The Weary Blues

Hughes’ poetry is closely connected to jazz music. In fact, he founded the style of poetry called “jazz poetry,” in which the rhythm of the poem when spoken aloud mirrors the sounds that jazz music make. Hughes is also celebrated for his portrayal of the nuances of life as an African-American in the 1920s.

Hughes, like others active in the Harlem Renaissance, had a strong sense of racial pride. Through his poetry, novels, plays, essays, and children’s books, he promoted equality, condemned racism and injustice, and celebrated African American culture, humor, and spirituality.

Poets once constrained by the formalities of traditional poetry were able to take the improvisational, rhythmic, and raw expression of jazz and infuse it with their writing. This deeply personal yet collaborative art form was championed by influential poets like Langston Hughes.

Throughout the 1920s, jazz music evolved into an integral part of American popular culture. Fashion in the 1920s was another way in which jazz music influenced popular culture. The Women’s Liberation Movement was furthered by jazz music, as it provided means of rebellion against set standards of society.

Langston Hughes

Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues”, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s.

Remembering Max Roach, Rhythmic Innovator : NPR. Remembering Max Roach, Rhythmic Innovator Drummer Max Roach died August 16th, 2007 at the age of 83. A primary architect of the bebop revolution, Roach was one of the most innovative and influential musicians in jazz.

Blues involves guitar, bass, piano, harmonica, drums, saxophone, vocals, trumpet, trombone, and sometimes fiddle. Jazz involves a guitar, piano, bass, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, drums, and tuba. Jazz is usually instrumental, while Blues almost always contains lyrics.

The social significance of Blues music resides in the revolutionary element of African Americans creating their own aesthetics. Blues music represented the opposing voice that refused to be silenced by oppression and segregation. The Blues expressed this with unprecedented clarity, honesty and simplicity.

Rooted in African American spiritual music, blues became a prevalent style in jazz and early rock and roll. While strongly identified with vocal music, blues can also be instrumental. Based on a standard 12-bar harmonic progression, the blues lends itself to vocals and instrumental solos.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat (groove), electrified sounds and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. Similar genres include soul jazz and jazz fusion, but neither entirely overlap with jazz-funk.

Technically Ragtime isn’t really jazz because it does not involve improvisation, but ragtime ran a parallel career to the early New Orleans jazz and featured similar melodies and rhythms. A simple way to look at ragtime is to consider it as a form of composed jazz, or possibly America’s first classical music.