#14 - Although early jazz music featured a great deal of

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Eleanor,

For answer choice (A), it is giving something that we already knew about later jazz. There was SOME improvisation. Answer choice (A) says that improvisation is required for jazz, but it doesn't give us an idea of why it would be enough to call something jazz. The author concludes that despite the improvisation, this later music shouldn't be classified as jazz because it strays too far from the melodies. We want to weaken that conclusion by bringing new information to help make later jazz seem more similar to earlier jazz. That's what answer choice (E) does for us. It gives us more information to suggest that later jazz is more similar to earlier jazz, and another reason we'd want to classify them together.

Hope that helps!

[hyperfang9000]

Hello!

I may be overthinking this question (which I tend to do on Weaken questions), but I ruled out answer choice E because I thought that just because the later music featuring improvisation has more in common with early jazz, that doesn't mean that it ought to be characterized as jazz? What if it just meant that the later music should be categorized as an entirely new genre? That's why I chose B. I think I understand why B is wrong, but I'm still not sure how E weakens the argument? Am I overthinking it?

Thank you so much!

[Amber Thomas]

Hi hyperfang9000!

Our stimulus tells us that later music (which strayed far from simple melodies) ought not to be classified as jazz. Answer Choice E tells us that because it is more similar to early jazz than to any other type of music, it ought to be classified as jazz, rather than something else.

Answer Choice B states: "the later music featuring improvisation was heavily influenced by early jazz." This is incorrect because many music genres influence one another, and many genres can be said to have been influenced by early jazz (like rock music, R&B, etc.). That doesn't invalidate the classification of rock or R&B as their own genres.

We generally group things into categories with which they have the most in common. Since this later, improvisational music is most similar to early jazz, it logically follows that we would group it into that genre, or at least a similar genre (i.e. differentiating it by referring to it as "late jazz," which would still be a type of jazz).

I hope this helps!