Basin Street Records

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

New Orleans brass band is a parade-born ensemble tradition that blends European military band instrumentation with African American rhythmic feel and collective improvisation. Typical lineups feature trumpets and/or cornets carrying the melody, trombones with tailgate counter-lines, clarinet or saxophone weaving obligato figures, a sousaphone (or tuba) providing walking bass, and a street percussion battery with snare, bass drum, and cymbals driving the second line groove. Repertoire spans hymns and dirges for jazz funerals, blues, ragtime strains, marches, and joyous up-tempo shout choruses for social-aid-and-pleasure club parades. The style is defined by swing, syncopation, call-and-response, polyphonic collective improvisation, and the distinctive second line beat—an elastic, syncopated march feel that turns the street into a dance floor. Since the 1970s, many bands have incorporated funk, R&B, and hip-hop influences while retaining the core parade ethos.