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jazz  A means of performing music. There are many moods and styles, but improvisation is an inherent characteristic of jazz.
blues  A black vocal music.
Rural or country blues  Folklike vocal blues.
twelve-bar blues  The standard form of the blues, consisting of three-line stanzas with four bars, or measures, in each line.
scatting, scat singing  Vocal improvisation on neutral syllables.
classic blues  Professional, stylized blues, conceived for performance in theaters and clubs and for commercial recordings.
race records  Term used before 1949 by the popular music industry for recordings intended for an African American audience. (Later called rhythm and blues.)
urban blues  Blues pieces written for publication and professional performance, often slightly altered from the standard twelve-bar form.
combo  Small jazz ensemble.
New Orleans jazz  Virtuosic improvisation by members of a jazz combo on a given (already known) melody.
Dixieland  A white imitation of New Orleans jazz, faster and more intense than the original style. Dixieland was introduced in Chicago.
piano blues or boogie-woogie  A popular piano style with the form and harmony of the twelve-bar blues, but faster in tempo and with a dance beat.
eight-to-the-bar  The ostinato accompanying a boogie, dividing each of the four counts in a measure into a long and a short beat.
stride piano  A jazz piano style in which the left hand alternates low bass notes on one and three with midrange chords on two and four.
coda  A closing section.
sweet jazz  Music with the sound and flavor of jazz, but arranged so as to require little improvisation.







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