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jazz history
Three Cultures that Influenced the Beginnings of Jazz are the
1) 
West-African:
Two contributions from the West African culture, in order of importance, are rhythm and improvisation.
The Dahomey Kingdom, ravaged by the slave trade, was a main contributor. The Dahomey people used music as communication, during ceremonies, as entertainment, for storytelling and for work. Music was an integral part of this society.
West-African instrumental categories include:
A. membranophones: any instrument utilizing stretched animal skin (drums)
B. idiophones: anything that was used as a percussive instrument
C. aerophones: wind instruments (elephant/rhinoceros hollowed tusks etc...)
D. chordophones: stringed instruments using animal hair or gut (an example is the xalam the ancestor of Banjo)
West-African musical characteristics include:
A. call and response (in jazz called trading fours)
B. ostinatos: short, repetitive melodic or rhythmic patterns (in jazz called a riff)
C. an awareness of the sounds produced by their percussion instruments (this does not originate in Africa but comes via the Caribbean; an example are the steel drums)
D. a preponderance of complex rhythms (syncopation, polyrhythm, polymeter, etc...)
*ethnomusicological evidence asserts that the more primitive a culture, the more complex its rhythms*
West African Countries: Senegal, Ghana, Cote D'Azur (The Ivory Coast), Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mauritania, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Angola
The beganna, an African instrument, is a descendant of the ancient Greek lyre. It is made of wood, with a leather-covered soundbox. The beganna is played only by the aristocracy and priests of Ethiopia and nearby countries. The lyre, like the harp, is a plucked instrument, but its shape is distinctly different.
A. a tempered and tuned system of pitches divided into twelve equal half steps.
B. the tonal system of harmony based on set intervallic relationships and aural expectations derived from these relationships.
C. a highly developed melodic style.
D. a strong concept of form.
E. the mastery and study of European instruments.
F. a well founded and evolving intellectual procedure for dissecting the processes which created their music (music theory).
Music made by the slaves, separated into two main categories:
A. Secular music (not associated with the church):
1. field hollers: A non-functional tune, used to let out emotion. The field hollers developed into a form of communication used in the Underground Railroad. Completely improvised, used pentatonic scales, major modes with blue notes, many bends, roughenings, squalls (improvisations on tone quality)
2. Work songs: functional music (kept a steady tempo for work). Usually had one leader. Used call and response, ostinatos and had form. Sung in chain gangs.
3. The cry of street vendor: developed later (post 1865) but employed characteristics of each. Used to sell produce/products.
4. When these unaccompanied vocal styles began to be accompanied by harmonic instruments such as the banjo and the guitar this created the Blues.
B. Sacred music:
1. spirituals: hymns set to music. Used call and response, meter and form.
2. gospels: songs using scripture as a basis. Used meter and form.
3. Sermons: used for scriptural edification. Black preachers borrowed a practice used in Britain to overcome the problem of illiteracy in the congregation by speaking 2 or 3 lines that were then repeated back by the congregation in a technique known as “lining out”. Used call and response, improvisation, harmony and melody (homophonic texture) but had no set form.
Initially, all the music performed was vocal, with very little accompaniment from any kind of instruments. However, the availability of cheap military instruments after demobilization following the Civil War allowed many more rural and poor people to play instruments. The increasing range of instrumentation meant that African-American music grew increasingly sophisticated and by the turn of the century it was ready to give birth to a new form of music, called Ragtime. But the story of jazz still had yet to begin.
...Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers. "make a noise, " "make a noise," and "bear a hand," are the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst them. This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the southern states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the teamsters, as it was one means of letting the overseer know where they were, and that they were moving on with the work. but, on allowance day, those who visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always merry because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast, and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have never heard any songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There, I heard the same wailing notes, and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-46....
I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of these rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within a circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones, loud, long, and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for brethren in bonds.
Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York and Auburn, 1855)
The Minstrel Show: So called Plantation Melodies were often derived from authentic black songs and spirituals but turned into formal compositions by schooled white and sometimes black songwriters. It was a ritualized blend of lively music, knockabout comedy, sophisticated elegance, the reinforcement of ugly stereotypes and unabashed enthusiasm for the music and dance of the country's most despised minority. The first minstrel show was written and performed in NY in 1833 by Thomas Dartmouth Rice (Daddy Rice): Who said he overheard it being sung by a black stable hand and he named tit after him “Jim Crow”. The two stock characters were the Simpleton and the Sharpster.
and the combinations of Brass Band, Blues and Ragtime to create Early Jazz:
New Orleans in the 1800's was surrounded by swamps, subject to annual flooding, lacking in the most basic sanitation, it was a breeding ground for disease. Yellow fever went through its population 23 times between 1817-1860. Cholera and Malaria killed thousands more. As late as 1880 as many as ½ the non-white babies did not live to see their 1st birthday. Average life expectancy for the black citizen was 36, (average white citizen was 46). Despite all of this New Orleans was a fun, exciting place for most people. And music provided these high spirits.
Take a virtual tour of Jackson Square in the heart of The French Quarter. Also stop by Congo Square where slaves were permitted to perform music and dances they recalled from thier homeland. Also check out Amstrong Park a commemorative park dedicated to the great Louis Armstrong.
The Story of Storyville: (or "White Storyville" and "Black Storyville") White Storyville was on the east side of Canal St. that famous drag that seperated "downtown" where the well to-do sect lived and the "uptown" where the lower classes held sway. Speaking generally you had the downtown creoles and the uptown blacks. In downtown New Orleans you had a twenty block area set aside for legal prostitution given the moniker Storyville after the city councilman (Sidney Story) who first proposed legalization of the oldest profession in 1897. In uptown you had the black equivalent but in a smaller area. The two Storyville's formed twin hubs of a bigger pleasure district that included many of the clubs that gave early jazz musicians steady work.
It is commonly misperceived that jazz was born in the brothels of the Storyville's, but it was actually the neighborhoods surrounding the districts that did much to foster early jazz. You see the bawdy houses attracted a culture of nightime entertainment and vice that helped to relocate many legitimate businesses and as the "sporting crowd" moved in eventually this area so deteriorated it became known as "the battlefield" (the area of neighborhoods surrounding Black Storyville to be exact). It was in this area specifically that dance halls and honky tonks sprung up and the first jazz bands were to perform. Such establishments as the Union Sons Dance Hall (aka The Funky Butt), Odd Fellows and Masonic Hall, and the Eagle Saloon. In white Storyviille you had the Globe Hall, Tom Anderson's Cabaret, and Pete Lala's Saloon.
The Basis for the Blues:
1. African-American work songs (such as the field holler and work songs)
2. African-American religious music (such as gospels, spirituals and sermons)
3. The Cry of the Street Vendor
4. Early Bluesmen include: Lightnin' Hopkins, Robert Johnson, and "Blind Lemon" Jefferson.
5. The subject matter of the Blues was; hard times, the heat, loneliness, women, no home, poverty, etc... The subject matter associated with the rural south.
6. Eventually evolved into the 12-bar format based on call and response.
To learn more about these early bluesmen and to hear them
click on the picture of Huddie Ledbetter.
© Copyright William P. Gottlieb
Please visit the outstanding website dedicated to the history of jazz and Wlliam Gottlieb's iconographic photography at
Brass Bands (Marching Bands):
1. The main accompanying ensemble for dances, speeches, rally's, sporting events, picnics etc...
2. The brass band was loud enough to project over a crowd.
3. The music performed by these bands included: marches, arranged spirituals, light classical music such as waltzes, ragtimes and rural blues.
1. The first runaway hit as far as commercial music goes. Ragtime was the theme music of America entering into the 20th century. Ragtime was very popular on player pianos.This was before radio and the dissemination of the phonograph. The player piano was the "radio" of the era and ragtime was the music on the piano roles.
3. The most famous Ragtime composer was Scott Joplin (1868-1917).
4. His more famous rags include the "Maple Leaf Rag", "Mississippi Rag", and "The Entertainer". Also wrote an opera called "Treemonisha".
