Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What is the difference between Jazz and Blues ?

Hope some kind souls could enlighten me on this.

I have come across many Internet lessons, but I don't seem to be able to tell the differences.

Blues is a style of playing. There are blues chord progressions/scales and such. Jazz is a very general genera, kind of like Rock. There is swing, big band, blues, latin style, fusion etc.

I am not a full expert on it, but thats just kinda a general idea of what it is. Someone here can elaborate!

Thats because a lot of "Blues" lessons on the internet do not capture the true flavor of Blues as the masters play it.

Go to You tube and listen to Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Spann, and you will hear authentic old-school Blues.

Also, there is some overlap between Jazz and Blues, in that some Jazz has the chord structure of Blues, but the flavor of Jazz. Examples would be Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff.

You might get more answers if you post this on the non classical forum. Jazz and blues both have roots in the early 20th century but have evolved in different directions. Blues is based on simple chord progressions, most songs just have three chords and has a much more hard edged and raw sound. Many songs will share the same chord progression. Blues songs often have a primitive intensity.

Jazz songs typically use far more chords and from a musicians point of view there is more to learn. Jazz tends to be more sophisticated than blues melodically and harmonically but jazz can also be raw and hard edged. There has always been a lot of overlap between jazz and blues, you can uses blues licks in a jazz context and use jazz chords on blues songs and there are quite a few songs which straddle genres and are somewhere between jazz and blues such as All Blues, Blue Trane, Chitlins con Carne etc.

Yup, why don't you repost your great question to the other forum.
I think there are two answers. I'm definitely not an expert but this is how I understand it.
1. Blues is a subset of jazz; and
2. Blues is the particular combination of West African and non African influences which preceded jazz.

Years ago, Leonard Bernstein made a very good album for Columbia Records called: "What Is Jazz". On that LP, he explains in very easy-to-understand terms, how the whole thing works. For one thing, you'll learn that Blues is one of the cornerstones of Jazz (and Rock and Roll, for that matter).

Jazz makes me want to dance a jig, while the Blues makes me want to blow my brains out.
That's the only difference I could competently point out ('competently' being used loosely here).

Is this it?
Bernstein - Journey-Into-Jazz

That is not the LP that I referred to but you're close. I believe that this video is an excerpt from one of the more than 50 televised "Young Peoples Concerts" that Maestro Bernstein did for the CBS network from the late '50s to the early '70s. Pretty fascinating TV, unlike most of what passes for entertainment today on that medium.

Strange enough, I received better response from this forum. The non-classical forum is 'fat zero' so far.

BTW, can anyone recommend a good website where I can learn jazz ?

Don't know about a website, but there is a great series of books where the first book is about improvising the blues (the blues are often considered a kind of early, proto-Jazz)

http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Blues-Piano-Tim-Richards/dp/0946535973/

Well, to sing the Blues ya have to suffer. To play Jazz just attend Berkeley.

Berkeley or Berklee? There's a world of difference.

Me bad! Berklee.

Blues has a specific form (12 Bar Blues) and uses only 3 dominant chords, for example, in the key of C:

|C7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
|F7 | F7 | C7 | C7 |
|G7 | G7 | C7 | C7 |

It also has a specific sound, which is created by the 'Blues Scale', one of the most recognizable of which is the slide from a flat-3rd to the 3rd of the chord. So in C7, it is Eb sliding to E.

Now there are Jazz Blues which modifies these chords a little but still returns to the original 12 bar structure. Jazz Blues tends to be played fast, while regular blues tends to be played slow.

Both are improvising forms.

Jazz is a broader genre although Jazz Blues is often a starting point to learning Jazz in general.

No it doesn't. It can be 8 or 16 or whatever length the creator wishes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_bar_blues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_bar_blues

Well I can name you ten million exceptions too, including the chords and minor blues, or blues-like forms. But that's not the base form. When you learn it, it will be 12 bar, I IV V.

When you learn it perhaps but in practice it has no specific form. There is no recipe. If anything it's a poetic form.

Let's just say that 90% of what you will hear falls under this recipe. I myself prefer to play the "exceptions" so I hear you.

Although mind you, the exceptions are often intended to suggest the original form.

I personally wouldn't describe it as a "poetic form". Instead I would refer to it as a "Call and Response" form, which is why the "Form" of the chords has some specific significance.

Ragtime and Blues structures were precursors to Jazz, which now takes into account all sorts of influences from around the world.

The defining list of what defines jazz is quite large...Ragtime, New Orleans music, 20s and 30s are known as the Jazz Age, Swing (ah that swing tempo), Dixieland, Bebop, Cool Jazz, Hard bop, Modal Jazz, Free Jazz, Latin Jazz, Post bop, Sould Jazz, Jazz fusion, Jazz funk, smooth jazz (ugh), Acid Jazz, punk Jazz and Modern Creative, just to name a few, but most all take into account improvisation inside of a structure.

Jazz is generally known as truly American music first.

Glen