The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

African American work song practice · 1700–1960

Early New Orleans jazz hears the work song as vocal and street rhetoric: falling hollers, speech-timed cries, and leader-and-gang call inside a brass-and-front-line band.

Influence
American march genre · 1860–

New Orleans jazz inherits the American brass-band march as kit, job, and large form: cornet–clarinet–trombone front line, snare and bass drum, two-beat parade pulse, and multi-str…

Influence
Blues genre · 1860–

The first jazz style takes the blues as a local vehicle and pitch language: 12-bar choruses, inflected thirds and sevenths, and a Saturday-night dance job already in Uptown bands…

Influence
Contredanse form · 1651–1850

Creole New Orleans bands take contredanse/quadrille strain sets as ballroom work: multi-strain dance tunes, violin-or-clarinet lead, and a night of sets for mixed-status floors.

Influence
Habanera form · 1803–1910

New Orleans players take the habanera bass cell — tresillo written as dotted-eighth + sixteenth + two eighths — into piano and band jazz.

Influence
New Orleans second line practice · 1890–

New Orleans jazz keeps the second line’s rolling street-beat and brass-band roles and turns them into an ensemble music for indoor rooms as well as the street.

Influence
Ragtime genre · 1890–1920

New Orleans players used rags as repertory and as a rhythmic habit: syncopation against a marching left-hand or band pulse, and the multi-strain form of the march-rag.

Influence
Spirituals genre · 1750–

Jazz funerals and benevolent-society parades take the spiritual as a named vehicle: a slow sacred dirge on the way to the cemetery, then an uptempo recoding of the same tune on th…

Influence

New Orleans jazz

style · 1890–1930

Also called traditional jazz, Dixieland

Kind of Jazz

Early jazz style of parade, dance hall, and Storyville: collective polyphonic front line (cornet lead, clarinet obbligato, trombone tailgate) over a marching or two-beat rhythm section. “Dixieland” is a later, often White-marketed revival label; the historical practice is Black and Creole at its core. Revival scenes stay on this node. Cuban-son is refused as a parent; the port cell is Habanera. Chicago jazz is the Northern recoding, not a second origin. Creole ballroom work hears Contredanse. Opera leftover as individual Creole literacy, not a parent hop.

Listen

  1. Dippermouth Blues King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (1923) YouTube · Spotify
  2. Canal Street Blues King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (1923) YouTube · Spotify
  3. West End Blues Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (1928) YouTube · Spotify
  4. Potato Head Blues Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven (1927) YouTube · Spotify
  5. Tiger Rag Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1917) YouTube · Spotify
  6. Livery Stable Blues Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1917) YouTube · Spotify
  7. High Society King Oliver / New Orleans tradition (1923) YouTube
  8. Muskrat Ramble Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (1926) YouTube · Spotify
  9. Tin Roof Blues New Orleans Rhythm Kings (1923) YouTube · Spotify
  10. When the Saints Go Marching In Louis Armstrong (1938) YouTube · Spotify

Passed on

Chicago jazz style · 1922–1930

Chicago jazz is New Orleans jazz moved and recoded: same blues/rag vehicles and front-line habit, then longer solos, saxophone, and guitar in a Northern club and record economy.

Influence
Skiffle genre · 1956–1959

Skiffle takes British trad’s New Orleans songbook and band-show interval and recodes it as washboard-and-guitar youth music.

Influence
Swing style · 1928–1946

Swing inherits jazz’s improvising soloist, blues/song chorus, and front-line-plus-rhythm idea, then scales them through arrangement.

Influence

African American work song → New Orleans jazz

melodyperformance practicerhythmstrength: mediumscholarly consensus1890–1925oralmigration

Mechanism

Early New Orleans jazz hears the work song as vocal and street rhetoric: falling hollers, speech-timed cries, and leader-and-gang call inside a brass-and-front-line band. Strength medium. Blues, ragtime, march, spiritual, and habanera are the other local parents; this hop is the labor-holler residue, not the whole style.

Evidence

Schuller’s early-jazz root list; Brothers on dock and street sound; levee and railroad hollers in the same labor world that fed the city’s Black bands.

