Jazz Music Timeline

Blues (Late 1800s to early 1900)

• Most commonly describes songs that follows a blues form, like a twelve-bar strophic song form

• Typically uses a limited number of chords (3-4). Blues scales typically include lowered third, fifth, and seventh notes.

• Pitch bends are used a lot to give the music a 'bluesy' feel

• Also used more loosely to mean a feeling like sad/down or in a 'bluesy' style

• W.C. Handy (The "Father of Blues")

Ragtime (1890's to late 1910's)

• Style of piano playing, with emphasizes weak beats (syncopation). Ex: In Quadruple Meter, generally beats 1 and 3 would be syncopated. In Ragtime. 2 and 4 have an emphasis.

• Music was composed and predetermined rather than improvised on

• Scott Joplin

Early Jazz (in New Orleans and Chicago, 1910's to 1920's)

• Started to have improvised melodies

• improvised new melodies over the chord structures of existing tunes

• Was generally used for Dance music rather than the performative style of ragtime

• Music instrumentation started to turn into bands over orchestras

• Louis Armstrong and Charles Bolden

Swing (1930's to 1940s)

• Lots of big band arrangements

• Rhythm with a characteristic bounce

• Harmonic usage of a lot of added 6ths over 7ths in major and minor chords. Usage of unaccented diminished chords and a lot of usage of the augmented fifth.

• Rhythmic organization which states the beat explicitly while placing more weight on beats 1 and 3

• Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald

Bebop (1940s to 1950s)

• Smaller Ensembles (as many people had gone to war)
• Highly complex harmonies and rhythms. Focus on virtuosic improvisation
• Less dancing, more performative music.
• Charlie Parker and Miles Davis

References

Brotman, D. (n.d.). Glossary of Jazz Terms. The Jazz Piano StudyLetter. http://www.sonic.net/~jazz4/glossary.html (opens in a new tab)

Clark, N. Alan, Thomas Heflin, Jeffrey Kluball, and Elizabeth Kramer. Understanding Music: Past and Present. Fine Arts Open Textbooks, 2015. https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/arts-textbooks/1 (opens in a new tab)

“Timeline.” Jazz in America, The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, www.jazzinamerica.org/JazzResources/Timeline (opens in a new tab). Accessed 20 July 2025.