a strange history of Jazz - Blues/Ragtime - the genres

The first form of Jazz is called New Orleans Jazz, because it was the common music to find in bars and social places. The first score of Jazz is The Jelly Roll Blues from Ferd Morton from 1915. But why is it called a blues? And why was there only in 1915 a notation of jazz, since the genre was existing for about 25 years by then? I’ll try to give some answers.

[The Jelly Roll Blues - Ferd Morton's Red Hot Peppers, 1926 ]

The reason why there was no tradition in Jazz is because it was based on an oral tradition, based on standards and agreements. Off course the people who used to play it did not have the money or equipment's to notate or record it themselves. Since the music business started seeing Jazz as a form of money they started making scores and eventually records. The first record was from 1917 the livery stable blues by the original Dixieland jass band.

[Original Dixieland Jass Band - Livery Stable Blues, 1917]

The reason why this is an all white band, is because they did not record black people by then, because of the racist system. It was white jazz made by white people for the white people, so as a resource of history totally unreliable. Besides that it is also an unreliable sonic representation because of the limited duration and acoustic recording technique. Only by 1923-25 they began to record black artists.

[Crazy Blues - Mamie Smith, 1920]

So why are the terms blues and jazz often interfered? Because in the time of creation the genres overlapped and created each other. It is by now, 100 years later, that we can make a clear distinction between what is what, but by then it was not so clear.

ragtime
The left-hand playing the normal four-square rhythm; typical European from the classical tradition and in the right-hand the syncope. Ragtime was most of the times played on the piano and because of that very popular to play at home. Our image of this can be influenced by the amount of survived piano scores. it has different segments; around 3 to 4 melodies like a classical piece can have.

[The Entertainer - Scott Joplin, 1902 on Piano Roll]

The Tin Pan Alleys form of ragtime (the TPA was the biggest music and mainly piano score distributor of popular music since the end of the 19th century till the early 20th century located in Manhattan till they competed with the Brill Building in the 50s; but this is a subject for later). So the Tim Pan Alley made music more white sounding by removing the more rhythmical structures and syncope and accenting the stronger measurements with a few elements for the ragtime feeling.

[Alexander's Ragtime Band - Irving Berlin, 1911]

Blues
Blues is noticed by minor elements like the pentatonic scale and blue notes like the 3,6,5 and 7. The tonal structure most of the times would be like the 12 bar blues – AAB following I – IV / I – V / I . These elements meant that the traditional western music notation was not equipped for this kind of sound, think about lowering a note with a quarter tone.
The sound of singing often sounded complaining or shouting with a question-answer formula.

[St. Louis Blues - Bessie Smith, 1929]

So what are the differences between jazz and blues? Jazz is more a kind of dance music with more improvisation, energy and more lively. Also Jazz bands used to play more as an ensemble that complete each other and it is more swing-like than the ‘tug-of-war’ ragtime is able to sound like.
Off course this was just the beginning time of Jazz and a lot of forms came after this period. But that’s for later; for when you can not wait the site www.musicmap.info gives a great timeline for popular music.

Yours Sincerely @inMusicalTerms

P.s.: check out my latest article https://steemit.com/music/@inmusicalterms/musicology-and-their-ways-of-analyzing