Education Musicale ~ Collège Jeanne d’Arc ~ musiqueajeannedarc.weebly.com

4è Séquence 1: Qu’est ce que le jazz ?

Jazz is a style of music which emerged in America around the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century. There are many styles of jazz, but broadly speaking jazz is characterised by improvisations, syncopations (offbeat accents) and swung rhythms. Black music came over to America with the African slaves. African music combined with the music of the white European settlers to produce new styles of music including blues and ragtime. Jazz originated in New Orleans around 1900.

Characteristics Origins Improvisation Africa Instruments Europe Rhythm Africa Melody Africa/Europe

Vocabulary:

Improvisation : Improvised playing is not based on a written score but on the mood of the moment.

SCAT : vocal style using emotive, onomatopoeic, and nonsense syllables instead of words in solo improvisations on a melody

Onomatopoeias: sounds that imitate natural sounds

As jazz's popularity grows, and as it attracts a wider audience, so

do campaigns to censor this "devil's music." It was accused of being

subversive and decadent. In the following decades, jazz continues

to evolve, attracting both black and white audiences. Increasingly it

is identified as one of America's greatest contributions to music.