I understand that blues is not jazz and vice versa, and though it may be that blues music gave birth to jazz and that they have a shared relative in work songs, I can't seem to effectively separate the two in my head. With my project I tried to capture the mood of experiencing live blues music, and ended up being inspired by this photo I took of a performance at a jazz club in New Orleans:
Blues is like poetry spoken out loud, with music to enhance the meaning of the lyrics. I could easily imagine a spoken word performance translated into a blues song with its integrity and raw emotion still preserved. It's interesting to consider the roles of the voice and the guitar as answering each other. Personally, I feel as if the two components intermingle to produce a single entity.
Corrina, Corrina is my favorite song out of all the blues songs listed (I also really like the name Corrina). Taj Mahal adds a sort of reggae feel to Corrina Corrina, but my preferred version is Muddy Waters' upbeat, heartfelt interpretation (This version, to be specific, which sounds very jazzy - maybe that's why I like it so much).
After reading some of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka's Blues People, I've come to greatly appreciate music as a means of tracing a people's history... African-American culture is definitely unique in how it is immensely influenced by music, and in the way that its music has influenced us all.
"..... the only so-called popular music in this country of any real value is of African derivation."
I found it particularly fascinating how African slaves altered their music to identify with their situation, whether it be for communicating in the fields, expressing their psychological struggle to find self and place in an oppressive white society, or even for providing entertainment - in a way that successfully created a strong sense of identity. Blues and jazz are so distinct because they were created to be.
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