15 Different Types of Jazz Music

Louis Armstrong once famously quoted, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” And for the most part, it is true. Throughout its history, Jazz has had a flaky definition, mostly referred to as a genre of soul and feeling. It’s one of the reasons why it became so huge in the 1900s.

Jazz in itself is a vast genre with many different styles. Its roots lay in improv, which naturally fueled its continuous evolution throughout its magnificent history. Let’s explore 15 sub-genres of Jazz and the sounds and artists that define them.

1. Early Jazz

Early Jazz, also sometimes called Hot Jazz and Dixieland, originated from the bustling city of New Orleans in the early 20th century. Its sound drew on ragtime, blues, marches and dance music. Bands used trumpets or cornets, trombones, drums, clarinets, banjos or guitars, and bass instruments such as the upright bass and tuba; saxophones also became part of the sound.

Collective improvisation, with several players shaping their parts together, became an important part of the sound. It could coexist with rehearsed arrangements and written music. Some of the defining Early Jazz artists were Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and Buddy Bolden.

2. Swing & Big Band

Boasting written arrangements, rhythmic innovations, and an ensemble of up to 20 musicians, Swing and Big Band jazz dominated the American music scene in the 1930s and 40s. The genre gets its name from its groove-driven nature and the danceable style of bandleaders. 

The smoothness of the music was one of the reasons behind Swing’s success. The harmony was clear, the melody simple, and the drums, groovy. The overall genre made for a pleasant listen.

The swing era featured some of the greatest jazz musicians to have ever lived. These included Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, and Buddy Rich.

3. Bebop

Bebop took its influences from swing, but its sound was anything but. It was loud, fast, and exciting to play and listen to. The genre takes its origin in the early 1940s when musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker were considered young turks. This further paved the way for the likes of Miles Davis and Art Blakey.

Bebop was considered an artisan genre, created to appease a jazz musician. Fast tempo, complex compositions, incredible instrumentalizations, all resulted in poor acceptance from the public. Particularly since swing was much easily digestible by the common folk.

Even though Bebop never gained the recognition it deserved, it certainly made a mark in jazz and music history.

4. Cool Jazz

In the late 1940s and 50s, Cool jazz offered an alternative to the more intense side of Bebop. It kept the focus on improvisation while exploring a more restrained ensemble sound, adding another approach to an already varied jazz scene.

Cool jazz often had a mellow vibe, with restrained playing, carefully voiced arrangements and room for quieter textures. Its tempos were not always slow. California became an important center, but Miles Davis’s New York nonet sessions of 1949 and 1950 were also central to the sound. Incorporating formal arrangements, Cool jazz took some inspiration from classical music.

Prominent figures of Cool jazz included Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, and Stan Getz.

5. Hard Bop

Hard Bop could be considered an extension of Bebop, with a more pronounced blues, gospel and R&B influence. It could be driving and fast as well as relaxed, so a slower tempo alone does not distinguish the two styles.

The style grew in the 1950s and 60s, with an important East Coast scene. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Art Blakey all contributed to its development. Its blues and gospel emphasis offered a different direction from Cool jazz, but individual musicians moved between these approaches rather than following one shared objection to European music.

6. Modal Jazz

With Miles Davis and John Coltrane among its pioneers, Modal jazz gives musicians time to explore modes, or scale-based note collections, over relatively slow-changing harmony. The space between chord changes opened up a different approach from Bebop’s rapid harmonic movement.

Instead of moving quickly through a long chord progression, a Modal jazz piece may stay with one mode for an extended passage before shifting to another. It can still have a clear form and more than one tonal center, leaving soloists room to develop melodic ideas.

Other Modal jazz artists include Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock.

7. Free Jazz

Free jazz developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with New York becoming an important meeting point for its musicians. Artists such as Ornette Coleman loosened the usual dependence on preset chord progressions. That freedom opened up new ways for a band to improvise together, without making every performance a rule-free exercise.

Depending on the group, Free jazz can loosen or abandon regular meter, fixed chord sequences and familiar song forms. Other performances retain a pulse, composed themes or strong blues connections. Improvisation is central, and some musicians draw on traditions from around the world. These changes also brought negative criticism from listeners who preferred more familiar jazz structures.

The Free Jazz movement featured musicians like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Tony Williams. 

