Jazz has a language of its own, but you don’t need to play an instrument to understand it. From comping and contrafacts to trading fours, walking bass and rhythm changes, jazz terms crop up everywhere: in album reviews, musician interviews and conversations about the music.
Some jazz terminology describes things you can actually hear happening in a performance. Other words and phrases come from the history and culture of jazz.
This A–Z jazz glossary explains the most useful terms from a listener’s point of view: what they mean, where they came from and, most importantly, what to listen for in the music.
A
AABA
A common structure for jazz standards, particularly songs originally written for Broadway and popular entertainment. The easiest way to understand it is as four sections: an idea, the same idea again, something different, then a return to the original idea. Those sections are labelled A-A-B-A.
The contrasting B section is usually called the bridge. George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” is a famous example, and its structure became the basis for countless jazz compositions.
Arrangement
The particular way a piece of music is organised for a performance or recording. An arranger might decide which instruments play the melody, where the solos happen, what the other musicians play behind them and how the piece begins and ends. That’s why two recordings of the same jazz standard can sound completely different even though the underlying song is the same.
B
Ballad
A slow or moderately slow song, generally played with an emphasis on melody, space and expression. Many of the great jazz ballads began as popular songs or Broadway numbers before jazz musicians adopted them. “Body and Soul”, “My Funny Valentine” and “‘Round Midnight” are typical examples.
A ballad can also provide some of the most revealing jazz improvisation: with fewer notes and more space, there’s nowhere for a musician’s sound and phrasing to hide.
Bebop
The revolutionary style of modern jazz that emerged during the 1940s around musicians including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke. Compared with the swing music that preceded it, bebop typically featured faster tempos, more complicated melodies and harmony, and a greater emphasis on improvisation. It also helped shift jazz away from its role primarily as dance music. Bebop was music that demanded close listening.
Read our full guide to bebop →
Big band
A large jazz ensemble, usually containing sections of saxophones, trumpets and trombones alongside a rhythm section. Big bands dominated popular jazz during much of the Swing Era, with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw among the most famous bandleaders. The format survived long after swing ceased to dominate popular music, providing a large musical palette for composers and arrangers including Gil Evans, Thad Jones and Maria Schneider.
Explore the history of big band music →
Blue note
One of the sounds that gives blues and jazz much of its distinctive character. A musician bends or alters a note away from the pitch you might expect from a conventional Western scale. Singers, saxophonists, trumpeters and guitarists can slide through these pitches rather than treating them as fixed notes. You don’t need to know the theory to recognise the effect: listen to almost any great blues singer and you’ll hear notes that seem to sit somewhere between the keys of a piano.
Blues
Both a musical tradition in its own right and one of the foundations of jazz. The blues has its own characteristic forms, sounds and traditions, and jazz musicians have been using it as a framework for improvisation since the music’s earliest days. Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time”, Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk” and Miles Davis’s “Freddie Freeloader” are all built around versions of the blues form.
Blowing
Jazz slang for improvising, particularly associated with horn players. If a saxophonist is described as blowing, they’re improvising rather than simply playing a written melody. A blowing session usually means a relatively informal performance or recording built around extended solos rather than elaborate arrangements.
Bridge
The contrasting section in many popular songs and jazz standards. If the main melody has repeated twice and suddenly the song seems to go somewhere different before returning home, you’ve probably reached the bridge. In an AABA song, it’s the B.
C
Changes
Musicians’ shorthand for the chord progression underneath a tune. The easiest way for a non-musician to think about the changes is as the harmonic route through the song. The melody may disappear once the improvisation begins, but the musicians are still following that underlying route. When someone says a player is blowing over the changes, they mean the musician is improvising while navigating that harmonic structure.
Chart
The written music used by a jazz musician or band. A chart can range from a basic page showing the melody and chords to a detailed big-band arrangement specifying exactly what every musician should play.
