"Why did you turn off the jazz music?"

One night Jean Girard walked into a popular NASCAR bar. He decided to put his favorite type of music, jazz, on the juke box. Chaos ensued. The jazz music on the juke box was there for "profiling" purposes only."

African Americans during the early 20th century would have received that kind of reaction if they decided to play jazz music in a bar. However they would most likely have not been in a bar with White people due to segregation and the jazz music would not have been on the juke box. I don't even know if they had juke boxes. Nevertheless, in the early 20th century African Americans in the communities of the southern United States developed jazz music from a blend of African and American music traditions. This blend occurred with African slaves being brought to America. They had their own types of musics and developed spirituals after coming to America. They also learned how to play the European instruments that their owners had such as violins, banjos and other percussion instruments. Some characteristics of jazz music would be its use of blues notes and improvisation. There are many branches of jazz such as ragtime or swing. Jazz artists such as Buddy Bolden or Bunk Johnson started the jazz revolution that led to the mainstream music today. They stepped away from the rigid music that existed and created something individual and organic.