You Like Jazz? Clearly, You Must

Since the inception of music, many styles have come and gone, fizzling out after their peak in popularity and interest. Jazz has had a different means of going out, maintaining relevance far past its prime. “Jazz” as an umbrella term has undoubtedly rained upon many different genres through its iconic musical stylings, spreading its unique spark through music of past and present. In this day and age, I find it almost impossible to genuinely believe someone when they share a complete distaste for jazz and its descendants.

Jazz found its sound in the state of Louisiana, a powerful yet free-flowing take on music like the rushing water of the Mississippi River it was born beside. The earliest forms of jazz were conceived through a mixture of culture and diversity that only existed in the up and coming American metropolis, the city of New Orleans. Centered around the deeply syncopated rhythms of African traditional music, the African-American pioneers of jazz blended the danceability of ragtime, the instrumentation of French military march music, and the tone and colour of blues to form the distinct “jazz” sound. Despite jazz being a facet of Black expression, the first commercialized recording of it was, quite evilly, a group of white guys: the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917.

Original Dixieland Jazz Band - Livery Stable Blues (1917)

As the jazz movement started to pick up, the influx of the saxophone came to fruition, truly marking its roots in New Orleans as it tied directly into the French history of the deep south. Originally, elitist Western composers despised the saxophone, as its quality was deemed animalistic and barbaric sounds that were rather contrary to typical romantic period pieces. For this reason, the saxophone was only to be used in the French military, banished to the marching bands. African-American communities adopted the saxophone and all its bad-assery to formulate what we now know to be the most fundamental instrument in jazz. In fact, the saxophone is so centrally jazz that any music it touches brings the jazzy label along with it, like the musical version of the Midas touch.

Jazz’s journey did not halt in the United States, but rather gained global consciousness as it travelled across the Americas, allowing branches to form as its scope and nature broadened: subgenres such as dixieland, bebop, cool jazz, big band, modal jazz, free jazz, and jazz fusion to name very few. Over the first half of the 20th century, jazz was arguably the most dominant genre of music, with standout figures such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday.

John Coltrane - Walkin' (Live 1960)

In fact, jazz is not just a simple story that reclaims the saxophone, it has a political dimension to it, serving as a beacon of hope to countries that were previously enslaved during the colonial era. With Europe expanding its imperial empire, taking both intellect and labour from its colonial subjects, Jazz was one of the first items that those of African descent were credited with, without the involvement of Europe, making it anti-colonial at its core. This energy only supercharged as it carried on into the Civil Rights Movement through the mid 20th century. Jazz represented a striving pursual for self-identity and a reclamation of dignity that had been unlawfully snatched from Black communities in the wake of racial injustices and slavery. Jazz became a treasure of Black genius, an indicator of a turning of the tides in the value of Black expression in a post-colonial society.

"Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music."

Martin Luther King - Berlin Jazz Festival (1964)

Nowadays, hip-hop and R & B are top charting musical genres, and also serve as vehicles of political and social commentary. Hip-hop and R & B borrow greatly from jazz both directly, through sampling, and indirectly by adopting some of its iconic attributes: sway-like rhythms, complex chords, and improvisations. It only proved to be a matter of time before both styles clashed, as the artists of today continuously fuse their tunes with the ones of legendary jazz, funk, and soul idols to incorporate a taste of the past into the present. In a sense even greater than music, politically and socially the torch has been passed, with artists looking towards jazz as an inspiration for their own campaigns for political and social change.

For example, Kendrick Lamar has been coined as the “Coltrane of Hip-Hop” for the way jazz was integrated into his 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly, setting off somewhat of a butterfly effect, igniting Black America by combining the familiar sound of jazz with provocative lyricism. Additionally, the album has credits that include artists that continue to push contemporary jazz forward such as jazztronica’s Flying Lotus, and contemporary jazz behemoth’s Kamasi Washington and Thundercat. Other specifics of the like include Tyler the Creator and Kali Uchis on “After the Storm”, and Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky”. For further examples and recommendations of music that fuses hip-hop and jazz, I’ve plugged a playlist, linked below.

Many other modern genres rely upon jazz as inspiration whether directly or indirectly through the genres outside of hip-hop and R&B it inspired such as disco, funk and rock. The music we collectively listen to and modern western music will forever be indebted to jazz.

Despite jazz’s heavy and heavenly presence in modern music, many are reluctant to credit it for all it has done. After all, how often do we hear of Kanye fans who resonate equally with jazz classics, despite the countless samples he relies upon as a foundation for his art?

Kanye West's "Blood On The Leaves" (2013) borrows from:

Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" (1939)

The lack of appreciation for the continued legacy of jazz and its characteristics can be hypocritical in nature, in this case criminally failing to recognize jazz’s deep impact on the roots of hip hop production.

Unfortunately, the time for the vast majority of society as a whole to appreciate jazz for itself and only itself has come to an end, and the musical marketplace has moved on. This however clearly has not stopped jazz from asserting its influence onto other forms of music, leaving room for a comeback of sorts. We are all lucky to live in a time where musicians are no longer as strictly boxed into a genre, where saxophones haven’t been left to collect more dust, and jazz has been allowed to escape the confines of the speakeasies and coffee shops it originates from.

Illustration by Valerie Letts