This lyrical yet melancholic genre of music inspired many different styles from Delta Blues to Country Blues to West Coast Blues. Also like Jazz, its roots are thoroughly African-American. Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Nina Simone were some of the most popular Jazz artists of the 1950s.īlues is thought to have originated in the Southern States of America after the American Civil War, however like Jazz, it wasn’t really documented until the turn of the 20th century. By the end of the decade however, some musicians began to reject the traditional norms and structures of Jazz in favour of an improvisational and experimental ‘free-jazz’ style (which would later become known as Avant Garde Jazz). The music was calmer, more loungey, and featured softer and longer melodies. Throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s it inspired many new styles and genres including Swing and Bebop, and at the beginning of the 1950s Jazz entered its ‘Cool’ phase. Jazz has remained popular in its various guises and evolutions for well over a century. In New Orleans at the end of the 19th Century, ‘Founding Father’ Buddy Bolden alongside fellow Afro-American musicians fused together ragtime, blues and gospel sounds and improvised rhythms during performances to create a brand new genre of music – Jazz. Vocalists took centre stage and singers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Judy Garland stepped into the spotlight. In the 1950s however, the popularity of Big Bands and Swing music declined, and while some Big Bands continued to find work as studio orchestras for TV or radio productions, essentially they became the backing bands to a new (and considerably less swinging) ‘Pop’ sound. It experienced its height of popularity in the 1930s and 1940s (suitably referred to as ‘The Swing Era’) with the rise of Big Band Dance Orchestras, led by and featuring both black and white musicians. Swing became popular and achieved commercial success at the end of the 1920s as a somewhat diluted evolution of Jazz. The presence of a TV set in every family home also provided young people with the opportunity to learn new dance styles very quickly. Musical styles evolved rapidly with the birth of Rock‘n’Roll, and inevitably dance styles developed and varied to adapt to the changes in the music. The 1950s represented an exciting period for music, and consequently music for dancing was rich and manifold and provided a diverse soundtrack for the most popular dances of the decade. Here is an overview of the most popular music and 1950s dance styles. It is precisely for this reason that certain dances acquired an unprecedented popularity, dances such as Rock’n’Roll (a teenage evolution of the Jitterbug and Swing dancing), the Madison, the Stroll, and the Hand Jive. The spread of television allowed millions of viewers to see their favorite songs performed for the very first time, and consequently also pick-up the dance steps that accompanied them. The fabulous 1950s represent a real watershed in the history of dance: the dances of the decade were fun and innovative and reflected the evolution of the times.
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