The Progression of American Music in the 20th Century

             "It is America's music – born out of a million American negotiations: between having and not having; between happy and sad, country and city; between black and white and men and women; between the Old Africa and the Old Europe – which could only have happened in an entirely new world." (Ward 2) Jazz was truly the music of America. It is a mixture of the musical roots of all the people in America at that time. It borrows European classical themes, using harmonious melodies and peculiar scales, which allows it to be one of the only improvisational art forms allowing the artist to literally make up music on the spot. "Many composers, both European and American, introduced aspects of jazz into their concert music. Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Milhaud at one time or another imitated the rhythms of jazz, its typical harmonies, or its improvisational manners of playing the trumpet, saxophone, or percussion." (Hanning 542) Through all that it fuses the rhythmic percussion and backgrounds of African music, incorporating many gospel themes and complicated drum patterns, even often borrowing Latin styles. Prior to jazz, ragtime music, which used complicated chord structures with confusing rhythms and tempos, was very popular. Jazz used these theories and mixed them with powerful brass sounds found in Dixieland music, which sprouted from the south, often using gospel hymns and spirituals in an upbeat style; Dixieland was popular since the Civil War. One of the musicians who had the one of the biggest impacts in jazz, if not the biggest, was a New Orleans trumpeter named Louis Armstrong. "With his simple, upbeat melodies and the invention of the 'Bebop Scale', Armstrong is undoubtedly the founder of true jazz." (Ward 43) Armstrong was famous for his bebop trumpet sound and remarkably gravely voice, perfect for a scat solo, which is just gibberish sung in different key...

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The Progression of American Music in the 20th Century. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 21:58, May 01, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/8033.html