Beethoven invented jazz
(www.youtube.com)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (20)
sorted by:
This is kind of a dumb argument since the claim is that Jazz originates from Ragtime, and Ragtime has one origin in Beethoven.
Ragtime was also popular among both whites and blacks, Jazz happened to be particularly focused on improvisation. Even then Ragtime is only part of how the concept of Jazz was formed.
Claiming Beethoven invented Jazz is just silly, since the argument is that part of the predecessor to part of the predecessor to Jazz is a work from Beethoven.
It's like saying Archimedes invented Calculus. He didn't. Even if he discovered conic sections within Greek geometry, Calculus is a specific model of mathematics. Archimedes lays some good ground work, but that doesn't make it Calculus. There's no reason to say: "No no no Newton didn't invent Calculus, it was Archimedes"
It literally is ragtime (not just a predecessor). I didn't need a stupid WN youtube to tell me that; I realized it the second I heard it driving in my car going through all beethoven sonatas back to back.
And yes, jazz replaces deliberation with live improvisation, and that's why it is (at least 99.99% of the time) worse than this.