[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello joseph here i'm a musician i'm a composer and i love talking about music right here on this channel for your eyeballs to consume so today i'll be talking about the history of jazz all the way from its conception in west africa and the americas through the 19th and 20th centuries through blues ragtime bebop the avant-garde and on into the modern day and i'll try as best i can to condense this complex rich genre into a teeny little knowledge chunk for you to drop into your gaping more this won't be a massively theory heavy video so if you don't know anything about music theory or jazz theory or basically any other theory uh that's fine because i don't either and anything that needs to will be explained in sami lehman terms also click the like button leave a comment i'd love a chat let's go [Music] what would come to be jazz originated in the spiritual and traditional music of west africa these musical traditions were and continue to be extremely diverse what with africa being [ __ ] massive however there are some commonalities between regional styles the players of west african music placed a heavy emphasis on rhythm as opposed to melody or harmony and very often would involve many different rhythms layered on top of each other in polyrhythms music theory moment polyrhythms are when multiple pulse patterns of different meter essentially the way beats are divided up in a piece are played simultaneously to create a brilliant complex mass of rhythm music theory moment musicians also made heavy use of a technique called call and response where quite literally a group of musicians would play a phrase the call and another group would play a similar phrase back the response west african music differed from european ideas and that it was less interested in finding a way to mesh different sounds and voices together harmoniously and was more interested in having each player experience their own musical journey developing their own themes and rhythms in search of self-expression due to its rhythmic nature west african musicians developed a great deal of drums shakers and other percussive tools alongside plenty of melodic instruments a popular senegalese and gambian instrument was the cora which is like a cross between a harp and a loot and has 21 strings another more infamous west african instrument is the gembe drum and anybody who studied gcse music in britain will understand why that drum has given me ptsd musicians of this time would teach their students through listening and showing rather than through more european written means drummers or other instrumentalists depending on the culture may have had an apprentice that they passed down their knowledge to or they might have taught their children in a system now known as the oral tradition this method makes it such that it can be very hard to capture traditional african drumming in standard western notation has any tiny nuances in rhythm would get lost in the rigid standardized staff unfortunately this also means that a lot of the musical heritage from countries like the gambia senegal mali and many others have been lost or eradicated over time due to the destructive nature of european colonialism that would soon come to scourge the region the atlantic slave trade absolutely decimated communities in west africa and european colonialism would bring genocide and ruin to people across the rest of the continent millions of people were taken from their homes and sent halfway across the world to a place they knew nothing of many more millions were dominated or enslaved in the lands they once called home the horror of colonialism from countries like portugal belgium spain and my own home country of the uk would leave a wound on the world and it was from this wound that a deep cultural mourning sprung a mourning that would seep into every facet of music in the americas from then on only a small percentage of those enslaved people were taken to what would become the usa and a much larger portion actually went to brazil and the caribbean but we'll be focusing primarily on american jazz for the rest of the story so that's where we'll stay located however plenty of musical traditions sprouted from these other colonies and would influence the development of tango samba salsa and so much more [Music] jump forward in time the atlantic slave trade has been going on for over four centuries and during their hundreds of years of enslavement the descendants of those taken from west africa would develop their own musical tradition these included countless songs dances and stories after the emancipation proclamation of 1862 where slavery was universally abolished throughout the united states except for those imprisoned as a pipeline slavery still exists now freed musicians would go on to develop the blues style of music with its roots in the slave songs of the previous few hundred years blue's music was often simple in structure and composition more focused on conveying emotion and a story with meaning blues artists in their lyrics would often meditate on the reality of living black in america the harsh nature of racism inequality and destitution brought on by white supremacy were all heavy themes in blues and when coupled with a slow groove of instrumentals the music would create a real feeling of melancholy [Music] ragtime was a very popular style of music which appeared in the 1890s and very quickly took over dancehalls all throughout the states in contrast to the subdued blues ragtime was loud and big and colorful the style which was mostly played on pianos adopted vibrant harmony and utilized crazy syncopated rhythms music theory moment syncopation is when multiple rhythms of different nature overlap to create an offbeat pulse music theory moment patrons loved the genre as its good time feeling and showy nature allowed virtuosic black pianists to wow the crowd with their amazing piano skills while also getting people up and dancing obviously not everything black americans produce is directly inspired by slavery but i do believe that ragtime specifically signified an emotional reaction to the melancholy of the blues period deciding to revel in the now and accept joy in this new black american identity rather than succumb to the harsh truths of what it really was like to live black during the turn of the 20th century [Music] the jazz age was a period in the 20s and 30s where jazz rose to meteoric popularity the genre had become almost completely ubiquitous it was played everywhere coffee houses great big theaters bars restaurants even classical musicians like gravel and shostakovich were beginning to take inspiration from jazz and would incorporate some of its elements into their own music in this period jazz musicians will come to fully realize the core elements of the genre basing jazz off the principles