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How Did African Americans Influence Jazz

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Trevor Price
Mr. D’Angelo
MUS 116-001
16 February 2018
Influence of Cultural Integrations on Jazz The average person thinks of jazz as a primarily African-American art form that is usually played in hip coffee shops or all throughout various shopping centers during the holiday season. Some people really enjoy all that jazz has to offer whereas others see it as an old-fashioned style of music that does not provide any influence into the 21st century music industry. For a majority of my life, I shared the view of the latter. Until the past year or so, I considered jazz to be an out dated style of music that only elderly folks enjoyed listening to in their retirement homes. However, jazz has immense influence from the cultural integrations that took place during the early days of America. Cultural influences such as religion, politics, race, socioeconomic status, and musical ideologies from both the Americans and the Africans meshed together which formed the genre of jazz that I personally love and enjoy. These cultural influences played a major role in shaping jazz into a specific art form/genre. Before, during, and after America declared independence from Britain many African slaves were introduced into this new land through means of the middle passage. The middle passage was a …show more content…

Jazz had a primary place in social events especially during the prohibition era. With prohibition hitting the country during the time period of 1920-1933, many people would gather together in places known as speakeasies. These speakeasies usually consisted of the illegal consumption of alcohol, hanging out with friends of the neighborhood as well as a jazz band for entertainment. This is extremely interesting to see that jazz played a role in the underground culture that included illegal activities. This European traditional aspect of

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