History of Jazz Timeline: Komron Miller

1. Ragtime

1.1. Time Frame: 1890's - 1915

1.2. Characteristics: Composed piano music that was developed by African American pianists. Performed at a moderate march tempo. Usually ragtime pieces have several melodies of similar character. Rhythms inspired by African American folk music.

1.3. Renowned Artists: Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Blake, and Eubie Blake

1.4. Maple Leaf Rag Played by Scott Joplin

2. Blues

2.1. Time Frame: Late 19th century

2.2. Characteristics: Form of vocal and instrumental music. Vocal blues is intensely personal, including sexual references and pain of betrayal. Lyrics have many three-line stanzas with the same form. Instrumentalists imitate the style of blues singers.

2.3. Renowned Artists: Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, and Howlin' Wolf

2.4. Muddy Waters - Champagne & Reefer

3. Brass Band

3.1. Characteristics: musical ensemble that is also known as military band. The ensembles consisted of all brass instruments with a percussion section. Big in New Orleans starting in the late 19th century. They featured various instruments such as the trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, and many others. This music was a blend of military band music and African folk music.

3.2. Renowned Artists: Olympia Brass Band, Harold Dejan, Lionel Batiste, Michael White

3.3. Dejan's Olympia Brass Band - Marie Laveau

4. Early Jazz

4.1. Time Frame: 1900 - 1917

4.2. Characteristics: Major center of the development of jazz was in New Orleans which hosted a wide variety of diverse people and cultures. Included opera, chamber music, folk, popular, dance, and sacred music. Jazz in early style was typically played by a small group of 5-8 performers. Font line: trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. They would improvise many contrasting melodic lines at once which created a polyphonic texture. Each instrument essentially had a special role. New Orleans jazz was a lot of times based on a march or church melody, ragtime piece, popular songs, or twelve-bar blues.

4.3. Renowned Artists: Jelly Roll Morton, Joseph "King" Oliver, and Louis Armstrong

4.4. Joe king Oliver - struggle buggy

5. Swing

5.1. Time Frame: 1920's - 1945

5.2. Characteristics: Played mainly by big bands with powerful sounds. They had 3 sections: saxophones, brass, and rhythm. Bands were more composed than improvised. Main melody mostly accompanied by saxophones playing extended chords, or by playing short repeated phrases with brass instruments; these were called riffs. Saxophone became one of the most important solo instruments during the swing era.

5.3. Renowned Artists: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Glenn Miller

5.4. Duke Ellington - It don't mean a thing (1943)

6. Bebop

6.1. Time Frame: Early 1940s

6.2. Characteristics: Complex style mainly for small jazz groups of 4-6 players. It was meant for attentive listening, not dancing. Included sophisticated harmonies, unpredictable rhythms, and unusual chord progressions. The beat was often very fast, and was marked by the pizzicato bass and ride cymbal. Melodic phrases were often varied and irregular in length. A typical performance began and ended with a soloist playing the main theme.

6.3. Renowned Artists: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Kenny Clarke

6.4. Charlie "Bird" Parker - Yardbird Suite