The music that is heard in jazz, blues, soul and gospel is a combined sound of African tradition as well as the other music genre of Caribbean, Latin, Brazilian and African-American music. It’s origin is traced back to slavery. Black slaves on southern plantations cultivated their own musical styles. Spirituals were one of the earliest forms of musical expression. During the times of slavery, enslaved people were forbidden to speak their native languages. Owners feared they would plan and share escape routes or seek revenge and rebel. So to communicate their feelings, whether it was sorrow or hope, they began singing and creating songs that were passed down to many generations.
In the 1860s, a musical genre took life in the south by storm – the Blues. African-Americans created this new form of sound, taking inspiration from both work songs and spirituals. Blues rapidly spread across the United States, such as Chicago Blues, Country, Delta, West Coast, and electric. Blues from Memphis, the Mississippi Delta, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Texas each had their distinct sounds. The feeling you got deep down in your bones when listening to the blues was a universal experience.
The music of the Blues has given people a voice to tell stories, preserve traditions and express feelings about everyday life and it goes without saying that blues music has influenced much of the music that we all enjoy today. Ragtime also heavily influenced this genre. Ragtime became the first nationally popular form of American music in 1899, when Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” enjoyed unprecedented success. Since blues music was the first genre created post-slavery, its influences can be found in jazz. Blues musical styles, melodies, and the blues scale have influenced many other genres of music, such as rock and roll, jazz, and popular music.
Although Ragtime music was still around, it began to faint during this time as blues and jazz were in rotation a lot. The jazz sound, which has been called “America’s classical music had it’s own genre, swing, big band, bebop and a genre named after a city, New Orleans jazz. Rhythm and blues (Soul) was the soundtrack to an important time in America’s evolution. The emergence of R&B traces back to African- Americans moving from the rural south to cities.
The sound of gospel music, particularly Southern gospel also has a long history in African American music. Traditional Black gospel music is the most well-known form, often seen in Black churches, and in entertainment spaces across the country and world. It originates from the South of the United States, where most Black Americans lived prior to the Great Migration. There are multiple streams of Black Gospel music, which might be usefully divided into the sacred and the secular. And there is also a history of Black people playing European music—and of Europeans (and European-Americans) playing the Black music. Click on the title to go to the page.