All About Jazz Music

Jazz music is the American musical art form originated in earlier twentieth century. The African American communities of the Southern United States from the confluence of European and African music tradition were responsible for its beginning. The West African pedigree style is evident in the use of polyrythms, blues notes improvisation, swung notes and syncopation.

From the early development of jazz music until the present, it has also included music from the nineteenth and the twentieth century American popular melody. The word jazz music began in the form of a West Coast slang expression of tentative derivation. This term was initially used in order to refer to the music in Chicago in around 1915.

From its early twentieth century inception, jazz music spawned a huge variety of sub-genres from New OrleansDixieland including the early 1910’s, bebop from middle of 1940s, big band jazz music style swing from 1940’s as well as 1930’s, Brazilian jazz from 1960s and 1950s. Besides a fusion of the Latin jazz fusion like the Afro Cuban, jazz rock mixture from the late 1980’s and 1970s developments including the acid jazz that blended the jazz influences into hip hop and funk are several other melody types that constituted jazz music.

In jazz music, the trained performers interpret a tune in different individual ways and never play the same melody. Depending on the mood of the performer as well as personal experience and interactions with the fellow musicians or the totals number of audience, the jazz music performer might later the harmonies or melodies. The European classical music is said to be the composer’s medium.

Today as well, straight ahead jazz music continues to appeal a large amount of masses. The well popular jazz musicians whose career span decades like the Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Wayne Shorter and Sonny Rollins continue to record and perform. In the beginning of 1990 and 2000 various young talented musicians emerged such as Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Stefon Harris, Roy Horgrove, Vijay Iyer, Terence Blanchard and Joshua Redman. While Bugge Wesseltoft, Christian McBride, St. Germain are several other renowned names in the world of jazz music.



By: Akhila Choudhary

How to get a Jazz Guitar Sound

The word Jazz often evokes a darkly light Smokey club with musicians expertly improvising against seemingly complex chord progressions. Featuring passionate tone – getting that jazz sound can be a complex process – in this article we’ll address what you’ll need to get a great jazz guitar sound.

A Jazz Guitar

Getting the right guitar for a jazz sound used to be expensive. Jazz masters such as Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass may have played expensive Gibson Semi’s but these days there are a variety of entry level guitars that are suitable for getting a jazz tone.

For an authentic jazz tone, you should have a semi-acoustic hollowbody electric guitar. Models such as the Gibson ES-175 or the Gretch Tennessean can run into thousands of dollars but there are also excellent entry models such as Ibanez Artcore line of guitars. Guitar manufacturers such as Yamaha or Guild also make entry level semi-acoustics similar to the more expensive Gibson 335. There are also numerous Epiphone hollowbody guitars that will also be suitable and come from the Gibson stable. Explore your local music store and try out what they look for something that is comfortable to play and can produce a tight clean tone with plenty of sustain.

Hollow body guitars will provide a suitable mellow tone and most will be fitted with two humbucker pickups allowing you to vary your sound accordingly. Most guitars will be fitted with tone controls. Practice rolling the treble off your tone and experimenting – Jazz guitarists often play with a less trebly sound as it produces a rich mellow resonance that is suitable for the style.

A Jazz Guitar Amplifier

Whilst it could be said that there is “no jazz amp” there are a number of considerations for the jazz guitarist when selecting an amplifier.
Firstly it is important to determine the playing style and sound that you wish to attain. Traditional jazz guitarists often choose amps that can produce a clean sound which compliment acoustic archtop guitars. For this sound solid state amps produce a nice clean tone. For a more distorted sound a tube amp may be more applicable. There are many popular amps that are used by Jazz guitarists for example – try experimenting with a Fender Pro or a Polytone
Another requirement may be on board effects this may range from simple reverb to an overdrive channel – again this will depend on the style your trying to achieve.

Effects

Traditional Jazz may only require a hint of reverb but many modern jazz guitarists apply a range of effects from Chorus, Overdrive through to delay. There are many effects units available from single stomp boxes to complex digital “modeling” devices such as the Line 6 Pod. When choosing effects ensure they compliment your playing style and that you retain that “clarity” in your tone. Too many effects often muddy the sound and do not produce a quality sound.

Conclusion

In summary there are primarily 3 things that you should investigate when trying to get a jazz tone. Ultimately you should also listen to a wide range of jazz greats – listen closely to their sounds and try to emulate them. Ultimately when you have done this a few times they will begin to merge and you will begin to develop your own tone that will sound equally brilliant!

By: Adrian Martin