New Orleans Jazz Music | Overview, History, & Musicians

New Orleans Jazz Music History

There are many factors that contributed to the creation of jazz, but one factor was New Orleans' historic
commitment to music and dance. New Orleans had the first opera house in North America, for
example, and many European musical traditions were brought from the old world to the new. Long
before jazz was created, musical events were a huge part of the city. There were formal balls,
European dances, and marching bands that regaled the recently departed during funerals. From the
south, the sounds from Cuba and the Caribbean were brought over from traveling musicians.

Another factor that created the rich musical heritage of New Orleans is the distinctive Black experience
in New Orleans. Although the city was certainly a major slave port and remained heavily segregated
long after slavery was abolished, people of different races were able to mix in New Orleans, much more
than other American cities. Blacks, whites, and Creoles lived together in New Orleans, creating a
patchwork community of different races and cultures. Due to this fact, and due to New Orleans' location
on the Mississippi Delta, many itinerant musicians from the region were drawn to steamboats and the
promise of earning easy money.

The French Quarter in New Orleans.

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New Orleans as the Birthplace of Jazz

While jazz was created in New Orleans, it wasn't created specifically in any particular neighborhood.
There were many factors that lead to the synergy that created jazz. Enslaved Africans were allowed to
worship and conduct their African religious practices in Congo Square, an area that is today part of
Louis Armstrong Park on the edge of the French Quarter. Storyville, also known as the "District", was
the legendary tenderloin district in New Orleans, which operated legally between 1897 and 1917.
Prostitution was permitted, but musicians could also find work playing in the brothels and dancehalls.
The district helped expose the new music to a wider audience. Several brothels had a piano
"professor", but most musicians in the district were employed in dance bands in clubs and restaurants
such as Pete Lala's, the 101 Ranch, the Fewclothes Cabaret, the Tuxedo Dance Hall, and the Big 25.

Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would commute via ferry between both cities to perform. Not
surprisingly, the habanera, a Spanish inspired dance that was very popular in Cuba, quickly took root in
New Orleans. The symphonic work "La Nuit des Tropiques" by New Orleans native Louis Moreau
Gottschalk was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba. For the more than quarter-century in
which the cakewalk, ragtime, and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a
consistent part of African American popular music.

Ragtime was also very popular, and in fact was the predominant style of American music at the time.
Rhythmic and propulsive, ragtime was a form of proto-jazz containing the basic building blocks that
would go on to become jazz. The grand era of the Mississippi river boats also played a significant role
in the development and spread of jazz from New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century. A
young Louis Armstrong received valuable musical training playing in dance bands aboard the
steamboats that traveled up and down the Mississippi. Armstrong, the renowned trumpeter who later
become a jazz icon, is possibly the most famous jazz musician from New Orleans.

In addition, during the slavery era, New Orleans was home to the largest population of free Black,
mixed race, and Creole people. Many of these people had access to European instruments and in
some instances created bands that performed at the city's balls and concerts. To this potent mixture
was added spiritual music from the church and blues music carried into town by itinerant guitar players,
minstrel shows, military marching bands, and the syncopation of the ragtime piano which became
America's most popular music for a time in the early 20th century. Added to this was the key ingredient
of improvisation, an element that lends jazz its creative and lively nature.

The Jazz Age

While rooted in New Orleans, the city's jazz pioneers traveled extensively for work. This artistic
diaspora was accelerated when the city's official red light district, Storyville, was ordered closed by the
federal government in 1917, thus shuttering the saloons and bordellos that had proved such reliable
venues for early jazz musicians. Wherever the musicians went they played, and the sound stuck, later

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evolving on its own into differentiated styles in Chicago, New York, Kansas City, and West Coast cities.
As the 1920s progressed, jazz rose in popularity and helped to generate a cultural shift. Because of its
popularity in speakeasies, illegal nightclubs where alcohol was sold during Prohibition, and its
proliferation due to the emergence of more advanced recording devices, jazz became very popular in a
short amount of time, with stars including Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Chick Webb.

Several famous entertainment venues such as the Apollo Theater and the Cotton Club came to
epitomize the Jazz Age. Louis Armstrong was profoundly influential in spreading jazz music across the
United States and around the world. Louis Armstrong was the protege of King Oliver and one of the
best loved musicians of the time. He was an all-star virtuoso and came to prominence in the 1920s
playing cornet and trumpet with an exciting new and improvisational style. His charismatic stage
presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music.

Louis Armstrong

Big Bands, Swing, and International Jazz

In the 1920s, jazz bandleaders began to lead big bands that developed out of the smaller jazz combos
that were prevalent during that time. The record industry, which was just getting started, attracted
musicians to big American cities like Chicago and New York. The pianist and bandleader Fletcher
Henderson was a key figure in establishing big band music, employing accomplished musicians like
Louis Armstrong, and saxophonists like Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter. Henderson's bands were
pioneers in creating harmonized arrangements for large ensembles. Even Armstrong, whose work with
his smaller combos had been so successful, began working with an orchestra.

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In the post-World War II period, jazz experienced a series of groundbreaking revolutions with every
decade. From the frenetic harmonic complexities of bebop in the 1940s, to the cool modal jazz of the
1950s and the emergence of free jazz in the 1960's, jazz was in a constant state of flux.
Simultaneously, it spawned a score of sub-genres (hard bop, spiritual jazz, soul jazz), and introduced
new slang words like "cool", "hip", and "man".

