Todays Jazz

As time has evolved so has people, and as people have evolved they have changed. And as people change their needs and wants change as well but as people come and go they still live in other peoples life in one form or another, but just like people have changed so has music and a good way to show this is by playing some good ol jazz music. Because as you play it you will hear quickly hear that some of todays music has generated from the sounds of jazz. Even some of todays great artist have recreated some old jazz songs and blended them with more evolved sounds that todays technology can make that back in the day were not able to be made. Perfect example is artist Kanye West recreating Ray Charles song called Ive Got A Woman  and naming it Gold Digger he even uses the same chorus from the original song in fact he even uses the same beat, what he does to make it different is he adds more sounds and lyrics of his own to make it more relateable to the people of today.

   Jazz stories are always good to hear because even though you are going to hear alot of nonsense that you might think you will never expirience and you dont find interesting at all, you will always get a great life lesson at the end that will help you live life with a positive attitude. I read a story not long ago called Sonnys Blues that I have read that at first I didnt find interesting at all but then later on throughout the story it really impacted me and at the end it thought me that you have to find what makes you happy in life and once thats found that will help you live a positive life. It talked about Sonny not baing able to handle the pressure of school and looking to the bad life and drugs as an output to that, what got him out of that bad life was his love for playing the piano and performing jazz music, the type of jazz he played was the blues. After leaving the drugs and the bad life he expressed the way he felt through his music "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life containd so many other"(Baldwin 63) every sonf that Sonny played symbolized a moment of his life and the way he felt, this realtes to how many new artist are expressing their life through music and basically making a self documentary with lyrics and sounds.
  
There is no actual definition to the word jazz but part of the definition says "to add ornamentation, color, or extra features to, in order to increase appeal or interest"(Webster) this same part of that definition can very precisely also define todays music.Todays music mainly talks about the interest of one sex in the other and all those thoughts in music trace back to the origins of jazz of how jazz was the first genre of music to involve sexual activity in its lyrics.


Works Cited: "Jazz".Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictioanry. Eleventh ed. 2004. print.

Kanye West. Late Registration. Jon Brion; Kanye West; Warren Campbell; Devo Sprinsteen, 2005. CD.

Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "Sonnys Blues."James Baldwin Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 43-63.

Jazz Instruments

Jazz was created off of church music so it mainly used all the instruments they used, the main ones that brought life to jazz music were the trumpet, saxaphone, trambone, drums double bass and the clarinet. the piano wasnt added on to jazz until later when jazz was making its way through the north of the United States.

The saxophone is the musical instrument that creates the vibe to jazz music, many people are amazed on the sounds that a saxophone can make. The saxophone was used in jazz for the first time not by individual jazz musicians but by bands, the saxophone added the sound of intimacy and thats why many older people blamed jazz and said it was a bad inlfuence on young adults. The drums added a more fatser beat to jazz music that made people want to get up and dance, it gave jazz that fast vibe and thats another reason why young adults liked jazz so much because it was something different. it wasnt just the same old slow church songs, it was was something that they related to and that they could dance to.
When the piano was included to jazz music it changed the sound of it from classical jazz to a more soothing sound that later became known as "swing". Ray Charles was the main jazz musician to make the piano famous and later on many would follow.
The trumpet was always a part of jazz ever since the start of it and is a main factor to the development of jazz through the years because without the trumpet jazz is just not the same.
Putting all of these instruments together and playing them well will create an amzing sound that is called jazz. These instruments are still a big part of todays music, they are used in different genres of music to create different sounds needed for a song. Some artist still include jazz in some of their music, "gold digger" is a song that was released in 2007, this song was based on a song by Ray Charles called "I got a woman" and it just goes to show that jazz can still move todays young audience with the same instruments of a century ago.

