| |
| | A Brief History of Jazz (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-26) |
 | | In its beginnings jazz was more an approach to performance than a body of musical compositions. |
 | | The fl marching bands of New Orleans, which often accompanied funeral processions, played traditional slow hymns on the way to the cemetery; for the procession back to town, they broke into jazzed-up versions of the same hymns, ragtime tunes, or syncopated renditions of popular marches. |
 | | The instruments in the marching band--a cornet or a trumpet to carry the melody, with a clarinet and trombone to fill in, and a rhythm section of drums or a string bass--formed the nucleus of the first jazz bands, which usually added only a piano, guitar, or banjo. |
| www.nw-cybermall.com /jazzworld/jazz-01.htm (317 words) |
|