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To foster awareness and appreciation of traditional jazz through public
concert performances by internationally recognized artists who have earned
their reputation as dedicated exponents of this musical genre.
Traditional jazz originated with African-American musicians in New Orleans
at the beginning of the last century who evolved a collective
improvisational way of playing music that evinced a melding of African and
Euro-American musical heritage and incorporated the influences of the
blues, ragtime, hymns, marching band music, prison work songs and street
vendor shouts of those times. We define contemporary traditional
jazz as the music created today by those artists who emulate the
collective improvisational approach of the art form's progenitors.
Jazz is considered America's only original art form.
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