No other genre of music touches the soul like the music, rhythm, sound and beat of jazz and blues which got its start in the early 20th century in the United States. Jazz music has structure, discipline and organization. The music has fundamentals and a foundation that cannot be made up. To play jazz, most musicians are well trained and are able to understand, feel and hear right away the capabilities of other musicians.
The jazz greats such as: Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, Miles Davis, Pat Methany, Dizzy Gillespie, Wes Montgomery were all trained at music schools with the exception of Montgomery. When you hear these great musicians play or when you hear great jazz, what you hear is perfection. You feel and hear every note in your body as a great jazz musician tells a story through his or her music Jazz is not just something you hear, its music that you feel and live with everyday. Unlike most popular music, at the heart of jazz lies the improvisation of all three music components: melody, harmony and rhythm, which implies freshness, originality and, at its best, enchantment.
As far as blues music, what we have is not simply sound and music but true and real emotion and feeling. Blues gives its listeners and audience an emotional and spiritual natural feeling that’s about the true pain and suffering that a person endures and the survival instincts that are within each of us to endure.
Blues greats such as: Willie Dixon, Pinetop Perkins, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Albert King, Freddie King, T.Bone Walker had no musical training or education. There musicians were playing their way to freedom by making a living that would one day to lead them out of the cotton fields. They were not simply playing the music. If these blues greats just played the music, it would feel empty and soulless.
Blues and Jazz is part of American culture and a part of who we are today. This genre of music touches our soul and is uniquely American and helps tell the story of endurance, perseverance, survival and will to live and overcome. By listening the blues and jazz we learn a little about ourselves and who we are and this style of music is something should always be appreciated and played and never forgotten. Blues and Jazz is as American as apple pie.
Melvin Taylor is a blues, jazz and rock artist. More on his music at www.MelvinTaylorMusic.com.
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