Jazz & Blues
Improvisation, swing and blue notes: the roots of 20th-century American music.
Jazz and blues are the source of almost all modern pop. Here they split into four groups by era and character: early jazz and swing, modern jazz, smooth and lounge, and blues.
What they share
- Improvisation
- Swing feel or blue notes
- Mostly acoustic instruments
Branches
- Early Jazz & Swing
From ragtime piano to swing big bands: jazz's earliest dancing years.
Modern & Vocal JazzFrom bebop to fusion: jazz becomes an art for listening.
Smooth & LoungeSilky, relaxed background jazz with a hint of the exotic.
BluesTwelve bars, blue notes and string bends: pain sung into groove.
All styles
- Ragtime
A hopping left hand and a playfully syncopated right: saloon piano from the early 1900s, jazz's grandparent.
- Swing / Big Band
A whole horn section swinging together, so nobody on the dance floor can stay still.
- Gypsy Jazz
Acoustic guitar "la pompe" strumming and violin, a lively Paris café night.
- Jazz
Within shared harmony and groove, everyone gets to say their own piece in the moment.
- Bebop
Fast, complex harmony and virtuoso improvisation took jazz from the ballroom into small clubs to be listened to.
- Cool Jazz
Slower, softer, more space: jazz's calm side, like a trumpet in blue shade.
Vocal JazzCandlelight, a piano trio and one singer: jazz standards sung lazy, sultry and unhurried.
Jazz FusionJazz improvisation plus the electric force of rock and funk, complex yet grooving hard.
Acid JazzJazz, funk, soul and hip-hop samples dancing together in a London basement.
- Smooth Jazz
Soft sax, round grooves and smooth harmony, background music for city twilight.
- Lounge
Cocktails, velvet sofas and piano trio, relaxed with a hint of retro space-age.
- Bossa Nova
Samba's heartbeat turned down low, like someone whispering to you by the sea.
- Delta Blues
One acoustic guitar, a bottleneck slide and a rough voice: the earliest, rawest blues from the Mississippi riverbank.
- Blues
Hardship sung into twelve bars, giving sorrow a shape you can sway to together.
- Chicago / Electric Blues
Blues plugged in: crying string bends and wailing harmonica, a small Chicago bar on a winter night.