Blues and Jazz Influence Paper
The Influence of 1920 Blues and Jazz on Modern Music
Mark Carter
The Influence of 1920 Blues and Jazz on Modern Music This paper is will try to show how the music that started with singing of old songs by the slaves to influences the music that the world listens to today. Shaping the music of Rock and Roll, Country and Western, and Easy Listening that influences every aspect of society’s everyday life are Blues and Jazz. In an interview many years ago on television, heard by this student, John Lennon said that the biggest influence in his musical life was the Blues. John Lennon started listening to the Blues before listening to any other type of music; the result of this influence on him can easily be seen. Because of the influence of the Blues, John Lennon was one of the biggest influences in music history with the Beatles and then on his own. Director Martin Scorsese had this to say about the impact of the Blues to America: When listen to Lead Belly, or Son House, or Robert Johnson, or John Lee Hooker, or Charley Patton, or Muddy Waters, you're moved, your heart is shaken, you're carried and inspired by its visceral energy, and its rock solid emotional truth You go right to the heart of what it is to be human, the condition of human. That's the Blues (Scorsese, nd). This student will start this paper with a short history of Blues because it was from Blues that Jazz was born. Blues was born in the southern states in the Mississippi delta area out of a need: a need for the slaves to express themselves in a way that their masters would not punish them for practicing. These songs used their field hollers (used for communicating across the distances of the fields), their work songs, their plantation dances, ballads, and church music to express the pain and anguish they were living combined with the rhythms and beats brought with them from Africa. This evolved into the music that would soon become the soul and heart
Mark Carter
The Influence of 1920 Blues and Jazz on Modern Music This paper is will try to show how the music that started with singing of old songs by the slaves to influences the music that the world listens to today. Shaping the music of Rock and Roll, Country and Western, and Easy Listening that influences every aspect of society’s everyday life are Blues and Jazz. In an interview many years ago on television, heard by this student, John Lennon said that the biggest influence in his musical life was the Blues. John Lennon started listening to the Blues before listening to any other type of music; the result of this influence on him can easily be seen. Because of the influence of the Blues, John Lennon was one of the biggest influences in music history with the Beatles and then on his own. Director Martin Scorsese had this to say about the impact of the Blues to America: When listen to Lead Belly, or Son House, or Robert Johnson, or John Lee Hooker, or Charley Patton, or Muddy Waters, you're moved, your heart is shaken, you're carried and inspired by its visceral energy, and its rock solid emotional truth You go right to the heart of what it is to be human, the condition of human. That's the Blues (Scorsese, nd). This student will start this paper with a short history of Blues because it was from Blues that Jazz was born. Blues was born in the southern states in the Mississippi delta area out of a need: a need for the slaves to express themselves in a way that their masters would not punish them for practicing. These songs used their field hollers (used for communicating across the distances of the fields), their work songs, their plantation dances, ballads, and church music to express the pain and anguish they were living combined with the rhythms and beats brought with them from Africa. This evolved into the music that would soon become the soul and heart
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