Jazz has quite the history and there is no doubt that it has shaped the way we listen to music, affecting other genres throughout the generations. Jazz is definitely a huge player in the evolution of music.

In the early days, jazz was a genre all to itself. Then artists like Duke Ellington and Count Basie took pushed the boundaries with it and swing music was born, leading to bebop in the forties. While neither of these types of music is particularly common these days, they were huge in their time and in turn, influenced other types of music.

Blues is also very closely tied to jazz. W.C. Handy, best known as "Father of the Blues", was very much influenced by jazz and even his later music had some jazz tones to it. If you listen to the two genres, you`ll notice that there is a distinct similarity between the two and they mesh well, which is why there is so much jazz/blues fusion music on the scene these days.

Just about every genre of music has been molded in some part by either jazz directly or indirectly through other offshoots such as blues and swing. Throughout the generations, music has grown and evolved and these days, jazz can be found in everything from funk to rock. However, there is one area that has been particularly fused with jazz and that is pop music.

Jazz and Pop

While jazz has affected nearly every type of music in existence, pop is without a doubt the most influenced these days. Everywhere you look, there are new jazz pop artists springing up and offering their take on the blend of these two very popular musical elements.

Jazz pop fusion is a blend of the two genres, but there is no established standard . . . each artist creates his or her own mixture, using more jazz or more pop as preferred, with some astounding results. This joint mix of the two genres has also led to more interest in jazz in general, by an audience that might not normally consider it.

On one hand, you have bands like Planet X which only remotely bears a resemblance to jazz and leans toward the heavier side of music. And on the other hand, artists like Michael Bublè and Norah Jones tend to be smoother and more jazz oriented.

No matter what your taste, jazz has probably had some influence over your favorite music.