New Orleans: history, carnival and the most interesting sights of the city. New orleans New orleans early 20th century

The most "European" city in America. Founded by the French, it was ruled by the Spanish for several decades. The city of New Orleans boasts local Creole cuisine and national culture. Many houses in Spanish and French styles create a unique charm.

Story

New Orleans, due to its favorable location, quickly became a major center of trade. The Mississippi River has been an important transportation stream for the country for several centuries. The port of New Orleans is one of the largest in the United States. New Orleans is the first thing black slaves brought from the African continent saw in the new country.

Most of the city's residents are descendants of Spanish and French settlers. But during its rapid growth, New Orleans was flooded with Italians, Irish, Germans, Greeks. In the last century, the population was replenished by thousands of immigrants from Haiti.

French and Spanish

At the end of the 17th century, the first settlers appeared at the mouth of the Mississippi. Robert Cavelier de la Salle, who led a group of Frenchmen, declared this territory the property of his country and named it Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV. The first French colony settled here at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the date of the founding of New Orleans is May 7, 1718. The founder of the city is Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, a Canadian. The name New Orleans is given in honor of Philip II, Prince of Orleans - the French regent.

The main part of the first settlers were convicts who were exiled to Louisiana to develop new lands and were not distinguished by high moral and moral qualities. In addition, for many years the slave trade flourished here, but the blacks living in the city were mostly free.

The French were dissatisfied with the profits from these lands. In 1762, they handed them over to their ally in the war with England. The Spanish held Louisiana until 1800. Then the French again became the owners, and in 1803 they sold it to the USA for 15 million dollars.

American New Orleans

In the middle of the XIX century the city had a population of 100 thousand people and was one of the largest in the country. In the Civil War, Louisiana took the side of the Confederates, but a year later it already belonged to the supporters of Lincoln.

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the discovery of oil reserves, which, together with the development of transport roads, gave a new impetus to the rapid development of New Orleans.

By the end of the 20th century, the city achieved great success in shipbuilding and the aerospace industry, and became a major tourist center.

Modern New Orleans

The spirit of France still hovers over the picturesque areas of the city. New Orleans is today called the "Paris of the New World". In the old part of the city, many old buildings have been preserved. It was called the "French Quarter". New Orleans is shrouded in legends and traditions, especially the St. Louis Cemetery, which is an architectural monument. According to one of them, the queen of the Voodoo tribe, Marie Laveau, is buried here, so it is strongly not recommended to walk along it alone.

New Orleans today has a central street, Bourbon Street, located in the French Quarter. It houses the best restaurants and cafes, numerous shops and souvenir shops.

Of the modern buildings, the most famous is the 38.5 km long bridge across Lake Pontchartrain. The new city also has something to see: the zoo, Audubon Park, the Picturesque quarters of St. Charles and Warehouse, business districts with unique glass buildings for offices. You can also visit the Museum of Art and the Museum where interesting exhibitions are always held.

Attractions

Each quarter of the city is a kind of island with a unique culture and the focus of important historical monuments.

For example, Jackson Square. Next to it is the Saint-Louis Cathedral - an impressive religious object in the original architectural style, with an interesting interior decor. Nearby is the French market, where you can buy anything you want. New Orleans attractions such as the Mint Museum and World War II Museum will present interesting collections of artifacts.

Art connoisseurs will be able to enjoy the works of young sculptors, artists, photographers at the Contemporary Art Center.

The sights of New Orleans, located in the town of Chalmitte, are also very interesting. Here General Andrew Jackson fought for the city in 1815. In addition, many gardens and parks, nature reserves attract tourists.

Trials of New Orlan

Nature regularly tests the strength of the spirit of the inhabitants of the city. In the 18th century, fires, in the 19th century cholera, leprosy, smallpox and in the 20th century hurricanes took many lives and caused serious damage. But what happened in 2005 brought immeasurably more grief to New Orleans. Flooding as a result of a dam break due to Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, power supply and telephone communications were disrupted. Thousands of residents were evacuated to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio.

The city suffered heavily from the consequences of the flood and the devastating hurricane. The Americans helped restore buildings and infrastructure by transferring funds and directly working on the sites. Thanks to the help of the population of the country, the history of New Orleans continues, and the city can once again appear in all its glory to tourists.

• The streetcar in New Orleans is the oldest in the country.
• Bars in the city are open around the clock.
• New Orleans on the map is located in the bend of the Mississippi, so it got the nickname "City of the Crescent".
• Popular American actress Reese Witherspoon was born here.
• New Orleans is the hometown of Louis Armstrong. In the middle of the twentieth century, the musician was elected king of Mardi Gras. Today, the city's international airport is named after him.

Music in New Orleans

In the city of jazz melodies flow always and everywhere. In the past, music in New Orleans brought whites and blacks very close together. Various styles and directions are widespread here, including blues, zaydeko with a touch of French melodies.

Every spring, New Orleans hosts a jazz festival that lasts several days and provides an opportunity for numerous musicians to perform from the stage. Since its foundation (1970), this musical event has been gathering thousands of music lovers.

You can learn about the history of the development of jazz and listen to it in the National Park.

The famous parade draws visitors from all over the world to New Orleans. Mardi Gras is a grandiose spectacle that lasts for two weeks and is the oldest tradition and hallmark of the city.

Carnival

It is rather a parade of decorated platforms on horse-drawn carts. Each element of this picturesque procession is dedicated to entertainment: cards, booze, women, etc. The parade looks very colorful, and the procession participants throw small trinkets into the jubilant crowd of spectators - such as beads, coins, plastic rosaries, soft toys, aluminum medallions with holiday symbols. These little things often become collectibles.

The costume of the participant must include three colors: gold - a symbol of strength, red - a symbol of justice, green - These shades accompany the festival for more than a hundred years.

Spectators, in order to receive a gift, attract the attention of the parade participants in all possible ways - lift up skirts, T-shirts, showing off their bodies. These days, New Orleans is called the city that has gone crazy - "crazy town".

The final stage of the procession is the election of the royal couple of the carnival. Rejoicing, reinforced by alcohol and universal accessibility, reigns all evening and night. On other days, drinking alcohol and sexual activities are strictly punishable. But a friendly attitude reigns at the parade, without obscenities and fights. Smoking, drinking and participating at night in the carnival is allowed from the age of 21. Therefore, young people are often asked to present especially in bars.

Cuisine, restaurants and cafes

New Orleans is a godsend for tourists with gastronomic passions. More than a thousand cafes, restaurants and bars operate in the city. The most visited restaurant is the GW Fins restaurant with seafood cuisine. The menu changes daily and depends on the morning shopping done by the chef at the market. Specialties include cutlets of crab fillet and oysters baked in the oven.

Families with children gather at the budget restaurant Southern Candymakers, for whom a separate menu has been created. The institution is distinguished by the friendliness of the staff and the most delicious pralines in the city.

There can be no better place to organize a celebration than a luxurious restaurant located in a beautiful palace. The main part of the menu is represented by national cuisine and gourmet delicacies.

The Boucherie restaurant offers a large assortment to visitors. Its menu includes meat dishes, traditional french fries, fresh sandwiches, as well as many desserts.

The Italian restaurant Vincent's Italian Cuisine shocks its guests with a huge portion size, so it is appropriate to order one dish for two. The signature treat is spaghetti with various sauces and crab soup.

Angelo Brocato Ice Cream is a colorful cafe for ice cream and pastry lovers. A delicious Italian dessert for every taste is able to satisfy the most demanding sweet tooth. The cozy cafe attracts guests with fresh buns and croissants, refreshing fruit ice, ice cream with various fillings.

• Tourists are advised to travel on foot, as tourist sites are located within walking distance from one another. The quality of the roads is not always ideal, so it is better to refuse heels.
• The local tram will help travelers with limited time to see the sights and the most significant streets of the city. The trip will cost 1.3 dollars.

• In addition to the tram, an inexpensive transport is the almost round-the-clock bus. On weekends, he goes a little less often. Tickets are purchased from the driver or at kiosks.
• In the rental center you can rent a car, the cost of which depends on the brand. For registration, you will need a passport, international law, a credit card with the amount of the required deposit.
• Tourists should not forget about caution. In the evening, you can only walk along the central streets of the city. It is better to wander into remote areas accompanied by a guide. Large cash and valuables should not be taken with you for a walk without special need.
• All payments are made by credit card, it is accepted by all shopping centers, supermarkets, boutiques, hotels, large restaurants and gas stations. Those who intend to visit the markets, small shops on the outskirts and budget restaurants will need cash.
• Motorists in the daytime are likely to get stuck in traffic. It is better to use the tram or ferry, which runs every 15 minutes.

• The most profitable way to pay for services and purchases is the national currency, which can be exchanged at any banks or private exchange offices. When making a transaction, you need to clarify the exchange rate and the amount of the commission charged. In different exchange offices, it can vary greatly.

Ragtime originated among Negro amateur pianists. The peak of ragtime popularity falls on the first decade of the 20th century, but they appeared about twenty years earlier. The popularity of ragtime at the beginning of the 20th century was largely due to the massive demand for dance music. The phonograph was not yet common, and masses of ordinary Americans danced to the piano. The dance character of ragtime, in contrast to the "melodic" popular music, which has vocal roots, determined the rhythmic innovation of this genre.

