How Did Jazz Influence American Culture

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Jazz is considered one of the most influential types of music in American history because of the genre’s free use of improvisation whenever an artist or band saw fit to use it. Some of the greatest artist in the world have contributed to the success of jazz and have started their careers in jazz bands before becoming world renown. This paper will explain the history of jazz, where it all came from and the effect it has had on the America Culture. Jazz is a successful blend of both African and European music. In Africa, music was played with a catchy rhythm that expressed how a musician might feel. However in Europe, music was precise and sophisticated, utilizing instruments that were more complex than drums. It took the African rhythm and…show more content…
and drawing on work musical compositions and hollers, folk tradition, ebony spirituals, and the popular music of the time. Looking back from 1890, one can notionally theorize about the African influence in the musical structure of the blues as it grew from slave culture and the recollection of slavery. Looking forward from 1890, a time of transition in America and of dashed hopes for blacks in the resurgent Jim Crow South, one can visually perceive the blues as a powerful force both shaping and shaped by the evolution of American popular culture (from the "race records" craze of the 1920s through the blues-fueled rock revolution of the postwar years) and the history of ebony and white race relations in the century ahead. Bessie Smith was the leading figure in blues during the 1920’s. Smith earned the designation of “Empress of the Blues” by virtue of her forceful vocal distribution and command of the genre. Her singing exhibited a soulfully phrased, boldly distributed and definitive grasp of the blues. In integration, she was an all-around entertainer who danced, acted and performed comedy routines with her touring company. She was the highest-paid ebony performer of her day and controvertibly reached a caliber of prosperity more preponderant than that of any African-American entertainer afore

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