Jewish musical contributions tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. Some music, however, is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as Israeli music, Klezmer, Sephardic and Ladino music, and Mizrahi music.
Jews have also contributed to popular music and, in the United States, they have become dominant in some specific forms of popular music. This is true to a lesser extent in Europe, but some of the first influential Jewish popular musicians in the US were actually natives of Europe, such as Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill and Sigmund Romberg. The most visible early forms of American popular music in which Jews have contributed are the popular song and musical theatre. Approximately half of the members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame are Jewish. However, the latter especially has been dominated by Jewish composers and lyricists throughout its history and to a certain extent still today.
While Jazz is primarily considered an art form with African-American originators, many Jewish musicians have contributed to it including clarinettists Mezz Mezzrow, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, saxophonists Michael Brecker, Paul Desmond, Kenny G, Stan Getz, Benny Green, Lee Konitz, Ronnie Scott and Zoot Sims, trumpeters and cornetists Randy Brecker, Ruby Braff, Red Rodney and Shorty Rogers, drummers Buddy Rich, Mel Lewis, and Victor Feldman, and singers and pianists Billy Joel, Al Jolson, Ben Sidran, and Mel Tormé. Some artists such as Harry Kandel were famous for mixing Jazz with klezmer as was modern Texas klezmer Bill Averbach, and others like Flora Purim have worked with Latin jazz and Jazz fusion. Since a great deal of Jazz music consisted of musical cooperation of Jewish and African-American musicians or black musicians funded by Jewish producers, the art form became "the racist's worst nightmare".
Although the early rock and roll performers were mostly either African Americans or Southern Whites, Jewish songwriters played a key role: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, and nearly all of the other Brill Building songwriters were Jewish, as was Phil Spector. With the mid-1960s rise of the singer-songwriter, some (King, Diamond, Sedaka) became performers; others (such as Burt Bacharach) managed to continue to work primarily as songwriters. In the rock era, Jewish musicians were by no means dominant, but many worked with a mix of folk and rock forms, including Bob Dylan, David Bromberg, David Grisman, Kinky Friedman Jorma Kaukonen, Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel; more purely on the rock side are David Lee Roth, Lenny Kravitz, pop bands such as Army of Lovers and all three Beastie Boys.
In classical music, Jewish contribution to the European music scene steadily increased after Jews were admitted to mainstream society in England, France, Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and Russia. Notable examples of Jewish Romantic composers are Charles-Valentin Alkan, Paul Dukas and Fromental Halévy from France, Josef Dessauer, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, Karl Goldmark and Gustav Mahler from Bohemia, Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer from Germany, and Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein from Russia.
During the 20th century the number of Jewish composers and notable instrumentalists increased, as did their geographical distribution. Jewish composers were most heavily concentrated in Vienna and other cities in pre-Nazi Austria and Germany. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, Jews comprised a third of the students of Vienna's conservatories.
Beyond Vienna, Jews were also to a certain extent prominent in Paris and New York (the latter's Jewish population being heavily multiplied by waves of immigration). During the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, when works by Jews were labelled as degenerate music, many European Jewish composers emigrated to the United States and Argentina, strengthening classical music in those countries. Sample Jewish 20th-century composers include Arnold Schönberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky from Austria, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill and Theodor W. Adorno from Germany, Viktor Ullmann and Jaromír Weinberger from Bohemia and later the Czech Republic (the former perished at the Auschwitz extermination camps), George Gershwin and Aaron Copland from the United States, Darius Milhaud and Alexandre Tansman from France, and Alfred Schnittke from Russia.
There are some genres and forms of classical music that Jewish composers have been associated with, including notably during the Romantic period French Grand Opera. The most prolific composers of this genre included Giacomo Meyerbeer, Fromental Halévy, and the later Jacques Offenbach.
In addition to composers, many Jews have been prominent music critics, music theorists and musicologists, such as Guido Adler, Leon Botstein, Eduard Hanslick, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Julius Korngold and Hedi Stadlen. Jewish classical performers have most frequently been violinists, pianists and cellists. Notable examples are Isaac Stern, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Leonard Rose, respectively. Beginning with Gustav Mahler and most frequently today, Jewish conductors have also been prominent, with many like Leonard Bernstein achieving international stature.