The Atlantic: Without Jazz and Blues, There’s No Americana

Blues history celebrates mythical turning points. Robert Johnson going to the crossroads to sell his soul. Leadbelly being discovered in—and sprung from—prison by John and Alan Lomax. The 1913 arrest that set 12-year-old Louis Armstrong on his musical career.

J.D. Allen’s moment was less dramatic: It came in a classroom in Seattle, where he asked a student to play a blues pattern.

“He did a 12-bar form, but he did everything but the blues scale. He said, ‘That’s for kids. That’s for third graders,’” the 43-year-old tenor saxophonist recalls. “ I understood where he was coming from. When I was his age, I thought that type of music wasn’t sophisticated enough for a jazz musician. I had to do some investigation.”
Source: The Atlantic