5. Ragtime is a piano based music. The left hand plays the bass and the harmony while the right hand plays embellished, ornamented and syncopated melodies
6. Rhythmically influenced by marching bands (copied the march rhythm) and African-American Banjo music
7. Jazz inherited Ragtime's use of syncopation and an emphasis on beats 2 and 4.
8. Ragtime was not improvisational and did not employ the "swing feel".
9. Employed elongated, strange forms ABCDAEBC etc...
Early Jazz was Dance Music:
1. Rhythm was King. The primary function of this music was to keep a steady tempo for the dancers.
2. Jazz evolved from the kinds of music being requested by dancers.
3. Because ragtime was so popular and syncopation was this music's trademark, it was adapted to other styles. This practice was originally called "ragging" a tune.
4. Small bands were called on to fill large dance halls with allot of sound. They needed to emulate the larger brass bands.
5. In trying to fill out the sound more activity was required of each player, so musicians improvised parts. This becomes the standard "Dixieland Style" of performance. (heterophony- an improvisational type of polyphony, namely, the simultaneous use of slightly or elaborately modified versions of the same melody by two or more performers)
Why Did Jazz Emerge at the Turn of the Century?:
1. It was the zenith of the popularity of the brass bands.
2. Blues was popular and musicians played instruments in a way that tried to emulate the vocal inflection of the blues singers. (Bends, smears, doits, etc... and improvisations on tone quality) When dancers requested a blues number they called it a "slow drag".
3. Was the zenith of popularity of Ragtime.
4. The progressive persecution and subsequent devaluation of the Creoles of Color's social status (Jim Crow laws) forced them to mix socially with African-Americans thus further facilitating the blending of the European (the Creole) and African-American (the black) traditions.
Spasm Bands:
Were small groups performing on street corners playing popular songs of the day on homemade instruments. A guitar, mandolin or ukulele provided the chords; a washboard, tambourine, or boom-bam - a broom handle studded with rattling metal bottle tops-provided the rhythm.
Early Jazz
By the Twenties Jazz Evolved Into:
1. Much of each performance was improvised.
2. There was a looser rhythmic feel, anticipating swing feel.
3. Musicians started to create original compositions.
4. Collective improvisation created more complex music than typical ragtime, blues and brass band music.
5. This music was even more exciting than ragtime, blues, or brass band music.
More sex please, well we’re musician’s. Rather we are musicians playing in the part of New Orleans called Storyville (mainly "Black Storyville"), named after Alderman Sidney Story, who in 1897 promoted legislation to confine prostitution to one part of town. Storyville was sufficiently well organized to have its own annual consumers' guide, The Blue Book, which listed every working woman in the city. In each Brothel musicians played to entertain the customers and take care of business.
This is the only known photograph of Bolden.
Bolden is circled.
Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) cornetist:
1.Bolden is a semi-mythical figure who is known as the founder of jazz. A laborer renowned for his inveterate womanizing, alcohol consumption, and his ability to play the cornet so loud he reportedly blew parts of the instrument off.
2. We only know his style through his supposed protege Bunk Johnson (untrue, actually) who tried to reproduce his sound in the 40’s. Bolden was the first to form a band with a brass and wind front-line and a string and percussion rhythm section.
3. Bolden set the standard in his use of melodic embellishment and invention for those to come. He created the formula that was to become the basic template of jazz to come.
4. Unfortunately for him, and for us, he smashed a pitcher on his mother-in-law’s head in 1907 and was committed to the state asylum for the insane in Jackson, Louisiana, where he died unrecognized in 1931. Read all about him in Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje.
5. A legion of imitators took up where Bolden left off. The list includes cornetists Freddie Keppard (1890-1933), Bunk Johnson (1889-1938), Joe Oliver (1885-1938) and later Louis Armstrong (1897-1971), as well as clarinetist Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) and ragtime pianist Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941) - all began thier careers in the bars and brothels of Storyville (well, really Black-Storyville called "The District").
By 1917, as the US enters into WWI jazz makes it onto record. But before you celebrate the triumph of black culture in New Orleans, two small wrenches must be thrown. One, the first record wasn’t made in New Orleans but in New York. Two, the five members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band, despite being good ole New Orleans boys, were all white. So what’s going on here?