Scott Joplin - "Maple Leaf Rag"

Daniel Kramer

pianist, teacher

Classical European dances were mainly the lot of aristocrats. To dance them, it was necessary to learn various steps and their combinations, sometimes quite complex, and people who were lower in their position simply did not want to bother themselves with this. Despite the ease and simplicity of the rhythm, ragtime was played in exotic African pentatonic modes and using some techniques that were not familiar to white musicians. This combination of simple and new gave birth to an amazing pre-jazz type of music-making, which is called ragtime.

Ragtime is not Liszt's rhapsody, not Chopin's concerto, not Beethoven's 5th concerto, not Mozart and not Bach. This is not that type of complexity, not technological or compositional complexity - this is stylistic complexity. For academic musicians of the early 20th century, this style was rather difficult: these syncopations were not familiar to Europeans. Therefore, when early jazz first hit European shores in 1918, it was nicknamed "crazy syncopes"- "crazy syncopations".

Syncopation - in European music, a sound that begins on a weak beat of the measure and continues on a strong beat, which causes a shift in rhythmic accents, a separation of the melody from the accompaniment.

Ragtime is not jazz, it is played smoothly, it is pure polka, which could be written by any composer who wants to write not quite classical music. The "father of ragtime" Scott Joplin brought in a few pre-jazz elements - such as the "3 vs. 4" technique - and some exotic intervals for the time, such as sixths. In this case, a different type of rhythm is characteristic. In ragtime, the rhythm is counted from the second and fourth beats of the bar, plus every two bars a separate strong accent on the last, fourth, beat. These off-beat accents are overlaid with a separate syncopation of the melody.

Off-beat - the principle in which rhythmic accents are shifted from the "strong" beats of the bar - 1st and 3rd - to the "weak" ones - 2nd and 4th.

"3 against 4" is the main type of cross-rhythm characteristic of West African music. Within one metric unit (measure), two rhythmic patterns sound in parallel, contrasting with each other. One of them, the main one, consists of four equal rhythmic units, the second, sounding over it, consists of three equal units.

2. Traditional Jazz: New Orleans and Dixieland. 1910-1920s

By the beginning of the 20th century, there were several dozen marching bands and dance music ensembles in New Orleans - mostly Negro and Creole. The music they played was influenced by ragtime, blues, marches, Negro work songs. They were greatly influenced by the musical culture of the Creoles, which was originally close to European home music-making. Later, when the Creoles of the southern states were equalized in rights with the Negroes, the Negro and Creole cultures converged, which contributed to the emergence of new synthetic forms. After the end of the American-Spanish war, a large number of instruments from military bands appeared in the city, which contributed to the creation of amateur musical groups whose musicians were not familiar with musical notation. How exactly the music sounded in New Orleans at this time can only be guessed from the playing of New Orleans-style imitators on the first recordings, which did not appear until 1917. The concept of "Dixieland" at first was an analogue of the concept of "jazz", invented among white musicians by the code name of the southern states of the United States. Later, the Dixieland style was associated specifically with the "white" ensembles of early jazz, although often the New Orleans style and Dixieland are understood as synonyms. After the release of the first jazz record of a group of white musicians Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917, jazz as a new form of folk music in the modern era begins to spread throughout the country.

Original Dixieland Jass Band - "Tiger Rag"

Vladimir Tarasov

drummer, member of the GTC trio (Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin)

It's amazing to hear from musicians that swing came after Dixieland. It turns out that Dixieland is not jazz. There is plenty of swing in Dixieland. Just listen to the syncopated banjo and snare drumming. Later, in the 1930s and 1940s, when new branches sprouted from this tree, including white ones, much changed in the language, and with it the feeling of swing.

Swing - the nature of the performance of a soloist or ensemble, based on constant deviations from the reference rhythm and creating the effect of "rocking" the entire sound mass. Swing is characteristic of different styles and periods in the history of jazz. In the 1930s, this term began to refer to the popular style of jazz during the era of big bands.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - "Dippermouth Blues"

Valery Kiselev

clarinetist, saxophonist, leader of the Classical Jazz Ensemble

New Orleans is a specific city, it was called the "Paris of the New World". Port city at the mouth of the Mississippi, which was a lot of business, a lot of visitors. There were picnics, parades, processions, so the musicians in New Orleans always had a lot of work to do. If a respectable person died, then he was ordered to have a funeral with an orchestra - this was also a job for musicians. Almost everyone there was self-taught, did not know the notes, played by ear, and King Oliver (a legend of the New Orleans style, in whose orchestra young Louis Armstrong began to play. - Ed.) was self-taught. Some confuse Dixieland and New Orleans style. New Orleans is a blues style, they didn't play the dominants, diminished seventh chord, as later in Dixieland.

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings - "She's Crying for Me"

Yuri Chugunov

composer, arranger, teacher

The improvisational principle in jazz has never lost its role. The basic textural principle of the New Orleans style was spontaneous polyphony. This polyphonic beginning was based on the simultaneous improvisation of several brass soloists (trumpet, trombone and clarinet). In addition, simple chords sounded completely new thanks to the blues scale. Over the continuous beat of the rhythm section, soloists could allow rhythmic freedom in improvisation. All these features led to the fact that jazz began to be perceived by the public as something new and unprecedented, which led to its rapid spread in the world. Jazz was originally programmed for rapid development. The prospect of this development was determined by a combination of two elements: the folklore (blues) beginning and the use of symphony orchestra instruments, including the piano.

Polyphony is the principle of constructing a musical work (warehouse), in which separate melodic voices sound in parallel, equal in their function. It is opposed to a homophonic warehouse, in which the function of the melody is performed by the upper voice, and the remaining voices support it harmoniously.

3. Chicago style. 1920s

Important social changes took place in the 1920s. This era has gone down in history as the Roaring Twenties. The writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald, in his famous stories, put it differently - "the Jazz Age". In the early 1930s, he wrote: “The word 'jazz', which no one now considers obscene, meant first sex, then dance style, and finally music. When they talk about jazz, they mean a state of nervous excitement, about the same that prevails in large cities when the front line approaches them. In the 1920s, jazz began to move into restaurants and dance halls, becoming an important part of popular culture. The essence of jazz is expressed in the very manner of performance, which cannot be recorded on paper, and thanks to the development of the recording industry, jazz begins to be replicated on a massive scale, well illustrating the thesis of Walter Benjamin about "a work of art in an era of its technical reproducibility" . In the 1920s, the migration of jazz musicians to the northern industrial cities, with Chicago becoming the center, intensified. At this time, they also become widespread jam sessions- free performances in pubs after midnight for a small audience of connoisseurs, based on the spontaneous improvisation of several soloists. The complication of arrangements and the opposition of an individual soloist to the whole ensemble begins.

Louis Armstrong - "West End Blues"

Daniel Kramer

The jazz ensemble is built on a completely different principle than the Dixieland one. Dixieland is built on the principle of two lines, when a rhythm section plays in the background - bass, banjo and percussion instruments. And in front there are polyphonic lines, say, from a trumpet, a trombone and a clarinet. And these polyphonic lines are continuously intertwined, one of them is the main one, and the rest frame it. At the same time, the rhythmic basis is off-beat, the harmonic principle is much simpler. In a jazz ensemble, the rhythmic basis is already a four-beat, not an off-beat. If there are several soloists, then they do not frame the main line, but improvise each one independently. And, finally, much more complex arrangements of jazz pieces. Jazz feeling is the feeling of a drawn bow. This rhythmic component, called drive, an unstoppable rhythmic flow, is still present in Bach, to a somewhat lesser extent in Mozart, and begins to be lost among the romantics. Jazz musicians have taken this drive to the next level. I understood where it comes from when I was in Africa and saw how rural African musicians play: it is in their blood.

Four-beat - a type of rhythm in which all four beats of the bar are evenly accentuated - strong and weak.

From Dixielands and early jazz ensembles, I would single out Louis Armstrong ensembles - Hot Five And Hot Seven. Personally, I feel closer to Armstrong's drive than King Oliver's or Bix Beiderbeck's. Such a drive - very tough and at the same time beautiful - no one, perhaps, has at this time.

Bix Beiderbeck - "Singin" the Blues"

Oleg Grymov

clarinetist, saxophonist, Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra

In early jazz, swing was different, more grotesque, for both white and black musicians. And later, with Hawkins, Lester Young, it became smoother. Bix Beiderbeck is a great cornet player, but if you listen to his swing, you can see that the corners are a little more pointed. This early swing was more like ragtime.

I come to the conclusion that the older the great artists got, the more they strove for simplicity. It’s just that many didn’t survive, like Young or Parker, they left on takeoff. Armstrong lived for a long time, but as he began with this simplicity, he ended with it. Moreover, in this simplicity there was also a depth that intellectuals needed. It seems to me that the main thing is naturalness. If this complexity is not forced, then it must exist; if simplicity is not a gaping void, then let it be. Armstrong was the quintessence of his time. This is the Johann Sebastian Bach of Jazz. Too many coincidences in this man. There were a lot of very good musicians of that time, for whom everything did not coincide as it did for him. A lesser known musician is Sydney Bechet. Bechet was a very passionate nature, just listen to his recordings to be convinced. He was a man of extremes and everything he did was as passionate as his acting. As his student Bob Wilber recalls him, Bechet could be very kind and caring, but if he felt some kind of neglect in your words, he could be very vicious and vengeful. If it were not for Bechet, it is not known whether we would have learned about John Hodges (the famous alto saxophonist from the Duke Ellington Orchestra. - Ed.), because Hodges listened to Bechet all his life and even took a few lessons from him. You can hear it, such a New Orleans approach to the instrument. Bechet has a very bright, original sound, a very frequent vibrato that is difficult to copy. Perhaps his most famous composition is summer time George Gershwin. For many soprano saxophonists, it has become a performance template. I personally love the record Black Stick Blues, there he plays the clarinet - after all, he started out as a clarinetist. The Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet said about him that there is such a musician from the orchestra Southern Syncopated Orchestra is a true genius. Then he played the clarinet.

