Jazz is a music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century, arguably earlier, within the African-American communities of the
Southern United States. Its roots lie in the adoption by African-Americans of European harmony and form, taking on those European elements and combining them into their existing African-based music. Its African musical basis is evident in its use of
blue notes,
improvisation,
polyrhythms,
syncopation and the
swung note. From its early development until the present day, jazz has also incorporated elements from popular music especially, in its early days, from
American popular music.
As the music has developed and spread around the world it has, since its early American beginnings, drawn on many different national, regional and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles:
New Orleans jazz dating from the early 1910s, big band
swing,
Kansas City jazz and
Gypsy jazz from the 1930s and 1940s,
bebop from the mid-1940s on down through
Afro-Cuban jazz,
West Coast jazz,
ska jazz,
cool jazz,
Indo jazz,
avant-garde jazz,
soul jazz,
modal jazz,
chamber jazz,
free jazz,
Latin jazz in various forms,
smooth jazz,
jazz fusion and
jazz rock,
jazz funk,
loft jazz,
punk jazz,
acid jazz,
ethno jazz,
jazz rap, cyber jazz,
M-Base,
nu jazz and other ways of playing the music.
Talking of
swing,
Louis Armstrong, one of the most famous musicians in jazz, said to
Bing Crosby on the latter's radio show, "Ah, swing, well, we used to call it
syncopation, then they called it
ragtime, then
blues, then jazz. Now, it's swing. White folks - yo'all sho is a mess!"
In a 1988 interview, trombonist
J. J. Johnson said, "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will".