Jazz

Even when the slaves in America were under great oppression and restriction, they still had their own distinctive cultural practices. Thus when they were emancipated, they had a better chance of broadening their scope and learning new things to better themselves and their situation. Thus the blacks began to learn to play new instruments. Since the black musicians did not have their native instruments readily available to them, around the 19 th century they began to learn to play Western instruments. The blacks began to play instruments like the violin, which were and are still considered symphonic. The black musicians used them in a different way, making parodies of European dance music and making use of them in their ‘cakewalk’ dances.

Thus, they took some elements of classical music and altered them to suit their style. Instead of ending just there, such music was taken abroad by European American musicians. They introduced the concept of syncopation into European harmony. Some musicians began to adapt this form of black music to suit their own style. Musicians such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted African-American cakewalk music, South American, Caribbean and other slave melodies as piano salon music. After these musicians adapted the music of the blacks, the blacks also assimilated some aspects of these variations. Still, jazz was far off but very close to realization.

As such, the blacks relied much on classical symphonic instruments. This is how come such symphonic instruments such as the clarinet and trombone are found in jazz. In this respect, Europe contributed to jazz music. The main influence that we can attribute to Europe lies in the area of instrumentation and harmony. This effect on jazz may be lost on the casual observer, but is actually quite profound. Harmonically, the diatonic scale which is prevalent in Western music was an expansion of the pentatonic scale found in African music. The classical/Western concept and practice of chords and chord progressions was also a major area of influence. In the area of instrumentation, as has already been said, instruments which are symphonic in nature found their way into the hands of people who do not have the classical background. This is one of the things that makes jazz a great barrier breaker.

Furthermore, the African-Americans adopted the hymns and their harmonic style. They also introduced certain aspects of their own music into it and created their own music. This was spiritual music. Blues was a precursor to jazz, and blues is considered to be the secular counterpart of the spirituals. Thus, the black slaves set the pace for the development of jazz.