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Inside Jazz
Jazz Lexicon

  • accent: to emphasize a beat or series of beats
  • all-in: a point in the music when all instruments come back in after a solo; a good solo
  • beat: the basic pulse of a piece of music; the unit by which musical time is measured
  • big band: a style of orchestral jazz that first surfaced in the 1920s and blossomed during the "Swing" Era (1935-50) when it became the popular music of the day; big bands feature three sections - brass, woodwind, and rhythm - and generally play carefully orchestrated arrangements
  • break: an established pause in the form of a tune during which an improvised phrase is usually played
  • breakdown: solid, loud, often groovy music
  • composer: the creator of a music composition including the melody, rhythm, and harmonic structure
  • a deuce of long black & whites: a two week period
  • drag: to play behind the beat in a way that slows or weighs down the movement of music
  • eight-to-the-bar: a.k.a. the fives; eight beats to a bar of music, as in boogie music or the blues
  • finger popping: snapping one's fingers
  • groove: a musical pattern derived from the interaction of repeated rhythms
  • improvisation: the impromptu creation of new melodies to fit the structure of a song
  • offbeat: the un-emphasized beat between two counts of music
  • orchestrate: to arrange music in a form that facilitates various instruments playing together
  • riff: a short, repeated musical phrase used as a background for a soloist or to add drama to a musical climax
  • rush: to hurry the timing of the notes played
  • send me: to transport the listener to a higher plane with music
  • shout chorus: the loud, climactic chorus of a piece of music, played or sung with spirited riffs and sometimes improvised embellishments; a carry-over from field songs and gospel hymns
  • shuffle rhythm: a rhythmic style that formed the basis of the blues and early jazz and informed the feeling of swing
  • swing: The basic rhythmic attitude of jazz; based on the shuffle rhythm; a style of jazz that appeared during the 1930s and featured big bands playing complex arrangements
  • syncopation: a displacement of the beat; a rhythmic accent on an unexpected beat
  • tempo: the speed at which a piece of music is played