What about Jazz music?

    Hi American friends!

    So I'm gonna speak about jazz music for many reasons. The first is because I like it... I really began to like jazz a year and half ago when I saw the film Whiplash. Then I went to Blue Lake, a fine arts camp in Michigan last summer. I also discovered American daily life for three weeks and played jazz in a combo. The second is because playing rock'n roll is really amazing... but playing jazz multiply that feeling by 10.

    Jazz came from the ragtime, born of the jigs and march music played by African American bands in New Orleans in the USA in the late 18th century. 

    Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation. There is a lot of styles and genres of jazz: the Ragtime (from the 1890s), New Orleans jazz (from the 1910s), Swing (from the 1930s), Bebop (from the 1940s), free jazz (from the 1950s), hard bop (influenced by rhythm and blues, gospel and blues, from the 1950s too), jazz-rock fusion (combining jazz improvisation from the late 1960s), Afro-Cuban jazz (from the 2000s), ... Jazz gave birth to funk music too.

    The most famous jazz players and composers are Louis Amstrong (trompet player), Duke Ellington (pianist), Benni Goodman (clarinetist, the "King of Swing), Herbie Hancock (pianist), Charlie Parker (saxophonist, the "Bird"), Max Roach (drummer), Charles Mingus (bassist), Miles Davis (trumput player, pianist, bandleader), George Gershwin (pianist), Django Reinhardt (guitarist), ... 

    One of my favorite jazz players is a drummer called Jo Jones (aka "Papa Jo Jones", 1911 - 1985).  He influenced a lot of jazz drummers with his swing. He is one of the greatest drummers in jazz history. He is known for work with the Count Basie Orchestra and a lot of famous jazz players/singers like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Benny Goodman, ...

 "Sing sing sing" of Benny Goodman, one of my favourite jazz music!

"Moanin'" by Charles MINGUS, one of the music I played in Blue Lake: 

The famous Caravan of Ellington with a Jo Jones' drum solo

Whiplash TRAILER

Give me your opinion about all of this... and have a good listening,

Thomas