innings of jazz in America, one scholar remarked, "It seems in retrospect almost inevitable that America, the great ethnic melting pot, would procreate a music compounded of African rhythmic, formal, sonoric, and expressive elements and European rhythmic and harmonic practices" (Schuller 3).
Thus, American jazz and African native music both originated in a more unified vision of life, one in which music, unlike the more classical styles of Europe, is not a separate, autonomous social expression. Rather than being confined to the elite, as was much of European "classical music," jazz spoke to the very heart and soul of many Americans. In fact, African music, like African tribal arts, arose out of a philosophical and religious undertaking stimulated by the entire cultural context of the particular native group. Interestingly enough, the word "art" does not even exist in African languages. Art, is part of the language, culture, and tribal life and tradition.
Analogous to early jazz, the developmental aspects of the music also fall deep within the cultural domain of African tribal lore. In the African Negro's way of life, words and their meanings are related to musical sound. Instrumental music was independent of verbal functions, at least in the sense that European 'absolute' music is almost totally unknown to the African native. Basically, language functions only in conjunction with rhythm. All verbal activity, whether quotidian social life or religion and magic, is rhythmicized. And it is no mere coincidence that the languages and dialects of the African Negro are in themselves a form of music, often to the extent that certain syllables possess specific intensities, durations, and even pitch levels (Schuller 5).
These comments form only the precursor for the development of jazz. Of course, it is impossible to establish the exact beginnings of jazz as a distinct, self contained type of music. Some scholars use the yea...