Styles of Jazz Music ^1  [2]

Modal - As smaller ensemble soloists became increasingly hungry for new improvisational directives, some players sought to venture beyond Western adaptation of major and minor scales. Drawing from medieval church modes, which used altered intervals between common tones, players found new inspiration. Soloists could now free themselves from the restrictions of dominant keys and shift the tonal centers to form new harmonics within their playing. This became especially useful with pianists and guitarists, as well as trumpet and sax players. Pianist Bill Evans is noted for his Modal approach.

Free Jazz - Sometimes referred to as "Avante Garde" or "Outside", true Free Jazz soloists shed even the ensemble arrangement structure, giving for a totally "free" impulse experience to the music. If Ornette Coleman was considered the prophet of Free Jazz, then John Coltrane would surely be it's leading disciple.

This radical departure from past styles invited much debate about whether it would even qualify as music and soon found its place in the Jazz underground. Ironically, the much ignored Free Jazz continues to influence the Mainstream today.

Soul Jazz - Derived from Hardbop, Soul Jazz is perhaps the most popular Jazz style of the 1960's. Improvising to chord progressions as with Bop, the soloist strives to create an exciting performance. The ensemble of musicians concentrates on a rhythmic groove centered around a strong but varied bassline.

Horace Silver had a large influence of style by infusing funky and often Gospel drawn piano vamps into his compositions. The Hammond organ also gained mass attention as the flagship instrument of Soul Jazz.

Groove - An off-shoot of Soul Jazz, Groove draws its tones from the blues and focuses mainly on the rhythm. Sometimes referred to as "Funk" it concentrates on maintaining the continuous rhythm "hook" complimented lightly by instrumental and sometimes lyrical ornaments.

Groove is full of joyous emotions inviting listeners to dance, whether in bluesy slow vamps or up-beat. Improvised solos are kept subordinate to the beat and the collective sound.

Fusion - By the early 1970's, the term "Fusion" had come to identity a mixture of Jazz improvisation with the energy and new rhythms of Rock and World music. To the dismay of many Jazz purists, some of Jazz most significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary Hardbop into Fusion. Eventually commercial influences succeeded in undermining its original innovations. While it is arguable that this Fusion benefitted the evolution of Rock, few of its influences remain in today's Jazz. Some well established fusion musicians are Chick Corea, Rudresh Mahanthappa, John McLaughlin and Gabriel Alegria.

Afro-Cuban Jazz - also known as Latin Jazz, is a combination of Jazz improvising and highly infectious rhythms. It can be traced to trumpeter-arranger Mario Bauza and percussionist Chano Pozo who had a significant influence on Dizzy Gillespie (among others) in the mid 1940s. Evolving from it's early Bop centered roots, Afro-Cuban Jazz has become a true fusion between North, South and Central America.

Instrumentation can vary widely but typically centered around the rhythm section consisting of conga, timbale, bongo and other latin percussion, with piano, guitar or vibes and joined often by horns and vocals. Arturo Sandoval, Pancho Sanchez and Chucho Valdes are well known Afro-Cuban Jazz artists.

Post Bop - The terms Modern Mainstream or Post Bop are used for almost any style that cannot be closely associated with historical types of Jazz music. Starting in 1979, a new emergence of players hit the scene with a fresh approach to the Hard Bop of the 1960s, but rather than take it into the Groove and Funk rhythms that had evolved a generation before, these "young lions" added the textures and influences of the 1980s and 90s. Elements of Avant-Garde offer soloists new exploratory directions while polyrhythmic beats from Caribbean influences lend a wider diversity than previous Bop music.

Acid Jazz - The term Acid Jazz is loosely used to cover a wide range of music. Although it is not a true style of Jazz music that has evolved from traditional stems, it is too significant to ignore as a member of the genre.

Originating in the 1987 British dance scene, it defined a funky music style which incorporated sampled classic Jazz tracks, 70s Funk, Hip-Hop, Soul and Latin grooves, with the main focus on instrumental music and not the lyric. The resulting mosaic usually ignored improvisation giving argument to whether Acid Jazz is, in fact, Jazz.

Smooth Jazz - Evolving from Fusion, but leaving behind the energetic solos and dynamic crescendos, Smooth Jazz emphasizes its polished side. Improvisation is also largely ignored giving argument whether the term "Jazz" can truly apply.

High tech layering of synthesizers and rhythm tracks give it unobtrusive and slick packaging, where the ensemble sound matters more than individual expression. This also separates this style from other more "live" performances. Instruments include electric keyboards, alto or soprano sax, guitar, bass guitar and percussion. Smooth Jazz has perhaps become the most commercially viable form of all Jazz styles since Swing.

Jazz Rap - Developed as a sub-genre to Hip Hop from origins in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jazz Rap encompasses various attempts by artists at fusing African-American music of the past with present day commercial trends. Keeping the signature heavy beats of Hip Hop, a more sophisticated Jazz influenced structure enhances the often bland harmonic back-drop characteristic of more pop oriented Rap music.

Attracting contributions from established Jazz artists such as Herbie Hancock, Kenny Garrett & Terence Blanchard, this mosaic often includes a political and social conscious lyric with ocassional scat-influenced vocals. Although the popularity and trend value of Jazz Rap was short lived, its influence to recording studios and music producers is undeniable and continues to play a significant role today.

M-Base - Started in the 1980s, the M-Base movement was a loose collective of young African-American musicians in New York with new innovative ideas about creative expression. Bringing strong traditional structure from BeBop, Modal and Groove Jazz pioneered by Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, saxophonists Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Gary Thomas and others including Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson and Geri Allen developed new and expressive musical ideas in the M-Base concept.

Steve Coleman, the most active participant, saw this as more than just a style of playing. The M-Base concept was a holistic fundamental to aspects of nature and human existence found all over the world and reached far back into ancient times. In accordance to this spiritual perspective, Coleman's music and concepts have been a heavy influence on many musicians - both in terms of music-technique and of the music's meaning. Hence, M-Base changed from a movement of a loose collective of young musicians to a kind of informal Steve Coleman "school" with a much advanced but already originally implied concept.

European - At the end of the 20th century, many Scandinavian and French musicians, feeling that Mainstream American Jazz expression had retreated into the past, began creating a new style nicknamed "the European."

As with Acid Jazz, European seeks to return to Jazz roots as dance music. Combining elements from House (a type of disco music based on Funk, with fragments of other recordings edited in electronically) with acoustic, electronic and sampled sound to create a popular and populist variety of contemporary Jazz. Musicians involved in this movement include Norwegian pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, French pianists Martial Solal and Laurent de Wilde and saxophonist Julien Lourau.

Jazz Pluralism - While not an explicit style of its own, the practice of pluralism in Jazz started after World War II in the United States and gradually spread world wide. By the year 2000, as the creation of new styles of Jazz declined, combining existing styles has become standard.

The nature of Jazz to be maluable and adopt material from other sources has greatly contributed to its long endurance. As specific Jazz styles came into vogue and were eventually replaced by more contemporary trends, influences from previous styles were maintained. This gave precedence to combining styles, especially in live performance. This method to mix styles has also contributed to inovation in developing new Jazz styles. Often in live performance, Jazz artists will use many playing styles, sometimes even during the same tune.