Find your past! Enjoy your future!

Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. So you don’t know who these people are? They are some of the major influences on all of the music you listen to today. They are legendary Jazz musicians and leaders, who have impacted not only their field but also country, rap, rock, blues, and folk.
 

I have learned to love jazz and most everything about it. Once in a while you find something that is purely YOU. It’s not popular, it’s not surrounding you, and it’s not something you grew up around. It’s just something that found you and gets inside your soul and then specializes in making you an individual. Since Jazz and Blues have been introduced to me, I’ve become curious and excited about the spread of its original popularity.
 

There has been an imposing idea incorporated in the idea of Jazz that created a false impression somewhere along the way, and I’m not really quite sure where. In the beginning it was shunned, a motive for release among blacks and women. It was even considered un-holy. It mysteriously made its way into the homes of wealthy aristocrats, who turned it in to a thing of glory and prestige.
 

The Jazz age was born out of combined elements such as Ragtime, marching band tunes and Blues around 1895 in New Orleans. New Orleans native Bolden, a cornet player, is considered to be the first actual jazz musician, and Armstrong, the greatest.
 

Women also took a demanding role in jazz, introducing new style, vocals, and bending the rules. Fitzgerald was one of the masters and performers of this art, while Bessie Smith separated herself with her style, and most notably her use of vocals and solos of either the cornet or piano. She was one of the most influential women in musical history, including such popular artists as Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. However, it wasn’t until after the 19th Amendment in 1920 and World War II that women were actually accepted on stage.
 

The addition of women to the stage created a new voice from the predominately black Blues and mostly

a man’s perspective shown in early jazz. The connection between this revelation and today’s scene is obvious. Now there are women in every field of music.
 

Chicago and New York were also huge in the birth of the Jazz age. After clubs in an area of New Orleans closed, followers and performers of this music brand moved to Chicago and turned it into the central stage for most of western America. The famous piano stylings incorporated into Jazz and almost all of the major publishing corporations came from New York. Around the 1940s, orchestras played a large part in further development, as Armstrong came in with his cornet and the Swing movement was pressed into the scheme.
 

Swing began to fill the airwaves and was very closely related to jazz. It began the nation-wide spread of such culture throughout America.
 

From this morphed Bebop, Hard Bop, and Cool Jazz in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Medal, Free Jazz, Jazz-Rock or Fusion come in the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the 1990s, Contemporary Jazz and Hip Hop or Rap emerged.
There are still numerous places around the United States that celebrate Jazz festivals annually. New Orleans hosts one of the hottest Jazz & Heritage Festivals, celebrating for 11 days and nights with food, music, activities and lots of dancing in the streets. Usually celebrated in late April, the turn out has become outrageous. Some are there for history, and some there for fun. And most likely, everybody’s there for the food. New Orleans style gets maxed out from the Cajun flavorings of almost anything imaginable to the traditional dishes of foods and fine seafood.
 

The South Florida Jazz Festival was just celebrated Nov. 19-20, in hopes of nurturing the next generation of Jazz musicians and enthusiasts through interactive educational and live performances.
 

Central Illinois Jazz Festival incorporates the jazz bands from local high schools and colleges, along with big name jazz bands such as Dixie Dare Devil and Ragtime Piano. This January festival is preceded by a BBQ fund raising that kicks off the whole sha-bang!
 

It seems like the request for historical celebration has increased in popularity in the last decade, although these festivals have been going on a lot longer than that. Whether or not you are new to Jazz, there is a certain amount of respect that is due, I feel, to our musical history and heritage.
 

I urge you to step out of History 101 and go experience our nation’s past! You won’t know how to fully enjoy the future until you understand your past.