Ragtime Analysis

Jazz, it is the original true form of American music; jazz musician Winton Marsalis said in the film Jazz by Ken burns that, “Jazz is the first true art form to come from the soil of America”. This belief stems from the fact that Jazz as a genre emerged from the wake of the civil war in America. It was after the fall of slavery and the new interaction between these previously enslaved peoples and the rest of the country that Jazz was able to emerge. The years before jazz saw the city of New Orleans as a hotbed of the mixing of cultures. In New Orleans the primary cultures and ethnicities seen included: Caucasians, Africans, Caribbean people, and Creoles, i.e. multiracial Africans (Harrison). In this mix of a city the ability for intermixing of cultures was possible, and this city would be known as the birth place of jazz. The cultures were not the only thing to mix but also the music mixed two of which were the blues and ragtime. Jazz as …show more content…
The largest musical attribute comes from the reason the genre is named “ragtime”. According to James Haskins, “Ragtime was a music played in ‘ragged time,’ which is another way of saying syncopation” (36-7). Syncopation according to Professor Charley Harrison is the stressing of notes played off the beat. The man credited with the popularization of ragtime, its most famous composer is Scott Joplin. Ragtime was known for usually being a fast paced dance music generally played on the piano (Jazz film) and it was also made popular with the opening of Tim Pan Alley, a school of ragtime (Haskins). This is different from the more commonly played form called the blues. Ragtime also contained very early forms of improvisation which made it so popular among the players of the time (Harrison). The building of ragtime’s syncopation, dance mood, and improvisation made it a popular genre that would eventually lead to the development of the style called