Transcript Chapter 16 - Jazz - PAWS - Western Carolina University

Chapter 16 - Jazz
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Five chronological sections:
#1. The New Orleans Style: The Traditional Jazz of the Early
Recordings (1920’s)
The most representative early jazz recordings date from about
1923.
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They define what jazz was at that time.
“essence of jazz” as a way of singing and playing—with many
“intangible” features.
What are some of the “tangible” features of jazz?
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accent
phrasing
tone color
the “bending” of pitch and rhythm
improvisation
“Dippermouth Blues”
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Form and Harmony
Perhaps the most common formal harmonic plan is the blues.
performed by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band and recorded in
Chicago, 1923.
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Listen for
 twelve-bar blues form
 the improvised variations within each chorus.
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Instrumentation
What is the instrumentation of “Dippermouth Blues”?
Texture
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front-line, or melody (like the right hand in ragtime piano)
rhythm section (like the left hand in ragtime piano)
Improvisation
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Perhaps the most vital ingredient in jazz is
improvisation.
Who has been deemed the first great
improvising soloist in jazz?
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Louis Armstrong (1898-1971)
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defined the “hot” style of playing in the 1920s
early master of “swing”
model solos of great influence on others to follow
“scat” singing
 wordless improvising of complete choruses
“Hotter than That”
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representative example of Louis
Armstrong’s improvisation skills
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Listen for
 melodic inventiveness of cornet solos
 clarinet solo
 scat singing
#2. Dissemination and Change: Before
the Swing Era
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Chicago
Two jazz styles in Chicago in the 1920s?
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white and black
white:
 Original Dixieland Jazz Band
 New Orleans Rhythm Kings
 Bix Beiderbecke (1903-31)
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black:
 playing on Chicago’s South Side
 King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
 with Louis Armstrong
 fluid, relaxed style
What was the home of jazz in the 1920s?
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nightclub scene
During Prohibition many clubs were run by the
“mob.”
Many of the jazz musicians from New Orleans went from Chicago
to New York.
What elements made the big band different from
the traditional ensembles of early jazz?
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number of players; about twice the size of a New
Orleans-style band
new trend toward arranged jazz
improvised solos remain
#3. The Swing Era and the Big Bands
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What are the dates associated with the beginning
and ending of the swing era?
What elements contributed to the emergence and
popularity of big band jazz during the swing era?
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new performance venues: dance halls and ballrooms
recordings sold well
Radio performances sold recordings and advertised the
band’s music.
Movies featured jazz bands.
Three Significant Bands
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Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899-1974)
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pianist, composer, band leader
The Ellington sound: unique use of instrumental
color
broad range as a composer
 pioneered writing more complex works for jazz
ensemble
“Ko-ko”
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- an example of the Ellington sound.
 12-bar blues
 call-and-response pattern
 varied tone colors
The Midwest and Count Basie
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What is the Kansas City ingredient that
went into big-band jazz?
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“jump”
 hard-driving beat
 Count Basie (1904-84) called it “four heavy beats to a
bar, and no cheating.”
 closely akin to the drive of boogie-woogie
Benny Goodman
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(1909-86)
white clarinetist and band leader (big bands and small)
formal music education: played both classical and jazz
styles
acknowledged his black jazz heritage
many of his arrangements: Fletcher Henderson
one of the first to incorporate black musicians in his
ensembles
brought jazz to a new level of popularity and acceptance as
dance music
The Great Jazz Singers
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The era of the big bands was also the era
of the great jazz singers.
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Bing Crosby
Billie Holiday
Ella Fitzgerald
The Small Combo
 three to seven players
 played in small bars; “cocktail combo”
Wartime and the Seeds of Change
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What are some of the changes that
occurred in jazz after the end of World War
II?
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place of jazz in American culture changed
 Before and during most of WWII, for the most part, there
was one kind of jazz.
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Fewer young people followed jazz.
Jazz began to be considered serious art music.
The Emergence of Modern Jazz: Bop as a
Turning Point
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What is bop?
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“bebop” or “rebop”
emerged after WWII
first exponents:
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small ensembles
musical characteristics:
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John “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-93), trumpet
Charlie Parker (1920-55), alto saxophone
Thelonious Monk (1917-82), piano
Kenny Clarke (1914-85), bass
harmonic basis remained: jazz standards
Nevertheless, substitute chords, harmonic extensions were common.
very fast tempi
bass: keeps the beat
lighter rhythm section often obscuring the beat
 drums: more for accentuation and cross-rhythms than for keeping the beat
Unison passages open and close the pieces.
Bop has been called “black backlash” to the “white synthesis.”
“KoKo”
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representative example of bebop
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very fast tempo
small ensemble
 only four performers
unison passages that open and close the number
What are the various styles of jazz that emerged
out of bop?
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cool jazz
hard bop and funk
modal jazz
free jazz
Cool Jazz
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music of understatement, restraint, and leanness
what was “new” in jazz in the 1950s; not what was
“popular”
slower tempi
vibraphone (“vibes”) common
Modern Jazz Quartet
 one of the most influential combos in this style
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Birth of the Cool
 Miles Davis, trumpet
Hard Bop and Funk
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1950s and 1960s
reaction against the restraint of cool jazz
pull back toward jazz roots; especially black gospel music
leaders:
 Art Blakely, drummer
 Horace Silver, pianist and composer
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changes from bop:
 relaxed tempi
 backbeat rhythm
 preference for darker tones
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tenor saxophone (instead of alto)
Modal Jazz
new developments: harmony and structure
 virtually static harmony
 improvisation: based on a succession of scales
 longer improvisations
Miles Davis (1926-91), trumpet
Kind of Blue (1959), So What
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“Out of This World” - John Coltrane
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Listen for
 static harmony on piano
 saxophone’s elaboration of tune
 virtuosic drumming
The “Third Stream” and Other
Developments Parallel to Bop
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incorporation of musical elements, procedures, and actual
instruments that had been considered foreign to jazz
 instruments: violins, cellos, flutes, and French horns
 merging elements from the jazz and “classical,” or European
traditions
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Gunther Schuller called this merging of elements
from the jazz and “classical,” or European
traditions the “third stream”
What are some specific examples of “third
stream” developments?
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rhythmic innovations
 triple meter
 asymmetrical meters (Unsquare Dance)
Rock Fusions and Electric Jazz in the 1970s and
1980s
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“Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis recorded in
1969.
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electric instruments: piano, guitars (bass and lead)
jazz-rock fusion
change in the rhythmic basis:
 beat: mostly the “square” rock beat
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ground bass
 ostinato
Reconnection with Tradition
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a resurgence and reinterpretation of bebop
conservation of jazz classics as live music
trumpet player Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961) is a
representative example of one of a new
generation of virtuosos.
 fluent in both jazz and classical music
 His jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields won the
Pulitzer Prize for musical composition.
What is the primary function of repertory
bands?
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to re-create specific pieces
often transcribe music from early recordings
began to develop in the 1970s
examples:
 American Jazz Orchestra and Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra
 based in New York beginning in the 1970s
 Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra
 1990