Blues and Ragtime: Paving the Way for Jazz

Blues and ragtime helped to pave the way for jazz, one of America's truly unique music genres. Originating in the South, these genres were inspired by the African backgrounds of slaves coupled with the oppression that freed men and women faced after their emancipation. New Orleans became a musical hotbed during the jazz era. It was also during the development and popularization of the genre that jazz music found its way to Chicago and California, as well as New York. It was through the development of blues and ragtime that jazz emerged and was made accessible to the public.

Blues, from which rock and roll grew out of, was an "indigenous creation of black slaves who adapted their African musical heritage to the American environment" (Szatmary 2). Through music, these slaves were able to retain a piece of their past while at...
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