Introduction to Jazz

“Satchmo” Louis Armstrong with his famous trumpet sounds and he was also known as the man with the raspy singing voice. This man was able to make a trumpet do what ever he wished it too, I often waited as a child, to see if he could make it walk. He was an icon from New Orleans.

by HRM Deborah

The origins of Jazz came about when people from Africa were put aboard ships as forced labor to America, especially to work on Plantations to increase the American economy of the time.

Nevertheless, to express there hardships of being forced labor, came about by music and song, to help relieve the suffering.

As in some other parts of the world, certain forms of poetry, also came into being because of suffering and not allowed to express certain feeling in the usual manner.

The flavor of Jazz is considered, West African in nature with the later influence of European and French, especially in New Orleans which is by many considered the birth place of not just Jazz, but the blues.

While some consider this type of music strictly American, it in actually is not because of the West African origins, but became considered more so, because of the people that was brought to America as forced labor.

It has been said from the beginning, that if one truly doesn’t suffer on the inside and feel the pain, they actually can not play Jazz or the blues effectively.

Some of the greatest Jazz musicians that most people think of, had there beginnings on the streets of New Orleans or in the seedy dives down in the French quarter, because before the civil rights movement (began in 1955) they were not allowed to play in the better places in the cities and this included other cities like in New York City‘s Harlem district, where the Cotton Club came into being with such Jazz musicians as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway played and was not always kind to the Black musicians which temporary caused its closing after a race riot in 1936.

There are numerous aspects that a person could write on the subject of Jazz, but a true lover of Jazz has respect for the history as well as the contributions that not just black people made to the America fabric through this form of music, but great respect for the black community as a whole.