This week in class we spend a few days in the U.S. .diving deep into JAZZ. The roots of jazz, like the roots of all forms of modern American music, are global, and there are also many. You have the millennia-old African-American traditions of call and response, of intertwining rhythms, of improvisation in drumming and singing and dance. You have the European Western Classical traditions of melody and harmony, of rich musical theory, of a multi-instrumental approach to arranging and performing music. You also have the Latin tradition of syncopation, taking a straightforward rhythm and twisting it until it feels just right.
