Charles Templeton Music Museum Report

Early Jazz bands consisted of cornets, clarinets, trombones, drums, and sometimes banjos, violins, and pianos. (Drowne 200) Jazz was similar to its precursor, Ragtime, because of its syncopated, accented, off-beat rhythms, but the two are also different. While Ragtime

[the black musician] improvises, he creates, it comes from within” (Gerard 28). Despite Malcolm X’s criticism of the classically-trained musician’s inability to improvise, the European-influenced creole musicians began to learn to create variation within ragtime’s syncopated form. Likewise, blues musicians adopted parts of the genre of ragtime and implemented it into their call-and-response based music. The merging of these two styles of music occurred as a result of external socio-political pressure of Jim Crow segregation, but ultimately helped establish an innovative and swinging genre of jazz

When you hear Scott Joplin’s name the first thing that probably comes to mind is his delightfully entertaining music written in the ragtime genre and how he is a pianist. Scott Joplin’s influence on ragtime music goes beyond the genre’s conception as entertainment music. His music was played in bars and parlors all over in his time. But his music was more than just for entertainment. Throughout his life he struggled in gaining acknowledgement on a scholarly level in his time, due to his race and many other factors.

1) Because of people like Louis Armstrong, Ceril Mack, or Eva Jessye Jazz and blues were able to blossom with several instruments and subgenres. The following information will be about how jazz started, those people's contributions, and the instruments/subgenres. Jazz is a music that is still around today, and it was started over 100 years ago around New Orleans. Because New Orleans is a port city, Jazz and blues could be heard by many.

Ragtime Music and Scott Joplin Ragtime has its roots in the African-American music, and it was popular in the 1890s to the early 1900s. Moreover, through published compositions, ragtime artists managed to spread the music throughout America (Berlin 130). Consequently, the popularity of ragtime music led to an increase in the demand for pianos. The piano was the primary instrument used to produce ragtime music compositions. Nonetheless, one of the pioneers of the ragtime music was Scott Joplin.

Jazz has shaped the world we know today. Jazz would have never been as popular without the help of the famous musicians: Jelly Roll Morton, Joe King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. These people helped spread the new genre through radio, railroads, and the records that they played. Where did this all start? The jazz age began in New Orleans where a certain King was born.

As stated earlier, blues music grew out of post-Reconstruction African American communities. It was the black proletariat from the Southern United States that was the economic force behind performers such as Ma Rainey (Springer 34). While discussing Ma Rainey’s latest record sales, Sturdyvant reveals that he is disappointed by the sales data. Although Ma’s records are popular in Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta, they did not sell well in places such as New York City (Wilson 19). As a result, Sturdyvant expresses to Irvin his desire to began a career in a more “respectable” industry (Wilson 19).

As Ellington was a teenager, music called ragtime became all the rage that “swept America at the turn of a century”. A rag is a song that is played in ragtime, it was different from all music at the time as it had a change in beat and rhythm compared to other music. All around the country people wanted music they could dance to, causing Dance Halls to become popular. The music was very lively, and was said to be the perfect sound for Americans who lived in fast paced and big cities. This situation was perfect for musicians like Ellington who were living in New York and looking for work.

Pre-World War I (1890s-1910s) is considered the ragtime era when discussing music and dance history; and according to Peter Gerler, a jazz historian, in the U.S. in 1916, the economy was preparing for war and there was a drop in foreign migration so the industrial cities of the North of the U.S. called upon the South for labor, and because of poverty and the racism of the South it was mostly back people who migrated, bringing New Orleans jazz prominently to Chicago and New York. In the UK, the arrival of jazz occurred when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was touring in 1919, introducing Europe to a new refreshing blend of music, dance and fashion. In 1915 the ragtime dance declined due to many men fighting overseas and women having to work,

Jazz in New Orleans Jazz is such a unique and distinguished genre of music that delights the ear of every person who listens to it. Found in New Orleans, it grew in fame all around the world and will always be popular. Why New Orleans? The history of the founding jazz and what impacted it is astonishing.

Jazz is an American style music that was formed around 1900, the beginning of jazz actually begins in the early 1600s. Early jazz was defined into two different categories, ragtime which has no improvisation and traditional jazz (Dixieland) that has lots of improvisation. Scott Joplin is a well-known musician who helped create the ragtime style of jazz. During the 1920s they started recording jazz performances, most recording are studied from this era. A few people who made this happen in New Orleans during this time period are, Buddy Bolden, Joe “King” Oliver and Sidney Bechet.

The history, popularity and influence of jazz on human culture make it the seminal American art form. The origins of jazz music are central to its identity and its importance in the American story. Firstly, ragtime

In my opinion, as Jazz become one of the famous type of music, so knowing the history of Jazz is very necessary. Jazz music is very difficult to define mainly because there are so many different styles. When considering Ragtime, Stride and Boogie Woogie, these three styles was very essential in the development of modern jazz. However, the most essential that built Jazz in back then should be Ragtime, so I agree with you. In addition, Ragtime is primarily an African American invention and was a source of pride to African American composers, musicians, and listeners.

Jazz is most often thought to have been started in the 1920s as this explosive movement, but that is in fact not the case. Starting in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many African American musicians have started to explore their taste in improvising, and where better to do that than New Orleans (Anderson). Before the 1920s these jazz musicians have already been going around sharing the unique sound, but up until then, jazz had remained majorly in New Orleans. Interestingly during this period, a common jazz band would consist of a cornet, a clarinet, a trombone, and a rhythm section when at this period of time the clarinet is not commonly associated with being a jazz instrument, it moved into being the saxophone rather. A big

And fittingly so, the two largest influences on jazz music have been ragtime and blues, though classical European music had a huge part to