From Blues to Jazz
Bessie Smith
There is an argument that Blues is not Jazz. I argue that if a male dog and a female dog were to mate the offspring will be a puppy. Jazz is the off -spring of blues and African Music. The sadness and pain of the early blues music, to the slickness of jazz and sweetness, joy, and exuberance. Each of these forms of Jazz that are taken from that. Was spawned from the slow funeral dirges of New Orleans, going to the cemetery , to joyful expression and rhythmic sounds you hear when they are departing . To the St Louis and Chicago styles that came out of the Delta and were refined. To the New York , Philadelphia, hip and bee bop style and the West Coast cool laid back music. These were all apart of the evolution, expansion and maceration of Jazz.
Jazz has been partnered with every aspect, and genre of music. The phenomenon that is jazz, is always changing. The Great Grand Parents of Jazz is Spirituals of the woeful times of Slavery, Which bore it’s child, The Blues, and The Blues is the Grand Parents that was integrated into every culture. It was married to, bedded with, Kidnapped and impregnated with classical music, Latin music, European music and every other culture has put it’s spin on it. Jazz has sibling in every nation.
Jazz has a timelessness quality about it’s self. That can make the new old, and the old new. When you listen to Bessie Smith, It is no less enjoyable than to listen to Eric Benet. Carl”Sweetwater”Johnson
