Jazz

Jazz is known the world over as America’s music, and for good reason. An enormous heritage of musical expression born from African American roots, jazz is easy to recognize but nearly impossible to explain. You know it when you hear it: soul-searing melodies, improvisational rhythms, and solo flights. It’s as smooth, cool, blue, red-hot, and vibrant as the people and communities that give it life. Jazz has cutting-edge explorations, rooted in its history, that nourish fellow musical forms from pop to rock to R&B, gospel, roots, ragtime, and classical. Jazz is our history—yet it's a conversation that’s still happening in live performances, broadcasts, and recordings. Jazz thrives in the interplay between its past masters and present pioneers. And it’s on a public radio station, somewhere close to you.