Jazz’s exact origins are somewhat more obscure, though. Beyond some roots in the blues and in the African American experience of slavery, its effective birth is usually traced to Black urbanism in the South. Of special importance to jazz was the emergence of a diverse Creole society and culture in New Orleans, which drew on Haitian and African influences as well as Spanish, French, and early American ones. All stewed up together, these elements produced something utterly new and sublime.
