The folk songs and plantation dance music of black Americans contributed much to early jazz. These forms of music occurred throughout the Southern United States during the late 1800 s.
Ragtime, a musical style that influenced early jazz, emerged from the St. Louis, Mo., area in the late 1890 s. It quickly became the most popular music style in the United States. Ragtime was an energetic and syncopated variety of music, primarily for the piano, that emphasized formal composition.
The blues is a form of music that has always been an important part of jazz. The blues was especially widespread in the American South. Its mournful scale and simple repeated harmonies helped shape the character of jazz. Jazz instrumentalists have long exploited the blues as a vehicle for improvisation. Early jazz.
Fully developed jazz music probably originated in New Orleans at the beginning of the 1900 s. New Orleans style jazz emerged from the city s own musical traditions of band music for black funeral processions and street parades. Today, this type of jazz is sometimes called classic jazz, traditional jazz, or Dixieland jazz. New Orleans was the musical home of the first notable players and composers of jazz, including cornetists Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, cornetist and trumpeter Louis Armstrong, saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, and pianist Jelly Roll Morton.
Jazz soon spread from New Orleans to other parts of the country. Fate Marable led a New Orleans band that played on riverboats traveling up and down the Mississippi River. King Oliver migrated to Chicago, and Jelly Roll Morton performed throughout the United States. Five white musicians formed a band in New Orleans, played in Chicago, and traveled to New York City, calling themselves the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (the spelling was soon changed to "Jazz"). This group made the earliest jazz phonograph recordings in 1917. Mamie Smith recorded "Crazy Blues" in 1920, and recordings of ragtime, blues, and jazz of various kinds soon popularized the music to a large and eager public.