No One Saw It Coming Let slaves dance: The secret of New Orleans jazz
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Mar 8, 2026 Dr Matt Sakakeeny, Tulane ethnomusicologist and department chair, traces jazz from Congo Square to global stages. He explores ring shouts and call-and-response, the colony-era quirks that allowed musical life, New Orleans’ multicultural mixing pot, and how figures like Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong synthesized traditions into early jazz.
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Congo Square Created Jazz's African Foundation
- Congo Square provided the rare public space where enslaved Africans could sing, dance, and sustain African musical practices in colonial New Orleans.
- Those ring shouts, call-and-response singing, and trance-like polyrhythms formed the foundational musical language that would later feed jazz.
Debunking The Civil War Instrument Myth
- The myth that jazz started from Civil War soldiers' leftover instruments is incomplete; instruments mattered, but musical practices predated that era by centuries.
- The true origin is an unbroken Black musical lineage reaching back to enslaved people in New Orleans.
Colonial Laws Gave Music Space To Grow
- New Orleans' French and Spanish rule allowed limited Sunday freedoms that let enslaved people gather, sing, and dance publicly unlike much of the U.S.
- Those repeated practices persisted and nurtured improvisation, call-and-response, and polyrhythms across generations into the post-Civil War era.