Sydney Bechet - "Summertime"

Vibrato is a fast pulsation of one sound with a periodic change in its pitch by less than a semitone. The result is a continuous wavy line.

Jack Teagarden & His Orchestra - "Basin Street Blues"

Roswell Rudd

trombonist, composer, New York Art Quartet

Dixieland is the music I learned from. I heard it in the 40s and 50s when I was young. What attracted me most about her was her collective improvisation. She was very open. There was a clear structure, but within that structure, people made music by listening to each other. It amazed me then and still does. I think collective improvisation is what me and my twenties peers brought back to jazz in the 60s. When we first appeared before the public, we included collective improvisation in our playing. It was natural for me, because I came out of Dixieland, and I had a sense of how to play in relation to someone else - improvisational "question and answer". Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor groups; San Ra - all of them were engaged in collective improvisation and did it very beautifully. These people revived old music and at the same time created something modern.

Responsive technique (question-answer) is a fundamental compositional principle, in which all elements of the musical form line up in complementary pairs, where the first element, unstable and incomplete, implies the presence of a subsequent, logically final element.

Jack Teagarden is our American monument; he's like JJ Johnson (legendary trombonist of the bebop era. - Ed.). He epitomizes a certain style of trombone playing - very clean, fresh and punchy. I like Teegarden's earlier music, when he was more of an experimenter. When I was young, I heard a lot of his later stuff during live performances, and it was beautiful. But I missed his "mistakes".

All jazz is "free", not just free jazz. It all depends on which musicians you're talking about. Jazz is, in essence, the first music. It can be found all over the world, because when people improvise, this is the first music. Dixieland, collective improvisation is the most avant-garde form you can achieve, and if you do it well, put real feeling into it and don't overdo it with intellectualism, then you get great music. Free jazz, new music, free improvisation - they all mean the same thing to me, it's all just music. Collective improvisation is the basis of what I do. You can analyze certain periods and styles - Congo Square (an area near New Orleans, where in the 18th - early 19th centuries the black population was allowed to gather for trade, singing and dancing. - Ed.), New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, West Coast, etc. Or the great pioneers of style - Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell, John Birks Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, etc. But what distinguishes each of them is precisely the unique way of improvisation, and when it happens collectively, then free "symphonic" music is obtained. I call it Dixieland.

Bud Freeman - "The Eel"

Oleg Grymov

Bud Freeman is a great musician. He was such a dandy, he always looked very stylish and played just as beautifully. Many critics credit him as an influence on Lester Young. Indeed, at the concerts of the late 1960s, if you close your eyes, it seems that Lester Young. Lester, in my opinion, denied this, but spoke very highly of Bud Freeman. Freeman has worked extensively with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey. He is a typical representative of swing, but he also played with Dixieland musicians. He has a lot of records on which he plays in Dixieland bands, where, it seems, there should be a trombone, and Bud Freeman's tenor saxophone plays there, it turns out a completely different sound, more mobile, less obligate. He was born and died in Chicago. During this time, many great musicians lived there - for example, Jimmy Noon. I hear in the recordings of the 30s a clear influence of Nun. It is quite obvious that they went to each other's performances, took something, borrowed something. So everything is mixed up: at Freeman you find Jimmy Noone, at Lester you find Freeman and Frankie Trumbauer. This is such a mixed soil, from which beautiful flowers then grow. In general - with all the leading role of black musicians - it is not known how it would have happened if there had not been New Orleans, where there were huge French and Spanish colonies. Creoles are the illegitimate children of French and Spanish colonists from their slaves. In early jazz, it was customary for wind instruments to use a shallow vibrato, especially towards the end of a phrase. The most extreme example is Bechet, who had French blood. It seems to me that even this showed some kind of genetic French influence: if you take the singing of French chansonniers, you can hear it.

4. The era of swing, the era of big bands. 1930s

The rising popularity of jazz created a demand for large dance music orchestras. This, in turn, required more coherent, organized playing and more complex arrangements. The manner of hot jazz becomes familiar to the general public and begins to move into the mainstream. Especially important is how the whole orchestra “swings”.

Fats Waller - "Honeysuckle Rose"

Daniel Kramer

Swing is a natural syncopation based on a continuous rhythmic flow called drive, combined with a varying variable ratio of real and perceived rhythms, which, according to some opinions, including mine, is one of the meanings of the term "beat" (another meaning is strike, a method of intra-bar accentuation). When there are three components in the complex - beat, drive and natural syncopation, then, in fact, jazz begins. Fats Waller already has both swing and established jazz harmonic complexes in full measure. One person will speak with an accent, the other will pronounce the same words but without the accent. Fats Waller already speaks without an accent, the language is established there. Already there is a swing four-beat. In jazz music, the soloist plays either along with the rhythm, or slightly behind but never in front. The triplet in jazz music swings within itself, the rhythm is counted from the weak, third beat of the triplet and descends to the strong, first, as if from a wave.

A triplet is a way of grouping three notes of equal duration, which in total last as long as two notes of the same duration.

Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra - "Copenhagen"

Valery Kiselev

Fletcher Henderson belonged to that Negro circle that had made it to the upper strata, and he was very proud of it. They valued their position very much, they did not allow their children to play with black children: when a white man is naughty, this is one thing, and when a black one, everything is different. Fletcher received a good education. He is actually considered the founder of the modern big band. In the Dixieland ensemble, the trumpet leads the main melody, the clarinet plays the so-called obbligato, the trombone leads the harmonic voice. Four or five instruments, then you get a cacophony - there is nowhere to expand. When orchestras began to play in respectable houses, where more musicians were needed, somehow it was necessary to organize in a new way. And then Fletcher Henderson and his colleague Don Redman came up with the idea of ​​matching the groups - three saxophones and three brass instruments, as a rule, these were two pipes and a trombone. Constant juxtaposition, the saxes play the theme, the background plays the brass, then the brass takes over the melody, the saxophones the accompaniment. These are already the first signs of a big band, the competition of instrument sections.

A big band is a jazz ensemble with more than ten members. The big band is characterized by a more careful arrangement, a more complicated texture and an increased role of the leader of the ensemble.

Glenn Miller Orchestra - "In the Mood"

saxophonist, composer, leader of the "Round Band"

For me, the period of pre-bebop jazz music was a mystery for a long time. To be honest, I rarely listen to this music, and now, when I turn, for example, to the records of the 30s of the last century, it seems a little strange not to hear typical bop descriptions, clichés, and alterations in the swing musicians' playing. But, delving into the study of this style, the manner of playing musicians, their linguistic features, harmony, improvisation, you understand that this is an extraordinary artistic layer, a huge direction, without which a new step was impossible. The world of the “swing era” is, I would say, a special worldview. The musicians' playing seems to splash out with a stream of emotions, sometimes even unformed, unrealized ideas in the form of various melodic constructions, sometimes even arguing, interrupting each other, with bright contrasting images, for wind players, for example, containing either a passage element or a long wheeze on one note. Perhaps this is the influence of hot jazz, in which the musicians tried to achieve greater freedom and expressiveness in solos, in which one can hear African origins.

Hot jazz is a variety of jazz characterized by an enhanced improvisational beginning, the dominance of intonational and rhythmic expressiveness over composition. "Hot" from the very beginning of jazz meant "authentic", as opposed to the imitation of the New Orleans style by white musicians and the commercial version of jazz, which used only some of the characteristic elements of jazz language. While in the 1920s hot jazz and the commercial version of jazz, sweet jazz, were sharply opposed, in the 1930s hot jazz in the form of swing becomes a commercially successful popular music and enters the mainstream.

But at the same time, in the era of swing, in the 30s, musicians, while expressing and expressive ideas, have a solid, sometimes even rational game, in which a clear rhythmic organization is always heard, and an integral swing with a special rhythmic delay inherent in this period of jazz. One gets the feeling that the musicians seem to be trying to say with the help of their instruments what they cannot say with words. But even at the same time, in their playing one can hear a clear stability, fidelity to their style, manner, language, melody, metro-rhythm. By the way, about the rhythm - a separate conversation. After all, let's say, if we talk about the pre-Bop period in general, the rhythmic organization was built and perceived by musicians in different ways. For example, the bands of Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman are not only different melodic, improvisational concepts, but also different approaches to the meter-rhythmic solution.

Count Basie Orchestra - "Swingin' the Blues"

Vladimir Tarasov

We, jazzmen, have a famous saying parodying party members: we say "jazz", we mean "swing" - and vice versa. So far, no one has been able to specifically describe what swing is. What is this special swaying manner of sound production with syncopation. I once simplified and concluded for myself that if it is performed simply in eighth notes, then for me it is not jazz, but if musical phrases are built through an eighth note with a dot and a sixteenth note, then jazz. And it doesn't have to be at a regular pace. Previously, musicians in Russia for some reason stubbornly believed that swing is when you need to play a little in front or a little behind, then everything will work out. Today, fortunately, there are many musicians who can play with swing. I also know many classical musicians who, in my opinion, have excellent swing.