8. Latin Jazz

The sounds of Latin Jazz can be broken down into two categories, namely Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian. While Afro-Cuban was more dance-based, Afro-Brazilian was subtle in samba and bossa nova. 

Both approaches can use repeated rhythmic patterns, but Afro-Cuban clave and Brazilian samba or bossa nova rhythms are different traditions. Clave can organize the interplay of an Afro-Cuban arrangement without the wooden claves being played throughout. Percussion is important, while the melody might be carried by brass, woodwind, voice, piano or guitar.

Influential names in Latin Jazz include Candido Camero, Joao Gilberto, Dizzy Gillespie, and Chick Corea. 

9. Post Bop

Post Bop has always been considered a vague term for a genre that is an amalgamation of bebop, hard bop, free jazz, and modal jazz. The genre was at its peak in the 1960s, around the time of Miles Davis’s second quintet, which consisted of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. 

While it was still free in many aspects, it was constrained in others. Post Bop features odd rhythms, abstract structures, and longer solos. 

10. Gypsy Jazz

Hot Club Quintet members Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli took Paris by storm in the 1930s with a form of jazz called Gypsy Jazz. The reason behind its name is because it was mostly played by the Romani folk at the time. 

Gypsy Jazz predominantly featured guitars, violins, and a stand-up bass. It also eliminated the need for drums as guitarists used the La Pompe technique. It is basically strumming the backbeats hard enough to create a thud. 

The genre emulated a swing feel. The melodies were often singable and the overall music was smooth, simplistic, but intricate. 

11. Smooth Jazz

Smooth Jazz was a more radio or commercially-oriented form of jazz that flourished in the 1980s and 90s. It is sometimes described as a mix of jazz, pop, and lo-fi R&B due to its easy-listening qualities.

Smooth jazz involved good use of saxophones, synthesizers, electric bass, and drums. The sound was more focused on melodic rhythms and grooves as opposed to the free-ish, improv nature of jazz fusion.

Some major artists of Smooth jazz include Grover Washington jr., Kenny G, and George Benson.

12. Jazz Fusion

During the 1960s, Jazz artists in the US started incorporating electronic instruments, heavy elements of rock, funk, and R&B into traditional jazz. Thus, Jazz Fusion or Progressive Jazz was born. 

Despite rock ‘n’ roll’s popularity at the time, Jazz fusion took the world by storm with artists like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock leading the charge. 

Jazz fusion had too wide of a sonic range to be defined under one banner. Some songs featured a simple arrangement of a single chord with repeated melody, others included elaborate chord progression, odd time signatures, and heavy improvisation.

13. Acid Jazz

Originated in the 1980s London clubs, Acid jazz borrowed from jazz, hip-hop, funk, and disco. The genre isn’t exactly named after psychedelics but the acid house genre. 

Acid jazz placed dance grooves at the center, with percussion, bass and repeated riffs often driving the music. It was made for and played in clubs, but dancing was hardly new to jazz: Early Jazz, Swing and Latin Jazz already had deep connections to the dance floor.

Acid jazz artists include Jamiroquai, James Taylor Quartet, and Gilles Peterson. 

14. Freebop

Freebop fused free jazz and the two bops, hard and be. It was a very niche genre where not too many artists explored it. Miles Davis’s second quintet was one of the few who dabbled in the genre. 

The music mainly used improv and modal chord changes, leaving behind conventional chord progression. 

15. Avant-Garde Jazz

Avant-Garde Jazz is another genre that strives to push the boundaries of jazz. Gaining prominence in the 1950s, it explored radical harmonies, improvisation and sometimes atonality. It overlaps substantially with Free jazz. Some musicians also draw on western classical music, but that influence does not create a clean dividing line between the two terms.

The rise of Avant-garde jazz is credited to the likes of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and Pharoah Sanders.

Louis Armstrong Image by: Herbert Behrens / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Buddy Rich Image by: William P. Gottlieb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Chet Baker Image by: Michiel Hendryckx, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Miles Davis Image by: Peter Buitelaar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Herbie Hancock Image by: Kotoviski photograph by Henryk Kotowski, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mahavishnu Orchestra Image by: By http://www.janhammer.com/fr_gallery.cfm, Fair use, Link