The Social Significance of the Blues and its Impact on Jazz

The Social Significance of the Blues and its Impact on Jazz To understand the part played by the blues in American society, we need to consider what psychological imprints the blacks inherited from the years of slavery as well as what cultural and artistic forms existed during those times. The spirituals, plantation songs, work songs, banjo music, fiddle tunes and dances. All these elements were present, and to understand how and why the blues emerged …

…players. By then, blues was for a great many people no longer a separate music form. Even though New Orleans cannot be thought of with any historical veracity as “the birthplace of jazz,” there has been so much investigation of jazz and earlier music characteristics there during the first part of the twentieth century, that from New Orleans conclusions may be drawn concerning the social and cultural phenomena that led to the creation of jazz.