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Archived Newz
2002 !
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Special Section
Jazz In History ...
Early Jazz
Chicago and Big-Band Jazz |
Jazz In
History! --
Modern Jazz
Early Jazz
Chicago Jazz
Big-Band Jazz
Early Jazz
Origins of Jazz
More
Elements of Jazz
Ken Burns 'Jazz'
Elements of Jazz
Jazz In History
Still To Come! --
Comtemporary Jazz |
Chicago Jazz
Armstrong's innovations influenced many Jazz musicians of the 1920's,
especially in Chicago, where such groups as The New Orleans Rhythm Kings
worked out their own versions of the New Orleans style. |
Among the best known of the
Chicago jazz musicians were the trumpeter Leon Bismark ("Bix")
Beiderbecke and the singer Bessie Smith. Many of the latter's
vocal improvisations were influential in the further development of
instrumental jazz.
Big-Band Jazz
As a result of technical developments achieved during the late
1920's, large groups of jazz musicians began to play together, forming
the so-called "big bands", which became especially popular during the
1930's.
One major development was the substitution of string bass for the wind
tuba. This smoothed the two-beat rhythm that had been used in New
Orleans into a more flowing four beats to the bar.
In addition, musicians learned how to use short melodic phrases, known
as ensemble riffs, in call-and-response patterns. To facilitate this
type of playing, orchestras were divided into instrumental sections, and
opportunities were provided for musicians to play extended solo
passages.
Such developments were achieved largly through the work of Edward
Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington and James Fletcher ("Smack") Henderson.
During the late 1920's, Ellington led a band at the Cotton Club in New
York City. There, he composed music that made his orchestra a cohesive
ensemble with solos written for the unique qualities of specific
instrumentalists.
January/February 2002
Read more about Jazz In History! |
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Jazz In History! |
A Special Section that plays out the
keynotes of the genre from the past to the present |
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Special Section
Jazz In History ...
Early
Jazz
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The first major jazz musician was the
trumpeter Charles ("Buddy") Bolden (1868-1931).
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As the leader of a band that played for the public
dances at Congo Square in New Orleans, Bolden developed an early form of
jazz in which volume was more important than finesse. Little individual improvisation took place.
The trumpet generally played vociferous melodic lead, the clarinet piped
a simple harmony line, and the trombone played rhythmic slides and pedal
notes. The wind tuba provided rhythmic accompaniment.
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Bolden (back row, 2nd from left) and his band
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Among later trumpeters influenced by Bolden’s style
were William Geary ("Bunk") Johnson (1879-1949) and Freddie Keppard
(1889-1933).
The so-called Dixieland jazz consisted of the New Orleans style as
played by white musicians. It was popularized later by thebandleader
Albert |
Edward ("Eddie") Condon (1905-73).
In 1917 a group of musicians known as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
made the first phonograph records of jazz music.
However, a more important organization, the
Creole Jazz Band, was led by Joseph ("King") Oliver (1885-1938), an
influential stylist in the Bolden manner. Oliver’s group, in 1923,
produced a series of phonographic records.
Among later trumpeters influenced by Bolden’s style
were William Geary ("Bunk") Johnson (1879-1949) and Freddie Keppard
(1889-1933). The so-called Dixieland jazz consisted of the New Orleans
style as played by white musicians. It was popularized later by the
bandleader Albert Edward ("Eddie") Condon (1905-73).
In 1917 a group of musicians known as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
made the first phonograph records of jazz music.
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However, a more important
organization, the Creole Jazz Band, was led by Joseph ("King") Oliver
(1885-1938), an influential stylist in the Bolden manner. Oliver’s
group, in 1923, produced a series of
phonographic records.
The most original member of the group was the
trumpeter |
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Oliver (center, front) and band
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Louis ("Satchmo") Armstrong (q.v.),
whose subsequent recording with his own groups, the Hot Five and the Hot
Seven, established new standards for solo playing. Armstrong was the
first musician to demonstrate that jazz improvisation could consist of
something more than melodic ornamentation He built new melodies with
chord changes.
