Jazz is a music art form that was created solely in America. It is considered to be one of the most influential forms of music in American history. Not only did it originate in America but it is also one of the few art forms that have two distinctive sounds. The jazz sound is separated into classical jazz and jazz fusion (modern) jazz. Jazz is also one of the only forms of music for which college music majors are required to study several artists’ techniques as a semester course. Jazz music has been used in many forms of music in America. With all the respect that jazz has garnered around the world, unfortunately, the art form has lost popularity over the last 20 years. With the emergence of hip-hop, techno, and other music forms, young musicians of today do not find the music appealing or relevant. All the awards for jazz musicians have been moved off the national television award shows. There is also a movement to remove the jazz categories from the Grammy list completely. This paper will discuss the history of jazz, where it began, how it evolved, and its future.
To understand the future of jazz, one must understand what it really is and the instruments that were combined to make the ensemble. Jazz started to form early in the twentieth century in New Orleans. At that time, the sound was called Ragtime. This sound was produced by a band that included the string bass, drums, a guitar or banjo, and a "melodic section" with one or two cornets, a trombone, a clarinet, and sometimes even a violin. Years later, jazz was taken over by large orchestras; a "society jazz contained fifteen or more musicians. The musicians that came out of the Ragtime sound were Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton, Joseph ‘King’ Oliver, Scott Joplin, and Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong. Scott Joplin was very well known in the early stages of jazz”
