ABSTRACT

Everyone who has had even the slightest contact with the music called jazz has heard the proposition that the music was born in New Orleans, came up the Mississippi to Chicago, and from there spread out to points East (notably New York), West, and North, eventually to cover the globe. Jazz, which was the invention of American blacks, is a postemancipation phenomenon. Prior to the freeing of the slaves, much interesting music had been created by black Americans, both in the South and in the North, but none of it was jazz. Ragtime, though primarily known as a pianistic form, was also performed by bands of various sizes, and ragtime developed primarily in Missouri. It was New Orleans, too, that provided the forum for interaction between blacks and whites without which jazz could not have spread its message so quickly and effectively.