What form of music has come to be synonymous with New Orleans?
ragtime
opera
jazz
blues
The article contrasts ragtime with jazz. What is one difference between these forms of music?
Improvisation is more important to ragtime than to jazz
Improvisation is more important to jazz than to ragtime
Jazz is played mainly on the piano, while ragtime is played mainly on the trumpet
Ragtime is usually played by many instruments, while jazz is usually played by one instrument
Jazz was influenced by other music.
What evidence from the text supports this statement?
“Music served as a psychological shield against the floods, fires, epidemics, and riots that marked New Orleans history, for it provided an excuse to forget, or a spur to overcome, the problems brought on by both nature and society.”
“One way to listen to classic New Orleans jazz at its best is to imagine the complexity of the melodies as a representation of its polyglot communities.”
“Jazz continued to survive in varying degrees in New Orleans as the music spread around the world, and by the 1940s the Crescent City became a Mecca for jazz lovers.”
“No musical genre was more popular than opera, and the arias that could be heard throughout the city day in and day out had a profound impact on the melodic styles of the musicians who created the jazz idiom…”
Read these sentences from the text.
“By virtue of its location and its role in the international economy, New Orleans became home to a population that was as heterogeneous as any. Besides the French and, for a time, Spanish colonial powers, other groups included African Americans (both free and slave), people from the Caribbean and Latin America, and Scandinavians and other Europeans.”
Based on these sentences, what does the word “heterogeneous” mean?
varied or diverse
complicated or difficult to understand
prosperous or wealthy
violent or combative
What is the main idea of this article?
Jazz emerged from the cultural diversity and uniqueness of New Orleans.
New Orleans was founded because North American settlers needed a way to transport goods along the Mississippi River.
Congo Square is a place in New Orleans where slaves were allowed to dance and express themselves.
Lester Young, Ed Blackwell, and Wynton Marsalis are all first-rate jazz musicians who came from New Orleans.
