Реферат: The JAZZ Story

entertainment designed for the middle class and was frowned on by the

musical establishment. The music not yet called Jazz (in its earliest usage it

was spelled "jass"), came into being during the last decade of the 19th

century, rising out of the black working-class districts of southern cities.

Like ragtime, it was a music meant for dancing.

The city that has become synonymous with early Jazz is New Orleans.

There is reality as well as myth behind this notion.

New Orleans: Cradle of Jazz

New Orleans played a key role in the birth and growth of Jazz, and the

music's early history has been more thoroughly researched and

documented there than anywhere else. But, while the city may have had

more and better Jazz than any other from about 1895 to 1917, New

Orleans was by no means the only place where the sounds were

incubating. Every southern city with a sizable black population had music

that must be considered early Jazz. It came out of St. Louis, which grew to

be the center of ragtime; Memphis, which was the birthplace of W.C.

Handy (1873-1958), the famed composer and collector of blues; Atlanta,

Baltimore, and other such cities.

What was unique to New Orleans at the time was a very open and free

social atmosphere. People of different ethnic and racial backgrounds could

establish contact, and out of this easy communication came a rich musical

tradition involving French, Spanish, German, Irish and African elements. It

was no wonder that this cosmopolitan and lively city was a fertile breeding

ground for Jazz.

If New Orleans was the birthplace of Jazz in truth as well as in legend, the

tale that the music was born in its red light district is purest nonsense. New

Orleans did have legalized prostitution and featured some of the most

elaborate and elegant "sporting houses" in the nation. But the music, if any,

that was heard in these establishments was made by solo pianists.