With the scintillating response garnered by La La Land, the demographic of jazz listeners has substantially widened, albeit it remains to be seen how long this will last. Wynton Marsalis, esteemed jazz composer and trumpet virtuoso once said, “When the music stopped being about dancing, people stopped listening.” While a myriad other formidable genres have taken over since the 1920s, termed as the “Roaring Twenties” or the “Jazz age”, it’s often forgotten that many of these genres found their roots in jazz itself. Jazz and classical music has always been associated with a certain level of sophistication, when really it’s all about enjoying a quality swinging song.
The genesis of jazz music can be attributed to the African-Americans residing in New Orleans. Being a port city made the Orleans an ideal candidate for a fusion of both European elements(harmony, instruments) as well as the African blues quality and rhythm.

Pre 1850s, African slave-trading was still on the rise. The entry of culturally prolific African folk into the New World brought with it an inevitable culture-shock, so they resorted to melancholy blues to ward off their slaving despondencies. African folk groups can never be dispirited for too long, and these blues soon evolved into improvised jazz with subtle krautrock traits. They performed in a fluid, swingy style the United States had never seen before. After several exploits at trying to reinvent African-American tradition, they soon found comfort in the gravelly vocals such as those of Louis Armstrong, and even adopted their lyrics in the form of paired couplets in iambic pentameter. They leisured in watching traditional jazz performances at quadroon balls, where mixed-race women were sold off to the highest bidder.

There have been revival moments aplenty for this artform, the most prominent being Dixieland at the advent of the 20th century. It incorporated elements of the Chicago style, with a string bass replacing the tuba and the guitar superseding the banjo. The name allures to the Mason-Dixon line on the Southside of Orleans, fresh with French Quadrilles and swingy ragtime blues. It also brought with it a distinguished chaos of bepop sounds, which Louis Armstrong fondly referred to a’Chinese music’.

Louis Armstrong, an obvious pioneer and patron of jazz music, with his trumpeting adding an emotional, expressive element to the entire ensemble. He didn’t restrict himself to merely reinventing a full-fledged genre with nothing more than his trumpet, but was also a composer, vocalist, comedian, bandleader and occational actor. With his spontaneity and impeccable flair, he managed to dazzle his newfound enthusiasts with gems like “What a Wonderful World”, “When the saints go marching in”, and “La Vie En Rose” amongst a plethora of others.