blues: see jazz.

Blues and Greens, political factions in the Byzantine Empire in the 6th cent. They took their names from two of the four colors worn by the circus charioteers. Their clashes were intensified by religious differences. The Greens represented Monophysitism and the lower classes; the Blues, orthodoxy and the upper classes. In 532 the two factions joined in the Nika revolt against Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora. However, Theodora's resolute stand and the aid of Belisarius and Narses ended the revolt. The factions continued to oppose each other into the 7th cent., but by the 9th cent. they had become mostly ceremonial.

Any of several closely related musical styles developed by African American artists. The various styles were based on a mingling of European influences with jazz rhythms and tonal inflections, particularly syncopation and the flatted blues chords. They grew out of the blues of the rural South, which blended work chants with songs of deep emotion, and were greatly influenced by gospel music. Three major forms were distinguishable. The earliest, called race, was the style of the “jump” band, which emphasized strong rhythm, solo work (especially by saxophones), and vocals in a shout-blues manner. A second form, often called Chicago blues, was exemplified by performers such as Muddy Waters and was typically played by a small group with amplified instruments. The third major form was primarily vocal, featuring close, gospel-influenced harmonies often backed by an orchestra. In the mid-1950s the term rhythm and blues was adopted by the music industry for music intended for the African American audience; with the gradual disappearance of racial barriers, the Chicago blues style began to seem less a vital form than a folk tradition, while the gospel style was transformed into the soul music of vast appeal. Rhythm and blues was the chief antecedent of rock music.

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Secular musical form incorporating a repeating harmonic structure with melodic emphasis on the flatted or “blue” third and seventh notes of the scale. The specific origins of the blues are not known, but elements of the music of former slaves include the call-and-response pattern and syncopated rhythms of spirituals and work songs. The codification of the structure of the blues occurred in the early 20th century, most commonly as a 12-bar phrase using the chords of the first, fourth, and fifth degrees of the major scale. Its origins as a primarily vocal form induced instrumental performers to imitate the human voice with “bent” notes. Lyric stanzas are usually in three lines, the words of the second generally repeating those of the first. The elaboration of the rural blues from Texas and the Mississippi delta established both lyric and instrumental traditions, often featuring speech-like inflection and guitar accompaniment. The bandleader W.C. Handy's compositions brought blues elements to the popular music of the first decades of the century. The first blues recordings, in the early 1920s, featured singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith using jazz accompanists; their style would become known as classic blues. The highly personal interpretations and improvisation of the blues, combined with elements of its structure and inflection, served as the foundation for jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music.

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