Chops
A musician’s technical ability on their instrument. If somebody says a trumpeter has incredible chops, they usually mean the player possesses exceptional command of the instrument — perhaps speed, range, precision or some combination of all three. You’ll encounter the word frequently in interviews with jazz musicians.
Chorus
One complete journey through the structure of a song. This is easily confused with the pop meaning of “chorus”. In jazz, if a saxophonist takes a five-chorus solo, it means the musician goes through the complete structure of the tune five times, creating a different improvisation each time. The melody might have disappeared completely, but the underlying structure keeps cycling underneath.
Collective improvisation
When several musicians improvise at the same time rather than taking turns to solo. It’s particularly associated with early New Orleans jazz, where cornet or trumpet, clarinet and trombone could weave different lines around one another. But the idea didn’t disappear with early jazz. Collective improvisation can also be an important part of free jazz and other modern styles.
Combo
Simply a small jazz group rather than a big band. A trio, quartet or quintet might all be described as a jazz combo.
Comping
The accompaniment played behind a melody or solo. Listen to a pianist while a saxophonist is improvising. Rather than playing a fixed part, the pianist will often add chords and rhythmic ideas in response to what is happening around them. That’s comping. Good comping is a conversation: it supports the soloist without getting in the way.
Contrafact
A new melody written over the chord progression of an existing song. It became particularly important during the bebop era. Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology”, for example, is based on the changes of “How High the Moon”, while “Anthropology” uses the harmonic framework of George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. Contrafacts explain why apparently unrelated jazz compositions can sometimes have the same underlying shape.
Read: Contrafacts — The Bebop Trick That Rewrote the Jazz Repertoire →
Cool jazz
A broad label for music that emerged around the end of the 1940s and during the 1950s, often associated with lighter sounds, restrained dynamics and a less overtly aggressive character than bebop. Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool, the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and musicians associated with the West Coast jazz scene are commonly connected with the term. Like most jazz genre labels, cool jazz covers a much wider range of music than the name suggests.
Explore the different styles of jazz →
Cutting contest
An informal musical battle in which jazz musicians try to outplay one another. These encounters became part of jazz folklore, particularly during the Swing Era. Musicians would meet at jam sessions and test one another through increasingly impressive solos. Tenor saxophone battles became especially famous, with players such as Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster and others building formidable reputations in this competitive environment.
D
Double time / Double-time feel
When the music feels as though it has suddenly become twice as fast, even though the underlying tempo hasn’t necessarily changed. A rhythm section might move into double time behind a soloist, creating more rhythmic activity and momentum without actually speeding up the tune. It’s particularly common during jazz solos.
F
Fake book
A large collection of songs reduced to the essential information a musician needs to perform them. Rather than giving every instrumental part, a fake book usually provides the melody and chords and leaves the musicians to work out the rest. The most famous example is The Real Book, which began circulating among musicians in the 1970s and became one of the most widely used collections of jazz repertoire.
Free jazz
A broad movement that emerged around the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, challenging some of the structures jazz musicians had traditionally improvised within. Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler and later John Coltrane were among the musicians associated with different forms of freer improvisation. The term doesn’t simply mean musicians playing anything they want. Free-jazz groups developed their own ways of creating structure and responding to one another, sometimes without the predetermined chord sequences or regular rhythms found in more conventional jazz.
Explore free jazz and the avant-garde →
Front line
The main melody instruments at the front of a jazz band, as distinct from the rhythm section. In a traditional New Orleans group that might mean trumpet or cornet, clarinet and trombone. In a bebop quintet it could simply be trumpet and saxophone.
G
Gig
A musician’s job or performance. A one-night club date, festival appearance or concert might all be called a gig. The term has spread so far beyond jazz that it’s easy to forget how firmly it became embedded in musicians’ vocabulary.
Groove
The underlying rhythmic feel of a performance. A groove is easier to recognise than define. It’s created by the way the bass, drums, percussion and other instruments lock together. Swing, funk, bossa nova and Afro-Cuban jazz can all groove while sounding completely different.
