Saturday, February 11, 2012

Jazz: The Growth of Contemporary Jazz Music

Born in the early 20th century in African American cultures, jazz is a musical style that has developed and evolved all different genres of music. Dating from early 1910s to the 1990s, jazz has contributed to the growth of music. Sparking a rise to a variety of music styles, the spread of jazz across the world influenced trends from early New Orleans Dixieland styles to Latin Afro-Cuban even playing a part in the development of funk and hip hop in the 1990s.

Aside from playing a part in the growth of sub-genres, jazz within itself has been influenced by a variety of musical genres. Most commonly the trends of R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles helped shape jazz fusion into what we know to be smooth jazz. With tracks of encoded rhythms and down-tempo beats, smooth jazz is often confused with styling of contemporary(urban) jazz music. A modern growth is urban jazz, which slot in aspects of hip-hop; which is intended for listeners who would normally listen to radio stations that play an assortment of hip-hop and R&B. While smooth jazz is soft and mellow is content; contemporary jazz music is blunter and grabs the attention of its listeners.

Among the players who commonly perform this style of jazz are Dave Koz, Boney James, Paul Jackson Jr., Nick Colionne, Bobby Perry, Urban Jazz Coalition, Streetwize, and Tha' Hot Club. As well as other contemporary jazz artists such as Bob Baldwin, Michael Lington, Brian Bromberg, David Lanz, Bobby Ricketts, Kim Waters, Daniele Caprelli, Ken Navarro, Walter Beasley, and Peter White. As popularity for late night radio airplay throughout the years grew; doors where open for contemporary jazz music artist like Kenny G, David Sanborn, the late George Howard, George Benson, Marc Antoine, Bradley Joseph and contemporary jazz flautist Najee. These jazz musicians had a tendency to play their instruments in at such a harmonious frequency that it was rare for the measures to go un-noticeable.

The contemporary jazz radio arrangement, which commonly played fifteen-minute sets involving instrumentals wrapping a vocal song or two continued to grow and flourish over the 1990s and early 2000s. In the late 2000s, most markets began losing contemporary jazz stations and in a variety of media markets, this arrangement does no longer exist over the air except online or on HD Radio.

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