What are the specific characteristics of jazz?

Jazz pays attention to improvisation, is based on the shuffle rhythm with swing characteristics, and is a combination of black African culture and white European culture. Among jazz tunes, the most distinctive one is the "blues scale", and jazz harmony can be said to be completely based on traditional harmony, but uses various chord changes more freely.

Related introduction:

Jazz is very unique in the instruments used and playing methods, which is completely different from traditional bands. The saxophone has been one of the most sold instruments since the Jazz Age; the trombone can produce funny or bizarre slides that no other brass instrument can.

The trumpet is also the preferred instrument of jazz musicians. The novel timbre produced by this instrument, combined with different mutes, and the several tones in the highest register have almost become the unique timbre characteristics of jazz.

Extended information

Related background:

During the 19th century, music was an important means for black slaves on plantations in the southern United States to express their lives and emotions. Since the end of the 19th century, jazz has been based on traditional British and American music, mixed with blues, ragtime and other music types. It is a "hybrid" product.

Black music in the Americas retains a lot of African characteristics, obvious rhythmic features, and the characteristics of collective improvisation. This tradition was combined with the largely vocal music of the new settlement, and the result was not just a new sound but an entirely new form of musical expression.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Jazz