I mean, it sure sounds fancy when you listen to it, but what specifically did they change in the way they write and perform music? Why are certain chords/progression labelled as ‘jazzy’?
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A lot of the fundamental chord progressions of jazz are drawn from music that was popular in America at the time. Blues, ragtime, showtunes, etc. A good example is the “Rhythm Changes.” These are the chord changes from a George Gershwin song called “I Got Rhythm,” part of a mostly-forgotten musical called “Girl Crazy.” Jazz musicians found that they were fun and intuitive to improvise over, so they became the foundation of a large number of jazz standards.
The stuff that sounds uniquely jazzy is then mutation and experimentation beyond this. If you’re a jazz pianist, you’re going to spend *a lot* of time playing the rhythm changes. To keep things interesting (for both you and the soloist), you’ll eventually start to play around with the chords. Add new notes from that scale. add pedals, add new transitional chords, etc. Unlike a popular musician, you’re not supposed to be delivering a close recreation of an established song. You’re supposed to be delivering a unique and interesting experience for whoever came to your club that night (and may well have already been there every night that week).
Thus, “I Got Rhythm” doesn’t sound convincingly jazzy. It sounds like an old musical number. But the many jazz performances built on I Got Rhythm feel jazzy. There’s no unified reason for this. They all just take a playful and creative approach to the same source material. I’d say the main marker of jazz is when the musician manages to deliver something the listener didn’t expect but still enjoys.
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