jazz
IPA: dʒˈæz
noun
- (music) A musical art form rooted in West African cultural and musical expression and in the African American blues tradition, with diverse influences over time, commonly characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms and improvisation.
- (figurative) Energy, excitement, excitability.
- The substance or makeup of a thing; unspecified thing(s).
- (with positive terms) Something of excellent quality, the genuine article.
- Nonsense.
- (slang) Semen, jizz.
- A red-skinned variety of eating apple.
- A diminutive of the male given name James.
- A diminutive of the female given name Jasmine.
verb
- (slang) To destroy; to ruin.
- To play (jazz music).
- To dance to the tunes of jazz music.
- To enliven, brighten up, make more colourful or exciting.
- (slang) To complicate.
- (intransitive, US slang, dated) To have sex for money, to prostitute oneself.
- (intransitive, slang) To move (around/about) in a lively or frivolous manner; to fool around.
- (slang, transitive) To distract or pester.
- (slang) To ejaculate.
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Examples of "jazz" in Sentences
- Some of the addicts are jazz musicians.
- But the unwavering musical core was jazz.
- He performs a melange of jazz and folk music.
- At the heart of the music is the jazz quartet.
- Improvisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz.
- He played primarily in the styles of ragtime and Dixieland jazz.
- The city contributed to the musical styles of blues, ragtime, and jazz.
- In the very beginning, black jazz musicians played ragtime on the piano.
- The dialogue of the characters is interspersed with performances of jazz.
- Blue Dahlia were a throwback to jazz and the jazz influence of the 1940's.
- "People don't realize how wide and how broad the word jazz is," Watson said.
- Could the word jazz already have been used in 1914 with reference to New Orleans music?
- Over time, the word jazz in New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has taken on a new meaning.
- While he admits that "the word jazz is like kryptonite" to many potential listeners, he also believes that "it represents tolerance."
- Among other things, Payton insists that the word jazz is racist and that deeply embedded societal oppression of black Americans necessitates a reclassification of the music.
- John Edward Hasse and Bob Blumenthal tell us that the term "jazz" originated in New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th century, and that the art form spread when early practitioners left home to perform around the world.
- One view is that jazz could have found its way to Illinois in the person of Bert Kelly, a banjo player who moved from San Francisco to form a jazz ensemble in the Windy City.7 It appears that the word jazz was only subsequently adopted by Dixieland bands from New Orleans, by artists in Harlem, and throughout the United States.v