Asked to define jazz, the great trumpeter LouisArmstrong said, “Jazz is music that’s never played thesame way once.”

Wynton Marsalis, one of Armstrong’s spiritual andmusical descendants, has a different take on the music heloves and continues to spread around the world. “Jazz,”he said simply, “is blues.”

His brother Branford, one of the great contemporarytenor saxophone players, says, “Jazz is a language, themusical language of African American slaves, and like anylanguage, it reflects its speakers and grows with them.”

There are many ways to define jazz. The three musi-cians above, all from New Orleans and all of whom havelived their lives surrounded by the music, had emotional,gut-level reactions to the question, “What is jazz?”

Those who have less emotion invested in the issue,however, could define jazz in these ways:

• It is a form of black American music that developed in New Orleans from southern musical genres such as the blues, gospel andragtime, as well as other African American and Caribbean forms of music, such as Afro-Cuban music.

• It is a music distinguished by one central characteristic — improvisation.

• It is America’s classical music, America’s musical gift to the world.

Today’s jazz comes in many variations. There’s straight-ahead, bop, hard bop, post-bop, avant-garde and fusion.There’s swing and Dixieland. There’s Latin jazz. And thenthere’s smooth jazz, which some people say isn’t jazz at all.

Each form of jazz has certain qualities that distinguishit. Any type of jazz should contain musical elements thatrecall the blues or gospel. Jazz should contain syncopated,complicated rhythms. It should contain at least someimprovisations; and, most of all, jazz should “swing!”

The history of jazz and the history of American cultureare very closely related. It’s hard to determine just whenjazz emerged in New Orleans, but most historians pointto the turn of the 20th century, around 1900.

New Orleans, at the time, was the busiest port in theSouth, receiving goods from the Caribbean, LatinAmerica and points beyond and delivering them via riveror land to the rest of the United States.

New Orleans also was bustling home to a diverse population. Different ethnic groups of color, including

SWINGIN,’SOLDIERS

During World Wars I and II, African Americans inthe armed forces helped introduce jazz to Europe,Asia and other parts of the world.

Among the millions of American soldiers whotraveled to France to fight the Germans in WorldWar I were thousands of young African Americans.

Among those African Americans was a distinctiveunit — the 369th National Guard Regiment.

This regimental band was led by bandleader Lt. James Reese Europe and was known as theHarlem Hellfighters.

The band was composed of jazz musicians fromNew York and Puerto Rico who played militarymusic in a distinctive style. These musicians havebeen given much of the credit for introducingAmerican jazz to the European people.

Jazz was a great innovation in thehistory of music. It also had greatimportance in breaking down racialbarriers between white and blackmusicians and audiences. Great jazzmusicians exposed white audiencesto African American heritage andraised awareness of AfricanAmerican creativity. Music continuesto break down barriers today. In thenewspaper, find a story or photo of apopular musician who is AfricanAmerican. Think about his or hermusic. Then write a paragraph orshort essay explaining how the workof this musician is breaking downbarriers, increasing diversity orexpanding cultural awareness in theUnited States today.

MUSIC in the news

2

Photo Source: National Archives and Records Administration (ARC).

ON THE COVER: Painting of Thelonious Monk by Adam Lovitz,

the Beloved Collection/Brent Reynolds.

the descendants of African American slaves, Cuban andHaitian immigrants and Creoles of mixed African, Frenchand Spanish descent, combined cultural and musical influ-ences with European immigrants, their descendants andeven Native Americans, to create a new tradition.

Between 1900 and the 1940s, thousands of AfricanAmericans moved from the South to the North, and theirmusic, especially jazz, went with them.

In Northern cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, jazzbrought a creative spirit, a new cultural outlook and anappeal that broke down barriers between blacks andwhites.

In New York’s Harlem during the 1920s, for example, atthe legendary Cotton Club, Duke Ellington and CabCalloway held court, playing to full, all-white houses almostevery night.

Later, as jazz bands began integrating, white musicianssaw black jazz musicians as equals and teachers rather thanpeople whose creativity they could exploit. Jazz becamesuch a dominant art form in the 1920s that the decadebecame known as the Jazz Age.

Following World War II, jazz was established as a world-wide music, as the U.S. State Department sent jazz ambas-sadors such as Dizzy Gillespie to Latin America, Africa andother areas.

Today, jazz is as common in Japan or Britain or Brazil orRussia or India as it is in Detroit, New York or any majorAmerican city.

All of these places in other countries have produced greatjazz musicians, some of whom have come to America tomake an impact on the country that inspired them in thefirst place.

Lt. James Reese Europe (pictured left)

BY KEVIN L. CARTER

3

The places where musicians live can influence their creativity and style.Jelly Roll Morton built on the ragtime and blues of Louisiana to develophis jazz piano style. Duke Ellington drew energy and inspiration from theaudiences at the Cotton Club and concert halls around the country. Whatthings in your community might influence your sense of style if youwere a musician coming up? Look through the newspaper for people,places, sounds or traditions that could be future influences. Make a listand write out why each item is important to the community and to you.

MUSIC in the news

DUKE ELLINGTONComposer, Band Leader & Musical Genius (1899 - 1974)

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was not just the greatest jazz composer ever. He was one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

His creativity spanned several eras, composing (sometimes with BillyStrayhorn) and arranging enduring standards such as “It Don’t Mean aThing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Mood Indigo,” “Take The ‘A’ Train,”and “Caravan.”

Ellington was a bandleader who continued to stay on the road for morethan 50 years, bringing top sidemen like Harry Carney and Juan Tizol withhim for almost that long.

Born in upper-middle-class Washington, D.C., son of a White House but-ler, Ellington was something of a dandy from early on, earning the nickname “Duke.”

He began playing professionally in 1917 and moved to New York in the‘20s, where the pianist started a big band and became bandleader at thefamed Cotton Club.

Ellington’s reputation grew from there. He began composing for — andappearing in — both Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Ellington continued to travel the country and world until the early 1970s.

His band was an innovation in the development of music and inarrangement. Ellington was the first to write parts for specific musiciansrather than for each section. The practice gave the music a special richnessunheard in the work of others, and all of those years on the road served Ellington as a moving, living, breathing laboratory for musicalexperimentation and development.

Jelly Roll Morton claimed to have inventedjazz. That was not exactly true, but this fun-loving Louisiana Creole was the first jazzsuperstar.

He also was one of the originators of thejazz piano style, developing it from ragtimeand other blues-influenced styles.

He wrote many early jazz hits such as “Mr.Jelly Roll” and “King Porter Stomp.”

Born Ferdinand Lamothe in a diverse, mid-dle-class New Orleans neighborhood, Mortonbegan taking piano lessons from a Cuban-born neighbor as a teenager. He later playedin New Orleans’ famed Storyville district.

That early training brought to his jazz whathe called “the Spanish tinge” — Latin stylessuch as danzon and habanera.

He first recorded in 1923, laying downsome of jazz’s most innovative and successfultracks with his Red Hot Peppers, a band thatincluded several of early jazz’s best musicians.He barnstormed through the South and Westuntil the early 1930s, when he moved to NewYork. He started out strong there, but theGreat Depression and changes in the musicitself almost killed Morton’s career.

There were later revivals of New Orleans-style music, the first coming in the 1950s. ButMorton, his health failing because of decadesof hard living, died before he had a chance toprofit from it.

More than 50 years after his death, Jelly’sLast Jam, a retrospective of Morton’s career,opened on Broadway, rekindling interest inthe life of this jazz piano pioneer.

JELLY ROLL MORTON First Jazz Superstar (1890 - 1941)

Duke Ellington

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