What Is Jazz? A History, a Guide to the Main Styles, and How to Start Playing

Pick up almost any recording from Miles Davis's Kind of Blue — released on August 17, 1959 — and within a few bars you will notice something that is hard to put into words. The rhythm has a lilt to it, the chords are richer than the ones in a hymn or a pop song, and somebody is making up a melody right in front of you. That combination — swing feel, 7th chords and live improvisation rooted in the blues — is what jazz is. This guide tells you where the music came from, how the main styles differ, and what to practice first if you want to play it.

What makes music "jazz"

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines jazz as a music that "combines blues and ragtime with European harmonic and formal structures" and adds that "improvisation is its most distinctive feature." For players, the working definition comes down to four ingredients that all jazz shares.

The four ingredients that all jazz shares. Remove any one and the music shifts into something else.

Swing feel. Written eighth notes are played long–short: the first note of each pair leans and lingers, the second hops in late. Swing Eighths describes it as "each beat split in three: long (2) + short (1)." The worksheet also notes that the 2:1 ratio is a starting point, not a law — real players swing harder at slow tempos and nearly even at very fast ones.

The same notes, two ways. Bar 1 is what you read; bar 2 is what you play. Count "1 a 2 a" (not "1 and") to place the short note correctly.

Improvisation. Soloists make up melodies on the spot over a chord progression — the "changes" — often taking turns in a structure called trading fours (four bars each). Nobody writes the melody in advance, which is what makes every jazz performance different.

7th chords. Almost every chord in jazz has a 7th on top: the minor 7th (Dm7), the dominant 7th (G7) or the major 7th (Cmaj7). That extra note makes chords richer and more colorful than plain triads — it is part of the jazz sound. The dominant 7th, the major 7th and the minor 7th each have their own character.

Blues roots. Jazz grew out of the blues. The 12-bar blues form, the blue notes (♭3, ♯4 and ♭7) and the question-and-answer habit called call and response are all present in jazz from its first recordings to today.

A brief history: eight eras

Jazz has changed more than almost any other popular music, and each era added something new while keeping the four ingredients above.

Eight eras, each named for a change in tempo, harmony or instrumentation. All of them continue to be played today.

New Orleans and Dixieland (c. 1895–1920s). African American, Creole, Caribbean and European musical traditions met in New Orleans. Cornet, clarinet and trombone played different improvised lines at the same time — a technique called polyphony. Buddy Bolden is often credited with leading the first jazz band, around 1895, though no recordings of him survive. The word "jazz" appears in print as early as 1913, in a San Francisco newspaper.

Swing and big band (1920s–1940s). New Orleans musicians moved north to Chicago and New York, partly after the Storyville entertainment district closed in 1917. The music grew into large ensembles. Duke Ellington's Cotton Club residency from 1927 made jazz a nationally heard sound through radio broadcasts. Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–28) established the improvising soloist as the central figure. By the 1930s, Benny Goodman was playing to thousands at Carnegie Hall (January 16, 1938), and swing had become American popular music.

Bebop (c. 1945). A small group of musicians — led by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie — deliberately made jazz fast, harmonically complex and hard to dance to. Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux note that bebop's tempos were "deliberately fast to discourage dancers." Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time" (recorded November 26, 1945, for Savoy Records) is a canonical bebop blues at a tempo few rhythm-section players could follow at first. Bebop is where the ii–V–I progression became the foundation of jazz harmony.

Cool jazz and hard bop (1950s). Bebop split in two directions. Cool jazz — announced by Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" sessions (1949–50) — was relaxed, lightly orchestrated and harmonically soft. Hard bop (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers from 1954, Clifford Brown and Max Roach) went the other way: bluesier, louder and rooted in gospel. Giddins and DeVeaux describe hard bop as "a bluesier, gospelier response to cool's cerebral approach."

Modal jazz (c. 1959). Davis gathered a new sextet and recorded Kind of Blue (1959), which became the best-selling jazz album of all time, according to Columbia Records. The idea, which Davis described in his autobiography, was to improvise on scales (modes) rather than on fast-moving chord changes: "I wanted to play scales, man." Instead of running through a new chord every two beats, the band might sit on a single Dorian mode for twelve bars. The modes worksheet shows the connection between Dorian and minor, and between Mixolydian and major.

"I wanted to play scales, man." — Miles Davis on the concept behind Kind of Blue

Free jazz (1960s). Ornette Coleman's album Free Jazz (1960, Atlantic) named a movement that abandoned fixed chord changes altogether. Some players kept a steady pulse; others let go of that too. Free jazz influenced the avant-garde and left a permanent wing of the music that is still active.

Fusion (1970s). Electric guitars, electric bass, Fender Rhodes piano and rock and funk beats entered jazz. Weather Report (1970–86) and the Mahavishnu Orchestra (1971–76) are the canonical bands. The music could be very loud, very complex or both at the same time.

Contemporary jazz (today). Kamasi Washington, Esperanza Spalding, Snarky Puppy and dozens of others draw on all of the above and add hip-hop, gospel, West African and Latin influences. The common thread is still the four ingredients: swing, improvisation, 7th chords and blues.