Another type of jazz that developed during the early 1920’s is known as
boogie-woogie. Played on the piano, it consists of a short and sharply
accented bass pattern played over and over by the left hand while the
right plays freely, using a variety of rhythms.
Boogie-woogie was particularly popular in the late 1930’s and 1940’s.
Leading boogie-woogie pianists included Mead Lux Lewis (1905-64), Albert
Ammons (1907-49), Peter (Pete) Johnson (1904-), and Clarence ("Pine
Top" Smith (1904-29).September/October
2001
Read more about Jazz In History! |
Jazz In History ...
Origins
of Jazz
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The history of jazz is marked by a
movement toward
a gritty freedom in improvisation, accompanied by
the development of complex rhythmic patterns.
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Many skilled performers today play jazz throughout
the world. The most significant part of the history of jazz, however, has
occurred in the United States.
African Influences
The origins of jazz can be traced to the musical traditions carried to
North America by African slaves in the 17th century. Similarities
therefore exist between African music (q.v.), as we know it in this century
and the earliest forms of jazz as recorded for the phonograph beginning in
1917.
African music is formally organized around a repeated refrain; jazz
uses an almost identical form, a series of variations on a basic musical
idea. The call-and-response patterns of African music have their
counterparts in the interacting solo and ensemble devices of jazz, and both
types of music incorporate extensive collective improvisation in which each
voice or instrument has a specific function.
The elements of African music were maintained through the various forms of
music such as field hollers, rowing chants, lullabies, and especially the
type of religious song known as spiritual.
During the 18th and 19th
centuries these basic musical forms were affected by contact with European
music. As early as 1845 the American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk used
African-American themes, often with syncopation,
in his concert works, suggesting new forms of instrumental treatment for
this material.
Many African-Americans in New
Orleans received extensive education in European music; frequent contact
between these urban musicians and the rural workers, who used essentially
African forms of musical expression, undoubtedly played an important role in
the artistic hybridization that led to jazz.
For example, an attempt to
combine the African five-note scale. Such notes, which also may have been
derived from the techniques of West African singers, became very important
elements in the characteristic sound texture of jazz.
Ragtime
Another early source of jazz was the music played on the "banjaz", or
banjo, first on the plantation and later in the minstrel show (q.v.).
As
adapted by musicians in New Orleans this music led to ragtime, a syncopated
style of piano playing drawn also from the march music of the late 19th
century and from European dance pieces.
The best-known exponent of ragtime
was the composer and pianist Scott Joplin (q.v.), who employed the ragtime
style in operas and orchestral works.
Ragtime was most important for the
effect it had on such major piano soloists of the late 1920’s and 1930’s as
Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe ("Jelly Roll") Morton (1885-1941), James Price
Johnson (1891-1955), Thomas ("Fats") Waller (1904-43), and Arthur ("Art")
Tatum (1910-56).
Brass-Band Music
In the late-19th and early-20th centuries Negro
brass bands became prominent, especially in New Orleans, but also in
Texas, Oklahoma, and throughout the Midwest.
The bands played
traditional themes, modified frequently by syncopation and acceleration,
at picnics, weddings, street parades, and funerals. It was
characteristic of these bands to play dirges on
the way to funerals and then to syncopate and accelerate the same
tunes into lively marches on the way back.
This type of music as made
popular by the American Negro composer, cornetist, and band master William
Christopher Handy (q.v.), who led and toured with a brass band composed of
musicians manly from Louisiana and Mississippi at the turn of the century.
July/August 2001
Read more about Jazz In History! |
Jazz In History ...
More
Elements of Jazz
Improvisational
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True improvisation uses a basic melody or theme as a starting point
melody or theme as a starting point from
which the player develops and extends their
musical thoughts.
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This
development may consist of chord changes, interpolation of additional notes
into the basic melodic structure, and the alternation of melodic variations
among contrasting instrumental combinations.
