I took this class because I liked and enjoyed jazz but did not know much about it. While I am hardly a jazz expert, I know more about jazz than I did three months ago, but more importantly, I am more interested in the history of jazz and inspired to dig deeper, to learn more about jazz.

My scope of jazz was relatively limited, spanning from 1940 to the present. While I enjoyed listening to jazz, I viewed each artist as an entity in himself. I did not make the connection between say Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. I did not make the connection between Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I did not realize that jazz is very much a hierarchical art and the music of today is influenced by the music of the past. I now can hear the James P. Johnson in Thelonious Monk or the Louis Armstrong in Charlie Parker. I have seen that all jazz music is connected in some way; none of it stands alone.

I realized that jazz has a number of influences. Jazz in New Orleans drew influence from Africa, Europe, and the blues. New Orleans jazz influenced Chicago jazz, and Chicago jazz influenced New York jazz. New York also had an endemic style of jazz influenced by ragtime and European classical music. Thelonious Monk was influenced by Egyptian scales and Miles Davis was influenced by Spanish guitar. Cities, people, culture, and art all influenced jazz. The more I learn about jazz, the blurrier the boundaries of jazz become.

Now, I no longer see jazz as a relic of the past; I no longer view jazz as stagnant. After tracing jazz through its history, I can feel the emotion of both a Billie Holiday song and a Bessie Smith song. Jazz was created to speak to the people, and while time progresses, people still have the same emotions, the same problems. With that in mind, I realize that jazz is still progressing and developing. Like it always has, jazz is appealing to the conditions of the time.

For whatever reason, I never realized how much work jazz musicians dedicated to their craft. I thought that one day, Monk sat down in front of a piano or John Coltrane picked up a saxophone and the music came right out. I now realize that these musicians were both supremely talented and supremely studious. These musicians dedicated their entire lives to the creation and expression of jazz, and what I perceived as a free-form music was truly the culmination of their indefatigable spirit.

Jazz is cool. I knew this before I took the class, and I definitely know it now. The class only reinforced this. From here on, I know I will listen to more jazz, read about more jazz, and think about more jazz.