The core harmony: the ii–V–I

If bebop gave jazz one thing above everything else, it is the ii–V–I. Open Music Theory calls it "the most common chord progression in jazz." In C major, it is Dm7–G7–Cmaj7: away from home (ii), tension (V), home (I). Three chords, all 7ths, the roots moving down a 5th each time.

The ii–V–I in C. Roots move D → G → C, each a 5th down. The same pattern works in every key.

Here it is on the grand staff, with the most common voicings:

Dm7–G7–Cmaj7 in C. The treble holds the chord tones; the bass plays the root alone. Notice that F appears in both Dm7 and G7 — it is the 3rd of Dm7 and stays as the 7th of G7.

Play it slowly. The ii–V–I in Every Key worksheet shows the full progression in all 12 keys, with guide tones and voice-leading fingered out. The Seventh-Chord Qualities exercise will train you to hear the difference between m7, 7 and maj7 at a glance.

Why this progression matters so much. The G7 contains a tritone — B and F, six half steps apart — and that interval is restless. B wants to rise a half step to C; F wants to fall a half step to E. When both voices resolve, they land perfectly on the 3rd and 7th of Cmaj7. The dominant 7th worksheet calls this tritone "the engine of the chord."

The blues scale: your first improvising tool

Before you tackle bebop melody, start with the blues scale. It has only six notes (seven if you count the top octave), and all of them sound good over a jazz blues.

C blues scale: 1 ♭3 4 ♯4 5 ♭7 1. The ♭3 (E♭), ♯4 (F♯) and ♭7 (B♭) are the blue notes — they create the characteristic blues tension.

The Pentatonic & Blues Scales worksheet describes these three extra notes as "deliberately wrong notes that make the blues blue." Play the ♭3 over a C7 chord and you hear why: E♭ clashes against the E natural in the chord, and that clash is the sound. The ♯4 (F♯) is a passing tone — slide it quickly into G. Loop the 12-bar blues with your left hand and noodle the C blues scale on top with your right, and you are already improvising.

Swing eighths and syncopation

Swing feel and syncopation are related but different. Swing is about when the short note lands (late, on the last third of the beat). Syncopation is about accenting a note that arrives between the main beats, landing on the "a" and holding across the next beat.

The A in bar 1 arrives on the "a" of 2 and ties across beat 3 — a syncopated push. Count "1 2 a 3 4" and feel how the accent falls between foot taps.

Jazz melody uses both at once: the eighth notes swing long–short, and certain notes arrive early (on the "a") and hold over. That combination gives jazz phrasing its characteristic push and pull. Syncopation teaches the concept and Ear Training: Swing or Straight? trains your ear to hear the difference immediately.

Shell voicings: the minimum to sound the chord

Jazz and pop pianists rarely play every note of a 7th chord in the left hand. They play a shell: the root plus the 3rd and 7th (the guide tones), dropping the 5th. Two or three notes that sound clear in the bass register and leave the right hand free for melody.

Shell voicings for ii–V–I. In each shell voicing the 7th of the chord sits on top — C, F, then B — while the 3rd and 7th (the guide tones) swap places. That guide-tone motion is what makes jazz comping sound connected.

The Shell Voicings worksheet explains why the 5th is dropped ("it is a perfect 5th in maj7, 7 and m7 alike, so it adds no color") and shows both shell patterns — root + 3rd and root + 7th — in C and F. Once you can loop the ii–V–I in shells without looking down, add the melody in the right hand and read the whole thing as a lead sheet.

Walking bass: one note per beat

A walking bass line moves in quarter notes — one note per beat — mostly on the chord tones of whichever chord is playing. It gives the music its propulsive forward motion without a drum set.

A four-bar walking bass line using chord tones: root, 3rd, 5th and 7th on every beat. Bar 4's A on beat 4 is an approach note — a half step below the B♭ of the next chord in a blues.

Each bar uses the root, 3rd, 5th and 7th of its chord, in whatever order connects smoothly to the next bar. Notice how bar 4 ends on A: it is a step below the B♭ in a blues, or a step below the B in Cmaj7 again. That chromatic approach note on beat 4 is the most common walking-bass trick. Practice walking bass over the 12-bar blues first — just three chords, twelve bars, and you will hear the technique click.

Comping: how pianists and guitarists accompany

Comping (short for accompanying) means playing chords in a rhythmic, conversational way that supports the soloist without getting in the way. The basic comping rhythm in jazz places chord stabs on beat 2 and the "and of 4."

Comping rhythm: rest on beat 1, chord on beat 2, chord on the "and" of 4 (tied into bar 2). The chord on the "and" of 4 is a classic jazz anticipation — it arrives one eighth early.

Swing the eighth note. The chord on the "and of 4" ties across the barline to beat 1 of the next bar — it arrives early, which is what gives jazz comping its forward lean. Left hand plays the shell voicing (root + 7th) while the right hand plays these rhythms; together they lock in without crowding the soloist.

A jazz melody over ii–V–I

Here is an original three-bar phrase that outlines each chord in the ii–V–I, using mostly chord tones.

