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jazz musician

jazz musician

22 2.3
A person who plays or writes jazz music
  • noun
  • /dʒæz mjuˈzɪʃən/
translation icon : músico de jazz
  • He was the great jazz musician who taught at the New England Conservatory at the end of his life.
  • many jazz musicians

He cut his teeth in progressive rock and was a jazz musician as well.

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Examples

  • To take advantage of the opportunity, we can look to the way jazz musicians create their communal sound.

    Academic text (1995)
  • "Alright, I thought, I'll put my mind to being a jazz musician."

    Fiction book (1993)
  • It's like the great jazz musicians.

  • Greatest jazz musician of all time.

  • Who is Ronnie Scott? - The jazz musician.

  • And that's why I became a jazz musician.

  • In his early years, Prima had actually earned a reputation as a serious jazz musician of some note.

    Academic text (2003)
  • At the same time, he learned to play the trumpet and became a competent jazz musician.

    Academic text (1999)
  • Second, transcribing solos of a model jazz player offers important training for the jazz musician.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Jimmy, an accomplished jazz musician, worked for several years as a music professor in Winnipeg, Canada.

Synonyms

jazzer
vsjazz musician
1 8.5

A person who plays or loves jazz music

refers specifically to someone who performs or composes music professionally rather than any fan

How Skilled

virtuoso
12 8.0
jazz musician
22 2.3

Surface Forms

jazz musician singular

Morphology

jazz + musician

The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'jazz' (a music genre) + 'musician' (a person who plays or creates music); the phrase simply denotes a musician who plays or composes jazz. This noun–noun/genre + agent pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Jazz musician comes from the music word jazz, which started in US cities like New Orleans as a lively style where players often made up music on the spot. One popular story says 'jazz' was slang for strong energy or spice, so musicians who played that bright, energetic music were called 'jazz musicians', and that's why the phrase means 'a musician who plays jazz' today.