Editing Jazz (section)

===Blues===
{{Main|Blues}}

====African genesis====
{{Image frame|content=<score sound="1"> {
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c' {
  \clef treble \time 6/4
  c4^\markup { "C blues scale" } es f fis g bes c2
} }
</score>

<score sound="1"> {
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c' {
  \clef treble \time 5/4
  c4^\markup { "C minor pentatonic scale" } es f g bes c2
} }
</score>|width=300|caption=A hexatonic [[blues scale]] on C, ascending}}Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre,<ref>Kunzler's ''Dictionary of Jazz'' provides two separate entries: blues, an originally African-American genre (p. 128), and the blues form, a widespread musical form (p. 131).</ref> which originated in [[African-American]] communities of primarily the [[Deep South]] of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their [[spiritual (music)|spirituals]], [[work song]]s, [[field holler]]s, [[Ring shout|shouts]] and [[chant]]s and rhymed simple narrative [[ballad (music)|ballads]].<ref name="The Evolution of Differing Blues Styles">{{cite web |title=The Evolution of Differing Blues Styles |publisher=How To Play Blues Guitar |access-date=August 11, 2008 |url=http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/the-blues/the-evolution-of-different-blues-styles |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100719033905/http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/the-blues/the-evolution-of-different-blues-styles |archive-date=July 19, 2010 }}</ref>

The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to the development of [[blue note]]s in blues and jazz.{{sfn|Cooke|1999|pp=11–14}} As Kubik explains:

<blockquote>Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are ''stylistically'' an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt:
* A strongly Arabic/Islamic song style, as found for example among the [[Hausa people|Hausa]]. It is characterized by melisma, wavy intonation, pitch instabilities within a pentatonic framework, and a declamatory voice.
* An ancient west central Sudanic stratum of pentatonic song composition, often associated with simple work rhythms in a regular meter, but with notable off-beat accents.{{sfn|Kubik|1999|p=96}}</blockquote>

====W. C. Handy: early published blues====
[[File:WC Handy age 19 handyphoto10.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[W. C. Handy]] at 19, 1892]]
[[W. C. Handy]] became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within a limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice".{{sfn|Palmer|1981|p=46}} Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in a popular music form.

Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues:

<blockquote>The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well.{{sfn|Handy|1941|p=99}}</blockquote>

The publication of his "[[The Memphis Blues|Memphis Blues]]" sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although [[Gunther Schuller]] argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk").{{sfn|Schuller|1986|loc=66, 145n}} This composition, as well as his later "[[St. Louis Blues (song)|St. Louis Blues]]" and others, included the habanera rhythm,{{sfn|Handy|1941|p=99–100}} and would become [[jazz standard]]s. Handy's music career began in the pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music.