1. Jazz. Jazz music commonly uses both the major and the minor pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are useful for improvisers in modern jazz, pop, and rock contexts because they work well over several chords diatonic to the same key, often better than the parent scale.
A variety of pentatonic scales occur in the musics of Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and East and Southeast Asians (e.g., the five-tone slendro scale of the Javanese), as well as in many European folk melodies.