By the 1970s, however, jazz was in the shadow of rock 'n roll. As a result, jazz musicians started
incorporating more electric instruments, most notably instruments like electric basses and the Fender
Rhodes electric piano. The move from traditional jazz generated a neoclassical reaction in the 1980s,
most notably led by New Orleans-born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis as he tried to establish a return to
older forms of the genre. Jazz by the this time had been embraced as American classical music, and
was regularly showcased in cultural institutions like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

Additional Info

New Orleans: The Birthplace of Jazz

There is very little doubt that New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz music. New Orleans jazz is also
sometimes referred to as Dixieland or early jazz. Exactly what styles predated and influenced the
emergence of jazz is a hotly debated topic, but few jazz scholars dispute that New Orleans was the site
of this coalescence. In the bars, brothels, and dance halls of New Orleans, ambitious and creative
musicians crafted one of the defining features of American music during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.

Origins and Early Examples

After the Civil War, African-American former slaves came to New Orleans in large numbers looking for
a better existence than the brutal agricultural work available in the rural South. While the North's victory
in the Civil War brought an end to slavery for African-Americans, it also brought uncertainty and
economic chaos.

New Orleans was a very different place than anywhere else in the South, with its mixture of French,
Spanish, African-American, Creole, Cajun, and numerous other ethnicities. New Orleans also had a
reputation for having a vibrant nightlife, particularly in the notorious red light district known
as Storyville where citizens could drink and carouse and musicians would always be needed.

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The red light district of New Orleans, Storyville, around 1909

The military bands of the Civil War had left behind brass instruments like trumpets and trombones, as
well as woodwind instruments like the clarinet, which would be put to inventive use by early jazz
musicians in the years to come. Migrants from the Mississippi Delta also brought with them the vibrant,
distinctive folk tradition of that region: the blues. The music of the African-American Baptist church was
also a deeply important factor in the development of jazz.

Ragtime music was the first clear precursor to jazz and can even be considered an early form of proto-
jazz. Ragtime focused on versions of older vaudeville, folk, or popular tunes with liberal use of
improvisation and syncopation. The syncopation that ragtime was famous for involved stressing the
beats in a tune that would normally not be stressed. This technique gave ragtime an unusual, jaunty
quality.

Riverboats to Chicago
By the early 20th century, ragtime had progressed into a more complicated form. Bands were becoming
larger and techniques were becoming more distinctive. Early jazz and ragtime music existed prior to the
advent of recording technologies and was rarely notated; by the second decade of the twentieth
century this began to change.

Jelly Roll Morton was a New Orleans band leader who arranged, composed, and notated many
important early jazz standards like 'Jelly Roll Blues,' and 'Wolverine Blues.' As jazz began to be written
down and recorded, its influence spread and its style progressed.

Jelly Roll Morton, around 1917

Jazz musicians could sometimes find work playing on the riverboats the traveled up the Mississippi
River from New Orleans. This allowed a wider audience to hear jazz and brought the style to places
outside of New Orleans like Kansas City, Memphis, and eventually Chicago. One of these riverboat

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musicians was a young trumpet player named Louis Armstrong. After perfecting his chops on the
riverboats, Armstrong would go on to become the most celebrated jazz performer of his generation and
an important ambassador for the genre.

A New Orleans Jazz band performing on a riverboat around 1918, featuring a young Louis Armstrong

Although New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, Chicago was an important hub for jazz musicians,
and African-Americans more generally, who hoped to flee the Jim Crow laws and rampant racism of the
Deep South. As the riverboats from New Orleans brought more jazz musicians to Chicago, jazz
continued to gain in popularity. Eventually, traditional New Orleans jazz would morph into styles like hot
jazz, swing, big band, and bebop.

The Legacy of New Orleans Jazz

The cultural significance of New Orleans jazz is profound. Jazz has been referred to by numerous
commentators as the quintessential American music, and New Orleans jazz is the most fundamental
version of jazz.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where does jazz music originate from?

Jazz music originates from New Orleans, Louisiana where it was fostered and nurtured. As
musicians from New Orleans traveled throughout the United States, they brought jazz with them to
the cities they visited.

What defines jazz music?

Jazz is a complex form of music defined by polyrhythmic syncopation, call and response, and
improvisation. It is largely instrumental.

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Why is New Orleans considered the birthplace of jazz?

New Orleans is considered the birthplace of jazz, because it developed from the ragtime, African
religious worship, blues, and Cuban music that was found in the city. Races were allowed to live
together in New Orleans, creating the environment that created jazz.

What type of jazz is played in New Orleans?

All kinds of jazz music is played in New Orleans: traditional jazz, Dixieland, swing, bebop, and
Latin jazz. As the birthplace of jazz music, New Orleans is home to all forms of jazz music.

Who is the most famous jazz musician in New Orleans?

Louis Armstrong, the jazz trumpeter and bandleader, has probably done more to be an
ambassador of jazz than any other artist. Originally from New Orleans, he typified the spirit of the
jazz age.

Who first invented jazz music?

While one person did not invent jazz, jazz did come about because of the unique cultural cross
pollination that could only have occurred in New Orleans. It was a multicultural environment, and
the city had a culture that appreciated music and dance.

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