1-2 pages music paper
YANGYANG
kerman7e_ch24musicinamerica1.pptChapter 24
Music in America:
Jazz and Beyond
Secular Popular Music
- Stephen Collins Foster
- Songs popularized by Christie’s Minstrels
- “Camptown Races”, “Oh Susanna”
- Minstrel show: 19thc. variety show in the U.S. performed in blackface
- John Philip Sousa
- Marine Corps bandmaster, known for marches: “The Stars and Stripes Forever”
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African American Music
- Both parodied and acknowledged by minstrel shows
- No one wrote down slaves’ music
- Call-and-response procedures:
-Descended from African traditions
- Spirituals: religious folk songs
- Ex. Wade in the Water
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Ragtime
- A precursor of jazz
- A style of piano playing developed by African American musicians
- Left hand plays strictly on the beat
- Right hand syncopates the rhythm
- Scott Joplin (1868–1917)
- Maple Leaf Rag (sold 1 million copies)
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Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” can be found on the Listen Companion DVD.
Jazz
- Performance style developed by black musicians around 1910
- Improvisation: ornaments and breaks played around a melody
- Break: improv between phrases
- Syncopation: accenting “off-beats”
(instead of the main beat)
- Swing: moving notes based on a triplet feel instead of a duple feel
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New Orleans Jazz
- The first important center of jazz
- Early players developed the art of collective improvisation (“jamming”)
- Solo sections soon became a regular feature
- Recordings helped disseminate to wider audiences
- Recommended book:
- The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned Sublette
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The Blues
- Special category of black folk song
- Themes of loneliness, trouble, and depression
- Also humor, banter, and hope
- Emerged around 1900
- Major influence on early jazz
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Typical Blues Melody
- Twelve-bar blues
- Stanzas of 3 four-measure phrases
- First line of each stanza repeated (a a b scheme)
- Singer improvises more and more stanzas
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Sippie Wallace, “If You Ever Been Down” Blues
- Instrumental introduction
- Two blues stanzas with breaks
- Trumpet solo stanza, supported by clarinet
- Two more sung stanzas
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Swing Era
- Big bands developed to reach larger audiences
- Carefully written-out arrangements
- Limited improvisation
- Novel orchestration, instrumental effects
- Popularity collapsed after WWII
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Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
- Born in Washington, D.C.
- Began playing piano in jazz bands
- Unique combination: bandleader, composer, and arranger
- Developed international fame
- Wrote long, symphonic-style works
- Many works molded to styles of his sidemen
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Ellington and Tizol,
Conga Brava
Longer a a b form heard three times
- 1st chorus: a on trombone with Latin beat, b with contrasting jazz beat
- 2nd chorus: free improvisation by tenor sax
- 3rd chorus: full band, wild syncopations
- Coda: a only, same as beginning
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Big Band Instrumentation
- Saxophones (5)
- Trombones (3-4)
- Trumpets (4)
- Piano
- Double Bass
- Drumset
- Guitar (optl.)
Bebop
- Sharp contrast with big bands
- Small combos (typically a quintet)
- Trumpet, Saxophone, Piano, Bass, Drumset
- Improvisation and technical virtuosity
- Radical treatment of harmony
- Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker
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“The” Quintet
Charlie Parker (1920–1955)
- Early leader of Bebop with Dizzy Gillespie
- Alto saxophonist, nicknamed “Bird”
- Became a legend in his lifetime
- Struggled with personal demons
- On drugs from age 15
- Uncontrollable eating and drinking
- Died at 34
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Parker and Davis, “Out of Nowhere”
- Popular song in 32-bar A A′ form
- Starts with “straight” version
- Davis trumpet solo
- Parker sax solo
- Last chorus like first, with brief coda
- Solos include “double time” passages
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Parker and Harris Ornithology
- Faster tempo, typical of bebop
- Contrafact on chords of “How High the Moon”- new melody over existing chord structure
- Parker- Alto sax
- Miles Davis- Trumpet
- Lucky Thompson- Tenor sax
- Also piano, bass, guitar, drums
Jazz after Bebop
- Many new styles emerged
- Cool, free, modal, Hard Bop, Afro-Cuban, electric, avant-garde
- Diverse leaders
- Thelonious Monk, piano
- Miles Davis, trumpet
- Art Blakey, drumset
- John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, sax
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Hard Bop
- Moanin’ by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
- Drum set feel/pattern known as the “shuffle” beat. Adds ‘backbeat’ emphasis on the snare drum: beats 2 and 4.
- Catchier, simpler melodies than Bebop
Miles Davis (1926–1991)
- One of the greatest jazz innovators
- Started with Charlie Parker and bebop musicians
- Style evolved through many stages
- Pioneered cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, and jazz-rock fusion
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1st & 2nd Quintets
- “Straight No Chaser” from album Milestones (1958)
- First quintet
- “Footprints” from album Miles Smiles (1966)
- Second quintet: rhythmic innovations due to rhythm section
- Herbie Hancock: piano, Ron Carter: bass, Tony Williams: drums
Davis, Bitches Brew
- Davis’s most successful fusion album
- Used a larger ensemble than usual
- Conscious attempt to blend jazz and rock
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Bitches Brew excerpt
- Solo excerpt from 27-minute track
- Begins with electric guitar and piano; ostinato on electric bass
- Meditative, melancholy solo
- More and more elaborate patterns
- Reaches free ostinato in high register
- Sinks down after high trumpet squeal
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Funky Jazz
- Mix of jazz song structures, improvisational solos with rhythmic feel of funk
- Funk developed in late 60s by James Brown and his contemporaries
- Bridged gap between jazz and newer popular styles
- Continues to evolve today
- Originators- Miles Davis, The Meters
- Contemporaries- Galactic, Stanton Moore Trio, Soulive, Lettuce
Key Terms
- Minstrel show
- Call and response
- Spiritual
Key Terms
- Jazz
- Breaks
- Beat syncopation
- Blues
- Gospel music
- Ragtime
- Big bands
- Swing
- Bebop