H
Hard bop
A development of bebop that became prominent during the 1950s, particularly associated with musicians including Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan. Hard bop retained bebop’s improvisational sophistication but often drew more obviously on blues, gospel and rhythm and blues. If Blue Note Records in the late 1950s and early 1960s has a sound in your head, there’s a good chance you’re thinking of hard bop.
Listen to 10 essential hard bop albums →
Head
The main composed melody of a jazz tune. A huge amount of small-group jazz follows a basic pattern: melody → improvised solos → melody. Musicians call that melody the head. So when you hear the tune return after several minutes of improvisation, the band has gone back to the head.
Harmony
The chords and combinations of notes that provide the musical framework underneath a melody. In jazz, harmony is especially important because improvisers often use the chords of a tune as a map for their solos. When musicians talk about the harmony or the changes, they’re talking about closely related parts of that underlying structure.
Head arrangement
An arrangement developed and remembered by the musicians rather than completely written down. This was particularly important during the Swing Era. A band could gradually develop riffs, backgrounds and transitions through rehearsal and performance until everyone knew the arrangement by memory.
I
Improvisation
The spontaneous creation of music during a performance — and arguably the single most important idea in jazz. That doesn’t mean musicians simply play random notes. An improviser may be working within the melody, harmony, rhythm and structure of a composition while simultaneously responding to the musicians around them. That’s why two performances of the same jazz tune can be radically different. Much of what you’re hearing is being created in the moment.
Intro
The music played before the main tune begins. An introduction might be carefully arranged or invented on the spot. Sometimes a pianist will play alone for a while before the rest of the band enters with the melody.
J
Jam session
An informal gathering where musicians play together, usually with a heavy emphasis on improvisation. Jam sessions have played an important role throughout jazz history, allowing musicians to exchange ideas, test themselves against other players and experiment away from the constraints of their regular jobs. During the development of bebop, after-hours sessions in Harlem became particularly important meeting places for the musicians creating the new music.
K
Key
The main tonal centre of a piece of music. A jazz standard might be played in different keys depending on the singer, instrumentalist or arrangement. Musicians at a jam session will often agree on the key before starting a tune so that everyone knows where the music is centred.
L
Lay out
To stop playing temporarily while the rest of the band continues. You can sometimes hear the effect clearly during a jazz solo. A pianist might suddenly stop accompanying, leaving just bass and drums underneath the soloist. The music hasn’t broken down. The pianist is simply laying out, changing the texture by leaving space.
Lick
A short musical phrase or idea that becomes part of a musician’s vocabulary. Jazz musicians absorb thousands of musical ideas through listening, transcription and practice. Some phrases can become so closely associated with particular players that knowledgeable listeners recognise them immediately.
M
Modal jazz
Jazz built around relatively static areas of harmony rather than a rapid sequence of changing chords. For a listener, the important effect is space. Instead of having to negotiate a new chord every few beats, the improviser can spend longer exploring a particular sound. Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is the most famous example, while John Coltrane’s “Impressions” became another modal jazz standard.
Discover essential modal jazz albums and artists →
O
Outside
When a musician deliberately plays notes or phrases that seem to move beyond the expected harmony. The result can initially sound wrong, tense or unstable — until the player brings the improvisation back inside and the tension resolves. Great musicians can move in and out of the harmony deliberately. What sounds like a mistake in isolation may be part of a much longer musical idea.
P
The place where the rhythm feels especially settled, comfortable and locked together. When musicians say a drummer or bass player is playing “in the pocket”, they mean the time feels solid and the groove is working. It’s less a precise musical instruction than a description of rhythmic feel.
R
Rhythm changes
One of the most important harmonic structures in jazz, derived from George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. Jazz musicians became so familiar with its underlying structure that they wrote numerous new melodies over variations of it. “Anthropology”, “Oleo” and “Moose the Mooche” are among the many jazz compositions based on rhythm changes. The slightly confusing name refers to the changes — the chords — of “I Got Rhythm”, not to the rhythm suddenly changing.