A key element in all
improvisation is the degree to which the performer can impress his own sense
of musical rhythm on the basic musical pattern. In addition, the style of a
jazz performer depends on the originality of the musician's musical
improvisation and on the manner in which they execute them.
Rhythm
Jazz rhythm is distinguished by a quality called swing, the
subtle conflict between a regular, ongoing beat and a player's personal
rhythmic articulation of a phrase. The player swings ...or superimposes
... rhythmic accents alternatively with, and against, the basic beat.
This produces a pattern of complex rhythms. Styles of swing have changed
over the years mostly because jazz players have become increasingly adroit
in their use of rhythms ... but the principle remains the same. The player
who swings the most is the one who has the greatest degree of personal
subtlety in his articulation of individual rhythms against the basic beat.
Texture
Most of the characteristic sound
of jazz results from a bending of the pitch of the third, fifth, and seventh
degrees of the diatonic scale.
This produces a sound sometimes
described as wailing or moaning, as in the blues ... blues are considered a
specialized form of jazz. The most important instruments in jazz are the
clarinet, the saxophone, the trombone, and the trumpet ... with important
rhythmic accompaniments from drums and the string base.
The piano is used both as a percussive instrument and, like the banjo or
guitar, as a means of providing harmonic background.
Although these harmonic
and instrumental elements occur in other types of music, they have become
particularly effective when used by those jazz musicians who have developed
great skill in improvisation. Descriptions of the sound of various types of
jazz include terms like "cool", "hot" and "smooth".
February/March 2001
Read more about Jazz In History! |
Jazz In
History ...
Our
ongoing Special Section, Jazz In History
... see below ... steps aside as PBS
presents
Ken Burns's series ... Jazz!
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Be sure to watch this
multi-part program premiering on PBS
television on January 8th. Check local listings
for stations
and times.
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Reprinted from TV Guide
December 30, 2000
take the jazz train
by Ashley Kahn
From the saloons and
brothels of New Orleans to the swanky
clubs of New York, Ken Burns's latest documentary swings
and bops it's way to the heart of America's richest musical legacy. |
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"I
hope you will stress that I’ve made this for everybody: the farmer in
Nebraska, the shopkeeper in Louisiana, the grandmother in Dubuque," Ken Burns is
talking about Jazz, his new 10-part documentary, and he speaks about it with the
drive and enthusiasm of a big-band drummer, hitting the downbeat before I ask the
question.
"Anybody who said "I wasn’t into military history’ when I was working
on The Civil War, I told them, ‘I’m making this for you.’ If you
think the battle of Gettysburg tells you something, then you’ve got to know what he
battle of the [Count] Basie band tells you."
Famed too for his Emmy award-winning work Baseball, Burns has created a 9-hour
celebration of the music he thinks, along with the Constitution and baseball, is one of
America’s most important contributions to civilization.
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Duke Ellington ...
took the 'A' train to popularity
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He weaves
the story the jazz into the nation’s time line, opening with its birth in the sounds
of New Orleans’s brass bands before World War I and going on to chart its rise in
popularity during the Roaring ‘20s and Prohibition, when musicians found work in
thousands of speakeasies.
From the ‘30s to the World War II years, jazz enjoyed its commercial
peak as crowds filled dance halls to hear big bands |
swing. Jazz changed
again in the ‘40s, with bebop drawing fans back into nightclubs.
"Jazz is a window to the soul of the country, through which you can see where
we’ve been for the last hundred years—good and bad," says Burns. "We
see it in the musicians rising up [from] abject poverty, like Benny Goodman or Louis
Armstrong."
Six years in the making, Jazz boasts an impressive list of signature Burns-isms:
rapturous pans across 2,400 mostly black-and-white photographs; 2,000 pieces of archival
footage (a thin, dapper Armstrong singing "Dinah" is a treasure); 75 interviews
with musicians and writers; plus narration and voice-overs read by actors such as Keith
David ("Bird"), Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew Broderick.
