A discussion of Jazz Music and its Comparisons to Computer Programming
A Brief, Incomplete, Inaccurate History
Jazz originated in the United States. It has been called everything from "degenerate music" and "musical masturbation" to "the one true American art form".
Jazz began in the late 19th Century in New Orleans. It was a combination of several influences:
Field songs
European musical tradition (imported to Louisiana by the French)
Blues
Spanish and Caribbean music
Minstrel shows
Jazz developed from Dixie Land, to Chicago Jazz, splitting to New York Jazz and the Kansas City Sound, reuniting to form Swing and the Big Band Era. Sorry, but Dixie Land developed from Jazz, not vice-versa. See below.
Jazz further permutated to Bebop, which begat Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, and Free Jazz. Meanwhile, Bebop's twin sister Jive begat R&B, Soul, Rock and Roll. More recently electronic music has been infused with Jazz to form Drum And Bass (often written as Drum N Bass). Rock and Roll is a direct descendent of the blues. R&B emerged from the combination of Jazz and Blues, and Soul, Bop, and all the others happened much later. The straight 12-bar and 8-bar I, IV, V progression of the classic delta blues forms the structural heart of virtually all early Jazz.
Of course, it isn't a simple family tree. Jazz influenced (and was influenced by) Classical Music, Blues, Latin Music, Country Music (Country Swing), Gospel, Opera (for example, George Gershwin's Porgy & Bess) and all the various types of Jazz mixed with each other.
Jazz was predominantly a North American invention (including Canada, due to the influences of the Casa Loma Orchestra, Jean Goldkette, and Oscar Peterson).
For most of its history, Jazz has been more popular outside the US than inside (Britain and France in the 1930s, to Japan in the 1970s to 1990s).
Although initial contributions were primarily by African American males (Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker), significant contributions were made by Caucasian American Males (Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Bix Beiderbecke), and American Women (Mary Lou Williams). Europeans (Marian Mc Partland, Django Reinhardt), Latin Americans (Chano Pozzo, Antonio Carlos Jobim) and Asians have made Jazz a world music.
This is a significantly sanitized summary of the origins of Jazz. Jazz originated in the then-legal brothels of New Orleans in the early 20th century, as entertainment for the waiting patrons. It was played, almost exclusively, by black men and women. The word "Jazz" was local African-American slang for the sex act (because of the music's origins in the brothels). The name and the music were considered vulgar and obscene by contemporary white society. Jazz was carried northward and outward in the African-American migrations of the great depression. The "contributions" made by the caucasian whites mentioned (which omits the most well-known example, Glenn Miller) were primarily to mainstream the music while impoverishing and exploiting the African-Americans who created it. Some of this was popularized in the movie "Cotton Club". Harlem, for example, during the "Jazz Age" was the home of expensive clubs where performers like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were permitted to perform (at great profit to the owners) but where those same performers were prohibited from eating, drinking, mingling with patrons, or otherwise participating in the whites-only operation of the exclusive clubs. Many sources have suggested that Jazz has always been popular outside the US because the blatant racism that blocked its widespread acceptance is primarily American. The history of Jazz, and the prominent role that racism played in it, is echoed in the similar history of blues -- which was popularized as Rock-and-Roll only after white artists like Elvis Presley and Johnny Rivers made fortunes performing material created by and for the African-American community. Finally, with all due respect to the Canadian contributors mentioned, Jazz was and is an indigenous American musical form. To suggest that Jazz is Canadian because of artists like Oscar Peterson is to argue that choral music is British because of artists like Handel.
My reckoning is that the blues grew out of the field songs of the pre civil war slaves (for example "Worksong" by Nat Adderly) on cotton plantations in the Southern United States. After slavery was banned many black people still lived on the same land, working the cotton as they could not afford to leave. The field songs soon developed the classic I - IV - V progression, common to the blues today. When playing, you can specify "A blues in G" and everyone knows what to do. After a while many musicians began to add variations to this, such as "II - V - I or III - VI - II - V - I" chord progressions. Theoretically, jazz evolved in a similar way, albeit with variations. (eg. "Rhythm Changes in C") This then eventually gave way to free jazz and avant garde.
Comparisons to Computer Programming
Jazz Music is probably the music with the closest similarities to computer programming.
Both have been dominated by males whose dedication borders on obsession. Both are strongly based in mathematics. How is this? Could the person who wrote this expand on the relation between jazz and mathematics? Both reward innovation as well as teamwork. Of course, computer programming pays better:
How do you make a million dollars playing jazz?
Start with two million.
Music is all to do with math. There are equations that are used to work out the pitch of a note (in terms of its frequencies) that can be applied to any instrument.
You can certainly make the case that math can describe aspects of music and can be used as one system for generating ideas or composing music, but most composers are not thinking about math when they compose. Most composers I know consider music more related to a language.
For listeners of English Radio, BBC Radio 3 broadcasts an afternoon of Jazz every Saturday.
See original on c2.com 