of improvisation syncopation and musical liberty as a response to the somewhat constricted ragtime instrumentals which was generally only played on the piano jazz musicians began to include more and more instrumentalists forming huge bands up to the size of a small orchestra ironically prohibition the banning of alcohol in the usa around this time actually fueled jazz's growing success jazz would be played in speakeasies all across the country associating the genre with a sense of counter-culturalism and rebelliousness which only heightened its notoriety the early 20th century was a period of fast growth for music america was coming into total cultural dominance in the west and audiences were looking to be stretched by newer and newer sounds jazz provided this stretch and audiences ate it up swing was an immensely popular style of jazz around this time developing out of dance orchestra of the 1920s swing would reach its height of popularity in the 30s and the 40s swing was characterized by skipping rhythms and a defining use of call and response hearkening all the way back to the west african spirituals that birthed the genre unfortunately due to the nature of racial segregation in america at the time many black artists whose very ancestry was intertwined with jazz were banned from performing in white jazz bands or attending white theaters or venues nonetheless black jazz musicians like duke ellington louis armstrong is it louis or louis i don't know king oliver and the legendary mary lou williams icon would continue to drive the style upward into greater heights of popularity [Music] post-war jazz arose in the 1940s as a response to the decadent popularity of swing jazz actually began to take a turn for the hipster gone were the days of popular simple dancing jazz no musicians were bored of that stuff in their opinion earlier jazz was forced to sacrifice its potential as art for mass appeal but no more musicians had a desire they wanted to listen to jazz not just dance to it but properly listen musicians wanted to reform the genre into a mature style that not only is fun to listen to but also captures deep musical meaning and from this desire bebop was born bebop was characterized by fast tempos too fast to dance to crazy virtuosic improvisation bright colorful harmony and explosive drums bebop got its very name from the nonsensical syllables of improvised scat singing and through bebop improvisational techniques of the earlier jazz age developed into immensely complicated patterns of bass lines melodies and accompaniment improvisation was utterly baked into the fabric of bebop very often musicians would take a short melody or theme from the earlier jazz age or from broadway and from that short theme they would grow new and exciting material through free improvisation maybe as an homage to the jazz age that came prior or maybe as a [ __ ] you look how i can steal your work and still produce something a billion times more creative who knows it was probably the [ __ ] you i know how people are this period began a lull in mass appeal for the genre jazz was transforming and maturing into its own fully fledged art and musicians were becoming less and less interested in being commercially successful this meant that other genres like rock itself born from blues would come to dominate the musical landscape and jazz would take a step back happy to take a more mature route through the 20th century throughout the mid to late 20th century continued to transform free and avant-garde jazz appeared and experimentalism came into vogue musicians like john coltrane miles davis and herbie hancock all added their own distinctive flavors to the mix developing new never-before-seen musical structures and techniques in jazz that are used all across music today art ensemble of chicago an experimental jazz group arose in the late 60s very often ignoring melody and harmony all together and instead using non-standard instruments like bicycle bells and rubber ducks also after the pat after this pandemic thing is is kind of turned down you seriously need to go see art on top of chicago in theater in like a in a show i want to go see them in the barbican and it was probably the best music show i've ever been to my entire life jazz artists today are constantly finding new and exciting ways to reanimate and advance the genre combining jazz standards with rock hip hop folk even western classical musicians like ashley henry maria chiaro aguero joel ross and so many others are all contributing to the genre in their own unique and genius ways in far too many directions for me to adequately talk about all of them in this video also some of the music videos are a trip [Music] jazz has developed over a long vibrant and oftentimes branching path over the last few hundred years from the contemporary with all its many faces all the way back in time through bebop swing blues ragtime and all the way back to its origin in the many brilliant african musicians that unknowingly birth the genre with the rise of hip-hop and other black originated music as the defining genres of this generation i hope jazz will continue to grow higher and higher i imagine in the future there will only be more avenues for fusion more directions for the music to take who knows perhaps even jazz will rise once again into prominence as a dominant force for music in the 21st century that is so exciting and i can't wait to see how the next few decades turn out for jazz specifically not for the whole human race we're [ __ ] personally as a mainly classical composer i'm actually really interested in how jazz and classical standards can be worked out to mesh together and create new sounds jazz and classical are arguably built on very different systems of thought and have their own developed and mature languages so finding ways for them to combine meaningfully is a challenge that composers have been tackling for decades in fact there's actually a genre called the third stream which aims to answer just this question i am by no means a jazz artist and honestly i don't think i actually understand it well enough yet but i actually wrote a jazz classical fusion piano piece for my entrance portfolio when i applied to music school i was interested in how i can combine stylistic elements of bartok's music who was a classical composer with john coltrane who as most people know is a very famous free jazz artist i pursued this by focusing primarily on the coltrane change as its own cadential object within the context of a classical i will not be making it available to listen to so that's it we're done you can leave the video now or you can stay and subscribe and also like the video and also leave a comment and also give me money on patreon these videos donate themselves i need money now i want those do last honey i want those to do last now love you bye [Music] you