Soul jazz music

Soul music is a combination of rhythm and blues and gospel which began in the late 1950s in the United States. Rhythm and blues (a term coined by music writer and record producer Jerry Wexler) is itself a combination of blues and jazz, and arose in the 1940s as small groups of predominately African-American musicians, often playing saxophones, built upon the blues tradition. Soul music is differentiated from rhythm and blues by its use of gospel-music devices, its greater emphasis on vocalists, and its merging of religious and secular themes.

Rhythm and blues

The term was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States in 1949 by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music (which was deemed offensive), and the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade in June 1949. The term was initially used to identify the rocking style of music that combined the 12 bar blues format and boogie-woogie with a back beat, later known as rock and roll. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name Blues and Rhythm. The words were reversed by Wexler of Atlantic Records, the most aggressive and dominant label in the R&B field in the early years. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Today the acronym R&B is almost always used instead of the full rhythm and blues, and mainstream use of the term refers to a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music that originated at the demise of disco in 1980.

Disco music

Elements of disco music appear on records from the early 1970s such as the 1971 theme from the film Shaft by Isaac Hayes. In general it can be said that the first disco songs were released in 1973, however many consider Manu Dibango's 1972 "Soul Makossa" the first disco record. A September 13, 1973 article in Rolling Stone magazine called "Discotheque Rock '72: Paaaaarty!" by Vince Aletti about the New York nightclub scene where "Soul Makossa" was being played is considered to be the first to use the terminology "disco". Initially, most disco songs catered to a nightclub/dancing audience only, rather than general audiences such as radio listeners, but there are many aspects proving opposite tendencies as well; popular radio-hits were being played in discothèques, as long as they had an easy to follow rhythmic bass-pattern close to 120 beats per minute. Most 70's Disco genre songs had a distinctive four/four bass drum beat.

Acid jazz and fusion

Acid jazz (also known as groove jazz or more recently club jazz) is a musical genre that combines jazz influences with elements of soul music, funk, disco and also 90s English dance music, particularly repetitive beats and modal harmony. It developed over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as taking the boundary crossing of jazz fusion or Jazz-Funk onto new ground.
One of the aims of acid jazz is to return jazz to its roots in dancing halls; therefore, it incorporates "catchy", "groovy" sounds.
A lot of the Acid-Jazz movement is also seen as a "revival" of Jazz-Funk or Jazz-Fusion or Soul-Jazz by Leading Djs such as Norman Jay or Gilles Peterson or Patrick Forge. AKA "Rare Groove" crate diggers.

Jazz piano music

Jazz Piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. The instrument is also a vital tool in the understanding of jazz theory and arranging, because of its combined melodic and harmonic nature.