Debate

How much of what players later called “blues” was still a holler. Keep both blues new orleans jazz and this edge: the 12-bar cycle is blues; the unaccompanied cry is work song.

Mediators

community: New Orleans dock, levee, and street laborers

American march → New Orleans jazz

form and structureinstrumentationfunction and contextmeter and groovestrength: highscholarly consensus1884–1920notationoraldance

Mechanism

New Orleans jazz inherits the American brass-band march as kit, job, and large form: cornet–clarinet–trombone front line, snare and bass drum, two-beat parade pulse, and multi-strain pieces played for funerals and second lines. american march ragtime is the parlor-piano hop (oom-pah left hand, published AABBACCDD). This file is the street-band hop. Strength high. European military march is the earlier parent of the American band, not the local donor.

Shared material

High Societytunemulti-strain march kept as a jazz vehicle

Donor High Society (Porter Steele, 1901) · published march strains YouTube

Receiver High Society (King Oliver's Jazz Band, 1923) · whole side YouTube

Same march; the OKeh side (as High Society Rag) keeps the strains and the clarinet obbligato as collective jazz

Evidence

Onward and Excelsior as reading parade bands; Bolden, Oliver, Armstrong, and Bechet doubling in brass bands; High Society as a 1901 march that jazz bands keep as a strain vehicle; funeral-to-hall traffic (HNOC; 64 Parishes). The dance band’s classic front line is the brass-band horn choir with a rhythm-section swap.

Debate

Whether the march arrives only through ragtime. Both hops are real and different: ragtime gives syncopated strain writing at the piano; the march gives parade function and brass kit. Do not collapse this edge into ragtime new orleans jazz.

Mediators

institution: Onward Brass Band; institution: Excelsior Brass Band; community: New Orleans social aid and pleasure clubs

Blues → New Orleans jazz

harmonymelodyform and structureperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1895–1925oraldancerecording

Mechanism

The first jazz style takes the blues as a local vehicle and pitch language: 12-bar choruses, inflected thirds and sevenths, and a Saturday-night dance job already in Uptown bands before the first records. blues jazz is the long-term grammatical gift to the umbrella. This file is the New Orleans crystallization (Bolden, Oliver, Morton’s blues titles). Strength high. Ragtime supplies strain form; the march supplies parade kit; blues supplies the bent-pitch chorus.

Shared material

twelve-bar bluesprogressionI–I–I–I | IV–IV–I–I | V–IV–I–I

Donor Crazy Blues (Mamie Smith, 1920) · choruses YouTube · Spotify

Receiver Dippermouth Blues (King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, 1923) · choruses YouTube · Spotify

Same 12-bar cycle; Oliver’s mutes and collective polyphony are the New Orleans recoding

Evidence

Oliver’s Dippermouth Blues; Morton and Armstrong blues sides cut as New Orleans (or New Orleans-trained) band music; contemporary testimony that some hall bands “played nothin’ but blues” (NPS Jazz NHP). Schuller transcribes early solos that are blues paraphrases inside collective polyphony.

Debate

Whether Bolden’s band was already “jazz” or a blues dance band. The consensus is that the blues was one of the three named local parents (with ragtime and brass-band march), not a later overlay. This edge does not deny ragtime, parade march, or Caribbean cells.

Mediators

artist: Buddy Bolden; artist: King Oliver; community: Uptown New Orleans dance bands

Contredanse → New Orleans jazz

form and structurefunction and contextperformance practicestrength: mediumscholarly consensus1880–1910danceoralnotation

Mechanism

Creole New Orleans bands take contredanse/quadrille strain sets as ballroom work: multi-strain dance tunes, violin-or-clarinet lead, and a night of sets for mixed-status floors. Strength medium. American march and Ragtime remain the brass-band and syncopation parents; this hop is the Creole ballroom book, not the street parade.

Evidence

Brothers on Creole dance-musician training; surviving quadrille titles in early repertory; Grove on social dance as a New Orleans jazz job.

Debate

Whether the march already covers strain form. March is the brass-band page; contredanse is the Creole ballroom set. Keep both.

