Jazz is a uniquely American invention. Largely African American in origins, it grew out of the blues. During the beginning of the 20th century blues progressions and scales were co-opted by urban dance bands. These early styles of jazz include ragtime, dixie-land and swing. Jazz as a music emphasizes improvisation and virtuosity and therefore has a scholarly and critical respect that other forms of popular music lack.
In theoretical terms the genre is generally marked by intricate, propulsive rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, improvisatory, virtuosic solos, melodic freedom, and a harmonic idiom ranging from simple diatonicism through chromaticism to atonality.

Because jazz was largely a black and lower calss phenomenon it was largely ignored by mainstream America for some time. However jazz gained a wider audience when white orchestras adapted or imitated it, and became a "legitimate entertainment" (read, "commercially profitable"), in the late 1930s when Benny Goodman led racially mixed groups in concerts at Carnegie Hall. Jazz has been around nearly a century and as a term now encompasses a myriad of styles and subgenres. The dancey swinging sounds of Glenn Miller’s or Benny Goodman’s big band, the frenetic and chordal sounds of Charlie Parker’s seminal be-bop, the mellow bluesy improvisations of Miles Davis’ "Cool" period, the rock and eastern influenced experiments of the Mahivishnu Orchestra, and the smooth soul groove of Roy Ayers’ Ubiquity recordings: All this and more is jazz.

Similar Styles: Crossover Jazz, Dixieland, Vocal Jazz, Latin Jazz, Big Band, Post Bop, Swing, Avant Garde, Be Bop, Cool Jazz, Soul Jazz

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