Early Jazz
Early jazz carries the sound of crowded rooms, parade streets, and brass bands turning around one another in real time. The music often moves with a buoyant pulse, and the famous New Orleans-style frontline of cornet or trumpet, clarinet, and trombone can feel both tightly woven and delightfully loose, with collective improvisation doing much of the expressive work. The label is broader than any single substyle, though writers and listeners often use it alongside or instead of New Orleans jazz or Dixieland.
Origins and context
Library of Congress and related historical sources place the style’s beginnings in New Orleans around 1900, emerging from a local mix of African American traditions, ragtime, blues, and brass band music. (guides.loc.gov)
History
Early jazz took shape in New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century, in a city where African American musical traditions met blues, ragtime, brass bands, and other local dance music. Library of Congress materials place Dixieland jazz’s beginnings in New Orleans circa 1900, and note that ragtime-era musicians often called this newer, hotter music “ragtime” before “jazz” settled in as the common name. (guides.loc.gov) By 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band had made what the Library of Congress and Smithsonian describe as the first commercial jazz recording, and that release helped spread the sound far beyond New Orleans. From there, the style moved north into Chicago and New York, where figures such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton helped transform early ensemble jazz into something more flexible, more personal, and eventually much wider in reach. (loc.gov)
Notable artists
- LALouis Armstrong
- KOKing Oliver
- JRJelly Roll Morton
- ODOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band
Essential listening
- 1
- 2
Original Dixieland Jazz Band
- 3
- 4
Louis Armstrong House Museum biography
Explore connected genres
Sources and further reading
- Early Jazz Music (Backlash and Opposition): Topics in Chronicling America
- loc.gov
Ragtime was a common early label for this music before “jazz” became standard.
- Recording Registry Launched (March 2003)
- This Is the 'Jass' Record That Introduced Millions of Americans to a New Kind of Music
- blogs.loc.gov
Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton are central early jazz figures documented by the Library of Congress and Armstrong museum.
- louisarmstronghouse.org
Louis Armstrong’s biography notes his 1925 move into recording under his own name after New York and Chicago work.
- The First Jazz Recording: One Hundred Years Later