Jazz

            Music is and has been an incredibly important part of African American culture. Studying any type of African American music is very much an exploration into the African American way of life. Music has been part of the African American culture dating back to slavery. Although Jazz music is loved and performed by people of every background in America, the groundbreakers and innovators in every step forward of Jazz have been African Americans. Jazz is music with a history and a heart, it is both historically and musically a very deep expression of American culture. It has grown in to a vast part of American culture. It is undoubtedly a gift from African Americans to the world. Jazz is rooted in the musical traditions of American blacks. Americans hold a rich artistic background, expressively reflecting the circumstances and times of ones place. Of these creative endeavors, the most cultural and uniquely American music is the art of Jazz. Jazz music is a musically composed story. It is a feeling through the infusion of complex rhythm and musical interface, which often comes so effortlessly and naturally to the musicians. Their instruments provided a voice to be heard, a voice that commonly was countered by the ignorance of a young American society. This voice was born from an extreme emotional and spiritual past, where music being celebrated was the very essence of life. It is a way for a jazz musician to just let go and pour his heart out with an instrument. In a Jazz piece, the song is often just a starting point or frame of reference for the musicians to improvise around. The song might have been a popular ditty or blues that they didn't compose, but by the time they were finished with it they had composed a new piece that often bore little resemblance to the original song (Alexander).
             Jazz is distinctively an American form of music. Its history occupies a much smaller span of time. Its origins are found in the early 1900s as some dance band leaders in the southern U.