History

Ragtime music is generated in Sedalia Missouri. It is considered a piano style jazz form as well as a composed form of music with little improvisation involved when performing ragtime music. This led to some non-ragtime bands having pianists as bandleaders. This was evident in the southwest with Count Basie, Jay McShann and Bennie Moten as bandleaders. Scott Joplin was a great ragtime composer and Jelly Roll Morton was one of the more important ragtime bandleaders.

Dixieland or Early New Orleans Dixieland jazz is referred to as New Orleans jazz for both the location and the fact that many of the players were from New Orleans. The music is characteristic of the marching bands and is strongly rooted to the instruments involved. Dixieland music uses a flat four rhythms that has four even beats played per measure without any accents. The bands in this era would refer to their leader as the "King". The last "king" was Joe "King" Oliver who recorded his music in 1923. Oliver moved to Chicago around 1915. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band moved also moved to Chicago in 1916 and then to New York City in 1917. Louis Armstrong started playing trumpet in Dixieland jazz bands in New Orleans and ended up in Chicago and New York and eventually all around the world.

Swing jazz music really took off following the workings of Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Bennie Goodman. The Bennie Goodman band playing at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles may have been considered the beginning of the jazz swing era. Bennie became recognized as the "King of Swing". The first jazz band to play Carnegie Hall was the Benny Goodman band in 1938. Goodman was the first bandleader to have both black and white musicians playing together in an official band membership. The swing bands needed to travel to play large ballrooms to make it financially feasible. The Second World War caused the swing era to die due to the draft and the problems with transportation in the US.

The Bebop Jazz evolved as an alternate approach from the big swing band. Bebop was played with longer solos and fewer band members. The bop combos were similar to the Kansas City jam sessions. The bop style developed in New York City as well as Kansas City, St. Louis and other cities. Bop jazz music started to get more complex musically by using higher harmonic overtones such as the ninth, eleventh and thirteenth chords. Bop playing also used faster tempos than previous jazz music. Some major bop players include Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Christian.

Cool jazz music started out as a change from the bop music being played. It emphasized music note conservation along with less extreme upper register note playing. Cool jazz brought in the use of flute, French horn, oboe and cello. The cool jazz players started using some interesting time meters such as 3/4, 5/4 and 9/4 times while changing to different time meters within the same song. Miles Davis (trumpet), Lester Young (tenor saxophone) and Stan Getz (tenor saxophone) were a few of the key players within the cool jazz movement.

The hard bop or Funky/Straight ahead jazz started around 1954. Due to its rhythmic approach it adapted a coined name as "Funky". It also left the cool jazz and returned back to some bebop jazz style. "Soul" was sometimes used instead of Funky. Horace Silver, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins (tenor sax) are players recognized as players who contributed to the Hard Bop Funky/Straight ahead jazz music.

Free Form Avant-Garde Jazz is a jazz movement that started bending the rules of the jazz music. It still had the similar elements of bop as it could be played with greater improvisation but without utilizing the traditional harmonic repeating chord measures. The time meter tended to vary much more than any other previous jazz music. It is a music that shares emphasis on spontaneity and creativity. Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane.

Jazz Fusion is a crossover or hybrid type of jazz music that is "fused" with rock music. Sometimes referred to as jazz/rock fusion. It began around the late 60's. The characteristics of jazz fusion is the inclusion of electric instruments and a stronger rock drum playing style that emphasized more of the drums being played to keep the time rather than the cymbals. Another change was that the music was played much louder than other types of jazz playing. Miles Davis was one of the main individuals who helped develop jazz-fusion music. Some of the players in the jazz-fusion style are Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Wayne Shorter.