Jazz

From £3,000

In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play Western instruments, particularly the violin, providing entertainment for plantation owners and increasing the resale value of those who were still slaves.

Having learnt European dance music, they parodied the tunes in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was one of the first formally trained composers to transpose and adapt African-American music, much of it cakewalk music performed in Congo Square in his native New Orleans. He also adapted South American, Caribbean and other slave melodies as piano salon music, with titles such as Bamboula, danse de nègres of 1849 and Le Banjo, Fantaisie grotesque of 1855.

Gottschalk's polka Pasquinade is said by some to have anticipated ragtime and was orchestrated as part of the repertoire of John Philip Sousa's concert band founded in 1892. Another influence came from black slaves who had learned the harmonic style of hymns and incorporated it into their own music, with spirituals being the result.

This musical form increased in importance when breakaway church groups were formed after the American Civil War led to the abolition of slavery in 1865.