Benny Goodman - "Sing, Sing, Sing"

Valery Kiselev

My acquaintance with jazz happened in 1963, when I was in the 7th grade. My older friend invited me to the regional House of Culture, where they showed the film "Sunny Valley Serenade" with Glenn Miller. Jazz, big band, swing entered me with this film. In the 1930s, swing jazz was very important. This, in modern terms, was the only "pop". In the 1930s, there were more than a hundred big bands with famous names in New York. By the end of the 1930s, America was covered with a network of radio stations, and people could listen to jazz, dance, and have fun from morning to evening. Before the start of the war, a huge number of gramophone records were produced. With the help of records, orchestras gained fame, went on tour, people bought their records and went to dances. When video recorders appeared in the Soviet Union and we saw these orchestras live, we were amazed: how, such stars - and they play at dances! In general, it was not customary to buy tickets, sit in a chair and listen to jazz. Jazz played where people drank, ate, danced.

The Lindy Hop is the main dance of the swing era.

All the musicians of the swing era went to dances. When I learned these dances, I really understood what swing is. A non-dancing person perceives music with his ears, and swing dancing is based on bounce, on the swaying of the body. It was not until January 1938 that the jazz concert of the Benny Goodman Orchestra was organized for the first time at Carnegie Hall, where symphonic music was usually played. This music came from the bottom and had to make its way to the concert hall.

Bounce - performance at a moderately fast pace with an "elastic" rhythmic pitch, characteristic of swing. Also a kind of swing dance.

The Savoy was the first dance hall where mixed couples, black and white, were allowed to dance. As a rule, in such halls there were two orchestras - one of their own, the other invited; there was competition between them. When Benny Goodman created his orchestra, he had a problem: as they put it then, he did not have his own "portfolio" - the repertoire. He was advised to seek arrangements from Fletcher Henderson, who had recently disbanded his orchestra. Fletcher Henderson had already given his works to Chick Webb. And two orchestras played the same notes. Someone came up with the idea to arrange a competition - a white and black orchestra. A recording of this concert has been preserved. I never believed that black orchestras could swing better, but playing the same notes, Benny Goodman's orchestra looked much weaker. I would not separate white and black culture in America. They all grew up in this culture - you just have to live in America.

There were many very similar orchestras, passing things for dancing. But there were also many bright orchestras, arrangers, soloists. Someone was more, in modern terms, promoted, someone less. Benny Goodman was a great clarinetist, but also a great businessman. One critic said of two friends who worked together for Ben Pollack in their youth, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller: if these two guys had gone into any other business, they would have succeeded. Glenn Miller counted every penny. Not a particularly talented musician, he gathered an orchestra, arrangers and became great.

In the 1930s, soloists played a smaller role. The play was supposed to fit in some three minutes. Therefore, soloists never played a full square of 32 measures. All the soloists played solo in pieces, divided the square into parts. Therefore, the soloists could not express themselves, as in bebop.

A square is a harmonic grid (succession of chords) lasting a certain number of measures (most often 32), underlying the main theme, which, when repeated, is superimposed by improvisation. A jazz composition most often consists of a series of such squares.

Duke Ellington - "Take the A Train"

Vladimir Tarasov

The big band era was great. I myself started in the big band and adored the orchestras of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Don Ellis, Gil Evans, who shaped the compositional thinking of Miles Davis. For a big band, the competent work of an arranger and the talent of a leader and conductor are important. I listened to the Duke Ellington Orchestra for twelve concerts. In general, they almost did not improvise in the generally accepted sense of the word, they played the same program, but each concert was different. This is the skill of a musician - here and now, in this time and space. They played absolutely amazing. Duke Ellington himself sounded and was part of what he played. The charisma of the artist, the leader, "started" the orchestra. When Ellington passed away, I heard literally a month later how this orchestra played with the same line-up, only his son Mercer Ellington conducted. There was the same program, the same musicians, but completely different music. In art, after all, there are three gradations - amateur, professional and master. Duke Ellington was a great master. There are many professionals in Russia today, but few masters. It's not about technology. We all know how to read notes, books, but we still need to understand the meaning of the text. That's what good orchestra leaders (and not only jazz ones) are for - they reveal to us the "history" embedded in the sound.

5. Jazz in academic music and saxophonists of the 30s

"Porgy and Bess"

German Lukyanov

trumpeter, flugelhorn player, composer, leader of the ensemble "Kadans"

Shostakovich was at the premiere of Porgy and Bess in Leningrad. My mother knew him, she knew how he spoke about the opera: "Thirty percent of good music." I would not give one hundred percent either - there are some weaknesses, it cannot be said that this is an impeccable masterpiece. But thirty percent is very little. Of course, there is more than half of the good music. This is music that contains elements of jazz art. Gershwin was sympathetic to jazz, this is quite obvious. If it were not so, jazzmen would not play his themes. They felt something native in this - in harmony, in rhythm, in aesthetics. But he was eager for symphonism, the scale of jazz seemed small to him.

Coleman Hawkins - "Body and Soul"

Oleg Grymov

Hawkins professed a harmonic approach to improvisation. He dug up every square centimeter of the musical fabric, tried to reveal all the facets of jazz harmony. Before him, few people played the tenor saxophone so masterfully.

Lester Young - "Way down Yonder in New Orleans"

Alexey Kruglov

Among the musicians who came into their own in the 1930s, as a saxophonist, the personality of Lester Young is especially interesting to me. This is an amazing musician who, completely in the style of swing improvisation, is still significantly different from other swing saxophonists, in particular - Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins. This is in many ways an all-encompassing personality. Firstly, he obviously did not gravitate toward a “hot” game, he often has chul intonations, which he may have anticipated the appearance of chul as a style. Lester Young sometimes uses alterations, plays that have become a cornerstone for boppers. Of course, this moment was not his main line, often his solos are built on the usual seventh chord row using blues turns, but nevertheless, the creation of harmonic tension due to the use of a partial bop move with alteration, coupled with cold playing, makes a unique impression.

Alteration - raising or lowering the pitch of a sound without changing its name.

I think not only Lester Young, albeit unwittingly, went beyond his style. This issue is still worth exploring, since the topic of mastery in this direction only seems at first glance an easy task. After all, a jazzman is a special worldview, and even more so - in the pre-Bop period, where each musician did not try to be like someone else, but followed his own original path.

To be continued

Despite all the destruction that Hurricane Katrina brought to one of the most colorful cities in America, New Orleans lives on. And while some skeptics claim that this amazing place will never be the same again, we'll just go along with it. But we will not abandon the idea of ​​going there someday anyway - the world jazz capital is still of interest to tourists and travelers from all over the world. And every day more and more for the first, because the infrastructure of the city is recovering quickly.

Name and founding of the city

It is unlikely that we will ever know why we call this city New Orleans and not New Orleans, as one might suggest by drawing an analogy with New York or New Hampshire, in the names of which the prefix "new" to the word "new "No one changes. But we know many other interesting facts from the history of the cultural center of the American South. Like many cities on the continent, it was not only founded by European colonists, but for a very long time was the object of the direct interests of its European donors, who supplied the local territories (south of Louisiana) with the necessary fresh blood - new settlers. The original name of the city is not the English New Orleans, but the French La Nouvelle-Orl?ans, later simply translated into the language of international communication. This situation is not at all surprising, given that at the time of the founding of this settlement, the French had all the full-fledged claims to the title of the dominant nationality of the colonialists in those places that are now considered one hundred percent Anglo-Saxon. Those who are interested in this issue have already noticed that French influence in North America is not limited to Canada. To do this, it is enough to at least pay attention to the many toponyms of the state of Louisiana - from the names of small towns like Baton Rouge to the very name of the state.

The birthday of New Orleans and the history of its development

New Orleans has its own well-defined birthday. It is August 25, 1718. Then, on the site of the modern city, a French colony was founded, which received its name in honor of Philip II, Duke of Orleans, who at that time was the regent of France. The era was alarming, the redistribution of colonized lands resembled the redistribution of spheres of influence between Solntsevo and Tambov, and as a result of these redistributions, in 1763, as a result of the Paris Agreement, the lands on which New Orleans was located were transferred to the Spanish Empire. Only in 1801 the city with the surrounding environs was returned to France. But Napoleon's power here did not last long. In 1803, the emperor sold Louisiana to the United States of America, which had a very favorable effect on the economic and demographic development of New Orleans.

On the suburban plantations, the slaves ensured the financial viability of the city by growing sugar and cotton. Uncontrollably, at the expense of the British, French and French-speaking Creoles, the urban population also grew. Of particular note in this regard is the Haitian Revolution of 1804, when more than ninety percent of the refugees from the island, a large proportion of whom were so-called "free people of color", settled in New Orleans.

Ten years later, the most glorious event in the history of the city took place. On January 8, 1815, an epic battle took place between the American troops and the British military forces, who wanted to restore the power of the Kingdom over the local lands. It ended with the complete and unconditional victory of the representatives of the New World.

