How Jazz Works

Louis Armstrong performs in Paris in 1965.
Louis Armstrong performs in Paris in 1965.
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Jazz Music

The Preservation Hall Band in New Orleans, 1970
The Preservation Hall Band in New Orleans, 1970
G.D. Hackett/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Beginning listeners are often disoriented by their first experiences with jazz. Its structure is typically more complex than other popular forms of music. And because of its improvised nature -- with multiple melodies and rhythms working together -- listeners accustomed to more structured, predictable forms of music might find jazz difficult to follow. But those same things that make jazz difficult to appreciate at first are what more seasoned listeners come to relish.

­­­T­he first step in understanding how jazz works is knowing what to listen for. Jazz ensembles -- which can have two to 20 players -- range in style, size and instrumentation. But they are all united by three basic elements: improvisation, syncopation and blue notes.


  • Musicians and critics agree that improvisation is at the heart of jazz. It happens when a player follows a moment of inspiration into unwritten territory, and he or she composes while playing. Improvising takes a great amount of skill and concentration. When a group of musicians know one another's playing style well, they're able to follow and support one another to make new and interesting parts that may or may not be played again. Improvisation allows for a kind of communication between players known as a call-and-response pattern. This is a common element in African music. It starts when a soloist, singing or playing, issues a "call" and the other participants sing or play back a "response."
  • Syncopation refers to shifting the emphasis of a song's rhythm, or beat pattern, to weak or unaccented beats and notes. To better understand syncopation, try this exercise: With your feet, stomp to the count of "one, two, three, four," saying "and" between each number. Stomping on the numbers means you're stomping on beat, or in rhythm. Now, while stomping on each number, clap each time you say "and." Clapping on "and" means you're accenting the weak beat, also known as the offbeat. Each time you clap, you're syncopating the rhythm. Our exercise is a simplified version of syncopation. But skilled musicians can syncopate smaller denominations of notes, dividing the offbeats into eighths and 16ths of a single count. Syncopation appears in jazz when two rhythms are played against each other. This is where jazz gets its swing, the feeling that makes listeners want to tap their feet or dance. No doubt you've heard the saying "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." And if you're a jazz musician, if it doesn't swing, it isn't jazz.
  • Blue notes occur when a musician plays or slides through a scale, flattening some of the notes (playing them a half-step lower than expected). These are the dissonant, "bent" notes we hear in blues and jazz. A blues scale is a minor pentatonic scale: The third and seventh notes of a major scale are flattened (creating a minor scale), and the second and sixth notes are taken out, making a five-note pentatonic scale. Let's look at how a natural A major scale becomes a blues scale. A major: A B C# D E F# G# A minor: A B C D E F# G A minor pentatonic (blues scale): A C D E G

­­Now that we know something about the basic elements of jazz, let's take a look at jazz history.


Jazz History

The Buddy Bolden Band, New Orleans, circa 1900
The Buddy Bolden Band, New Orleans, circa 1900
Frank Driggs Collection/Getty Images














Jazz Culture

The Lew Stone Orchestra performs in 1932.
The Lew Stone Orchestra performs in 1932.
Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

From the very beginning, jazz has been about freedom, movement and individual expression. Its break from musical tradition and emphasis on improvisation and innovation set it up as the backdrop to cultural changes, and it influences international culture today. Jazz is played, with its own local flair, on every continent.

­­During Prohibition and the economic prosperity of the 1920s, jazz became the soundtrack to parties in underground clubs, called "speakeasies," where pleasure ruled and outlawed liquor was consumed. Because of its roots in African-American culture, and the places, occasions and activities with which it was associated, jazz initially bore the label of "low culture."


After World War I ended, people wanted a fresh start and the end of tired social customs. For the first time, African-American culture became a hot commodity, which did much to elevate the position of the African-American in society. But this didn't happen without resistance from groups like the Ku Klux Klan, who continued to systematically oppress and brutalize African-Americans. Still, the prominence of jazz grew and changed the trajectory of American music forever.

The free-spirited nature of jazz spread throughout American culture. Women began to break out of traditional sexual roles, shunning conservative clothing and behavior for a newfound freedom and independence from men and obligatory roles within families. Jazz made room for women to work as performers and provided many other jobs for women in the music industry. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the essence of the era in his 1925 novel, "The Great Gatsby" -- the story of a high-profile bootlegger, his lavish parties and the frivolity of the characters surrounding him. In Harlem, jazz music rode in tandem with a cultural renaissance among African-American writers and artists of all kinds that was felt throughout the United States.

­­­­At the height of bop in the 1940s, literary artists like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg of the Beat Generation found inspiration for innovation of their own. Beat writers and their contemporaries admired the spontaneity and free form of jazz. They worked to implement its syncopated rhythms into the meter of their poetry, which they performed live with a backdrop of jazz.

­From the Jazz Age of the 1920s through the swing era of the 1930s and '40s, jazz was the heartbeat of youth culture. Jazz is responsible for influencing a multitude of artists and genres. Rap, R&B, pop, soul and "girl groups" like the Supremes are all heirs to jazz. Today, new generations of musicians and vocalists, like Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson and Amy Winehouse, continue to celebrate jazz by reinterpreting the classics and creating new musical expressions.