Let’s back track a year to 1916. Jazz had reached a critical mass, with white musicians getting in on the act and copying the styles of the original black groups. A number of record companies were sniffing around to record this new music, but they were in the cities of the north, while the music was mainly being performed in the south, with a few exceptions. One man who was available, cornetist Freddie Keppard, was working in Chicago and New York with the Original Creole Band, refused to record lest his work be plagiarized, thus passing up the opportunity to be the first in the history books. He used to go so far as to cover his hands with a towel when he performed.
The Original Dixieland "Jass" Band:
Tony Sbarbaro, Nick La Rocca, Yellow Nuñez, Eddie Edwards, Henry Ragas.
The Original Dixieland "Jass" Band: The ODJB began life as Johnny Stein’s Dixie Jass Band, five white men playing in the same frontline-and rhythm section format established by Buddy Bolden.
1. Jass was the original word. Originally a slang term connoting fornication or something erotic. The s's were changed to the z's to avoid the negative connotation.
2. ODJB was comprised of white New Orleans musicians (therefore, derivitive musicians) who got together in Chicago and made the first recording of "Jazz" in New York for Victor (after a failed trial session for Columbia).
3. SThe ODJB sold a million copies by the late 30's. They were extremely popular.
4. Was this really Jazz? The controversy centers on the fact that we don't know how much was improvised during the recording, if any at all.
5. As was true of much of this style of music by this period, much of the embellishments had been memorized prior and were repeated in every performance.
6. This recording doesn't have the rise and fall of tension associated with the "swing" rhythms we expect from Jazz. Even though it is replete with syncopations (from the ragtime influence).
7. This is not the original jazz band despite the name. It is just the first recording and a good example of what was to be heard in New Orleans in1917.
8. The founder was cornetist Nick LaRocca (1889-1961). The instrumentation was cornet, clarinet (Larry Shields), trombone (Eddie Edwards), piano (Henry Ragas) and drums (Tony Sparbaro).
The Great Migration: Blacks making a mass move to the north to escape the extreme poverty and the ever increasing oppression of the Jim Crow era south. Many moved to Chicago, and with them followed the musicians.
The Chicago Scene:
1. In 1917 America was involved in WWI and the navy had a strong contingency of troops stationed in New Orleans.
2. The government closed Storyville (the red light) district to keep troops in line.
3. Musicians had to go elsewhere to play their music. A lot went to Chicago.
4. The music that was performed in New Orleans from 1900-1920 was never recorded, therefore we have never heard it.
5. Much of the music known as the New Orleans style was recorded in Chicago.
6. We know of its sound only through interviews and early recordings that emulated this style.
7. The style that gained popularity in Chicago moved away from collective improvisation of the New Orleans (or Dixieland) period and towards improvised solos.
8. These smaller groups (or combos) worked because of the clearly divided parts. Each instrumentalist had a respective role that carried over from the brass band. These were: Trumpet-melody, Clarinet-busy figures in support and Trombone-simpler figures staying around chordal tones.
9. In Chicago we have much of the first recordings of Jazz by black musicians from New Orleans, in the Dixieland style that featured collective improvisation.
10. This style of group improvisation was already on the wain in the 1920's.
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band:
3. King Oliver gave many star musicians their start. Including: Louis Armstrong, Baby and Johnny Dodds-drums and clarinet, Bud Scott-Banjo, Honory Dutchrex-Trombone and Lil' Hardin-piano.
The Chicago School:
1. Three categories of musicians in Chicago:
A. Transplanted Black New Orleans musicians.
B. Transplanted White New Orleans musicians (The New Orleans Rhythm Kings).
C. Young white musicians in Chicago who emulated the N.O. style.
Coincidentally many of these musicians came from the same high school
and they include: PeeWee Russell-clarinet, Mezz Mezzroe, Bud Freeman,
Mugsy Spanier-reed players, Eddy Condone-guitarist, Jimmy McPartland-trumpet,
Gene Krupa-drums and Benny Goodman-clarinet.
2. Eventually these three groups mixed with New York musicians.
3. By the 1930's most moved from Chicago to New York.
Why was Chicago the place for Jazz?
