Instruments in Jazz Music
By: Kaylen Birdwell
The beginning of jazz music had its origins in “dixieland,
ragtime, blues, and other musical forms that had evolved in the pre–World War I
urban south, particularly in the African American community of New Orleans”
(Palmer). Originally, it was a very vocal genre, but as time progressed
(especially into “The Jazz Age”), it transitioned to being a spontaneous and
improvisational style of music that required many different kinds of
instruments.
In the early 1900’s, the “growing use of European
instruments” introduced brass and reed instruments to jazz bands. Previously,
they relied on vocals, guitar, and harmonicas. The “Negros” who started to play
this music in the south quickly became skilled musicians on the “tubas,
clarinets, trombones, and trumpets of the white marching bands” (Baraka). Even women began to learn and play the newly introduced instruments. The
addition of these European instruments gave the jazz bands a completely
different sound and style.
Most jazz bands in the 1920’s consisted of consisted of “three
voices (the cornet, the clarinet, and the trombone) and a rhythm section”
(Bacig). The rhythm section included the guitar, a piano, double bass, and
drums. This section was responsible for providing the beat, pulse, and harmonic
material for the musical piece. It allowed the “voices” of the band (usually
brass instruments) to be virtuosic and improvisational. This is one of the
reasons the saxophone and the trumpet became the prominent instruments in the
jazz bands during the Roaring Twenties; People were most familiar with these
instruments because they were always featured and had a distinctive sound that
were almost exclusive to jazz and classical music.
The mixture of traditional southern music styles and
European instruments gave many musicians in the 1920’s a medium of expression.
The new sound that this style of music created left a lasting impression in the
development of many social aspects the 1920’s and changed the course of music
forever.
Media Sources
This video introduces some common jazz instruments and how
they are played:
This video shows an all-women’s band of the 1930’s:
This video describes the rhythm section of a jazz band and
the instruments involved:
Primary Sources
Baraka, Imamu
Amiri. Blues people: Negro music in white America. New York: W. Morrow, 1963.
Print.
Palmer, Niall A..
The Twenties in America: politics and history. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2006. Print
Other Sources
Bacig, Tom.
"Jazz Culture: The 1920s." University of Minnesota Duluth. University
of Minnesota Duluth , n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/index.html>.
