Jazz Age

What impress you the most about the Jazz Age?

What impresses me the most about the Jazz Age is that African American instrumental jazz and secular song, the blues, emerged to cross-fertilize American popular and art music. American art music at the start of the 20^th Century was trying to define itself as a distinctive national express, Gershwin added his magically tune full Rhapsody in Blue and the Opera Porgy and Bess tot he nationalistic cause. No so inclined was Charles Griffes. He went his own way, developing a personal style based on French impressionism, exotic influences from Asia, and some experimentation with new scales and harmonies. Other composers in varying degrees reflects the prevalent Germanicisms in their music, but also were mindful of French Procedures.