The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Jazz

An examination of the influences and origins of jazz from the 19th century is presented. Gushee surveys various histories and theories of the ancestry of jazz, including the notion that jazz began as improvised ragtime, and that every single musical activity undertaken by African Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana, was an aspect of its prehistory. In discussing the musical components of jazz as a genre, the author references the social dances of the 1840s, at which many of the musicians were European, not African American. It was not until the 1890s that this number began to drastically change, although the American press barely recognized this fact.