<P> The blues is a genre of African American folk music that is the basis for much of modern American popular music . Blues can be seen as part of a continuum of musical styles like country, jazz, ragtime, and gospel; though each genre evolved into distinct forms, their origins were often indistinct . Early forms of the blues evolved in and around the Mississippi Delta in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . The earliest blues music was primarily call and response vocal music, without harmony or accompaniment and without any formal musical structure . Slaves and their descendants created the blues by adapting the field shouts and hollers, turning them into passionate solo songs . When mixed with the Christian spiritual songs of African American churches and revival meetings, blues became the basis of gospel music . Modern gospel began in African American churches in the 1920s, in the form of worshipers proclaiming their faith in an improvised, often musical manner (testifying). Composers like Thomas A. Dorsey composed gospel works that used elements of blues and jazz in traditional hymns and spiritual songs . </P> <P> Ragtime was originally a piano style, featuring syncopated rhythms and chromaticisms . It is primarily a form of dance music utilizing the walking bass, and is generally composed in sonata form . Ragtime is a refined and evolved form of the African American cakewalk dance, mixed with styles ranging from European marches and popular songs to jigs and other dances played by large African American bands in northern cities during the end of the 19th century . The most famous ragtime performer and composer was Scott Joplin, known for works such as "Maple Leaf Rag". </P> <P> Blues became a part of American popular music in the 1920s, when classic female blues singers like Bessie Smith grew popular . At the same time, record companies launched the field of race music, which was mostly blues targeted at African American audiences . The most famous of these acts went on to inspire much of the later popular development of the blues and blues - derived genres, including the legendary delta blues musician Robert Johnson and Piedmont blues musician Blind Willie McTell . By the end of the 1940s, however, pure blues was only a minor part of popular music, having been subsumed by offshoots like rhythm & blues and the nascent rock and roll style . Some styles of electric, piano - driven blues, like boogie - woogie, retained a large audience . A bluesy style of gospel also became popular in mainstream America in the 1950s, led by singer Mahalia Jackson . The blues genre experienced major revivals in the 1950s with Chicago blues musicians such as Muddy Waters and Little Walter, as well as in the 1960s in the British Invasion and American folk music revival when country blues musicians like Mississippi John Hurt and Reverend Gary Davis were rediscovered . The seminal blues musicians of these periods had tremendous influence on rock musicians such as Chuck Berry in the 1950s, as well as on the British blues and blues rock scenes of the 1960s and 1970s, including Eric Clapton in Britain and Johnny Winter in Texas . </P> <P> Jazz is a kind of music characterized by swung and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation . Though originally a kind of dance music, jazz has been a major part of popular music, and has also become a major element of Western classical music . Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music . Early jazz was closely related to ragtime, with which it could be distinguished by the use of more intricate rhythmic improvisation . The earliest jazz bands adopted much of the vocabulary of the blues, including bent and blue notes and instrumental "growls" and smears otherwise not used on European instruments . Jazz's roots come from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, populated by Cajuns and black Creoles, who combined the French - Canadian culture of the Cajuns with their own styles of music in the 19th century . Large Creole bands that played for funerals and parades became a major basis for early jazz, which spread from New Orleans to Chicago and other northern urban centers . </P>

Out of what tradition did american bands grow