Jazz

Revision as of 11:36, 23 January 2009

Background of Jazz

Jazz music was created in America in the early 1900's.

Subgenres

Jazz has many subgenres including Swing, Classic and Fusion subgenres. There is also a huge difference in the sound and style of these band as well as the instruments they are famous for using. Here are 3 of the more popular subgenres discussed in a little more detail.

Fusion

Many people have thrown around the term Fusion wrongly over the last 40 years and it's meaning has covered so many bands that it is now quite a pointless label. However back in the 60s and 70s bands were classed as being a Jazz Fusion act because they mixed the key aspects of jazz improvisation with the rhythmic and energetic rock genre. Up until the late 60's these two genres had stayed very much apart but they slowly started coming together and creating these new Fusion acts. The bands that were leading the Fusion genre were Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Al Di Meola and Miles Davis. But in the late 70's and into the 80's this genre was more a mixture of Jazz and pop music or Rhythm and Blues and therefore in modern times the word fusion has lost much of its meaning.

Jazz-Funk

As the name suggests this genre was also a fusion of ideas and contained the ideas behind Jazz mixed with the funky vibes of the southern soul bands that were big at the time. There is another subgenre of Jazz known as Soul-Jazz and this is slightly different to Jazz-Funk. Soul-Jazz is much more laid back and carries on grooving whereas Jazz-Funk is much more powerful and usually has a stronger backbeat. There are many artists that are famous within the subgenre and biggest of which is probably Herbie Hancock who started to add a lot more atmospheric ideas to the Jazz-Funk genre.

Swing

Swing was one of the first big Jazz subgenres and came out of the 1930's. There used to be big swing bands around and they included many big jazz figures including Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller. It was mainly dance music back in the 30's and was often played on the radio and although the music was fairly dance orientated in did give the musicians a chance to improvise and showed a lot of melodic ideas that can still be seen in many Jazz bands in the present day.

Top Jazz Acts

Herbie Hancock

Chet Baker
Chick Corea
Billie Holiday
Herbie Hancock
Miles Davis
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Charlie Parker
John Coltrane
Glenn Miller

Top Jazz Albums

Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame
Al Di Meola - Splendido Hotel
Miles Davis - Porgy and Bess
Chick Corea - My Spanish Heart
Return to Forever - Light As A Feather
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Ike Quebec - Blue And Sentimental
Lee Morgan - Candy
Art Pepper - Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section

Top Jazz Songs

Dizzy Gillespie - A Night In Tunisia
Django Reinhardt - Djangology
Charlie Parker - Koko
Art Blakey - Moanin'
Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine
Miles Davis - So What
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds Of Fire
Louis Armstrong - Basin Street Blues