All about jazz, uniquely American music - The Washington Post
We’re not talking about failing to study for your final math test or disobeying your parents. We’re talking about a type of music called jazz. Some people say that jazz is America’s only true art form. That’s because it began here, hundreds of years ago, in the fields where black people worked as slaves and made up songs to pass time, to express themselves and to keep alive the culture and traditions of their African homelands. It wasn’t called jazz then, but the way the slaves were playing and singing music was different and special. The music of America’s black people came to be called jazz in the South in the early 1900s; New Orleans, Louisiana, is often called the birthplace of jazz. Despite slavery’s having ended in 1865, African Americans still didn’t have the same rights as white Americans. But jazz was music that both black and white people could enjoy. By the 1920s, jazz was growing in popularity and included influences from Europe as well as Africa. Jazz has all the elements
We’re not talking about failing to study for your final math test or disobeying your parents. We’re talking about a type of music called jazz. Some people say that jazz is America’s only true art form. That’s because it began here, hundreds of years ago, in the fields where black people worked as slaves and made up songs to pass time, to express themselves and to keep alive the culture and traditions of their African homelands. It wasn’t called jazz then, but the way the slaves were playing and singing music was different and special. The music of America’s black people came to be called jazz
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