The World of Jazz

Jazz is one of the favorite types of music among individuals for many years. The world of jazz was given birth from the African American people at twentieth century. They were a gift from God because they were the one who introduced jazz to us. It is believed that jazz musicians do not know how to read a music sheet, but instead they only use their ears to identify the suitable sound for a certain composition. Jazz was considered part of the popular music around the nineteenth and twentieth century. It is a type of music that has plenty of styles depending on the composer’s preference, mood, own experience and suggestions from co-musicians.  Jazz is commonly known on its improvisation of chords. This creates a distinct sound that people can easily recognize. As you can see most jazz music sound relaxing. It is a fact that this kind of music can really relieve body tension. This is commonly used in coffee shops, restaurants, massage centers, and in some hotels to add an effect on their relaxing ambiance…

The widely known birth place of jazz is the New Orleans. Most people living in this place love to hear and compose jazz music. Majority of them are individuals who belong to the black race. This is why many jazz artists are black Americans. This type of music can be played in various instruments. These include the piano, saxophones, trumpet, trombone, drums, bass, cello and many more. The most popular jazz instrument is the piano. This is because it can play a wide range of notes and is commonly used as a solo instrument. It can also play notes simultaneously. Like other types of music, jazz also has its subtypes. Let’s name the most commonly known. These are the following types. The cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz, and lastly the soul jazz. It sounds interesting for those jazz lovers, isn’t it? Let’s dig deeper and understand the subtypes of jazz.

First is the cool jazz. This type of jazz was the replacement of the old energy and tension jazz. It was replaced at around 1940’s to 1950’s. This type had a slow and relaxing tune which made itself popular in 1950’s… You may find this as a relaxing type of music to the extent that it releases the tension in your body brought by stress. To follow is the modal jazz.  This type of jazz is very particular in its use of musical scale. It’s improvisation is based on the musical scale to be played by the jazz musician. This type usually plays solo jazz and personal riffs that can add up some spice on the composed jazz music. Most common instruments used in modal jazz are the piano, saxophone, and the guitars specially in doing jazz riffs. The other type of jazz is the free jazz.  This is the type of jazz in which the composer or the musician plays several notes freely even on live performance. This is a jazz music in which the beats and its formality are not applied. The jazz musician can play on whatever notes she, or he likes as long as it fits to the accompaniment.

The next type of jazz music is the Latin jazz.  Isn’t this familiar to you? This is an American-Latin type of jazz, which is mostly played on solo instruments like the piano and bass guitar. This type has a classical harmony approach. Examples of Latin jazz are Bossa Nova and jazz samba. This type of jazz is mostly played by Cuban and Brazilian people. It is evident that the Latin jazz music is also played in coffee shops and lounge. The last but not the least is the soul jazz. Sounds interesting, right? This type of jazz is greatly influenced and mixed with other rhythms like the blues and gospel.  This is commonly played by trio musicians. The group is composed of a drummer, pianist, and a bass player. Jazz is still evolving as time is getting older. We can actually see it by ourselves that now a day jazz has been incorporated with different types of music like rock, pop, and many more.