Early Jazz

Being a Jazz musician wasnt anything easy, but it was something extrordinary; being a Jazz musician meant being part of a change in the way of life in the average american. Jazz created the feeling of a more alive person by giving music the hip rythm it needed to make people want to move and dance, Jazz and dancing went great with each other and Jazz created some new dances that would re-revolutionize music, some of these dances are called "truckin", "the shimmy", amd "black bottom". But behind each of these Jazz artist is a unique harsh story that led them to create the music they created, every song they created is not just a song its also a part of their harsh past. And the funky songs they make is to express how great they feel fo finally be free african americans. "You cant say, oh, because your white, or because your black or because your fifteen or because your fifty, you cant do something. You just cant make those distinctions when it somes to what strikes your soul"(Stokes 211). Jazz is known to be the line of desegregation to american music because before Jazz there was few to none african american musicians.
   Jazz music is music that comes from the soul, it doesnt talk about money or fame, it focuses more on the feelings of life and the aspects toward life. Thats why most artist are very emotional when they are performing their songs because they are telling their story of their own from their past. Jazz varied in its own style, it went from brass bands to gospel choirs, and also to the soothing blues.
   New Orleans was where Jazz mainly started it was the perfect place due to the fact that it was the home of music, there were many different brass bands and other types of musical bands that played in local bars and funerals, it was when they all came together that Jazz was created along with many skilled dancers that performed in annual parades.Since New Orleans was a port city many Carribeans started immigrating to the city and added their own carribean style of music to Jazz. After Jazz grew many musicians wanted their shot at recrodings and fame, they knew that New Orleans was way too crowded for that so they went up north to Chicago. Many started performing in clubs there to gain some popularity. Chicago was the main city for musicians in the mid-west. Jazz would keep expanding until it reached New York, in New York many musicians also had a chance to become famous because New York quickly became the center of music publication. New York aslo changed Jazz by having the first piano to be incorporated into this style of music. Jazz originated in the south and expanded as society in the United States became more diverse, as well as it also helped for society to became more diverse. It made its way to the north and after reaching the north it became an official genre of music, a genre that separated blacks and whites and poor from rich.

Cited Sources:

Stokes, W. Royal. Living the Jazz Life: Conversations with Forty Musicians about Their Careers in Jazz. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

Morgan, Thomas L. "Jazz: The First Thirty Years." | Jazz Roots | Early Jazz History on JASS.COM. Nov. 1993. Web. 26 Apr. 2011

Ray Charles was one of the greatest Jazz musicians of all time. Born on September 23, 1930 in Albany, Geaorgia he grew up during the years of the great depression making it hard for him and his family to support their full needs. Even though he already had it hard growing up in poverty his lafe became even harder when he witnessed his younger brother drown to death, and not later on when he was seven years old he was officially blind due to glaucoma. Then when he was 15 years old his mother also died, but that didnt stop him from pursuing his goals better yet it motivated him and gave him the strength to be great.
   His musical career started in Florida where he played with a local band at clubs, this is where he started the habit of always wearing sunglasses. After this everything went uphill for Ray. After playing with a couple of bands and making songs that were heard nation wide he decided to go solo. And in 1953 he signed to Atlantic Records, his first hit singles were " Mess around" and "It should have been me" but it wasnt until 1954 that the song " I got a woman" this song was a mix of gospel music and jazz music creating a new style of music and it was that song that gave him national recognition. Even though he was a great artist, many people were against his music because they said that it was against the name of of god. This wasnt the only reason why many people didnt like Ray Charles it was also because of his addiction to drugs, in 1961 he was arrested for the possesion of heroin, marijuana, and other drug related items. Ray Charles died of liver cancer on June 10 of 2004. He was inside his house when this happened.
 Ray Charles was a great Jazz musician with a one of a kind background, he had a tough childhood but manged to overcome all of the tragedies and find a way to be successful in life. Without him music would not be what it is today, it was his courage that changed the old blues into the funky Jazz, and that transforming into R&B. Being a Jazz musician isnt something easy, it is music thats made only by those talented few that live with the rythm of music inside of them and that can send a message to the world with a song that was the perfect Jazz rythm to move people.


Cited Sources:
 Ray. Dir.Taylor Hackford. Writers. Taylor Hackford, James L. White. Perfs. Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington. Film. Universal Pictures, 2004

google.com/images/raycharles(Image)

After reading "Sonnys Blues" in my english composition class I learned and discovered how hard and tough the life of a musician is. That inspired me to choose this topic of the Jazz Life, because I beleive that being a musician during the time period where jazz was huge was one of the hardest time periods due to the fact that it was african americans making the music and prohibition was also taking place. The information provided in this blog would be useful for others to learn about what jazz really is and how it came to be and that a jazz song is not just a song its someones lifestory being told with music added to it.