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The Evolution of Jazz


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             Once the blues made its way north, artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf dominated the Chicago blues scene, incorporating electric guitars and drums into their sets, exploring a more ambitious and raucous sound than was part of blues movement. While Charlie Parker, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis were changing the emotion and styling of jazz with jolting rhythmic shifts, eccentric chords, and quick harmonic explorations, a definitive change in American jazz music was taking form. .
             Jazz and Blues instruments came about after traditional African instruments were not allowed by the American slave owners so gradually their native songs and melodies were lost. Then later African American brought back their traditional harmonies called call and response but with Christian subjects. The church became a sanctuary for black slave expression. It was the only place that groups of slaves could congregate without fear of white supervision. But some slave owner did not allow religious worship so many slaves had to meet secretly. During slavery the plantations workers used Work songs and "field hollers" to ease the drudgery of the hard labor in the fields. This also took place later in the 1800's while they were laying railroad tracks. .
             Essentially it developed into the Jazz-Blues songs which were a form of personal expression. The Blues has a unique melodic style that evokes feelings of being downtrodden and melancholy, but also being resilient in the face of such feelings, which are often associated with the blues. It is known for the three-chord, progressions, and open to endless improvisations, both lyrical and musical. Trumpeter Buddy Bolden began arranging blues and ragtime music for brass instruments. He was one of the first prominent improvisers, although there are no surviving recordings of his playing. W.C. Handy is considered the "Father of the Blues," he first heard the Blues being played by a lone Bluesman at the railroad depot in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903.


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