Linda Edition Mapper

Listen & compare

▶ Duga — Cordes Anciennes — Sidiki Diabaté & Djelimady Sissoko (1970)

← Back to genre pageView in pathway

The Birth of Jazz

Formed in

New Orleans

Brass-band port city of early jazz

Scroll down to follow the journey from source to birth

1970 — the year the kora first became the sole star of a recording
Original A

West African microtonal flexibility and improvisatory rhythmic feel — the source of the syncopated pulse that ragtime and brass bands would inherit.

Now playing
1899 — the year ragtime was formalized as popular music
Original B

European functional harmony and brass-band / marching-band orchestration — the harmonic and instrumental side jazz absorbed through ragtime.

After · Jazz
New Orleans
Jazz

Livery Stable Blues

Original Dixieland Jass Band — 1917

Jazz

New Orleans

Recorded in February 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jass Band — the first jazz record on a 78 rpm disc. Brass improvisation and ragtime piano formalized African rhythmic feel as mass-market music over European harmony.

The disc that first formalized improvisatory jazz as popular music.

Two sources become one genre

What to listen for

  • 01 The intuitive change

    African syncopation and improvisatory feel met ragtime, brass bands, and European functional harmony — and jazz was born as collective improvisatory dance music.

  • 02 Adding / subtracting structure

    Ragtime piano and brass improvisation established an ensemble where syncopation and solo improvisation ride fixed harmony.

  • 03 Reading it historically

    The 1917 78 rpm recording reached the mass market; from New Orleans to Chicago, jazz was formalized as urban dance-hall culture.