Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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r explained. Middle Eastern and African musicians are judged by
their ability to balance the freedom of improvisation with elegant treatment of the
requirements of a musical form.
are played most every night at a blues jam somewhere on earth, provide an elegant,
mutually accepted form within which each musician is expected to improvise, without
stepping on other musicians in the jam and while respecting the tolerance of the audience.
ja.
the verb root, to jaja. 248 In Wolof, yees means to become extremely lively or energetic. It
ercourse. These are two possible
sources of the term jazz, but some linguists have also argued that jazz is a variation on
-Kongo verb dinza
249
By the late 1800s, African American brass marching bands that played European-style
brass instrumentals were very popular in New Orleans at parties, picnics, and dance halls.
As the blues also became more popular and widespread, however, the first blues-oriented
brass bands started performing i
bands, 250
--they danced.
blues artists in the Delta region were living in some kind of isolated blues cocoon. Many
blues artists loved jazz, too.
mostly country and western but in the evening Louis Jordan had a little syndicated show
Guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood, who was born in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas in 1915, also
251
Lockwood began studying the guitar at age eleven, with help from his mothe -
law husband, Delta blues genius Robert Johnson. When Lockwood was in his teens, he
Williamson convinced the manager at KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas to let him and
my band, and this bunch of guys that I hired was jazz musicians. They played all those
This experience served Lockwood in good stead when he moved to Chicago and started
After I recorded my first records [with Doctor Clayton for
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