See more essential jazz standards and their contrafacts →
Rhythm section
The part of a jazz group that provides much of its rhythmic and harmonic foundation. In a classic small group, that’s usually piano or guitar, bass and drums. Calling them the rhythm section can understate what these musicians actually do. They don’t simply keep time behind the horns; the best rhythm sections are constantly listening, improvising and shaping the performance.
Riff
A short, repeated musical phrase. Riffs became particularly important during the Swing Era, when bands could build whole passages by layering repeated phrases from different sections. Count Basie’s orchestra became famous for music that could generate enormous momentum from apparently simple riffs.
S
Scat singing
Vocal improvisation using sounds and syllables instead of conventional lyrics. Louis Armstrong was one of its great early practitioners, while Ella Fitzgerald later took scat singing to extraordinary levels of virtuosity. At its best, scat allows a singer to improvise much like an instrumentalist, creating melodies and rhythms without being restricted by words.
Hear 10 of the best scat solos in jazz →
Session
Usually either a recording session or an informal occasion when musicians play together. When jazz historians say that an album came from “two sessions”, they mean the music was recorded on two separate occasions. A session musician, meanwhile, is someone hired specifically to play on recordings or other engagements.
Shed / Shedding
Musicians’ slang for serious practice. If somebody has been shedding, they’ve been spending a lot of time working on their instrument. The longer expression woodshedding means essentially the same thing.
Shout chorus
A powerful arranged passage, particularly associated with big bands, usually appearing towards the climax of a performance. After a series of individual solos, suddenly hearing the entire band launch into a tightly arranged passage at full force is often the shout chorus. It’s designed to make an impact.
Sideman
A musician playing in somebody else’s band or on somebody else’s record rather than appearing as the leader. It’s not a judgement of importance. John Coltrane, for example, was a sideman with Miles Davis while simultaneously developing into one of the most important musicians of his generation.
Solo
A passage in which one musician becomes the principal improvising voice. Despite the name, a jazz solo usually doesn’t mean playing alone. The rhythm section will normally continue underneath, accompanying and interacting with the soloist. That interaction is one of the things that distinguishes great jazz improvisation from simply playing a melody over backing music.
Standard
A song that has become part of the commonly played jazz repertoire. Many jazz standards weren’t originally jazz compositions at all. Songs from Broadway, Hollywood and American popular music were adopted by jazz musicians and became vehicles for improvisation. “All the Things You Are”, “Autumn Leaves” and “Body and Soul” are famous examples. Other standards, including Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight”, originated within jazz itself.
Explore 50 essential jazz standards →
Straight-ahead jazz
A loose term for jazz that remains recognisably connected to the mainstream acoustic tradition of swing, bebop and hard bop. It doesn’t describe one precise style. A modern saxophone quartet playing standards with acoustic bass and drums might be described as straight-ahead, particularly in contrast with free jazz, fusion or more experimental music.
Swing
Possibly the most important — and most difficult to define — word in jazz. It can mean the Swing Era, when big bands dominated American popular music. It can describe the characteristic uneven treatment of notes heard in much jazz. But musicians also use it in a broader sense: this band swings. In that sense, swing is a rhythmic quality produced by the precise way musicians place notes, accent phrases and interact around the beat. It can’t be reduced to a simple mathematical formula.
Read Jazzfuel’s guide to the history and styles of jazz →
Stop-time
A rhythmic device in which the band plays short, regular accents separated by spaces, often leaving a soloist exposed between them. It’s particularly associated with blues and early jazz but appears throughout the music. The stop-time pattern creates tension because the usual continuous accompaniment temporarily disappears.
Syncopation
Putting musical emphasis somewhere other than where the listener naturally expects it. In simple terms, instead of always stressing the obvious beats, jazz musicians constantly play around them — anticipating them, delaying them or accenting the spaces between them. That rhythmic displacement is one of the basic ingredients of jazz.
