Call and response is a pattern in which a leader sings or plays a phrase, the call, and a group or another instrument replies, the response. It is found in many cultures, but it is especially deep-rooted in African and African American traditions, from work songs, where the rhythm of the singing matched the rhythm of labour, to church singing, gospel and the blues, and later rock and roll and hip hop crowds.
Jazz absorbed the principle at every level. In 1920s and 1930s big bands, arrangers such as Don Redman set the brass and reed sections against each other in alternating phrases, and soloists still trade short phrases with the band or with each other. In jazz lo-fi, call and response can be as simple as a sampled horn line answered by a few notes on the Rhodes, or a melody that alternates between two instruments over the loop.