Few words conjure as many meanings and ideas as the word funk. It is a type of music, a way of playing music, a rhythm, a scent, a description, a concept, a philosophy, and an entire way of life. It has been used to portray and describe everything from food…

Bounce is an intensely local and popular form of indigenous street music in New Orleans that has had an indelible influence on hip-hop, brass band, and other cultural and artistic forms since its sound first coalesced in the early 1990s. Growing out of the local New Orleans rap scene of…

Intro to American Hiphop By Region: East Coast The West African and African American oral traditions of the "Black Atlantic," as post-colonial studies scholar Paul Gilroy has termed it, are part of a diverse set of folk cultural systems organized around a loosely based framework of shared aesthetics. Hiphop is…

Traditional New Orleans jazz began to emerge in the city circa 1885 - 1890, although the term jazz was not used at time. The music combined essential African-rooted aesthetic and stylistic traits with European instruments, and, to some extent, European standards of song structure and notation. Continue reading on KnowLouisiana.org

By Ben Sandmel Country music encompasses an extremely wide range of material created over a broad span of time. The term itself did not appear in common usage until the mid-twentieth century. Country's oldest origins can be traced to British folk-music traditions - including ballads ("The House Carpenter") and fiddle…

By Ben Sandmel Zydeco (pronounced ZY-duh-coe) is the exuberant dance music of Creoles in southwest Louisiana. It is a rich hybrid, based on core Afro-Caribbean rhythms and song forms such as juré singing, African-American blues and rhythm & blues, and Cajun music. (The term zydeco typically denotes black bands, while…

By Ben Sandmel Swamp pop is a hybrid of rock, pop, blues and rhythm & blues performed by Cajun and Creole musicians. It overlaps with Cajun music, zydeco and south Louisiana "swamp blues," underscoring the porous nature of musical boundaries and the futility of separating music into neat, precise categories.…

In the 19th century, brass band music became a national craze. Virtually every small town in America boasted at least one such group, while New Orleans was home to dozens. Their presence and popularity was one important factor in the evolution of jazz. Continue reading on KnowLouisiana.org

By Ben Sandmel The blues is a basic bedrock source of American indigenous music. For over a century it has flourished in its own right while profoundly influencing a wide range of jazz, rhythm & blues, rock, and country-music styles, as well as Broadway musicals, classical compositions, rap and hip-hop…

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries New Orleans was regarded as a leading American center of opera and ballet, with standards of performance that easily rivaled those of larger cities in the northeast. This level of interest and participation have continuously flourished up until today, both in New Orleans and…

Although rap, hip-hop and bounce are often regarded as contemporary/cutting-edge music, they are all firmly rooted in African-American folk-music tradition, as evidenced by such factors as call-and-response and improvisation. Since the late 1980s these genres have commanded a huge following and triggered considerable recording activity in Louisiana, especially in New…

Louisiana has been home to locally-based record companies since the 1890s, but the most significant activity took place from shortly after World War II until the advent of CDs, beginning in the mid 1980s, made 45-rpm records obsolete. Louisiana based companies documented a wealth of regional music that would have…

By Ben Sandmel "Rock music" is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of styles created since the mid-1950s, with antecedents that date back for decades. Louisiana has made vital contributions to rock since its inception. Four famous musicians are generally thought to comprise rock's conceptual "Mount Rushmore" and…

By Ben Sandmel Rockabilly music is a seminal, first-generation rock-and-roll style distinguished by extreme rhythmic drive and a full-tilt approach to both singing and instrumental soloing. Conversely, rockabilly often employs sparse instrumentation that favors an acoustic, upright bass. There is considerable overlap between rockabilly and country music, as evidenced among…

By Ben Sandmel The a capella genre known as shape-note singing, primarily heard in renditions of Christian religious material, employs four-part harmony. Each of the four parts is assigned to a group of people, the size of which may vary, as opposed to four-part harmony as sung by quartets, wherein…

New Orleans is a city of parades, most famously the Mardi Gras processions that roll down the wide boulevards of St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street during Carnival season, but in all the seasons and in every neighborhood there are jazz funerals and parades known as second lines that fill…

By Ben Sandmel Gospel music is a broad term for Christian religious music - much of which has folkloric roots - that is prevalent in Louisiana's African-American and Anglo-American communities alike. Gospel music's core practitioners are found in congregations of various Protestant denominations, although gospel music influence also permeates some…

By Ben Sandmel The Cajun music of southwestern Louisiana and east Texas shines as one of America's most significant and distinctive indigenous genres. Currently in the fourth decade of a rich cultural renaissance, Cajun music is most frequently performed today by bands in which the diatonic accordion is the dominant…

By Ben Sandmel Rhythm & blues - also known as R&B - is an African-American commercial music genre with distinct roots in traditional blues and gospel music. While significantly influenced by such sources, R&B also differs in that those songs are written with the deliberate goal of crafting a hit.…

The Calinda was a voodoo dance brought to Louisiana from San Domingo and the Antilles by slaves. Calinda (Kalinda) is a martial art, as well as kind of folk music and dance in the Caribbean which arose in the 1720s. Calinda is the French spelling, and the Spanish equivalent is…

With strong drums, heavy guitar and bass, light piano, light horn sound and a strong vocal lead, this signature New Orleans sound was codified by recording engineer Cosimo Matassa at his J&M Studios and can be heard on recordings by everyone from Fats Domino and Ray Charles to Dr. John…

Dixieland, which was developed in New Orleans, is one of the earliest styles of Jazz music. The style combined earlier brass band marches, French Quadrilles, ragtime and blues with collective, polyphonic improvisation. While instrumentation and size of bands can be very flexible, the “standard” band consists of a “front line”…

By Ben Sandmel The Mardi Gras Indians are African-American men who form groups known as tribes. On some levels these tribes function as neighborhood social clubs, yet they also have a serious cultural mission. They parade in New Orleans — principally on Mardi Gras Day, but also on other occasions…

Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs (SAPCs) in New Orleans are a distinctive culture that reaches back to the earliest days of Africans in America. The clubs were created for fellowship and as a financial support system to properly bury deceased African slaves and free people of color. SAPCs represent a…

Soul music is a genre of popular music rooted in the African-American experience. The concept of "soul" has both metaphysical and earthly connotations. In music, it is both a trait of certain music and later a certain kind of music itself. New Orleans has had a great influence on soul…