It’s the Jazz Hands For Me

Most of us know that the origin of jazz music is the south, mainly in New Orleans and down the Mississippi River. The people were the most diverse. They had people of all ethnicities living there at the time, as many as African, French, Caribbean, Italian, German, Mexican, and American Indian, as well as English descent interacting with one another.

The main feel to jazz music is the African style of music. This mixed with the other types of music to create jazz, it eventually formed other types of music like rhythms and blues. The start of jazz music was the soloist filling in time of the songs. A huge part of the music is the “call and response” style. This is where one part of the band plays a rhythm and the other responds to it with a similar one. Jeff Coffin, a jazz professor, commented, “Jazz can express many different emotions, from pain to sheer joy. In jazz, you may hear the sounds of freedom-for the music has been a powerful voice for people suffering unfair treatment because of the color of the skin, or because they lived in a country run by a cruel dictator.”

Jazz musicians place a high value on finding their own sound and style, and that means, for example, that trumpeter Miles Davis sounds very different than trumpeter Louis Armstrong. A unique thing about jazz is that you can listen to the same record by different artists and they will all sound different. This is because the artists strive to have their voices heard within the music. At that time using music as a platform was a main way that people of color could express their voice without getting hate.