1. There was a large blue collar working population that needed to divert it's attention after work.
2. This music was performed in bars (speakeasy's).
3. Show Halls and variety shows (vaudeville or burlesque).
4. Dances.
Firsts and Changes in Jazz from the Chicago School:
2. Instrumental changes:
A. The trumpet comes to the forefront.
B. The clarinet is replaced in popularity by the sax.
C. The tuba was replaced by the string bass.
3. In Chicago we see the serious Jazz master evolve (Louis Armstrong). Jazz looses the circus atmosphere associated with its beginnings.
Earl "Fatha" Hines (1903-1983):
1. Earl Hines was a very influential pianist who recorded important jazz classics in the late 1920's with Louis Armstrong.
3. Was a very forceful player. Needed to be loud so he could be heard over the ensemble. He played so athletically that it was common for him to break strings.
4. He is remembered for his brassy, rough sound.
5. He phrased like a trumpet player, even stopping where a trumpet player would normally catch his breath. He was also a master of walking tenths, octave voiced lines in the right hand and flowery embellishments.
6. This style was called horn-like because of these traits.
7. He was a master at all of these styles: stride style, walking tenths, horn-like lines, flowery embellishments, octave voiced piano lines, tremolo, stop-time solo breaks for the right hand, double-time and highly syncopated right hand rhythms. Listen to JSDC.
James P. Johnson (1894-1955):
1. Born in New Jersey he was part of the East Coast tradition. Essentially a ragtime based piano style that developed at the same time as Dixieland Jazz, primarily performed in the Honky-Tonks of Harlem.
2. One of the only players who was able to successfully make the transition from ragtime to Jazz.
3. Like Earl Hines he also made influential broadcasts on the radio.
4. Known as the "father of the stride piano".
5. Johnson won many informal piano contests in Harlem. He had a very broad style. It sounded like a whole band was playing. (called "orchestral voicing")
6. His virtuosity, speed, and dexterity have become legendary.
8. His was the first piano based music to swing.
9. He was a very accomplished musician. He wrote 230 pop tunes, 19 symphonic works, and 11 musicals.Johnson was the composer of "The Charleston" for a show called "Runnin' Wild".
The Star, the Innovator, the man who turned jazz from pure entertainment into one of the major 20th-century art forms. Some achievement for the son of a prostitute, deserted by his father at birth, born in a shack and brought up in poverty.
1. Armstrong is alternately known as the "Father of Jazz" or just simply "Pops".
2. Born on July 4th 1900, in New Orleans (atleast that's what he though t- He was actually born on August 4th 1901) Louis sang on the streets as a boy. In 1913 he was admitted to the Colored Waifs Home for shooting a gun into the air on New Years Eve. In the home he learned the trumpet, and within four years he was challenging every trumpet player in his home town. From Freddie Keppard to Joe Oliver, his first father figure, whom he replaced in Kid Ory's band in 1919. In 1922 Oliver (now King Oliver) invited Louis to join him in Chicago to play second cornet (he switched to trumpet for its increased range and power in 1926).
Louis Armstrong's Hot Five
3. In 1925 already a recording star and very much in command of his instrument, Louis began recording with his Hot Five and Hot Seven bands. These albums produced masterpieces such as "Cornet Chop Suey", "Potato Head Blues" and "West End Blues". This single handedly turned Jazz into a soloist's art form and set new standards for musicians (not just trumpet players) worldwide.
4. These bands featured Johnny Dodds, Kid Ory and now Lil' Hardin Armstrong (now married to Louis) until she was replaced with Earl "Fatha" Hines.
5. His playing on these albums becomes a model for the swing era that was to follow.
6. Armstrong's historic contributions include:
A. Solo improvisation. He was the first great jazz soloist. His intelligently developed and
musically effective solos eclipsed the notion of group improvisation.
B. Rhythmic Refinements:
1. He abandoned the stiffness of ragtime.
2. He employed swing 8ths better than any musician of his time.
3. He used "rhythmic displacement" or the syncopation of selected phrases. (Placing them
slightly behind the beat.)
C. He was a great musical architect. He simplified his music, polishing each phrase to perfection, while keeping his strength for the knockout punch.
D. He played with a superb sense of drama. The pacing was always carefully calculated, allowing the solo to build to the climax.
