Jazz Day

What the day is

Jazz Day is observed on January 18. A separate International Jazz Day, designated by UNESCO, falls on April 30, so the calendar carries both.

Origin and background

Jazz came out of New Orleans around the turn of the twentieth century, built by Black American musicians from blues, ragtime, spirituals, brass band music and the Caribbean rhythms that circulated through the port. The city's unusual mix of French, Spanish, African and American traditions, and the availability of military band instruments, gave it materials nowhere else had in that combination.

What separates it from most western music is where the composition sits. In a jazz performance the written material is typically a frame: a melody and a sequence of chords, played at the start and the end, with the substance in between invented in real time over that structure. Two performances of the same piece by the same musicians are different pieces in any meaningful sense. This is why recordings matter so much more here than scores, and why the discography, not the sheet music, is the canon.

It also changed fast. Within roughly fifty years it moved from collective improvisation in New Orleans through the big band era, then to bebop's small groups and much higher harmonic and rhythmic demands, then to modal playing, free improvisation and fusion with rock and electronics. Few art forms have remade themselves that often in a lifetime.

The listener's usual obstacle is expecting a tune to return. Following the soloist rather than waiting for the melody is the adjustment that makes the music open up.

How to take part

• Listen to one album the whole way through rather than sampling tracks.
• Find two recordings of the same standard by different players and hear how little they share.
• Go to live jazz, which is a different experience from recorded and usually cheap.
• Follow the rhythm section rather than the soloist for one track.
• Start with New Orleans and follow the line forward by decade.