History of Music

History of Music in NOLA
       New Orleans would never have produced its most famous music if it had not been for seemingly

unrelated events. Difficult economic times and a growing interest in popular music would fashion a springboard for an assortment of musical styles to coalesce into what would become a uniquely

American kind of music. However, the popularity of traditional New Orleans Jazz would be short lived. Louis Armstrong would shift jazz away from the ensemble work that defined it by ushering in the Age of the Soloist, this allowed jazz to be expanded beyond New Orleans. (Haliczer)
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, traditional African American music would for the backbone of these emergent genres. Played previously by former slaves, the blues would be the first to find a commercial outlet. Developed in the rural sharecroppers, the blues would be the first to find a commercial outlet. Developed in the rural south, the blues produced a
number or noteworthy musicians, including Robert Johnson and Scott Joplin. Both of the music they produced influenced the development of jazz.(Haliczer)

    In New Orleans, musicians started experimenting with brass band and sting ensembles by incorporating the musical structures of ragtime and the blues into their compositions. These experiments, which began in the early 1900's, would come to form the basis of Jazz. The first musician to emerge was Charles "Buddy" Bolden. He still stands tall as one of the great legendary figures of jazz, as he more than any other musician, is credited with it invention.

 Jazz was a controversial creation among the musicians of New Orleans. It divided New Orleans into two camps; black musicians from uptown who became jazz's first practitioners, and the downtown Creoles of color. These Creoles thought that jazz as vulgar and associated it with musicians who lacked a formal musical education. (Haliczer)
         This thoroughly modern and iconoclastic style of music was not initially well received by the mainstream. In fact, it was shunned by organizers of Mardi Gras parades for years. During the early years, may people considered this musical style to be scandalous and impudent, they criticized it at least as harshly as early critics of rock and roll denounced that music. Jazz was seen as a crude bastardization of more acceptable musical styles. But through time, jazz would win the hearts of even the harshest naysays, and today, there’s really no style of music for which the city is better regarded. (Martone)


Kaytlen







Haliczer, Jay. Whereyat.Com, 2020, https://www.whereyat.com/a-short-history-of-new-orleans-jazz.