E. He created new melodies in his improvisations not relying on the tunes original melody for ideas.
F. He was a virtuoso trumpet player. He peeled off top C's as easily as breathing (this was unheard of previously) and pulled out technical tours de force which never degenerated into notes for their own sake.
G. He extended the vocabulary for the Jazz soloist.
H. He influenced popular singers with his vocal styles.
I. And for good measure he invented the "scat singing" style when he dropped his music during a recording session ("Heebie Jeebies").
Prohibition began on Jan. 16th 1920 and ended by congressional repeal in 1933. The night it ended 1.5 million barrels of beer were legally consumed in the US. Prohibition jump-started the Jazz Age. As songwriter Hoagy Carmichael put it, the 1920s came in "with a bang of bad booze, flappers with bare legs, jangled morals and wild weekends." According to novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, during Prohibition, "The parties were bigger…the pace was faster…and the morals were looser."
At the stroke of midnight, on January 16th, 1920, America went dry. There wasn't a place in the country (including your own home) where you could legally have even a glass of wine with your dinner without breaking the law. The 18th Amendment, known as the Volstead Act, prohibited the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol in America. Prohibition lasted for thirteen years.
The idea behind Prohibition was to reduce crime and poverty, and generally improve the quality of life in America-- by making it impossible for people to get their hands on alcohol. But, this so-called "Noble Experiment" was a colossal failure. People drank more than ever during Prohibition, and there were more deaths related to alcohol. No other law in America has been violated so flagrantly--by so many "decent law-abiding" people. Overnight almost everyone in the country became a criminal. Ordinary people hid illegal liquor in hip flasks, false books, and hollowed-out canes. In speakeasies, they drank bootleg liquor out of tea cups--just in case there was a police raid.
Mob-controlled liquor created a booming black market economy. Gangster-owned speakeasies replaced neighborhood saloons--and by 1925 there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. Mob bosses opened plush nightclubs with exotic floor shows and the hottest bands. At Small's Paradise in Harlem, waiters danced the Charleston, carrying trays loaded down with cocktails. Popular stars like Fred and Adele Astaire entertained at The Trocadero. And at the Cotton Club, Duke Ellington led the house band as tap dancer Bojangles Robinson and jazz singer Ethel Waters packed the house. Out in rural America, on Midwestern college campuses, kids drank "bathtub gin" and danced to the hot jazz of Bix and the Wolverines in lakeside pavilions.
Just six months after Prohibition became law in 1920, women got the right to vote. Suffragettes were on the front line of this landmark battle, but flappers became the real heroines of the Jazz Age.
Flappers were easy to spot. They were the only grown women with short skirts and bobbed hair. They dared to smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails. They turned down their hose, powdered their knees and painted their lips bright red. They hung out in speakeasies and nightclubs where they danced the Tango, the Black Bottom and the biggest dance craze of all--the Charleston--with bare arms and legs flying.
Parents, teachers and pastors were scandalized by flappers and their boyfriends. These fellows wore knee-length raccoon coats and always kept their hip flasks full of illegal gin. They blamed it all on the music.
An article in the August 1921 edition of The Ladies' Home Journal posed the question, "Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?"
Among other things, Jazz took the rap for being a "Bolshevik element protesting against law and order"--and "an influence for evil in society." But the real issue seemed to be that jazz dances inspired young women to leave their corsets at home--and loosen up!
Prohibition was a joke in most of America. So many speakeasies flowed with bootleg booze that New York was known as the "City on a Still."
One of the stars of the speakeasy racket was a brassy, bold, peroxide-blond who called herself "Texas" Guinan. She'd been an actress in silent-film westerns, a bare-back circus rider, and a singer in vaudeville before fronting speakeasies for the mob.
Famous for greeting her patrons with the line "Hello, suckers!", her clubs were raided and "padlocked" by the police so often that she wore a necklace made of padlocks as her trademark. Another trademark was her chauffeured armored car.
Prohibition broke down a lot of the old social barriers. In many New York speakeasies, rich people and ordinary folks, men and women, all rubbed shoulders. They had two goals in common--getting their hands on the best illegal liquor around, and avoiding a ride to the police station in a paddy wagon.
