Jazz has a unique place among the American cultural consciousness–even today, around 80 to 100 years after jazz’s mainstream heyday, there is still a sort of ubiquitous, background awareness of jazz as a cornerstone of American culture. In today’s world of discorporal and disposable music, jazz is increasingly becoming music of the shelves and shadows, but strains of it can be heard in almost every genre of today’s music.
Jazz is a genre that took me years to fully discover and finally come around to liking, but it now makes up a pretty large portion of what I listen to these days. As a music lover, I am drawn to jazz because it makes up such a deep, diverse, and significant part of the American record canon. Jazz at its core is artisanal, deeply emotional urban folk music that stretches out across time, forming a window into the gilded ballrooms and smoky clubs of America’s past, connecting us to our artistic ancestors. I hope that by sharing what I’ve learned about understanding jazz as a member of Gen-Z, I can help to spark your interest as well.
The structure of jazz
In my final semester of college, my History of Jazz professor, local drummer and educator Todd Reid, told us on the first day of class that if people just understood one specific, fundamental aspect of jazz, then perhaps 50% more people would become jazz listeners.
That aspect is the structure! Over generations, listeners have become unknowingly programmed with an understanding that most music abides by a verse-chorus structure. Typically, most tunes you hear will follow some variation of the following structure:
Intro → Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Bridge → Chorus → Outro
Jazz however, typically follows a structure that looks more like this:
Head → Solos → Head
Or put differently:
Chorus (Head) → Chorus (Solo) → Chorus (Solo) → Chorus (Solo) → Chorus (Head)
So what do these terms even mean? A chorus in jazz, similar to pop and rock, is a section made up of a certain length of time, consistently decorated with a set progression of chords. So effectively, all jazz tunes that follow this structure can be understood simply as the chorus repeating over and over for the duration of the song.
The head, as it is called, is where the band plays the main melody of the song all together over the first instance of the chorus. After the band has finished playing through the head, they begin taking solos over the following choruses. Each solo involves a member of the band taking the lead by improvising a melody over the length of one or two choruses, while the rest of the band maintains the rhythm and chords underneath. Once the band has finished playing through the solos, they play the head one last time to conclude the tune.
So in summary, jazz tunes are like sandwiches–everyone plays together, everyone takes turns soloing, then everyone plays together again. And then you, my friend–the listener, get to eat the sandwich.
The many faces of jazz
Despite the fact that jazz has had somewhat of a reputation as a four-letter word due to bad actors like Kenny G and elevators, Jazz remains one of the most diverse and original genres of live and recorded American music. It has gone through many iterations, dancing in and out of both the mainstream and the underground over the years.
In order to know where to start listening, it can be helpful to understand the distinct sounds of the different eras of jazz. For the best listening experience, I have also included a recommended beverage and experience to pair with each style of music.
1. Early Jazz (1910s-’20s): Most of the music from this era is what we think of as “old-timey” music. Jazz emerged in New Orleans at the hands of working class African-American communities who fused ideas from blues, ragtime, spiritual music, and work songs. This era also saw the rise of Louis Armstrong, one of America’s first popstars to reach the massive heights of fame that he managed to achieve.
Recommended Listening: Louis Armstrong
Paired with: An Old Fashioned and a stroll in the park.
2. Swing Era (‘30s-’40s): This is the kind of jazz your high school jazz band was probably infamous for. This is the era when jazz was at the peak of its mainstream popularity, thanks to the explosion of access to recorded music made possible by innovations in the record business and radio broadcasting. The great depression led to the rise of big bands, who pioneered that large ensemble sound that we associate with swing music. Still kinda old-timey but classy and highly danceable.
Recommended Listening: Sinatra, Frank – Collected
Paired with: A Manhattan and an unexpected rooftop romance.
3. Bebop (‘40s-’50s): Post-WWII, jazz gets really crazy for a hot second. Bebop emerged from the big band craze with an emphasis on smaller bands, faster tempos, and a much more complex and intellectual approach to rhythm and harmony. Dancing was out, chops were in. Some of these soloists could blow modern metal guitarists out of the water, holy cow.
Recommended Listening: Charlie Parker – Ornithology
Paired With: A triple espresso and a jaunt on I-25 around 5:00 PM.
4. Hard Bop/Cool Jazz/Modal Jazz (‘50s-’60s): This is the kind of jazz that makes you want to grab your cigarettes and coffee, find a streetside table, and really soak in the moment. Taking what they learned from bebop, the jazz musicians of the late ‘50s–onwards pulled back on the complexity and speed of the music, incorporating influences from soul, gospel, and latin music into their solos and compositions. This era saw the emergence of Miles Davis and his subsequent role as the primary driving force of jazz development for the next 40 years.
Recommended Listening: Miles Davis – Kind of Blue, John Coltrane – Giant Steps
Paired With: A vodka martini and some urban people-watching.
5. Free Jazz/Avant-Garde Jazz (‘60s-): Simultaneously the most peaceful, chaotic, and spiritual category of jazz, free/avant-garde jazz musicians took it upon themselves to deconstruct the core elements of jazz in order to craft experimental and deeply spiritual soundscapes. Fun fact: avant-garde is French for “advance guard.”
Recommended Listening: Pharoah Sanders – Thembi, John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Paired With: A full nalgene of filtered tap water and some meditation by a river.
6. Jazz Fusion (‘70s-): With rock taking center stage towards the end of the 60s, jazz musicians started incorporating influences from rock music into their compositions, creating a spectrum of energy and complexity across the outbreak of fusion records. Recording fidelity started noticeably improving in this era, especially rolling into the 80s with the onset and implementation of digital music technology.
Recommended Listening: Frank Zappa – Hot Rats, Miles Davis – Bitches Brew, Masayoshi Takanaka – All of Me
Paired With: A pina colada and the best sofa that you have access to.
Some more recommended listening in other notable jazz styles worth checking out:
Latin Jazz: Getz & Gilberto
Vocal Jazz: Billie Holiday – Songs For Distingue Lovers, Nina Simone – You’ve Got to Learn
Ethio-Jazz: Hailu Mergia & The Walias – Tche Belew, Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Inspiration Information
Modern Jazz: Nala Sinephro – Space 1.8, Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra – Promises
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