Jazz Movements

Dizzy Gillespie, a major figure in the development of bop
Dizzy Gillespie, a major figure in the development of bop
Don Perdue/Getty Images

New Orleans jazz (through 1920s) is most closely related to the marching bands popular in New Orleans at the end of the 19th and beginning of the early 20th centuries. Typically led by a trumpet or cornet -- supported harmonically by reeds and other horn instruments, and rhythmically by bass and drums -- the emphasis in New Orleans jazz was on collective, melodic improvisation. Solos were virtually nonexistent.

Dixieland (through 1920s), also called "Chicago jazz," transpired when musicians fled New Orleans for Chicago in search of new opportunities and less oppressive social conditions. Dixieland, closely related to New Orleans jazz, made use of collective, melodic improvisation but allowed for solos and incorporated the piano.


Swing music (1935-1945) marked a shift in jazz from improvisation to notated music and larger ensembles known as "big bands." Because of the size of the ensembles -- made up of several horns, reed instruments and percussion -- swing required simplified written arrangements. Swing was typically more repetitious, and pop friendly than other forms of jazz. Swing music is the closest jazz has ever come to being America's most popular music.

­­Bop, or "bebop," which developed in the post-swing era (circa 1945), shunned the pop-accessibility of its forebear. In bop, the spotlight was on the soloist. The new style was criticized for lacking melody, as soloists traded melodic phrasing for chordal -- using the chord progression as the basis for improvisation. Faster, more abstract and not for dancing, bop pushed jazz for the first time into art status and out of low culture.

Cool jazz (1950s and '60s), also known as West Coast jazz, marked a return to arrangements and retained elements of swing. Cool grew out of bop but smoothed out its harder edges tonally and rhythmically. Its players were educated studio musicians, many of whom eventually transitioned into more experimental forms.

Hard Bop (1950s and '60s) came about 10 years after bop, with simpler, more soulful melodies, looser rhythm sections and similarities to rhythm and blues. Some consider hard bop, which was developed on the East Coast, to be a response to cool jazz, but others say the new style developed largely in ignorance of its West Coast counterpart.

­Fusion (1967-'­70s) is a combination of rock music and jazz. As rock became more complex and musicians more skilled, players from both camps began to collaborate and experiment, just as the predecessors of jazz had done. Over time, this hybridization crystallized into its own form of jazz, though it remains not highly regarded by jazz purists.

Next we'll learn about some of the influential musicians behind these jazz movements.

Jazz Greats

Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images








Jazz Albums

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Photo courtesy Amazon

Starting a jazz collection is at once an exciting and overwhelming prospect. Everyone has different tastes -- some of us are more drawn to rhythm and swing, others to melody and complex arrangements. Beginning a jazz collection of your own starts with research of the best variety: listening. Pick up one of several anthologies of jazz (Ken Burns "Jazz" series, is one worth your time) from your local library, and begin to assess each style with an open mind. Take note of what you like or don't like, and what musicians play on the recording. Once you start to identify artists you enjoy, sites like can provide you with a guide to the vast web of jazz musicians and the recordings they're connected to. And remember one thing: Always listen before you buy.

All Music Guide recommends the following 15 albums to get you started:


  • Louis Armstrong, "Plays W.C. Handy" (Columbia - 1997 version)
  • Benny Goodman, "Sing, Sing, Sing" (Bluebird)
  • Billie Holiday, "The Quintessential, Vol. 5" (Columbia)
  • Count Basie, "The Atomic Mr. Basie" (Roulette)
  • Duke Ellington, "Uptown" (Columbia)
  • Charlie Parker, "Yardbird Suite" (Rhino)
  • Dizzy Gillespie, "At Newport" (Verve)
  • Dave Brubeck, "Time Out" (Columbia)
  • Miles Davis, "Kind of Blue" (Columbia)
  • John Coltrane, "My Favorite Things" (Atlantic)
  • Stan Getz, "Getz/Gilberto" (Verve)
  • Wes Montgomery, "The Incredible Jazz Guitar" (Original Jazz Classics)
  • Lee Morgan, "The Sidewinder" (Blue Note)
  • Weather Report, "Heavy Weather" (Columbia)
  • Wynton Marsalis, "Blue Interlude" (Columbia)

­ ­Happy listening!

For more information about jazz, follow the links on the next page.

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

More Great Links


  • All Music Guide. "New Orleans," "Dixieland," "Swing," "Bop," "Cool," "Hard Bop," "Fusion."
  • "Blues Glossary -- 'Spirituals.'" The Blues, Georgia Public Broadcasting.
  • Burns, Ken. "Jazz -- A Film by Ken Burns." "Episode 2: The Gift." Paramount Pictures, 2001.
  • Gioia, Ted. "The History of Jazz." Oxford University Press, New York. 1997.
  • Hughes, Langston. "The First Book of Jazz." The Ecco Press, New Jersey. 1982.
  • Schuller, Gunther. "Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development." Oxford University Press, New York. 1968.
  • Shipton, Alyn. "A New History of Jazz." Continuum, New York. 2001.
  • "Smithsonian Jazz Class." Smithsonian Jazz.
  • "The Styles of Jazz." The Jazz Web, Northwestern University.
  • "What is Jazz? Good Question." All About Jazz.
  • "What is Jazz? Round Two." All About Jazz.