In the early days of the settlement of the "New World" the slave trade was a major factor in the world economy and in the evolution of music. The sing song type of early blues chant sung by the slaves in the fields eventually evolved into the pentatonic minor scale which only consisted of 5 notes. This use of notes was borrowed from the European Classical theory of altonality in which all the notes are legal regardless of what key you are playing in as opposed to the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale which would be different for each key with altonality the notes would always be the same. The pentatonic minor scale is often referred to as the blues scale and it is when played in the actual key of the tonic note, but when it's played in the relative minor it gives it a jazz feel. Though the slave trade existed throughout the entire world, only America boasted on it's freedom of expression giving these two genres a quicker chance to blend here than anywhere else. These two different styles collided for the first time in the American south creating Ragtime Jazz. Jazz had the complexity of the classical music and the rhythm and soul of the slave chants. The jazz players added a flatted 5th to the minor scale giving it 6 notes thus it could no longer be called pentatonic. Blues players took a little from the jazz musicians and made their music a bit more complex than the basic slave chants. These two genres continued to mix it up as the blacks left the south via the blues highway, US 61 that followed the Mississippi River giving birth to many great rhythm and blues cities from New Orleans to Chicago. US 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi is where the infamous crossroads were said to be and Robert LeRoy Johnson ( May 11, 1911 - August 16, 1938) sold his soul to the devil.

Blues and jazz collided through the years on to Doo-Wop and the rhythm and blues that fueled Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Elvis, The Beatles and countless others is still the basis of popular music today and will continue to fuel musicians of the future. It could only happen in America!!!