Jazz
Jazz is a music of African American origin built on improvisation, swing rhythm and blues-based harmony, which began in New Orleans around the start of the 20th century.
It grew from blues, ragtime and brass band music, and players typically take turns inventing solos over a song's chords while the rhythm section keeps time. Common instruments are trumpet, saxophone, piano, double bass and drums. Over a century it has split into many styles, including swing, bebop, cool jazz, free jazz and fusion. Its stress on improvising in the moment is what most sets it apart from classical and pop music.
Artists it is known for: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.
- Family
- Jazz & Blues
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A broad heading
- From
- New Orleans, early 1900s
- Also called
- jazz music
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 6%
About 4,900 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have jazz among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Jazz artists
Frank Sinatra
ridgeclub
Chet Baker
Ella Fitzgerald
Miles Davis
Stan Getz
berlioz
John Coltrane
Masego
Billie Holiday
The jazz artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.