Hymns, field hollers and work songs are sung on the farm in the south. African Americans sing these songs in a blues style.
Louis Armstrong, born in 1901 in New Orleans, perfected the improvised jazz solo being played during breaks in the music and individuals playing solos one at a time.
Dixieland was the first kind of jazz music played. Everyone played their own solo at the same time.
In the 1950s, Latin and Afro-Cuban Jazz was formed when Cuban musicians came to New York City to play with jazz musicians there. It combines ragtime, blues, swing and musical elements from North, South and Central America.
Fast tempos, complicated harmonies and fancy melodies are all parts of the bebop jazz styles, developed in the early 1940s. It was played by small groups of people and a famous bebop trumpet player was Dizzy Gillespie.
In the 1930s during the Great Depression, swing music, another type of jazz, was invented. It sounded cheery and gave hope to people during a hard time, and big bands played this music for people to dance to.
These types of songs, plus marching band music, ragtime, church music, traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music blended together in New Orleans and jazz was born.
