Explore the world of jazz! Hear jazz performed and learn from our featured musicians.
Including Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Mary Lou Williams, Scott Joplin, Marian McPartland, Joe Samples and more.
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Congas: Drums played with the hands and often used in salsa and rumba music. Congas play a major role in Latin jazz bands.
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Jazz music originated in the United States. It was created by African Americans in the early 1900s. The sound of jazz was influenced by West African rhythms and music, and American folk music. A...
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This building, which was designed by Robert Mills, was constructed in 1833 for the care of sick and disabled seamen. After the Civil War, it became a school for African American children. From 1895 to...
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John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie got his nickname because he liked to make jokes and act up on stage. He was one of the greatest of all jazz musicians, and the most famous native of Cheraw, South Carolina...
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Langston Hughes 1902-1967 Langston's father once discouraged him from writing poetry. He believed discrimination would keep the young Langston from finding success as a poet. But Langston continued to...
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Scott Joplin was born near Linden, Texas and raised in Texarkana, Texas, the son of a railroad laborer who had been a slave. Joplin showed an early and extraordinary aptitude for music, which was...
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Hugh Masekela was born in Witbank, South Africa on April 4, 1939. He began singing and playing piano as a child and as a teenager, was encouraged to play the trumpet by the British anti-apartheid...
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Mary Lou Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 10, 1910 and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of four. Williams could hear a piece...
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Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 and raised in the Storyville district of New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child he was a street singer and learned to play the coronet while in reform school...
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Jazz music was born out of the blues. The key element was syncopation (syn-co-pa-tion) that stressed the off beats of the rhythm. In the same way that Gullah language is a mixture of African and...