Jazz is a style of music that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the south of the United States. Jazz combined the musical traditions of African and European culture. The main characteristics of jazz are improvisation, poly-rhythmy, syncopying and a special rhythmic pattern called swing. As the style spread, jazz gradually absorbed the peculiarities of various national, regional and local musical cultures, resulting in a huge number of subgenres over time.
Traditional jazz is considered to be its New Orleans variant, which appeared approximately in 1900. Later, the style spread to other cities in the south of the U.S., resulting in the formation of separate jazz centers: St. Louis, Kansas City and Memphis. By the beginning of the 1920s, jazz slowly but confidently captured a vast territory of "states", gradually moving northwards. Soon Chicago became the center of this trend of music.
Although born in the midst of black people, white musicians did not disdain them either. Suffice it to recall George Gershwin, Benny Goodman or Bix Beiderbecke, who were also at the origin of the style's popularization to some extent. However, the greatest influence on the development of jazz was made by black musicians, and their names are known to almost every music lover: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.
Years went by. Jazz, like any other direction in music, did not stand still and confidently moved forward. Bebop, cool, fusion, free-jazz and many other genres appeared, each with whole books written about them. Jazz did not bypass even such a relatively closed for foreign influence country as the USSR, where it appeared in the 20s.
It should be noted that jazz has never been a dance style, although in modern popular music its influence is quite noticeable. Jazz is very diverse and has a connection with almost all directions of music. Jazz festivals are held in many countries around the world, are very popular and always attract the attention of a huge number of not only elderly people, but also young people.