Mediators

community: Creole of color dance musicians

Habanera → New Orleans jazz

rhythmmeter and groovephrase and lickstrength: mediumscholarly consensus1902–1923oralnotationdance

Mechanism

New Orleans players take the habanera bass cell — tresillo written as dotted-eighth + sixteenth + two eighths — into piano and band jazz. Morton named it the “Spanish tinge” and treated it as a required competence, not a novelty. Strength medium: definitional for the tinge pieces, not for every parade blues. Cuban son is a later school and is not the donor. Gottschalk’s creole contradanzas are an earlier New Orleans-aware salon path, not the jazz hop itself.

Shared material

habanera bass / tresillorhythm celldotted-eighth + sixteenth + two eighths (3+3+2)

Donor La Paloma (Sebastián Iradier, 1859) · ostinato bass YouTube

Receiver New Orleans Blues (Jelly Roll Morton, 1923) · left-hand ostinato YouTube · Spotify

Same written cell; Morton puts it under a 12-bar blues, not a contradanza strain

Evidence

Morton’s New Orleans Blues (1923) and The Crave as checkable left-hand habaneras; his Library of Congress demonstration of the tinge; habanera bass under otherwise 12-bar or multi-strain pieces (Schuller). Port traffic and published Iradier/Gottschalk sheets make the cell available before the first jazz records.

Debate

Whether the tinge is “Latin jazz” avant la lettre. Consensus: it is the nineteenth-century habanera cell, not son montuno or clave-organized conjunto. Do not redraw cuban son new orleans jazz. How much of the early band repertory (as opposed to Morton’s piano) carried the cell is a matter of emphasis; the mechanism is not contested.

Mediators

artist: Jelly Roll Morton; artist: Louis Moreau Gottschalk; community: New Orleans Creole and Caribbean-port players

New Orleans second line → New Orleans jazz

meter and grooveinstrumentationperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1900–1917oraldance

Mechanism

New Orleans jazz keeps the second line’s rolling street-beat and brass-band roles and turns them into an ensemble music for indoor rooms as well as the street. Strength high. The American march hop into jazz is the wider brass-band parent; this file is the local parade practice.

Evidence

Early jazz players trained in parade bands; Brothers and Schuller on that street-to-room hop.

Debate

Whether jazz is only the street. Indoor combo jazz still carries the street beat; ragtime and blues remain sibling parents.

Mediators

community: New Orleans brass bands

Ragtime → New Orleans jazz

rhythmform and structureinstrumentationstrength: highscholarly consensus1895–1920notationoraldance

Mechanism

New Orleans players used rags as repertory and as a rhythmic habit: syncopation against a marching left-hand or band pulse, and the multi-strain form of the march-rag. Morton’s claim to have invented jazz is overstated; his real point is that a pianist who could rag was already most of the way to early jazz ensemble thinking. Brass bands played rags and then loosened them into collective improvisation.

Shared material

Maple Leaf Ragtunemulti-strain rag recast as a jazz vehicle

Donor Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin, 1899) · piano rag, published strains YouTube · Spotify

Receiver Maple Leaf Rag (Jelly Roll Morton, 1938) · Library of Congress demonstration YouTube · Spotify

Same Joplin rag; Morton’s LOC take is the dated demo of ragtime versus jazz on one tune

Evidence

Morton’s Library of Congress demonstrations of the difference between ragtime and jazz on the same tune. Early jazz titles that are rags; strain forms in Oliver and Morton band records. Syncopation that is still closer to notated ragtime than to later swing eighths.

Debate

How swung early New Orleans playing already was. Revival “Dixieland” often re-ragtime-izes the rhythm. The formal and repertory debt is not contested.

Mediators

artist: Jelly Roll Morton; community: New Orleans pianists and brass bands

Spirituals → New Orleans jazz

melodyfunction and contextperformance practicestrength: mediumscholarly consensus1890–1940liturgyoraldance

Mechanism

Jazz funerals and benevolent-society parades take the spiritual as a named vehicle: a slow sacred dirge on the way to the cemetery, then an uptempo recoding of the same tune on the way back. Strength medium — this is a real, narrower hop than blues or brass-band march, not the whole style. spirituals blues is the Saturday-night secularization; this file is the street-funeral job inside the first jazz style.