T
Take
One attempt at recording a piece in the studio. A band might record the same tune several times before choosing the performance that appears on the album. That’s why reissues often contain alternate takes. They’re not simply duplicates: in improvised music, another take can contain completely different solos and interactions.
Trading fours
One of the easiest pieces of jazz structure to recognise once you know what you’re listening for. Musicians take turns improvising for four bars each. A saxophonist might play four bars, then the drummer four, then the saxophonist another four, and so on. It often happens towards the end of a performance, after the longer solos. Musicians can also trade twos or eights; the number simply tells you the length of each exchange.
Tag / Tag ending
A short section repeated at the end of a tune to extend the ending. Jazz musicians will often repeat the final phrase or last few bars several times rather than finishing immediately. A bandleader or soloist can signal a tag during the performance, making it a common way for musicians to shape an ending without a fully written arrangement.
Tempo
The speed at which a piece of music is played. Jazz musicians might perform the same standard as a slow ballad one night and at a much faster tempo another. Tempo has a major effect on the character of a performance and on the way musicians phrase and improvise.
Turnaround
A short chord progression that leads the music back towards the beginning of the form or the next section. Turnarounds are common in jazz standards and blues, particularly towards the end of a chorus. For an improviser, they’re part of the harmonic route that keeps the music moving back around for another cycle.
Two-feel
A rhythmic feel in which the bass typically emphasises two main beats in each bar rather than playing a continuous four-beat walking line. Jazz rhythm sections often move between a two-feel and walking in four, and the change can make the music suddenly feel as though it has gained momentum even when the tempo stays the same.
V
Vamp
A short musical idea repeated again and again. A band might vamp underneath a soloist, use a vamp to introduce a tune or keep repeating one at the end while the music builds towards a finish. Listen to enough jazz and you’ll start noticing moments where the normal structure seems to have paused while the musicians sit on one repeating idea. That’s often a vamp.
Vocalese
The art of putting words to an instrumental jazz solo that has already been recorded. Rather than simply writing lyrics for the original melody, a vocalese singer learns the notes and rhythms of an improvised solo and adds words to them. Eddie Jefferson and Jon Hendricks became masters of the form, while Lambert, Hendricks & Ross made vocalese central to their sound. It shouldn’t be confused with scat singing: scat uses wordless syllables to create a new improvisation; vocalese puts lyrics to an existing one.
W
Walking bass
One of the most recognisable sounds in jazz. Instead of repeatedly playing the same bass note, the bassist creates a continuous line of notes that seems to walk through the music, usually with one note landing on each beat. The line helps establish both the pulse and the movement of the harmony. Put on a classic recording by the Miles Davis Quintet, Oscar Peterson Trio or countless other swinging groups and follow the bass. Once you recognise a walking bass line, you’ll hear it everywhere.
Watch and hear Jazzfuel’s guide to walking bass →
Woodshed
The imaginary place musicians go when they need to practise. To go into the woodshed means to spend serious time working on your playing, while shedding means practising intensively. A musician who disappears for a few months and returns with dramatically improved technique has, figuratively at least, been in the woodshed.
How these jazz terms fit together
The easiest way to understand jazz terminology is to hear several of these ideas happening at once. Imagine a quartet playing a standard.
The musicians begin with the head — the song’s main melody. Then the saxophonist starts a solo, improvising over the changes while the pianist comps behind them and the bassist plays a walking bass.
The saxophonist might improvise for several choruses, going through the complete structure of the song each time without returning to its original melody. Later, the musicians might trade fours with the drummer before everyone returns to the head and finishes.
Once you understand that basic structure, a lot of jazz becomes easier to follow. What can initially sound like five musicians simply playing whatever occurs to them often has a clear framework underneath. They know where they are in the composition even when nobody is playing the melody.
And that’s the useful thing about learning jazz terminology as a listener. You don’t need to know how to play a diminished scale or identify every chord. Knowing what a head, chorus, contrafact, riff or walking bass is simply gives you another way to hear what’s happening.
The terminology stops being jargon. It becomes part of listening.
