporating rhythmic innovations pioneered by Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and other jazzmen. By the mid ‘40s, Swing began to decline in popularity, in favor of bebop and jump blues. An example of swing jazz is found here.
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes, numerous key changes, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on the use of scales and occasional references to the melody. Bebop musicians explored advanced harmonies, complex syncopation, altered chords, extended chords, chord substitutions, asymmetrical phrasing, and intricate melodies. An example of bebop jazz is found here.
Cool Jazz is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that found in other contemporaneous jazz idioms. The term cool started being applied to this music around 1953, when Capitol Records released the album Classics in Jazz: Cool and Quiet. An example of cool jazz is found here.
Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Towards the end of the 1950s, spurred by the experiments of composer and bandleader George Russell, musicians began using a modal approach. They chose not to write their pieces using conventional chord changes, but instead using modes. Though exerting influence to the present, modal jazz was most popular in the 1950s and 1960s, as evidenced by the success of Miles Davis's 1958 composition "Milestones" and 1959 album Kind of Blue, and John Coltrane's quartet from 1960 to 1965. An example of modal jazz is found here.
Straight Ahead Jazz, often called "America's classical music," is a genre of jazz that developed in the 1960s. The term "straight-ahead" jazz was formulated by critics and academics to describe music that did not employ fusion's innovations, such as rock beats and electric instruments. Instead, artists preferred acoustic instruments, conventional piano comping, walking bass patterns, and swing- and bop-based drum rhythms. An example of cool jazz is found here.
Avant-guarde Jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Avant-garde jazz originated in the mid- to late 1950s among a group of improvisors who rejected the conventions of bebop and post bop in an effort to blur the division between the written and the spontaneous. Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor led the way, soon to be joined by John Coltrane. An example of avant guard jazz is found here.
Free Jazz is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Free jazz draws on early styles of jazz and has been described as an attempt to return to primitive, often religious, roots. Free jazz musicians drew heavily from world music and ethnic music traditions from around the world. An example of free jazz is found here.
Third stream is a music genre that is a fusion of jazz and classical music. Improvisation is generally seen as a vital component of third stream. The innovative idea of fusing jazz and classical music pushed the boundaries of traditional classical music and introduced a new genre that blends the two styles into a unique hybrid form. An example of third stream jazz is found here.
Jazz Fusion is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. A jazz fusion band is less likely to use piano and double bass, and more likely to use electric guitar, synthesizers, and bass guitar. The term "jazz rock" is sometimes used as a synonym for "jazz fusion" and for music performed by late 1960s and 1970s-era rock bands that added jazz elements to their music. An example of jazz fusion is found here.
Latin Jazz is a genre of jazz with Latin American rhythms. The two main categories are Afro-Cuban jazz, rhythmically based on Cuban popular dance music, with a rhythm section employing ostinato patterns or a clave, and Afro-Brazilian jazz, which includes samba and bossa nova. Unlike straight-ahead jazz, Latin jazz employs straight rhythm (or "even-eighths"), rather than swung rhythm. Early Latin jazz rarely employed a backbeat, but contemporary forms fuse the backbeat with the clave. An example of Latin jazz is found here.
Smooth Jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, displacing the more venturesome jazz fusion from which it emerged. It avoids the improvisational "risk-taking" of jazz fusion, emphasizing melodic form and much of the music was initially "a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight R&B". During the mid-1970s in the United States it was known as "smooth radio", and was not termed "smooth jazz" until the 1980s. An example of smooth jazz is found here.
Further information about jazz genres is found at JazzFuel.com and DownBeat.com.
The content on this page was excerpted from Wikipedia, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
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