These and subsequent years have largely defined the unique face of New Orleans. The port of the city was of the most important strategic importance in the slave trade - almost all ships stuffed like a commodity, live cargo from Africa, stopped in New Orleans. In particular, here, like nowhere else in America, there were many free, endowed with all the necessary rights of blacks, most of them educated and belonging to the middle class. That is why the city is considered to be a place of true fusion of black and white cultures with the prevalence of the first - and such a result has not yet been observed in any other state. In the relations of the two races in New Orleans there was no such strong alienation, which is still present in the same New York. As a result, there was a special atmosphere of equality in the city, the level of black crime was incredibly low, and racism on both sides was kept to a minimum. Although it was not without problems: after all, despite the presence of many free, wealthy people from Africa, the country's largest slave market was located here. In any case, getting into the streets of New Orleans, you clearly feel one thing: in these places, blacks created the image of the city on an equal basis with whites, and were not an embittered criminalized layer, known primarily only for the hip-hop subculture.

The slave trade is a shameful business, but by 1840 New Orleans was ranked third in the United States in terms of population, and in terms of income it completely broke into first place.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the city was a truly progressive settlement, among other things, known for one of the first municipal sewer systems on the continent, designed by engineer and inventor Baldwin Wood, who rightfully became one of the city's local heroes for his work. True, as some scientists now believe, it was Wood's activity, along with some natural processes, that led to the systematic subsidence of the soil and, as a result, to the fact that a significant part of the urban area was several feet below sea level, which greatly exacerbates the consequences of potential flooding.

However, given the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the coast in August 2005, even a normal correlation with sea level would hardly have helped to avoid disaster.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005

More than eighty percent of New Orleans was flooded, aided by the collapse of the municipal levee system, later called the biggest federal urban planning disaster in American history. Compared to what happened, even the 1999 earthquake in San Francisco faded. Nevertheless, travel lovers can breathe a sigh of relief: the historical part of the city, where all the sights are located, is located not in the lowland, but much higher, so it has remained untouched, but the modern part of the city still leaves much to be desired.

Recovery from Hurricane Katrina

Official tourism has returned to New Orleans as recently as the beginning of 2008. The Louis Armstrong International Airport has reopened, as have hotels and other services for visitors to the city. Of course, about half of everything that could interest the eye of a traveler four years ago is still in a state of inactivity and stagnation, but anyone who wants to still find a lot of interesting things in the local area. Moreover, the sights of the ruins (and you can't drive a car through the new part of the city for twenty minutes without seeing at least one flattened house) have become a kind of attraction in the time that has passed since Katrina. For those most interested in this subject, the Gray Line Tours agency operates here, conducting tours of the most impressive places of destruction with an explanation of the reasons for what happened.

But, of course, the charm of New Orleans has less to do with the aftermath of a hurricane than with the rich cultural heritage of the city.

As is often the case in the United States, most of the population of New Orleans does not live in the city itself, but represents a suburban agglomeration. According to 2007 data, now it is about one million and two hundred thousand people, while only three hundred thousand live in the city itself. Every month there are more and more people here - refugees from bad weather are returning home, although many sociologists say that New Orleans will not rise to the previous demographic level.

But the most important thing is that the very spirit of the old city has been preserved here. New Orleans chefs are still considered some of the best in the country, jazz of the highest class is regularly played on the streets, and the famous festivals held in the cultural capital of the South once again delight both guests and locals.

The city is known primarily as a place where it is really comfortable for adult tourists - plenty of fine alcoholic drinks, spicy Creole cuisine, jazz music, architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an abundance of old-fashioned taxis on the streets, the awareness of the fact that one of the largest gay communities in America - all this will be much more interesting for an adult mature personality, and not for a teenager.

New Orleans is divided into several blocks - broken, of course, not according to anyone's plan, but historically. The most famous residential area of ​​the city is the French Quarter, a favorite destination for all tourists. Old buildings, incalculable antique shops, restaurants and drinking establishments with the richest selection of drinks have brought this area a strong reputation. It is simply impossible to visit New Orleans and ignore the French Quarter, unless you deliberately set yourself such a perverted goal. This is a place of rest not only for tourists, but also for citizens. Only those who earn their living in places where others prefer to spend their money work here.

The Central Business District is another matter. Despite the presence of several museums in it (including the Louisiana State Children's Museum, which you will definitely need if you do take a child with you, the Center for Contemporary Art and the Museum of Southern Art), this place is more associated with New Orleans with prisoners here. business agreements. Local restaurants are much better suited not for drinking-clouded fun with friends, but for a leisurely, respectable dinner with a business partner. And if in the fall of 2005, for obvious reasons, it was difficult to imagine that someone in the city was thinking about business deals, but now it is again a common activity for local entrepreneurs. Tourists will also be interested in looking at Julia Street, nicknamed the gallery street for its exemplary New Orleans appearance.

Opposite the French Quarter is Fabourge Marigny - a bohemian recreation area. In addition to the stylish nightclubs, where you will be treated not only to delicious food and drinks, but also to the most authentic jazz in the world, this quarter has a very specific reputation as the main meeting place for gays and lesbians, of which there are incredibly many in artistic circles in the West. In any other American city, sexual minorities do not feel so comfortable - after all, the United States is a very conservative country. But in New Orleans, where continental European Catholicism influenced the local mentality to a much greater extent than classical Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, such things are treated quite calmly. By the way, New Orleans is perhaps the city in the USA that has retained the spirit of the Old World to the greatest extent, most likely for the above religious reason.

Jazz without snobbery

However, it is impossible to experience the very essence of New Orleans solely through eating Creole delicacies and admiring the architecture. The most fanatical tourists need to pay attention to two things that have shaped the modern New Orleans from the spiritual side. The first of these has already been mentioned several times. This is jazz - music, which is not just a reproduction of a musical text, supposed by the European musical tradition, but a spontaneous improvisation, born of the African dance culture, in which sound and body movement are inseparable from each other. It is not surprising that the European jazz school gradually moved away from the dance roots of the style, turning it into an academic absurdity. Here, on the stage of New Orleans cafes, in clubs and just on the streets, he is still the way he was born and supposed to develop - peppy, savory, often frankly danceable and very entertaining, completely devoid of the snobbery inherent in Europe. Here they still honor their fellow countryman, the great Louis Armstrong, and cherish the traditions of Dixieland, the basis of the local jazz direction is the desire to emotionally arouse a simple person, tired after many hours of work, and not load the mind of a bored intellectual with complex sound structures. So, being in this city, you should definitely listen to its jazzmen - firstly, thereby expressing respect for New Orleans, and secondly, it is actually pleasant and interesting.

voodoo cult

The other spiritual side of the city will surely enchant all lovers of exotic, romantic and mysticism. It was in New Orleans that the Voodoo cult took root like nowhere else. More precisely, its Louisiana offshoot, which, unlike the Haitian, is closely associated with the Catholic tradition and, as a result, with Christian superstitions. In addition to purely ethnic reasons, this can be explained by looking at local cemeteries. The fact is that the soil here is swampy, the dead were sent to the most marshy and prone to subsidence of the soil places. In this regard, they were not buried in the ground itself, but were placed in crypts, which, by the way, are of considerable interest to art lovers. Therefore, the Voodoo sorcerer, during the performance of the main ritual - that is, the call to this world of zombies, worked in facilitated conditions - he did not have to wield a shovel for a long time, tearing up the grave.

In shops you can always buy amulets associated with a sinister cult, and happy experts in the English language will surely enjoy the terrible mystical stories that go around among the local population. A person with a more prosaic mindset is unlikely to share the emotions of mysticism fans. He will be very good in a restaurant with a glass of Hard Grenada.

Local population

Of course, it is worth touching separately on the topic of communication and mutual understanding with the local population. Contrary to a fairly common stereotype, most New Orleans residents are not Cajuns. Cajuns, they are simply French-speaking residents of the state of Louisiana, after whom the "American" dialect of the French language is named, live mainly in rural areas. Therefore, knowledge of the language of Balzac and Baudelaire, to some extent, can still bring you closer to the sources of the city’s culture, allow you to freely read the inscriptions on houses, famous New Orleans crypts and other architectural monuments, but among the skills that are urgently needed for survival and comfort stay here it is not included. Although, without visiting any of the Cajun cafes or shops that are present in the southwestern part, you still won’t be able to fully experience the atmosphere of the local exotic.

When a traveler interested in a boring pastime steps on the land of New Orleans (usually this happens at the Louis Armstrong Airport), he usually already knows a number of features of the local way of life, without being aware of which he may not feel the comfort of being here.

Credit cards - destroying stereotypes about America

The attitude of local residents to credit cards is extremely important. An ordinary tourist is often held hostage to one stereotype about America and Americans. The name of this stereotype is confidence in the unlimited power of credit cards in the United States. It is because of him that many visitors to New Orleans tightly stuff their wallet with them, which they later regret. Of course, supermarkets will always welcome such customers, but they do not come here for the sake of supermarkets. And if the restaurant of a hotel in New York or, say, Boston, makes settlements with its visitors using the card system, then the most colorful and attractive establishments for tourists in this city still prefer to be paid the old fashioned way. Therefore, it should be remembered that paper is valued much higher than plastic here, and it is necessary to pay special attention to it on the way here.

How to move around the city

Spending during your stay in New Orleans (usually most of these expenses are in the French Quarter) can be managed in different ways and even be left without a single cent on the first night of your stay - the attractiveness of the city contributes to this. But there is one item among the expenses that, unlike Las Vegas, Los Angeles or San Diego, it is always easy to save money in New Orleans. This is the cost of a taxi. In other large metropolitan areas, it is simply impossible to do without them, while the jazz capital is a city of pedestrians. Its streets, usually flooded with golden sunlight, seem to be made for strolling slowly along them, looking at the old signs above the entrances to the shops and admiring the game of "bunnies" in the windows. There are, of course, really noisy streets crowded with cars, but the glory of the automobile city has never been inherent in the “Louisiana pearl”. Here, as in London, when choosing urban transport to travel distances that are not suitable for walking, it is customary to stop on buses. But there is also a “trademark” way of moving from one end of the city to the other - this is a train, the only municipal intercity train in urban America.

A truly original feature of the local consciousness is the absence of the concept of the cardinal points familiar to most people. The fact is that the landmark for movement on the ground for the inhabitants of New Orleans is the sun, as is traditionally accepted almost everywhere, and the course of the legendary Mississippi River, on which the city was built. So here you can often hear phrases like "going down the river", "you should go towards the river" or "our company is on its way from the river." And this is true in its own way, because it was in the mouths of rivers that cities were built from time immemorial, and it was fresh water, and not sunlight, that was and is of decisive importance for human settlement anywhere in the world.

The Mississippi is very long, as anyone who read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remember, and there are many cities along its banks, most of whose history goes back to the cowboy era. They can be visited for many reasons, listing which does not make much sense here. They mix with numerous Creole and Cajun settlements, each of which, in one form or another, has preserved an amazing fusion of African, European and proper American cultures. But nowhere is it more pronounced and clear than here in New Orleans.

Have a nice trip and see you on the pages of the site !!!

-2 to 6 m Timezone UTC−6 Population Population Agglomeration 1 240 977 Nationalities Asians: 3% Digital IDs Telephone code 985, 504 Postcode 70117 cityofno.com Audio, photo and video at Wikimedia Commons

A striking hallmark of the city is the mixed Franco-Spanish Creole architecture, interpenetration of cultures and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is famous for its cuisine, music (in particular, it is considered the birthplace of jazz), as well as annual festivals and carnivals (among which is the famous Mardi Gras). The city is often referred to as one of the most unique in the United States.

New Orleans is located in southeast Louisiana on both banks of the Mississippi River near its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico. The heart of the city is the French Quarter on the north bank. The city is merged with parish of Orleans into a single administrative unit.

Story [ | ]

origins [ | ]

New Orleans was founded in the spring of 1718 by the French "Mississippi Company" by decree of Jean-Baptiste Le Mont de Bainville on the lands of the Chitimacha people. It was named after Philip II, Duke of Orléans, then Regent of France. His title comes from the French city of Orléans.

The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire by the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762). Learning of this only in 1764, the French colonists did not recognize the agreement and ousted the Spanish governor in an uprising in 1768. However, the uprising was soon crushed and in 1769 the Spanish flag was raised over the city.

US territory [ | ]

In the 1850s, the position of the white French-speaking population was not threatened and remained a very vibrant community. French was taught in two of the city's four school districts (all white). In 1860 there were 13,000 free people of color in the city ( gens de couleur libres) - representatives of the class of free citizens, for the most part of mixed origin, which grew during the French and Spanish rule. According to the census, 81% of the population belonged to mulattoes - a generalized term for varying degrees of mixing of ethnic groups. Mostly French-speaking, they were artisans, an educated and professional class of African Americans. The majority of the black population was still in slavery - they were used as servants, port workers, apprentices, but most importantly - to work on the numerous sugar plantations that spread out in the district.

Civil War[ | ]

As feared by the elite Creole population of the city, the Civil War completely turned their way of life. In 1862, the city was occupied by a fleet of northerners under the command of Benjamin Butler, a prominent state lawyer from the Massachusetts militia. He was later nicknamed "Beast Butler" by New Orleans residents because of the decree he issued. When the city was occupied, his troops were met with indignation and open hostility from southern women, which even led to clashes in the streets, after which he issued a decree according to which, if such situations were repeated, such ladies would be regarded as prostitutes.

Butler also abolished the teaching of French in the city's schools. Statewide measures in 1864, and then after the war in 1868, further strengthened the policy of using only English. By the time of the official consolidation of the dominant position of the English language, he already dominated in the sphere of business and bureaucracy. By the end of the 19th century, the use of French began to decline. A new wave of Italian and German immigration also influenced this process. Despite this, by 1902 "a quarter of the city's population used French in their daily communication, and another two-quarters had an excellent understanding of French." By 1945, many Creole women (mostly of the older generation) spoke no English at all. Last major francophone newspaper L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orleans(New Orleans Bee) closed on December 27, 1923 - 96 years after it began operations.

Since the city was captured at the very beginning of the war, he managed to avoid the massive destruction caused by many other cities in the American South. The Union Army gradually gained control of the coast as well as the region to the north along the Mississippi. As a result, southern Louisiana was excluded from President Abraham Lincoln's slavery abolition proclamation (which was primarily a military measure against territories under Confederate control). A large number of ex-slaves from the countryside and a number of free citizens of color joined the ranks of the first black regiment raised during the war. Under the command of Brigadier General Daniel Ullman (1810-1892) they became known as " Corps d'Afrique(although the name came before the war and was applied to groups of free people of color, and the new group mainly consisted of former slaves). Later, in addition to them, "US colored troops" were formed, which played an increasing role in it by the end of the war.

20th century [ | ]

The zenith of New Orleans' population and economy in relation to other southern cities came in the period before the outbreak of the Civil War. From the middle of the 19th century, rapid economic growth began to affect all areas of life, but the leading role of New Orleans against the background of other cities has steadily declined. The development of railroad and highway networks has hit river traffic, diverting the flow of goods to other transport corridors and markets.

By the middle of the 20th century, New Orleans clearly felt that their city was no longer the most advanced in the south. By 1950, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta overtook New Orleans in size, and Miami eclipsed it in 1960, even as New Orleans' population reached its all-time high.

As in the case of other old American cities, highway construction and suburban development have contributed to the relocation of residents from the city center to new residential areas outside of it. The 1970 census recorded a record decline in population since the city became part of the US. The Greater New Orleans agglomeration continued to grow, but more slowly than in other major cities of the "sun belt". While the importance of the port remained high, automation and the shift to containerization cost many jobs. New Orleans' economy has always been more mercantile and financial service oriented than industrial, but even its modest manufacturing capacity was severely reduced after World War II. Despite some economic successes by city governments under mayors Morrison (1946-1961) and Shiro (1961-1970), the growth of the agglomeration still lagged behind more vibrant cities.

XXI Century [ | ]

Hurricane Katrina [ | ]

Nicknames - "Crescent city" (eng. Crescent city), "Great simplicity" (eng. Big easy) and "Carefree city" (eng. City that care forgot); the unofficial motto is "Let the good days flow" (fr. Laissez les bons temps rouler). Considered the cradle of jazz, birthplace of Louis Armstrong. Site of numerous jazz festivals. New Orleans is the setting for the popular folk song The House of the Rising Sun and the acclaimed satirical novel by Pulitzer Prize winner John F. Kennedy Toole.

Geography [ | ]

Satellite image of the city

New Orleans is located on the banks of the Mississippi, about 169 km upriver from the Gulf of Mexico and south of Lake Pontchartrain. The total area of ​​the city is 907 km², of which only 468 km² is land. Initially, the city was protected by natural dams, or was built on elevated sites along the Mississippi River. Since the 1965 Flood Control Act ( Flood Control Act of 1965) dams were erected by US engineers covering a wide geographical region, including the area where there used to be swamps. Perhaps it was this human impact that led to the subsidence of the territory, however, this is still the subject of discussion.

The main sports facility of the city is the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the Saints' home stadium, the venue for other events. The stadium hosted the final match of the NFL - Super Bowl seven times (1978, 1981, 1986, 1990, 1997, 2002 and 2013) and according to this indicator, the building holds the record among NFL stadiums. Another major sports facility in the city is the Smoothie King Center - the home arena of the Pelicans, Voodoo, and the venue for many events. New Orleans Racecourse hosts one of the oldest horse races in the country - . Student teams compete at the Lakefront Arena.

Each year, New Orleans hosts one of the crucial college football games, the Sugar Bowl and one of the PGA Tour tournaments. In addition to the Super Bowls, the city has also hosted other major sporting events such as the NBA All-Star Game, the College Football Finals, and the NCAA Final Four. In addition, the city annually hosts a marathon, a 10 km race, and two more races.

twin cities[ | ]

Notes [ | ]

1. U.S. Census Bureau: Orleans Parish, Louisiana Archived July 31, 2014. (English)
2. ArchINFORM
3. 2016 U.S. Gazetteer Files — US Census Bureau, 2016.
4. US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/popest/data/counties/totals/2013/files/CO-EST2013-Alldata.csv
5. US Census Louisiana Parish Population Estimates - 1 July 2008 (indefinite) (unavailable link). census.gov (March 19, 2009). Retrieved June 15, 2009. Archived from the original on May 7, 2009.
6. Cultures that have had a significant impact on New Orleans throughout the city's history include French, Native American, African, Spanish, Cajun, German, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic, and Vietnamese. Multicultural history of New Orleans(English) . Retrieved June 26, 2018.
7. "Old sober": how to hangover in New Orleans (indefinite) . BBC Russian service (June 16, 2018). Retrieved June 26, 2018.
8. Where to listen to jazz: from New Orleans to Melbourne (indefinite) . Buro 24/7 (May 16, 2017). Retrieved June 26, 2018.
9. New Orleans: Birthplace of Jazz(English) . PBS - JAZZ. Film by Ken Burns. Retrieved May 17, 2006.
10. Behind the scenes of "Hurricane at Bayou"(English) (unavailable link). Retrieved 26 June 2018. Archived from the original on 15 January 2016.
11. Lewis, Peirce F. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape. - 2003. - S. 175.
12. Lawrence J. Kotlikoff, Anton J. Rupert. The Manumission of Slaves in New Orleans, 1827–1846(English) (PDF). Southern Studies (1980). Retrieved 18 July 2018.
13. , With. 166.
14. Usticesi in the United States Civil War(English) . The Ustica Connection (March 12, 2003). Retrieved 29 July 2018.
15. Kevin Baker. Future of New Orleans(English) . American Heritage (April/May 2006). Retrieved July 22, 2018. Archived from the original on October 5, 2009.
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20. New Orleans and Major League Soccer? (indefinite) . ABC26 News. Retrieved 2007-08-26. Archived from the original on 2007-05-29.

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Jazz - a form of musical art that arose at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century in the USA, in New Orleans, as a result of the synthesis of African and European cultures and subsequently became widespread. The origins of jazz were the blues and other African American folk music. Characteristic features of the musical language of jazz initially became improvisation, polyrhythm based on syncopated rhythms, and a unique set of techniques for performing rhythmic texture - swing. Further development of jazz occurred due to the development of new rhythmic and harmonic models by jazz musicians and composers. Jazz sub-jazzes are: avant-garde jazz, bebop, classical jazz, cool, modal jazz, swing, smooth jazz, soul jazz, free jazz, fusion, hard bop and a number of others.

History of the development of jazz

Wilex College Jazz Band, Texas

Jazz arose as a combination of several musical cultures and national traditions. It originally came from Africa. Any African music is characterized by a very complex rhythm, music is always accompanied by dances, which are fast stomping and clapping. On this basis, at the end of the 19th century, another musical genre emerged - ragtime. Subsequently, the rhythms of ragtime, combined with elements of the blues, gave rise to a new musical direction - jazz.

The blues originated at the end of the 19th century as a fusion of African rhythms and European harmony, but its origins should be sought from the moment slaves were brought from Africa to the New World. The brought slaves did not come from the same clan and usually did not even understand each other. The need for consolidation led to the unification of many cultures and, as a result, to the creation of a single culture (including music) of African Americans. The processes of mixing African musical culture, and European (which also underwent serious changes in the New World) took place starting from the 18th century and in the 19th century led to the emergence of "proto-jazz", and then jazz in the generally accepted sense. The cradle of jazz was the American South, and especially New Orleans.
Pledge of eternal youth of jazz - improvisation
The peculiarity of the style is the unique individual performance of the jazz virtuoso. The key to the eternal youth of jazz is improvisation. After the emergence of a brilliant performer who lived his whole life in the rhythm of jazz and still remains a legend - Louis Armstrong, the art of jazz performance saw new unusual horizons for itself: vocal or instrumental solo performance becomes the center of the entire performance, completely changing the idea of ​​jazz. Jazz is not only a certain type of musical performance, but also a unique cheerful era.

new orleans jazz

The term New Orleans is commonly used to describe the style of musicians who played jazz in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917, as well as New Orleans musicians who played in Chicago and made records from about 1917 through the 1920s. This period of jazz history is also known as the Jazz Age. And the term is also used to describe the music played in different historical periods by New Orleans revivalists who sought to play jazz in the same style as New Orleans school musicians.

African-American folklore and jazz have parted ways since the opening of Storyville, New Orleans' red-light district famed for its entertainment venues. Those who wanted to have fun and have fun here were waiting for a lot of seductive opportunities that offered dance floors, cabaret, variety shows, circus, bars and eateries. And everywhere in these institutions music sounded and musicians who mastered the new syncopated music could find work. Gradually, with the growth of the number of musicians professionally working in the entertainment establishments of Storyville, the number of marching and street brass bands decreased, and instead of them, the so-called Storyville ensembles arose, the musical manifestation of which becomes more individual, in comparison with the playing of brass bands. These compositions, often called "combo orchestras" and became the founders of the style of classical New Orleans jazz. Between 1910 and 1917, Storyville's nightclubs became the ideal setting for jazz.
Between 1910 and 1917, Storyville's nightclubs became the ideal setting for jazz.
The development of jazz in the United States in the first quarter of the 20th century

After the closure of Storyville, jazz began to turn from a regional folk genre into a nationwide musical direction, spreading to the northern and northeastern provinces of the United States. But of course, only the closure of one entertainment quarter could not contribute to its wide distribution. Along with New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Memphis played an important role in the development of jazz from the very beginning. Ragtime was born in Memphis in the 19th century, from where it then spread throughout the North American continent in the period 1890-1903.

On the other hand, minstrel performances, with their motley mosaic of African-American folklore of all kinds, from jig to ragtime, quickly spread everywhere and set the stage for the advent of jazz. Many future jazz celebrities began their journey in the minstrel show. Long before Storyville closed, New Orleans musicians were touring with so-called "vaudeville" troupes. Jelly Roll Morton from 1904 toured regularly in Alabama, Florida, Texas. From 1914 he had a contract to perform in Chicago. In 1915 he moved to Chicago and Tom Brown's White Dixieland Orchestra. Major vaudeville tours in Chicago were also made by the famous Creole Band, led by New Orleans cornet player Freddie Keppard. Having separated from the Olympia Band at one time, Freddie Keppard's artists already in 1914 successfully performed in the best theater in Chicago and received an offer to make a sound recording of their performances even before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which, however, Freddie Keppard short-sightedly rejected. Significantly expanded the territory covered by the influence of jazz, orchestras playing on pleasure steamers that sailed up the Mississippi.

Since the end of the 19th century, river trips from New Orleans to St. Paul have become popular, first for the weekend, and later for the whole week. Since 1900, New Orleans orchestras have been performing on these riverboats, the music of which has become the most attractive entertainment for passengers during river tours. In one of these orchestras, Suger Johnny, Louis Armstrong's future wife, the first jazz pianist Lil Hardin, began. The riverboat band of another pianist, Faiths Marable, featured many future New Orleans jazz stars.

Steamboats that traveled along the river often stopped at passing stations, where orchestras arranged concerts for the local public. It was these concerts that became creative debuts for Bix Beiderbeck, Jess Stacy and many others. Another famous route ran along the Missouri to Kansas City. In this city, where, thanks to the strong roots of African-American folklore, the blues developed and finally took shape, the virtuoso playing of New Orleans jazzmen found an exceptionally fertile environment. By the early 1920s, Chicago became the main center for the development of jazz music, in which, through the efforts of many musicians who gathered from different parts of the United States, a style was created that was nicknamed Chicago jazz.

Big bands

The classic, established form of big bands has been known in jazz since the early 1920s. This form retained its relevance until the end of the 1940s. The musicians who entered most big bands, as a rule, almost in their teens, played quite definite parts, either learned in rehearsals or from notes. Careful orchestrations, along with massive brass and woodwind sections, produced rich jazz harmonies and produced the sensationally loud sound that became known as "the big band sound".

The big band became the popular music of its day, reaching its peak in the mid-1930s. This music became the source of the swing dance craze. The leaders of the famous jazz bands Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Lunsford, Charlie Barnet composed or arranged and recorded on records a genuine hit parade of tunes that sounded not only on the radio but also everywhere in dance halls. Many big bands showed their solo improvisers, who brought the audience to a state close to hysteria during well-hyped "battles of the orchestras".
Many big bands demonstrated their solo improvisers, who brought the audience to a state close to hysteria.
Although big bands declined in popularity after World War II, orchestras led by Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Harry James, and many others toured and recorded frequently over the next few decades. Their music was gradually transformed under the influence of new trends. Groups such as ensembles led by Boyd Ryburn, Sun Ra, Oliver Nelson, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones-Mal Lewis explored new concepts in harmony, instrumentation and improvisational freedom. Today, big bands are the standard in jazz education. Repertory orchestras such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterpiece Orchestra, and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble regularly play original arrangements of big band compositions.

northeastern jazz

Although the history of jazz began in New Orleans with the advent of the 20th century, this music experienced a real rise in the early 1920s, when trumpeter Louis Armstrong left New Orleans to create new revolutionary music in Chicago. The migration of New Orleans jazz masters to New York that began shortly thereafter marked a trend of continuous movement of jazz musicians from the South to the North.

Louis Armstrong

Chicago embraced New Orleans music and made it hot, turning it up not just with Armstrong's famed Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, but others as well, including the likes of Eddie Condon and Jimmy McPartland, whose Austin High School crew helped revive the New Orleans schools. Other notable Chicagoans who have pushed the boundaries of classic New Orleans jazz include pianist Art Hodes, drummer Barrett Deems, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Armstrong and Goodman, who eventually moved to New York, created a kind of critical mass there that helped this city turn into a real jazz capital of the world. And while Chicago remained primarily the center of sound recording in the first quarter of the 20th century, New York also emerged as the premier jazz venue, hosting such legendary clubs as the Minton Playhouse, Cotton Club, Savoy and Village Vengeward, and as well as arenas such as Carnegie Hall.

Kansas City Style

During the era of the Great Depression and Prohibition, the Kansas City jazz scene became a mecca for the newfangled sounds of the late 1920s and 1930s. The style that flourished in Kansas City is characterized by soulful pieces with a blues tinge, performed by both big bands and small swing ensembles, demonstrating very energetic solos, performed for patrons of taverns with illegally sold liquor. It was in these pubs that the style of the great Count Basie crystallized, starting in Kansas City with Walter Page's orchestra and later with Benny Moten. Both of these orchestras were typical representatives of the Kansas City style, which was based on a peculiar form of blues, called "urban blues" and formed in the playing of the above orchestras. The jazz scene in Kansas City was also distinguished by a whole galaxy of outstanding masters of the vocal blues, the recognized "king" among which was the longtime soloist of the Count Basie Orchestra, the famous blues singer Jimmy Rushing. The famous alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, who was born in Kansas City, upon his arrival in New York, widely used the characteristic blues "chips" he had learned in the Kansas City orchestras and later formed one of the starting points in the experiments of boppers in the 1940s.

West Coast Jazz

Artists captured by the cool jazz movement in the 1950s worked extensively in the Los Angeles recording studios. Largely influenced by nonet Miles Davis, these Los Angeles-based performers developed what is now known as West Coast Jazz. West Coast jazz was much softer than the furious bebop that had preceded it. Most West Coast jazz has been written out in great detail. The contrapuntal lines often used in these compositions seemed to be part of the European influence that had penetrated into jazz. However, this music left a lot of space for long linear solo improvisations. Although West Coast Jazz was performed primarily in recording studios, clubs such as the Lighthouse on Hermosa Beach and the Haig in Los Angeles often featured its masters, which included trumpeter Shorty Rogers, saxophonists Art Pepper and Bud Shenk, drummer Shelley Mann and clarinetist Jimmy Giuffrey.

The Spread of Jazz

Jazz has always aroused interest among musicians and listeners around the world, regardless of their nationality. It suffices to trace the early work of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his fusion of jazz traditions with the music of black Cubans in the 1940s or later, the fusion of jazz with Japanese, Eurasian and Middle Eastern music, famous in the work of pianist Dave Brubeck, as well as in the brilliant composer and leader of jazz - the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which combined the musical heritage of Africa, Latin America and the Far East.

Dave Brubeck

Jazz constantly absorbed and not only Western musical traditions. For example, when different artists began to try to work with the musical elements of India. An example of this effort can be heard in the recordings of flautist Paul Horn at the Taj Mahal, or in the stream of "world music" represented, for example, by the Oregon band or John McLaughlin's Shakti project. McLaughlin's music, formerly largely based on jazz, began to use new instruments of Indian origin, such as the khatam or tabla, during his work with Shakti, intricate rhythms sounded and the form of the Indian raga was widely used.
As the globalization of the world continues, jazz is constantly influenced by other musical traditions.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago was an early pioneer in the fusion of African and jazz forms. The world later came to know saxophonist/composer John Zorn and his exploration of Jewish musical culture, both within and outside the Masada Orchestra. These works have inspired entire groups of other jazz musicians, such as keyboardist John Medeski, who has recorded with African musician Salif Keita, guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist Anthony Coleman. Trumpeter Dave Douglas brings inspiration from the Balkans to his music, while the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra has emerged as a leading proponent of the convergence of jazz and Asian musical forms. As the globalization of the world continues, jazz is constantly being influenced by other musical traditions, providing mature food for future research and proving that jazz is truly world music.

Jazz in the USSR and Russia

The first in the RSFSR jazz band of Valentin Parnakh

The jazz scene originated in the USSR in the 1920s, simultaneously with its heyday in the USA. The first jazz orchestra in Soviet Russia was created in Moscow in 1922 by the poet, translator, dancer, theater figure Valentin Parnakh and was called "Valentin Parnakh's First Eccentric Jazz Band Orchestra in the RSFSR". The birthday of Russian jazz is traditionally considered October 1, 1922, when the first concert of this group took place. The orchestra of pianist and composer Alexander Tsfasman (Moscow) is considered to be the first professional jazz ensemble to perform on the air and record a disc.

Early Soviet jazz bands specialized in performing fashionable dances (foxtrot, Charleston). In the mass consciousness, jazz began to gain wide popularity in the 30s, largely due to the Leningrad ensemble led by actor and singer Leonid Utesov and trumpeter Ya. B. Skomorovsky. The popular film comedy with his participation "Merry Fellows" (1934) was dedicated to the history of a jazz musician and had a corresponding soundtrack (written by Isaac Dunayevsky). Utyosov and Skomorovsky formed the original style of "tea-jazz" (theatrical jazz), based on a mixture of music with theater, operetta, vocal numbers and an element of performance played a large role in it. A notable contribution to the development of Soviet jazz was made by Eddie Rosner, a composer, musician and leader of orchestras. Having started his career in Germany, Poland and other European countries, Rozner moved to the USSR and became one of the pioneers of swing in the USSR and the initiator of Belarusian jazz.
In the mass consciousness, jazz began to gain wide popularity in the USSR in the 1930s.
The attitude of the Soviet authorities to jazz was ambiguous: domestic jazz performers, as a rule, were not banned, but harsh criticism of jazz as such was widespread, in the context of criticism of Western culture in general. In the late 1940s, during the struggle against cosmopolitanism, jazz in the USSR experienced a particularly difficult period, when groups performing "Western" music were persecuted. With the onset of the "thaw", the repressions against the musicians were stopped, but the criticism continued. According to the research of professor of history and American culture Penny Van Eschen, the US State Department tried to use jazz as an ideological weapon against the USSR and against the expansion of Soviet influence in the third world countries. In the 50s and 60s. in Moscow, the orchestras of Eddie Rozner and Oleg Lundstrem resumed their activities, new compositions appeared, among which the orchestras of Iosif Weinstein (Leningrad) and Vadim Ludvikovsky (Moscow), as well as the Riga Variety Orchestra (REO), stood out.

Big bands brought up a whole galaxy of talented arrangers and solo improvisers, whose work brought Soviet jazz to a qualitatively new level and brought it closer to world standards. Among them are Georgy Garanyan, Boris Frumkin, Alexei Zubov, Vitaly Dolgov, Igor Kantyukov, Nikolai Kapustin, Boris Matveev, Konstantin Nosov, Boris Rychkov, Konstantin Bakholdin. The development of chamber and club jazz in all its diversity of style begins (Vyacheslav Ganelin, David Goloshchekin, Gennady Golshtein, Nikolai Gromin, Vladimir Danilin, Alexei Kozlov, Roman Kunsman, Nikolai Levinovsky, German Lukyanov, Alexander Pishchikov, Alexei Kuznetsov, Viktor Fridman, Andrey Tovmasyan , Igor Bril, Leonid Chizhik, etc.)

Jazz Club "Blue Bird"

Many of the above masters of Soviet jazz began their creative career on the stage of the legendary Moscow jazz club "Blue Bird", which existed from 1964 to 2009, discovering new names of representatives of the modern generation of Russian jazz stars (brothers Alexander and Dmitry Bril, Anna Buturlina, Yakov Okun, Roman Miroshnichenko and others). In the 70s, the jazz trio "Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin" (GTC) consisting of pianist Vyacheslav Ganelin, drummer Vladimir Tarasov and saxophonist Vladimir Chekasin, which existed until 1986, gained wide popularity. In the 70-80s, the jazz quartet from Azerbaijan "Gaya", the Georgian vocal and instrumental ensembles "Orera" and "Jazz-Khoral" were also known.

After the decline of interest in jazz in the 90s, it began to gain popularity again in youth culture. Jazz music festivals are held annually in Moscow, such as Usadba Jazz and Jazz in the Hermitage Garden. The most popular jazz club venue in Moscow is the Union of Composers jazz club, which invites world-famous jazz and blues performers.

Jazz in the modern world

The modern world of music is as diverse as the climate and geography that we learn through travel. And yet, today we are witnessing a mixture of an increasing number of world cultures, constantly bringing us closer to what, in essence, is already becoming “world music” (world music). Today's jazz cannot but be influenced by sounds penetrating into it from almost every corner of the globe. European experimentalism with classical overtones continues to influence the music of young pioneers such as Ken Vandermark, a frigid avant-garde saxophonist known for his work with renowned contemporaries such as saxophonists Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker and Peter Brotzmann. Other more traditional young musicians who continue to search for their own identities include pianists Jackie Terrasson, Benny Green and Braid Meldoa, saxophonists Joshua Redman and David Sanchez, and drummers Jeff Watts and Billy Stewart.

The old tradition of sounding is being rapidly carried on by artists such as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who works with a team of assistants both in his own small bands and in the Lincoln Center Jazz Band, which he leads. Under his patronage, pianists Marcus Roberts and Eric Reed, saxophonist Wes "Warmdaddy" Anderson, trumpeter Markus Printup and vibraphonist Stefan Harris grew into great musicians. Bassist Dave Holland is also a great discoverer of young talent. Among his many discoveries are artists such as saxophonist/M-bassist Steve Coleman, saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Steve Nelson and drummer Billy Kilson. Other great mentors of young talent include pianist Chick Corea and the late drummer Elvin Jones and singer Betty Carter. The potential for the further development of jazz is currently quite large, since the ways of developing talent and the means of its expression are unpredictable, multiplying by the combined efforts of various jazz genres encouraged today.