Afro-Latin, Jazz, and Popular Music – Vocabulary Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering essential terms, styles, and concepts from African, Afro-Latin, Jazz, and Popular music as presented in the lecture.

African Music

Traditional music of the African continent noted for interesting melodies, exciting rhythms, and participative performance.

Yodeling

A vocal technique featuring a quick shift from chest voice to falsetto, common in African singing.

Call and Response

Leader-chorus interaction in which a solo line is answered by a group.

Participative Music-making

A practice where listeners actively join the performance rather than remain passive.

Polyrhythm

Two or more independent, contrasting rhythms performed simultaneously.

Timbre (African Music)

Vocal quality shifting from relaxed tone to tight-throated sound.

Texture (African Music)

Can be homophonic or polyphonic, depending on the layering of parts.

Purposes of African Music

Used to educate, worship, communicate, entertain, mark life events, heal, protest, and ease work.

Blues

African-American genre from the U.S. South featuring expressive melodies and blue notes.

Spirituals

Religious folk songs outside the established church, also called Negro Spirituals.

Fisk Jubilee Singers

Former slaves who first popularized Negro Spirituals.

Soul (African-influenced)

Genre combining gospel emotion with jazz and rhythm-and-blues roots.

Motown

Blend of rhythm and blues with mainstream pop produced by Detroit’s Motown Records.

Maracatu

Brazilian style with African slave roots, marked by intense, emotional crowd gatherings.

Latin-American Music

Highly syncretic music that fuses Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indigenous, and African elements across Latin America.

Syncretic

Describes a cultural product formed by the fusion of diverse traditions.

Cumbia

Dance-oriented style from coastal Colombia and Panama that began as an African courtship dance.

Paso Doble

Spanish couple dance meaning “double step,” mimicking a bullfight entrance.

Tango

Sensual partner dance that originated in the lower-class districts of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Cha-cha-cha

Cuban dance introduced by composer-violinist Enrique Jorrín, also called cha-cha.

Bossa Nova

Brazilian ‘new trend’ merging samba rhythms with jazz harmonies and improvisation.

Reggae

Jamaican genre (late 1960s) stressing the second and fourth beats; Bob Marley popularized it worldwide.

Samba

Brazilian music and dance of West African origin in lively 2/4 time with figures like Botafogo.

Rumba

Afro-Cuban sensual ballroom dance performed socially and in competitions.

Jazz

African-American musical style featuring syncopated rhythms, improvisation, and swing feel.

Syncopation

Rhythmic technique accenting normally weak beats or off-beats.

Improvisation

Spontaneous creation of music during a performance.

Jazz Big Band

Large ensemble with woodwinds, brass, and rhythm section, typically 15 musicians.

Woodwinds (Jazz)

Saxophones and clarinets forming one section of a jazz big band.

Brass (Jazz)

Trumpets and trombones providing powerful melodies and harmonies in jazz bands.

Rhythm Section

Piano, guitar, bass, and drums supplying harmony and beat in jazz.

Blues Scale

Scale with flatted 3rd, 5th, and 7th degrees used in jazz melodies.

Bebop Scale

Eight-note scale containing passing tones, common in fast bebop solos.

Cakewalk

Strutting African-American dance with syncopated music that prefigured jazz.

Ragtime

Syncopated solo piano genre; its pieces (‘rags’) are composed, not improvised; Scott Joplin was its king.

Scott Joplin

American composer-pianist known as the ‘King of Ragtime.’

Dixieland Jazz

Early New Orleans ‘hot jazz’ for 5–8 players with collective improvisation.

Scat-singing

Louis Armstrong’s vocal improvisation using nonsense syllables like ‘doo-bi-doo.’

Swing (Jazz Era)

Big-band style of the 1930s–40s; subdivided into Sweet Swing (dance/entertainment) and Hot Swing (concert jazz).

Benny Goodman

Clarinetist dubbed the ‘King of Swing’ who popularized big-band jazz.

Bebop

Fast, complex jazz of the 1940s intended for listening, not dancing.

Cool Jazz

Relaxed, less aggressive offshoot of bebop emphasizing smooth tone and subtle dynamics.

Free Jazz

Avant-garde style granting total freedom to improvise with unconventional sounds.

Fusion (Jazz Rock)

1970s genre combining rock timbres and rhythms with jazz improvisation.

Popular Music (Pop)

Music produced for ‘the people’ with mass appeal and commercial intent.

Folk Songs

Narrative songs passed orally from generation to generation.

Broadside Ballads

Topical narrative songs printed on single-sided sheets with simple melodies and meaningful lyrics.

18th-century English Songs

Entertainment-focused songs performed in outdoor venues during the 1700s.

Scottish and Irish Songs

19th-century pieces featuring pentatonic melodies and Romantic lyrics.

Rhythm and Blues (R&B)

Pop genre in quadruple meter with backbeat accents on beats two and four, often about relationships.

Country Music

‘Hillbilly’ or ‘country and western’ style dealing with real-life issues like family and loneliness.

Rock and Roll

Youth-oriented pop music with electric guitars and strong syncopated rhythms.

Soul (Pop Genre)

Intensely passionate singing rooted in Black gospel tradition.

Heavy Metal

Loud, distorted rock with virtuosic guitar, dramatic visuals, and lyrics about rebellion or violence.

Punk Rock

Fast, loud English rock from South London working class with nihilistic lyrics and wild fashion.

Disco

Dance music with simple, repetitive lyrics and strong Latin-American rhythms encouraging freestyle moves.

Rap

Style featuring improvised, rhymed verses chanted over a rhythmic, dance-based backing.