Shared material

Just a Closer Walk with Theetunesacred hymn as funeral dirge then uptempo recoding

Donor Just a Closer Walk with Thee (Selah Jubilee Singers, 1941) · sacred quartet side YouTube

Receiver Just a Closer Walk with Thee (George Lewis, 1950s) · brass-band / New Orleans jazz funeral vehicle YouTube · Spotify

Same hymn; the jazz funeral plays it slow to the cemetery and fast on the return. The named vehicle is a gospel hymn in the spirituals-and-church book, not a Fisk concert spiritual

Evidence

Just a Closer Walk with Thee and Sing On in traditional brass-band books; testimony that church and social-aid clubs were workplaces for Bolden-to-Armstrong players (Brothers; 64 Parishes). Later Eureka and Bunk Johnson records document a practice already in place before the first jazz discs.

Debate

How much of the early hall repertory (as opposed to the funeral) was sacred. Consensus: the dirge-and-release funeral is the checkable spiritual hop; blues and rag titles dominate the dance hall. Do not treat every hymn-like melody in early jazz as this edge.

Mediators

community: New Orleans funeral and church processions; institution: Eureka Brass Band

New Orleans jazz → Chicago jazz

performance practiceinstrumentationform and structuremelodystrength: highscholarly consensus1918–1928migrationoralrecording

Mechanism

Chicago jazz is New Orleans jazz moved and recoded: same blues/rag vehicles and front-line habit, then longer solos, saxophone, and guitar in a Northern club and record economy. Strength high. It is not a second origin of New Orleans jazz. Oliver, Armstrong, and Noone are the dated carriers.

Evidence

Oliver’s Lincoln Gardens band; Armstrong’s Chicago Hot Five/Seven dates; Noone’s Apex Club records; Schuller on Chicago as the recorded recoding of the New Orleans language.

Debate

Whether “Chicago style” only names white campus bands. Those are a marketing wing. The hop is the South Side and the New Orleans migrants; Condon/Austin High copy the same recoding.

Mediators

artist: King Oliver; artist: Louis Armstrong; artist: Jimmie Noone

New Orleans jazz → Skiffle

instrumentationmelodyperformance practicestrength: mediumwell documented1953–1957oralrecording

Mechanism

Skiffle takes British trad’s New Orleans songbook and band-show interval and recodes it as washboard-and-guitar youth music. Strength medium. Blues and jug-band remain the song-and-kit parents; this hop is the Barber-band door. British trad-jazz leftover as a scene name on the New Orleans file.

Evidence

Donegan’s spots with Chris Barber; Rock Island Line (Gillett, Grove).

Debate

Whether skiffle is already trad jazz. The revival concert job is New Orleans jazz’s British copy; the tea-chest youth craze is skiffle’s.

Mediators

artist: Chris Barber; artist: Lonnie Donegan

New Orleans jazz → Swing

performance practiceinstrumentationharmonyform and structurestrength: highscholarly consensus1920–1935recordingoralmigration

Mechanism

Swing inherits jazz’s improvising soloist, blues/song chorus, and front-line-plus-rhythm idea, then scales them through arrangement. Armstrong’s New Orleans rhetorical solo — melody paraphrased, swung, and punched — becomes the model New York arrangers write around. Collective polyphony recedes; section riffs occupy the space the clarinet obbligato once filled. The rhythm section’s four-beat walk is a development of New Orleans four-beat experiments, not a European invention.

Evidence

Armstrong’s year with Henderson (1924–25) is the textbook mechanism: a New Orleans soloist changes how a Northern arranged band swings. Early Basie still has New Orleans-descended blues and riff practice via the Southwest territory line.

Debate

Chicago and New York musicians who never lived in New Orleans also form swing. The edge claims New Orleans jazz as a principal parent of the jazz language swing arranges, not the only city in the story.

Mediators

artist: Louis Armstrong; artist: Fletcher Henderson