3 Antecedents (Starts of Jazz)
You don't have to read the book, but whatever topic we cover you can look at to reinforce is in the book. It's more of a supplemental thing. Today it'd be chapters 3 and 4.
One of the wonderful things about Jazz (Definition) is that the US (specifically North America, and very specifically New Orleans) was really the only place it could've been born. It's a melting pot of culture and music.
Mainly, the slavery movement to the US saw banned music for slaves (since they didn't want to have the slaves incite rebellion by communication). Slaves would pat their body instead to remake these instruments, which was called Patin Juba. All of this was specifically from countries in West Africa.
Namely in West Africa they didn't have the distinction of Major/Minor scales. Instead, they had unique notes in the scale (like the b3), since they weren't limited really to any musical system. There are 4 musical traditions to note here:
- Polyrhythm applied in Patin Juba
- Blue Notes
- Call And Response (ex: Trading 4's)
- Improvisation
Cultural Influences
This was all brought into the US. Before the Europeans were stuck with the (I IV V) progression (and ones like it). The slaves would hear these hymns outside the white churches and mix it with their own culture. They started adding blue notes, polyrhythm, ... which eventually turns into Jazz Form#Twelve-Bar Blues.
But church music wasn't the only type of music. Marching band music also was pulled into the slave cultural music. Marching bands in EU were all different by country. New Orleans, in 1718 (when it was founded by the French before the Louisiana Purchase, which was first taken over by Spain then given back, then purchased by the US) was definitely diverse. A lot of different cultures were there, so we had a French marching band music in NO. How did French straight-eighth marching band music become jazz music?
One aside is that NO also had the Creoles (and of Color).
The Combined Result
What occured, after the mixing of all of this, created the first instance of Ragtime, which was developing alongside The Blues amongst the slaves specifically.
Field-haulers were single-voice slaves that sung while working to make the day go by better. Blue mixed blue notes with the EU style of music, and these field-haulers sometimes had a guitar and were able to create this mix.
This field-music can be seen in Levee Camp Holler (recorded by Alan Lomax) on the plantations. White Americans would journal how this sounded so different (with the blue notes and whatnot) to what they'd heard prior. Even the rhythm of how they are chopping the wood became part of the music in Po Lazarus. (Note: once you get away from slave traditions, you can hear a quarter play it and contrast, while it tells the same story). Another jail recording was Can't You Line 'Em which has the field-hauler aspect again.
Heck even the fish vendors are doing the same in a musical way. Many vendors would be singing throughout New Orleans. Liebestraum was a EU twist that turned from that EU simple and classical melody to this street recording in New Orleans. That tells us that it was common to reinterpret a EU piece of music and put a jazzy twist to it.
Another field recording was in West Africa itself. We can hear what it was like (Dance of the Hunters) before it came to America. You can hear how it feels more tribal (not as an insult) and without that mixing. But they still have those blue notes, swing feel, focus on percussion, and even Call And Response.
But now we can mix that with straight hymn music (1913) to create this gospel music.
Lastly, the marching band also mixed, especially after the Civil War (where a lot of freed slaves became musicians) helped mixed things up. Here, you started seeing the West African music influence the marching band sound (note: this is a more recent recording, but the idea is the same idea) with Big 4. Notice that Dee Dee Chandler would import a lot of these changes into more standard jazz.