The story of jazz

Music comes in many forms; most countries have a style of their own. Poland has its polkas. Hungary has its czardas. Brazil is famous for the bossa nova, Caribbean countries for the merengue, and Argentina for the tango. The U.S. is known for jazz, a completely original type of music that has gained worldwide popularity.

Jazz is America's contribution to popular music. In contrast to classical music, which follows formal European traditions, jazz is spontaneous and free-form. It bubbles with energy, expressing the moods, interests, and emotions of the people. Brash, uninhibited, exciting, it has a modern sound. In the 1920s jazz sounded like America. And so it does today.

The origins of this music are as interesting as the music itself. Jazz was invented by American Negroes, or blacks, as they are called today, who were brought to the southern states as slaves. They were sold to plantation owners and forced to work long hours in the cotton andtobacco fields. This work was hard and life was short. When a Negro died, his friends and relatives formed a procession to carry the body to the cemetery.

In New Orleans, a band often accompanied the procession. On the way to the cemetery the band played slow, solemn music suited to the occasion. On the way home the mood changed. Spirits lifted. Everybody was happy.

Death had removed one of their number, but the living were glad to be alive. The bandplayed happy music, improvising on both the harmony and the melody of the tunes presented at the funeral. This music made everyone want to dance. It was an early form of jazz. But there were other influences, too.

Music has always been important in Negro life. Coming mainly from West Africa, the blacks who were brought to America already possessed a rich musical tradition. This music centered on religious ceremonies in which dancing, singing, clapping, and stamping to the beat of a drum were important forms of musical and rhythmic expression.

As these people settled in to their new life on the plantations of the South, music retained its importance. In the fields, they made up work songs. Singing made the hard work go faster. And as the people were converted to Christianity, they composed lovely spirituals, which have become a permanent part of American music. Another musical form that contributed to jazz was the blues.

Blues songs, such as W. C. Handy's " St. Louis Blues", always describe something sad – an unhappy love affair, a money problem, bad luck. To this day, the expression " feeling blue" means being sad or depressed.

In fact, there was hardly any activity or social event that could not be set to music. Weddings, births, christenings, funerals, picnics, parades – all had their musical accompaniment.

All of this became more important after the American Civil War (1861-1865). By then the Negroes had gained their freedom and were ready for a new type of music, one that would preserve their musical traditions but be fast and happy to express their new-found freedom. They wanted something they could play as professional musiciansfor both black and white audiences. Jazz was the answer. It combined themes from Negro work songs, spirituals, and blues, set to a fast beat, with the musicians improvising as they went along, like the funeral marching bands. But one element was still needed to make this music popular — a city.

Jazz needs bars, cafes, and dance halls, and it needs people in search of uninhibited entertainment. These conditions were provided in the honky-tonk sections of New Orleans, a busy seaport on the Gulf of Mexico. During the day this city was businesslike; at night it wanted fun.

New Orleans, having belonged first to France, then to Spain, then to France again, was very cosmopolitan and sophisticated about entertainment. When the city passed to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, a tolerant view of vice was part of its history.

By the 1900s New Orleans had become a commercial and trading center for the world. Ships of every nation docked there, and in the evening the sailors went into town. Soldiers from a large army camp nearby also visited the city looking for fun.New Orleans provided plenty of gaiety and bright lights in a disreputable district called Storyville, which was filled with bars, dance halls, and bordellos. Each of these places had its own orchestra, and this helped to popularize the new music. Jazz was on its way.

In those early days the orchestras were small. They usually consisted of seven instruments— a trumpet, a cornet, a clarinet, a piano, a trombone, a banjo, and a set of drums. Each was played by a specialist, a real virtuoso. Baby Dodds played the drums, for instance, and King Oliver the cornet. This music was not written down. In fact, much of it was improvised on the spot. To be good, a musician had not only to remember his part but also to be able to invent new variations on the spur of the moment. That is what makes songs like " Beale Street Blues, " " Basin Street Blues" (both named after streets in New Orleans) and " When the Saints Go Marching In" so exciting. They were never played exactly the same way twice.

Jazz belongs to the people, but popular taste is changeable. Jazz had to keep up-to-date. Over the last half century it has changed many times in form, style, and tempo. Each change added something new. In today's usage jazzincludes not only Dixieland, the original name for this music, but also bebop, progressive jazz, swing, and boogie-woogie. Rock'n'roll, while not strictly a form of jazz, is nevertheless an outgrowth of it. All are imaginative and improvisational, with great freedom in harmony and instrumentation. The late jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton summed up jazz as " playing more music than you can put on paper".

Task 3. Answer the questions on the text:

1. What is America’s contribution to popular music?

2. How does jazz sound?

3. What does jazz express?

4. What did jazz sound like in the 1920s?

5. What are the origins of jazz?

6. What did jazz need to become popular? Why?

7. Why did New Orleans become the right city for the development of jazz?

8. What instruments did first jazz orchestras consist of?

9. What are the main features of a jazz performance?

10. Do you know any outgrowths of jazz?

Task 4. Translate the following words and word combinations from Russian into English:

· Завоевать всемирную популярность;

· бурлить энергией;

· обладать богатыми музыкальными традициями;

· происхождение этой музыки;

· складывать рабочие песни;

· импровизировать с мелодией;

· неотъемлемая часть американской музыки;

· положить слова на музыку;

· сохранять свои музыкальные традиции;

· импровизировать по ходу исполнения;

· под влиянием момента;

· шагать в ногу со временем;

· свободный по форме;

· в отличие от чего-либо;

· великолепные духовные песнопения;

· сопровождать.

Task 5. Give definitions or paraphrase the word combinations and recall the context they were used in:

o Music comes in many forms.

o to invent new variations on the spur of the moment

o to have tolerant view of vice

o to bubble with energy

o The music centred on religious ceremonies.

o to be on one’s way

o to be cosmopolitan

o to compose lovely spirituals

o to accompany smth

o to be an outgrowth of smth

o to play more music than you can put on paper

Task 6. Paraphrase the underlined vocabulary units in the text in the written form. Make up 5 fresh-context sentences with the word combinations you like most.

Task 7. Write a summary of the text “The story of jazz”.

— SPEAKING

Task 8. Compare classical music and jazz by completing the chart below. Be ready to talk about differences between these musical genres.