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Ella Fitzgerald ...
unknown in 1934
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Then
there’s the sound of jazz itself. Often Burns just lets music play. "We’ve
got 498 separate pieces of music," he proudly says. He also recounts
the struggles of jazz’s creators and the emotional underpinnings of some
of the music’s seminal moments: An Unknown Ella Fitzgerald wins first
prize at the Apollo Theater amateur hour in 1934 but isn’t allowed to sing
there subsequently because she’s not considered pretty enough. |
Clarinetist
Artie Shaw recalls playing "Begin the Beguine" on a World War II
aircraft-carrier deck, to the roar of homesick sailors. And Armstrong puts his career on
the line by canceling a 1957 State Department-sponsored tour of the Soviet Union when
black students in Arkansas are barred from a white high school.
Says Burns, "I knew all the musicians, but I didn’t know how powerful their
stories were. In their own right, they’re just as important as the founding
fathers."
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Jazz’s
pioneers—Armstrong, Duke, Ellington, Goodman—and those who followed—Billie
Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis—are all lovingly portrayed. But the Burns survey
does slight some valid musical contributions.
Pianist Cecil Taylor’s free experiments of the ‘60s and Davis’sfusion of
rock and jazz in the ‘70s are dissed by Burns’s experts, sax player Branford
Marsalis and
writer Gerald Early, respectively. |
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Billie Holiday ...
a jazz pioneer
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Biases aside, Burn’s obvious mission is to establish jazz’s modern-day vitality
and relevance. "It used to be 70 percent of the music in this country. Now it’s
single digits," he says. He remains confident that as popular styles come and go,
music lovers will forever be digging deeper for something more meaningful. That need,
according to Burns, is rooted in basic human nature.
"Let’s be honest: Most of pop music is about sex," Burns says.
"Britney and Madonna can lead you to the bedroom door, but they don’t tell you
what to do about human intimacy. Then you need Miles Davis and Duke Ellington."
With his American triptych now complete, Burns can relax, rest on his laurels and even
poke fun at himself. At the close of episode 7, he includes a quip from "Take
Five" pianist Dave Brubeck. "All over the world jazz is accepted as the music of
freedom. It’s more important than …" he stops, searching for the right
word, "than baseball."
~January,
2001
Read more about
Jazz In History! |
Ashley Kahn is the author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles
Davis (Masterpiece DaCapo).
Read more Jazz In History in Newz!
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Jazz In History ...
Elements of Jazz
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The typical musical form of jazz
consists of variations on a basic theme. The theme
may be provided
by almost any type of music,
including |
marches and hymns, or by musical elements like harmonic progressions ... and even the consecutive notes of a musical scale.
From the basic material
the jazz performer produces a virtually infinite number of variations and
developments, usually through improvisations in the course of a
performance. Written scores are only used as guides, and the variations
make extensive use of the element of syncopation.
This all gives
jazz its quality of rhythmical freedom. The nature of the
variations, and the particular qualities of the musical pulse, depend on
the taste and temperament of the performer.
This results in the
individuality of expression and the intense feeling of personal creative
involvement that
constitute the distinctive characteristics of jazz.
Read more Jazz In History in Newz!~ November/December 2000
Read more about
Jazz In History! |
Jazz In History ...
Jazz In History ... a
series
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Jazz designates a type of music first
developed in the late 19th century in a city known for jazz, New Orleans.
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The term is
applied to many types of 20th-century music but it actually refers only to a type of
improvisatory music in which the combinations of basic elements are determined largely by
an individual performer during their performance ... rather than by a composer as
in art music and popular music.
It's different from folk music in that it usually modifies musical traditions to express
the temperament of an individual rather than preserving them as the relatively unified and
unchanging expressions of a people.
Because jazz has influenced so much modern music it can usually only be distinguished in
its true form by the relative freedom of the performer from the requirements of a written
score and by subtle and individual variations of a basic musical pulse.
Read more Jazz In History in Newz!~ September/October 2000
Read more about
Jazz In History! |
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