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Rhythm-and-blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soul Music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls, and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflects the African-American identity, and it stresses the importance of an African-Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quiet Storm
Quiet storm is a radio format and genre of R&B, performed in a smooth, romantic, jazz-influenced style. It was named after the title song on Smokey Robinson's 1975 album ''A Quiet Storm''. The radio format was pioneered in 1976 by Melvin Lindsey, while he was an intern at the Washington, D.C. radio station WHUR-FM. It eventually became regarded as an identifiable subgenre of R&B. Quiet storm was marketed to upscale mature African-American audiences during the 1980s, while falling out of favor with young listeners in the age of hip hop. History Origins Melvin Lindsey, a student at Howard University, with his classmate Jack Shuler, began as disc jockeys for WHUR in June 1976, performing as stand-ins for an absentee employee. Lindsey's on-air voice was silky smooth, and the music selections were initially old, slow romantic songs from black artists of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a form of easy listening which Lindsey called "beautiful black music" for African Americans. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motown (music Style)
Motown, or the Motown sound, is a style of rhythm and blues musicHughes, Zondra "Are Whites Stealing Rhythm & Blues?" ''Ebony Magazine'', Vol. 55, Johnson Publishing Company, p. 72, ISSN 0012-9011. named after the record company Motown in Detroit, where teams of songwriters and musicians produced material for girl groups, boy bands, and solo singers during the 1960s and early 1970s. The music of Motown helped a small record company become the largest black American-owned enterprise in the country and a national music industry competitor in the United States. Overview The sound, a sophisticated strain of R&B and pop, is known for its polished songwriting with "candid" vocal delivery. Musicians involved in the production of a Motown track constituted a mix of eclectic musical backgrounds, such as jazzPosner, Gerald (2002). ''Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power'', Random House, p. 37, . and rhythm and blues.Bjorn L, Gallert J (2001). ''Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doo-wop
Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables (such as "doo-wop") is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was "artistically and commercially viable" until the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.Hoffmann, FRoots of Rock: Doo-Wop In ''Survey of American Popular Music'', modified for the web by Robert Birklin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music genre that combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music. The genre features a distinctive record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, pitch corrected vocals, and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement. Electronic influences are becoming an increasing trend and the use of hip hop or dance-inspired beats are typical, although the roughness and grit inherent in hip hop may be reduced and smoothed out. Contemporary R&B vocalists often use melisma, and since the mid-1980s, R&B rhythms have been combined with elements of hip hop culture and music and pop culture and pop music. Pre-history According to Geoffrey Himes speaking in 1989, the progressive soul movement of the early 1970s "expanded the musical and lyrical boundaries of &Bin ways that haven't been equaled since". This movement was led by soul singer-songwriter/producers such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian R&B
Christian R&B (also known as gospel R&B, rhythm & praise music, and R&P) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music consisting of tracks with Christian-based lyrics or by musicians typically known for writing such songs. Music in this genre intends to uplift, entertain, or to give a Christian perspective on a topic. Christian R&B could be considered a subgenre of gospel music, or a cross-genre under both gospel and R&B. Origin and musical style Gospel music is one of the roots or influences of R&B music. While it might seem as if Christian R&B should be the subgenre of gospel music, R&B is rooted in several music genres and has developed over the decades, making its musical characteristics audibly different from the musical nuances of gospel music. Yet some modern musicians mix R&B elements with gospel music elements. R&B originated between the 1940s and 1950s, and Christian R&B followed close behind. Christian rhythm and blues have the same musical characteristics heard in regular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternative R&B
Alternative R&B (also referred to as alt-R&B, indie R&B, hipster R&B, dark R&B, emo R&B and left-field R&B) is a term used by music journalists to describe a stylistic alternative to contemporary R&B that began in the mid 2000s and came to prominence with musical artists such as Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, SZA, Khalid, and others. It is considered to be "more progressive and diverse" than its mainstream counterpart. Etymology "Alternative R&B" was once used by the music industry during the late 1990s to market neo soul artists, such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell. There has been a variety of discussion about the differing genre terms, with several critics describing the music under the broad category of "alternative R&B" or "indie R&B". The term "hipster R&B" has been commonly used, as has the term "PBR&B"—a combination of "PBR" (the abbreviation for Pabst Blue Ribbon, a beer most recently associated with the hipster subculture) and R&B. The first use of "PBR&B" was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zydeco
Zydeco ( or , french: Zarico) is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Although it is distinct in origin from the Cajun music of Louisiana, the two forms influenced each other, forming a complex of genres native to the region. Characteristics Zydeco music is typically played in an uptempo, syncopated manner with a strong rhythmic core, and often incorporates elements of blues, rock and roll, soul music, R&B, Afro-Caribbean, Cajun, and early Creole music. Zydeco music is centered on the accordion, which leads the rest of the band, and a specialized washboard, called a vest frottoir, as a prominent percussive instrument. Other common instruments in zydeco are the electric guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum set. If there are accompanying lyrics, they are typically sung in English or French. Many zydeco performers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smooth Jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 1980s, displacing the more venturesome jazz fusion from which it emerged. It avoids the improvisational "risk-taking" of jazz fusion, emphasizing melodic form and much of the music was initially "a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight R&B". During the mid-1970s in the United States it was known as "smooth radio", and was not termed "smooth jazz" until the 1980s. Notable artists The mid- to late-1970s included songs “Breezin'" as performed by another smooth jazz pioneer, guitarist George Benson in 1976, the instrumental composition " Feels So Good" by flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione, in 1978, " What You Won't Do for Love" by Bobby Caldwell along with his debut album was released the same year, jazz fusion gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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