5.24 Music in America: Jazz and Beyond

Cultivated music

music brought to a country and consciously developed

Vernacular music

music from our native tongue, including hymns and psalms

Ragtime

informal piano music which preceded jazz, similar to march music and very popular in the early 1900s in America

Blues

category of black folk song with sad/lonely themes, which emerged around 1900 and is a strophic genre

New Orleans Jazz

casual jazz with small bands, typically w/ 3 melody instruments and a rhythm section, centered in New Orleans

Jamming

collective improvisation, centered in New Orleans jazz

Big-Band Jazz/Swing

jazz with a variety of tone color and instrumental effects, played by 10-25 players

Big Bands

bands with 10-25 players, and less improv that other jazz

Standards

songs favored by jazzmen

Bebop

1940s genre with "improvisation at a new level of technical virtuosity" and hard to follow melodies

Operetta

"popular European genre of light opera in the late 19th and early 20th centuries," with amusing and far-fetched plots