Each bar uses the chord's own notes: Dm7 (D, F, C, A), G7 (B, D, F, E), Cmaj7 (C, G). The rest in bar 2 leaves breathing space — jazz phrasing breathes.

The rest in bar 2 is not a mistake: it is part of the phrase. Jazz players leave gaps. Practice this phrase slowly with the ii–V–I chords in the left hand; then try making your own phrase using the same chord tones in a different order. The Improvising with the Pentatonic worksheet gives a four-step recipe: "Pick a rhythm, repeat it with changed notes, leave some space, end on the home note."

The main styles: a quick comparison

Each era had its own tempo range, harmonic approach and lineup. Here is a side-by-side view of six of the most important.

All six styles use swing feel, improvisation, 7th chords and blues roots. What changes is how fast, how complex and which instruments.

The easiest place to hear the difference: play three recordings back to back — Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" (1928), Charlie Parker's "Ko-Ko" (1945) and Miles Davis's "So What" (from Kind of Blue, 1959). Armstrong's beat is flexible, Parker's is blistering and dense, Davis's is spacious and slow. Same four ingredients, three completely different feelings.

How to start playing jazz

The most direct route is not to study harmony first — it is to listen, then play the blues, then learn one standard.

Six steps in order. Steps 1–3 can happen in the first week; steps 4–6 unfold over months.

Step 1: Listen. Start with Miles Davis's Kind of Blue (1959) for a spacious entry point and Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time" (1945) for bebop's energy. Listen for when the swing feel lands, when soloists leave space and when the band breathes together.

Step 2: Learn swing eighths. Take a melody you already know — a folk song, a hymn, anything — and swing every pair of eighth notes long–short. Play it both ways, as written and as swung, and your body will remember the difference. Swing Eighths has a riff to practice both ways and an ear-training follow-up (Ear Training: Swing or Straight?) to check your ear.

Step 3: Play a blues. The 12-bar blues is jazz's home base. In F, that is F7 (four bars), B♭7 (two bars), F7 (two bars), C7 (one bar), B♭7 (one bar), F7 to C7 (two bars). The 12-Bar Blues worksheet has the full chord map; The Pentatonic & Blues Scales gives you the F blues scale (F A♭ B♭ B C E♭ F) to improvise on top.

Step 4: Master the ii–V–I. Loop Dm7–G7–Cmaj7 until the changes happen without thinking. Then transpose to F (Gm7–C7–Fmaj7) and G (Am7–D7–Gmaj7). The ii–V–I worksheet shows all 12 keys. The Shell Voicings worksheet reduces each chord to two or three notes that fit naturally in the left hand.

Step 5: Learn a standard. Pick one tune — "Autumn Leaves" or "Blue Bossa" are beginner-friendly — and learn the melody by ear first. Then add the chord symbols as a lead sheet. Left hand plays root on beat 1, right hand plays the melody. When that is easy, replace the left hand with shell voicings.

Step 6: Find a band. Jazz is a conversation. The sooner you play with other people — even one drummer or one horn player — the faster you will develop the listening skills that separate a jazz player from someone who has memorized jazz-sounding notes.

Free worksheets for this lesson

• Swing Eighths — the swing marking, how to count it and when to use it.
• Ear Training: Swing or Straight? — listen and identify swing or straight eighths.
• The dominant 7th — G7 built from a major triad plus a minor 7th; the tritone inside it.
• The major 7th — Cmaj7: dreamy and unresolved, the "I" chord in jazz.
• The minor 7th — Dm7: the "ii" chord; mellow and easygoing.
• Name the seventh chords — drill maj7, 7, m7, ø7 and °7 at a glance.
• The ii–V–I in Every Key — Dm7–G7–Cmaj7 in all 12 keys with guide tones.
• Shell Voicings — root plus 3rd and 7th; the left-hand shorthand for every 7th chord.
• Reading a lead sheet — melody plus chord symbols; three steps to turning them into music.
• The 12-Bar Blues — twelve bars, three chords, the backbone of jazz and blues.
• The Pentatonic & Blues Scales — the blues scale and its blue notes.
• Improvising with the Pentatonic — four-step recipe for your first solo.
• Syncopation — off-beat accents and ties that land between the beats.
• The modes — Dorian, Mixolydian and the modal jazz connection.

Find more in the worksheet library.

Now join the conversation

Jazz is built on four things you can practice today: a swing feel, 7th chords, the blues scale and the ii–V–I progression. The history is long and rich — from Buddy Bolden's New Orleans cornet around 1895 to Kamasi Washington's marathon saxophone sets today — but every player started with those same four tools and slowly made them their own.

A Tissimo piano teacher can listen in a live online lesson and tell you whether your swing feel is landing on the right third of the beat and whether your ii–V–I voicings are smooth enough to comp behind a melody.

Sources

• Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 2021)
• Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux, Jazz (W. W. Norton, 2009)
• "jazz" — Encyclopaedia Britannica (archived)
• Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (Simon & Schuster, 1989)
• Open Music Theory — Viva Open Publishing (archived)
• Alexander Stewart, "'Funky Drummer': New Orleans, James Brown and the rhythmic transformation of American popular music" — Popular Music 19/3 (2000)