Thursday, June 15, 2017

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.

Wayman Tisdale and Dave Koz at the Dave Koz & ...
Wayman Tisdale and Dave Koz at the Dave Koz & Friends Smooth Jazz Cruise 2006
(Photo credit: 
Wikipedia)

Aside from playing a part in the growth of subgenres, 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 downtempo beats, smooth jazz is often confused with styling of contemporary jazz music. A modern growth is urban contemporary 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 free 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 free 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 modern 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 free 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 jazz stations and in a variety of media markets, this arrangement does no longer exist over the air except online or on HD Radio.

By 2009, as contemporary jazz remained on its persistent decline on the syndicated radio airwaves, an increasing number of non-commercial stations have grown an interest in the music and began to add it to their programming.



More recently contemporary jazz music downloads, in opposition to radio, has been at high volumes on iTunes. If you find these artist to be of interest, Richard Brown is must have in your collection. With hits like “It’s A Boy” and “My Heart” from his new cd “Dreams” flautist songwriter Richard Brown has a unique flute style. You can hear some of his songs from the album “Dreams” by logging on to www.flautist.us. Even receive a free contemporary jazz music download.



No comments: