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Welcome to the getintojazz Beginner's Guide, which includes a brief history of jazz music, descriptions of some of the different types of jazz music and a glossary of terms.

This information has been researched and compiled by getintojazz staff and attempts to be as clear and accurate as possible.

If you have any comments about the Beginner's Guide or if you would like to add some information to the page please contacts us.

Acappella: The name comes from the European church description of singers who perform without instruments to accompany them – Gospel music in particular. Sometimes it is used to describe musicians playing solos/tunes without anyone else.

Acid Jazz: The term was first used by DJ’s to describe a type of soul music from the 60’s and 70’s that had a funky/jazz feel to it. Exposure of this music on the dance club circuit broadened popularity and audience to include a contemporary young generation.

Afro-jazz: A self-explanatory mix of jazz and purer African rhythms, stretching back to the '60s, and currently being re-invented by many contemporary black British musicians and bands. Again there is heavy emphasis on grooves, but often with the jazz sensibilities - with improvised instrumental solos laid on top. Vocals are sometimes a key part in the music.

Age of the Big Band: In the 1930s, possibly in response to the American Depression, (when there were few jobs and no money), the Big Band's popularity exploded. Many jazz musicians and composers headed for Europe and the hope of work, but those who stayed played in large bands and provided the swinging beats that the dance halls needed. The Big Band format had developed a little from its early days; now musicians played solos, or whole sections of the band would have a sort of musical conversation over the top of the hard-hitting beats of the rhythm section... A little like the club dance music of the 1990s really!

Arrangement: The results of a composer or musician (re)arranging the instruments and/or the different elements of an existing tune to create a new sound. A bit like taking the elements of Happy Birthday and placing the words in a different order.

Ballad: Generally describes a slow, popular song, but can also be used to explain a style of playing that is quite slow and relaxed.

Beat: Has two meanings. In music theory beat refers to the pulse of a tune that is usually split into regular clusters called bars. These clusters can be made up of any number of beats, most commonly 3 or 4 beats to a bar. In performance terms the beat can be describing the feel of a piece of music where the various rhythms and the beat flow with a continuous pulse, (like a heartbeat).

Bebop/Bop: An onomatopoeic term describing the style of jazz played from around the 1940s by artists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The focus moved away from singable melodies, instead exploring the harmonies, with intricate and often very fast improvisation on top. Many artists made up their own pieces by improvising new tunes over the harmonies of old songs (like How High The Moon). A lot more value was placed on the musicians' solos, and the overall sound was more modern.

Big Bands: Quite literally the term describes a band with lots of players in it – a big band. Usually comprised of several brass and/or reed instruments and a rhythm section. This group creates a strong sound with the options of harmonics that are often difficult to achieve in smaller bands.

Bossa Nova: Literally 'New Beat' - pioneered in the late 1950s by Joao Gilberto, Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz, and, most memorably, the singer Astrud Gilberto. The Girl From Ipanema is probably the best-known song of this style - Antonio Carlos Jobim was a guitarist/composer who wrote this and an extensive catalogue of songs which married the American jazz ethic with Brazilian rhythms and the melodic and harmonic complexities of Western classical music. Many of his songs are part of many jazz performers' repertoires today.

Brass: In general musical terms brass applies to all instruments that aren’t string or percussion. In jazz, it is usually describing trombones, trumpets, tubas, etc, but not saxophones (see Reeds).

Breaks: Breaks often occur in a piece of jazz to announce the start of an improvised solo. The rhythm section will stop dead at the beginning of a bar, two bars before the end of the tune, and the soloist will take up playing where they left off. The effect is a bit like a short cadenza. In the days of Louis Armstrong breaks formed an important part of the performance - witness the start of his solo on West End Blues. Later on, breaks were still used, but less predictably.

Changes: Are the different stages in a piece of music where the chords/harmonies change.

'Classical' Jazz - a history of: Between 1929 and 1938 the musical backlash against the popular Jazz Age fuelled the creation of the jazz orchestra and 'Classical Jazz', performing scored compositions with little or no improvisation. Most well-known of these jazz composers was George Gershwin, composer of the famous concerto 'Rhapsody in Blue'. This style of jazz was all about harmony and in many ways was more accessible for the listener.

Composition: A piece of music or a phrase within a piece of music created from scratch by a composer or musician. These can be written down, or may be created whilst playing within a band.

Contemporary: Here descriptions start to get troublesome, as styles have broadened and absorbed global influences, due to the increasing accessibility of musics from across the world over the past forty years or so. Since 'contemporary' implies currently evolving styles, a few of them have been outlined below.

Contemporary American: Represented by the edgy, urban, downtown New York scene, and often also embracing world music and free jazz, this scene is re-inventing the sound of American jazz - energetic and surprising, sometimes tuneful, sometimes not, but usually with a high level of instrumental technique and expressive ability.

Contemporary British: Some British artists have attempted to create a British jazz sound that doesn't mimic its American counterpart, and in order to do this several musicians have looked to the indigenous folk music of the British Isles for inspiration, as well as European folk and classical traditions. With emphasis on new forms for improvisation, often melodic and sometimes 'quirky', the 80s big band Loose Tubes was a significant starting point for many of today's performers - Django Bates, Iain Ballamy etc.

Contemporary Eastern: The complex time signatures of folk songs from Hungary and Bulgaria, for example, have often emerged as inspiration for jazz improvisation, either by being absorbed by jazz performers from around the world, or by being performed first hand by groups like Taraf de Haïdouks.

Contemporary European: In an attempt to chart their own jazz course, many European countries have looked elsewhere for inspiration, often to folk or classical backgrounds. It would be difficult to pin down a particular style or sound, but many resultant sounds and artists can be found on ECM.

Dixieland: The name reflects the area in Southern USA where this style emerged between 1916 and 1920. The traditional line up of this type of band is a frontline made up of brass and wind instruments, and a piano and drums rhythm section. This time period is when the Big Band was truly born and, with the very first jazz recording in 1917, jazz became popular and familiar accross America. Although the majority of this jazz music was being performed in the south by black musicians, it was an all-white group, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who audiences in the northern USA cities heard first. The style was revived in the 40s and re-named Traditional or Trad Jazz - a term that still applies today for this type of music.

ECM: Actually a record label, founded in Germany in the 1970s by Manfred Eicher. Although the catalogue covers many modern styles, it is generally perceived to have a particular house sound, which has now inadvertently become a style in itself. Often, but by no means exclusively, the music has more emphasis on evoking atmospheres and soundscapes, with a distinctly European approach, rather than straightforward tunes and chord sequences. Cover art is often abstract, and liner notes usually absent - thus reiterating the mystery! Typical artists include Jan Garbarek and Keith Jarrett.

Electric jazz: From the 1930's instruments were being modified in order for them to be played electrically. By the time jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was exploring the exciting developments in rock music, listening to singers like James Brown and Aretha Franklin and rock bands such as the Byrds and the Fifth Dimension, the electric guitar, bass and synthesizer were already on the scene. Miles loved the sound and began to spend hours in the studio making recordings which used all these and more. The rhythm section became more prominent and other percussion instruments, sitars and flutes were later added to an unstoppable range of effects. His first attempt at recording using electric instruments was the album In a Silent Way, and as its title suggests, is totally unlike its successor Bitches Brew. Miles always wanted to be at the forefront of these developments, and never turned back to his acoustic sets. Apart from the use of electric instruments, he also changed the content of the music, making improvisations much longer than in the past. Bitches Brew was definitely aimed to shock the audience with its persistently loud and abstract content. Using anything up to 13 musicians, it ended up in the charts and was Miles biggest selling album to date. After that, Miles could not match his own success, and audiences turned away from the relentless abstraction to more approachable rock music. Miles, however, continued in his uncompromising way to produce the music he wanted to produce, and this was always electric from then on. Miles surrounded himself with the best jazz musicians of the day, Wayne Shorter on saxophones, Herbie Hancock on electric pianos and synthesizers, John McLaughlin on electric guitar complete with effects, were amongst them. One of them was Joe Zawinul on keyboards, playing on both In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew. This brought Zawinul worldwide exposure, and in 1971 he co-founded the band Weather Report with Wayne Shorter. Weather Report made use of electric instruments and was constantly innovative. Zawinul, being a composer as well as performer was able to draw together top jazz musicians from around the world and serve up a beautifully diverse palette of music, ranging from pure abstraction to captivating rhythmic grooves, exceptional melodies, and fresh improvisations. When keyboard player Herbie Hancock left Miles band in 1968 to form his own bands, he came to rely more and more on electronic instruments as a source of colour. This continued as he became part of the jazz-rock-fusion movement of the 1970s. Headhunters, and in particular the track Chameleon, was heavily electronic and proved extremely popular, turning Hancock into a superstar. Equally popular, guitarist John McLaughlin founded the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971 after leaving Miles Davis band. It also relied heavily on electronics and proved to be possibly the greatest jazz-rock band ever in its revolutionary approach.

European Jazz - a history of: Alongside the development and exposure of jazz in America another scene emerged on the European front, particularly in France. From the 1920s onwards musicians flocked to this cultural capital to mingle with the writers, artists and poets of the time. Attracted by the Parisian tradition of cabaret/live entertainment and racial tolerance American musicians migrated to France. These American styles were combined with those of European pioneers like guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli, and created a truly international melting pot of styles.

Free Jazz: Another development from the 1960s in which all conventional rules regarding melody, form, rhythm, harmony, instrumentation were ignored. Often with a left-field political edge, the music embraced the new-found freedoms of the time and usually involved very short, angular themes and long improvisations, sometimes solo and sometimes ensemble, exploring and expressing the moment and not necessarily referenced to any particular structure. The music is often perceived as being loud, wild, and aggressive, which can put off the first-time listener. Ornette Coleman was, and still is, a pioneer.

Free Jazz history: The term implies music without any clear reference to structure, melody or harmony in the usual sense. Jamaican-born bop alto saxophonist Joe Harriott moved to the UK in 1951 and in 1959 invented a music which was written and improvised but had no set harmonic or rhythmic structures. This was free music where angular dissonances, free improvisation, periods of silence, and Afro-Caribbean influences were fused together. Although Harriott's music did not survive, his legacy did, in the form of countless free improv sessions. Some of these adhere more to the free element than others but all have some elements linking them to mainstream jazz. To call it all 'free' is a bit of a misnomer, but there are things in common. Both European and American improv are performed with a sense of occasion, often in a small room with like-minded performers and afficionados. While American improv has stayed close to free jazz and encouraged soloists, European improv has tended to be more collective. exploring processes rather than personal expression. AMM (a secret acronym) incorporated found sounds such as from transistor radios and elsewhere and often performed in the dark to emphasise the selfless nature of their approach. The Spontaneous Music Ensemble performs collectively generated music without any preconceived structures. One who stands out in his pursuit of true and instantaneous improvisation is guitarist Derek Bailey. With his loose collective Company he has involved musicians from widely different backgrounds. His friend and long-time musical associate Evan Parker worked with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and with the Music Improvisation Company which also included electronics, percussion and voice. Parker has strong jazz leanings but became interested in free (abstract) improvisation from early on in his career and has been a mainstay of European free improv. He was one of the first to experiment on saxophone with circular breathing. This is a technique used by some reed players which involves inhaling through the nose while the cheeks push the air out into the instrument. The result is a single column of air that allows the musician to play continuous lines without taking a breath. Another leading free jazzer is Trevor Watts, most famously known for his Moire Music with which he has explored textures made up of overlaid drum patterns, often inspired by African music. Watts was part of the 1960's avant garde, along with Parker and others such as pianist Keith Tippett. Free jazz continues to be an important though acquired taste at jazz festivals and in small, dark back rooms up and down the country.

Frontline: The label for musicians in a band who aren’t in the rhythm section, (usually the drums and bass). These musicians are often responsible for playing the tune in a piece of music, whilst the rhythm section makes sure there is a strong beat to keep things moving.

Funk: A 70s cousin of fusion, funk is literally just that - a more pop-influenced, song-based mixture, often dance-based, and often with tight horn sections - Stevie Wonder exemplified this style.

Fusion: Rooted in the late '60s and '70s, and pioneered by people like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock (Bitches Brew is a seminal Davis recording), when they were attempting to look away from modern and bebop jazz which had developed in the 50s and 60s. In a bid to inject new and more electric sounds into jazz, artists turned to rock for inspiration. The resultant music was often expansive and exploratory, and the improvisations based around repeated groove patterns, rather than chord progressions of songs. Players also moved away from the 'swing' feeling of most jazz that had come before.

Gig: A job or performance for a musician, either paid or unpaid.

Hard Bop: A 1950s development of bebop, with even further emphasis on individual instrumental solos, and with the rhythm section players (piano, bass and drums etc.) matching the horns in instrumental responsibility and ability. Again, melodies and harmonies were intricate, and bands usually consisted of four or five players - a move away from the big bands of twenty years before. Miles Davis was a prime artist emerging in this field.

Improv: Being an abbreviation of improvisation, and a more European-influenced derivative of free jazz, in which electronics, prepared instruments and found objects can play a part. Again there are no set structures, melodies or harmonies, with the emphasis on the combinations of sound textures. There is a sound parallel with a lot of contemporary classical music of the 1950s - Stockhausen and Boulez, for example.

Improvisation: The art of spontaneous composition which is at the root of most improvising, took a new turn in jazz in the 60s. Previously jazzers had improvised around a theme or standard tune, or, as in the case of bebop around a definite series of chord changes. Now things took a more abstract turn and it would be difficult to talk about improvisation at this time without calling up the profound and lasting impression John Coltrane made on succeeding players. Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler in the 1960s were influenced by Coltrane. Sanders played with him and his free improvisations were about as extreme as you could get at the time. Shepp also played from a black perspective but was less abstract than the other new wave saxophonists. Ayler too was wild in his youth, but all three mellowed as they aged. Eric Dolphy is another jazz musician who stands out from his contemporaries in his innovative talents. Another movement, which reflected the need to push the boundaries of improvisation outwards, was called Improv and has survived to this day. The American version has stayed close to free jazz, emphasising the individual soloist whereas the European version has tended to emphasize collective improvising. But the art of improvising would not have been the same without the great talents of Bill Evans and others. Evans was certainly a more conventional musician, but his minimalist approach, playing only what was necessary, earned him a reputation as one of the finest improvisers of his time favouring the classic piano trio which for him included Paul Motian on drums and Scott LaFaro on bass. Together they demonstrated the kind of ideal rapport which makes a great jazz performance. Evans was also keen to explore modes as seen on Kind of Blue, one of the greatest albums of all times. Another pianist who pushed the limits of improvising was Keith Jarrett who in 1971 recorded a completely improvised solo piano album for ECM, a new European label. As a result of its success Jarrett went on to tour as a solo artist around Europe in 1973 playing nothing but improvised music. This required a kind of stream of consciousness thought process where the audience witnessed Jarrett composing instantaneously and from scratch at the piano while keeping within the mainstream tradition. In this country the big band Loose Tubes brought a breath of fresh air into the art of improvising in the 1980s. Artists like Django Bates, Ian Ballamy and Steve Berry continued to develop and explore all genres in their improvising. Fairly recently, artists began improvising using popular tunes of their own youth, as well as composing new material. Thus Django Bates plays a version of David Bowie’s Life On Mars. Or, on the Aphex Twin track Flim, Dave King, a member of the American trio The Bad Plus uses a full range of kit plus gadgets such as a stainless steel baby rattle, and a specially treated mini-megaphone. That's not to say all jazz has looped the loop into a form of musical insanity, but certainly in this post modern age anything goes. And there are some very fine and passionate examples of the improvisers' art around today.

Jazz Age - a history of: Developing in parallel with American prohibition, (making alcohol illegal), between 1920 and 1933, this jazz movement was about dance and energy. With the advent of commercial radio and the migration of musicians from the south, jazz became the popular music of the times. The audiences dancing the night away across the USA were comprised mainly of young black and white people. Prohibition created illegal drinking dens where jazz musicians would play into the night. In this environment musical creativity and experimentation flourished.

Jazz Blues: Unlike some jazz labels this term describes the actual mechanics of this type of music, that had its heyday in between 1922 and 1933. Blues music in this sense describes a musical structure that became popular at this time and was the perfect vehicle through which to create jazz improvisations. Singers like Bessie Smith made this style popular, selling thousands of records and performing all over southern USA. The feel of the music was melancholy or 'blue'. Unlike the positive upbeat tune of, say, a nursery rhyme, this music had notes in it which sounded like they didn't quite hit the mark - they were flattened. The melody or tune would have a twelve bar structure. These bars were split up into groups of four - like a poem with three lines. The first and second lines were the same content and the third was like a reply to the previous 2 lines.

Latin: A very broad term implying music originating from the Portuguese-speaking South American countries. Rhythmically different from jazz, in that it is usually played 'straight' as opposed to 'swing' - i.e. the beat is not split into the triplets that give swing the 'jazzy' feel. Although Latin music often contains complex harmonies and melodies, a lot more importance is placed on the rhythmic groove, which is often extremely danceable. There are infinite variations and individual strands, often themselves hybrids of other styles/musics: Afro-Cuban (e.g. Buena Vista Social Club); salsa, son - all with their own particular rhythmic patterns which set them apart from others. Often the term Latin is misleadingly over-simplified in jazz performances to mean bossa, or anything that isn't swing.

Mainstream: Originally this term meant 'the main body of jazz', but it has really developed to mean a style which is rooted in swing, or current interpretations or revivals of it. Hence it excludes other styles like free jazz, and instead concentrates on melodic, song-based music with improvisations based closely on these song structures.

New Orleans: An early form of jazz, obviously originating from the area, in which performers would collectively improvise. Usually, the trumpet would play the tune, the clarinet would improvise a counterpoint - a melody that complemented (but not copied) the tune - and the trombone filled out the lower harmonies. Often accompanied by banjo, tuba (instead of double bass) and sometimes - because it was also a 'mobile' style of playing - parade drums.

New York & The Cotton Club: The predominantly black jazz musician scene in New York in the 1920s to 1940s. Many black communities moved north in the USA at the beginning of the last century, to cities like New York and Chicago. One of the largest of these communities at this time was in Harlem where, in 1920, the world famous Cotton Club opened. The music was fuelled by the atmosphere of New York as entertainment capital of America, and by the jazz knowledge the new communities brought with them. One such musician was composer-pianist Duke Ellington, who combined the jazz styles of the age creating dancy high-energy music. Or, think Cab Calloway's 'Minnie the Mooch'.

Ragtime: One early form of jazz-related music written and played at the end of the 19th century and start of the 1900s. Originating in America this style of music is commonly agreed to be one of the many roots of contemporary jazz music. Unlike most forms of jazz this music was composed and written down, not improvised during the performance. The tunes were designed for the piano, most famously by the composer Scott Joplin who created tunes like 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'The Entertainer'. This music was very popular, perhaps partly because the printed song music could be purchased and read by anyone.

Reeds: Are the wind instruments that have a piece of bamboo attached to the mouthpiece of the instrument that you blow through, like a saxophone, clarinet, also included in this definition are flutes or obes which don’t have a reed mouthpiece.

Scat: A style of singing where the vocalist mimics the sounds of a musical instrument, often with no recognisable lyrics or language.

Session musicians: Musicians called upon to play a variety of music in a variety of settings ranging from TV to the concert hall. Often they are brought in to recordings or bands when a particular sound is required for the music that is not already present within the group.

Solo: Has two meanings. Solo can mean a performance where a musician performs completely alone, without accompaniment. The word also describes a passage in the performance of a piece of music where one person plays a central improvisation on a tune’s theme whilst some or all of the other band members improvise around this playing, (a bit like backing singers do).

Strings: In classical music the term describes a whole section of the orchestra including violin, cello, viola, etc. In jazz it usually refers to guitar and bass guitar or occasionally, the violin or cello.

Swing: As a period in the music's history, the swing era was prevalent in the mid-1930s, usually performed by big bands led by artists such as Duke Ellington. This was really the pop music of the day. The term swing is an almost inexplicable adjective that attempts to describe the rhythm in which most jazz was/is performed. Technically notated as quavers usually, but treating each beat with a triplet feel. Its interpretation in performance is flexible and is what gives individual artists their jazz feel and identity.

Tempo: The speed of a piece of music. In jazz the tempo of a tune can alter dramatically from version to version, like singing a nursery rhyme very quickly or very slowly.

World-Jazz: With the advent of easier access to recordings of folk and other music and field recordings from around the world, many musicians have attempted to inject these world influences into their own styles, resulting in a huge array of combinations. Often the particular rhythms or melodies are used as a basis for jazz improvisation, sometimes re-harmonised, sometimes left 'untreated', but usually performed by musicians wishing to embrace other cultures and styles. Often bands will consist of combinations of jazz musicians and performers from the cultural traditions in question.