The Difference Between Blues & Jazz

Jazz has its origins in New Orleans. Music historian Piero Scaruffi explains that jazz arose from the New Orleans' brass band culture of the late nineteenth century; the brass bands played a style ranging from funeral dirges to parade marches. The bands eventually migrated into the local bars and dance halls, where "jass," later called "jazz," which meant "cool," took shape. Jazz was marked by piano and horns such as the saxophone, the trombone and the cornet.
By contrast, the blues were born in the delta region of the South, specifically southern Mississippi. Unlike jazz ensembles, blues was largely played solo, with the slide guitar being the primary instrument. All Music Guide's Cub Koda writes that although some blues players used more elaborate bands for live concerts, the first blues records of the 1920s were solo affairs.

As popular styles, jazz and blues spread in very different manners. The "syncopated orchestras" of jazz took hold in New York and Chicago in the 1920s. Scaruffi writes that jazz had an interracial component; therefore, jazz artists from the South such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet more easily translated for Northern audiences. The popularity of Dixieland jazz in particular forged a Chicago jazz boom as the musical style moved northward. The rise of radio and a drop in the price of records further aided the geographic movement of jazz.
By contrast, blues music spread in a more parochial manner. Unlike the nationwide popularity of jazz, blues had pockets of practitioners in places like Chicago and Texas. In addition, party-oriented Piedmont blues in the southeast and piano-oriented California blues had their own adherents. The blues historian Hawkeye Herman writes that the blues was primarily an urban style until the 1950s, when Chicago-based artists like John Lee Hooker and B.B. King electrified the music, presaging rock-'n-roll and adding white session players to the mix.

Scaruffi writes that jazz was always primarily an instrumental style, while blues was first and foremost vocal. Scaruffi notes that the main musical difference between jazz and blues is that jazz contains heavy syncopation, which was derived from ragtime music.
Bill Dahl writes that blues music is technically defined by a I-IV-V chord sequence with a 12-bar motif. Herman adds that vocally, the blues is characterized by three-line rhymed stanzas with repeating verses. Flattening the third, fifth and seventh notes of the melody makes for a blues sound, Herman writes.

With their distinct origins and geographies, the two musical styles developed their own stars. Scaruffi reports that the first jazz album was recorded by Edward "Kid" Ory and his Creole Orchestra. Early stars included Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Noone and George Lewis. In the 1950s and 1960s, legends like Miles Davis and John Coltrane became household names.
The blues, in turn, boasted players such as Robert Johnson, who was known as "the King of Delta Blues," and Blind Lemon Jefferson. The Memphis band conductor W.C. Handy, and electric blues stars B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf, retain a vast influence over contemporary blues artists.

Jazz and blues have rich legacies and enjoy continued popularity to this day. Although in their pure forms neither style is as popular as rock-'n-roll or hip-hop music, jazz and blues had major creative impacts on the development of today's pop music. In addition, jazz and blues artists like Miles Davis and B.B. King continue to rival pop music's biggest names in influence.