The stock market crash of 1929 signaled the end of the party. The Roaring 20s came to a close in economic chaos, and the lighthearted atmosphere of the Prohibition era fizzled out with the end of the decade.
In 1931, Jazz Age cornetist Bix Beiderbecke died alone in a small hotel in Manhattan at the age of 28, destroyed by alcohol. That same year, Al Capone landed in jail--for income-tax invasion, not murder or racketeering. In 1933, Prohibition was officially rescinded.
Riding down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, F. Scott Fitzgerald wept at the loss of what was to him a magical era. He said, "I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again."
©2001 by Margaret Moos Pick
Sidney Bechet (1897-1959)
1. Bechet started on the clarinet and later moved to the soprano sax.
2. He was self taught, an inveterate wanderer, he was kicked out of Britain and France for fighting. He had a gunfight at the Arc de Triumph in mid-day traffic with a band mate. For this he went to prison in 1929 and when released was expelled from the country.
3. Bechet played for Josephine Baker's famous European act called “Revue Negre”. This show was the toast of Europe and traveled as far east as Moscow to perform. It later goes on to influence the style of shows seen at the famous “Cotton Club”.
Learn more about Sidney Bechet and listen to his imitable sound just
click on the picture of him above.
Swing
1. The swing era began in the early 1930's and lasted until the late 1940's. It is sometimes called the "Big Band Era".
2. Swing era musicians wholeheartedly adopted the looser rhythmic feel and swing 8ths as standardized by Armstrong in his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings.
3. The group size was larger. The brass section alone could include up to 35 trumpets and 35 trombones.
4. The saxophone becomes common.
5. The string bass replaces the tuba and becomes the common bass instrument.
6. The high hat cymbal with the foot pedal is added to them drum set.
7. The use of collective improvisation becomes rare.
8. In general a much smoother rhythmic feel predominates.
9. Also a higher level of musicianship (instrumental proficiency) becomes the norm.
Big Band Instrumentation:
1. There are three main sections of the big band:
A. The Rhythm Section: includes guitar, piano, bass and drums.
B. The Brass Section: includes trumpets (2 to 5 members, 3 was the standard) and
trombones (1 to 5 members, 2 was the standard).
C. The Reed Section: included alto and tenor saxophones (most commonly) The members of this section were expected to play
all the reed instruments. Commonly there were 3 to 5 musicians with the leader in the middle of this section.
Big Band Arrangements:
1. With the growth of the size of bands there was an increase in the number of pre-written arrangements.
2. There were too many musicians to allow for group improvisation. Each part had to be written out to avoid stepping on each others toes, so to speak.
3. This made it easier for musicians to from band to band and just read the new parts for that band's arrangement of the tune.
4. Common arrangement characteristics include:
A. The melody was usually played in unison by the whole band (sometimes harmonized). After the statement of the melody (once through the form) the solos would start.
B. The sections of the tune form could be divided up and played by different sections of the band.
C. Call and response was used to exploit the contrast between the sections.
D. Entire tunes could be based on a "riff" (an ostinato). Each section would pass the riff back and forth. These groups were commonlt called "riff bands". This musical effect produced is antiphony.
antiphonal music: Music exploiting directional and canonic opposition of widely spaced choirs or groups of instruments to create perspectives in sound. It was developed in 17th-century Venice by Giovanni Gabrieli and in Germany by his pupil Heinrich Schutz and Roland de Lassus an example is the double-choir motet Alma Redemptoris Mater (1604). The practice was revived in the 20th century by Bela Bartok, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.
Instrument Roles
The Rhythm Section in the Swing Era:
1. Consisted of piano, guitar, bass and drums.
2. The guitar employed "rhythm guitar style" where the guitarist strummed a chord on every beat. (Freddie Green with The Count Basie Orchestra is an excellent example). The banjo falls out of favor in preference to the sounds of the guitar.
3. The tuba is replaced by the string bass.
4. The piano emulated this "rhythm guitar style" and played a chord on every beat or every other beat. Called "stride style". The pianist did not improvise lchords or lines to fit or support soloists at this time. The style of syncopated, improvised chording called "comping" that is now asssociated with jazz evolves from this style.
The Bass:
1. Stayed primarily in the background in this era.
2. Performed the time keeping duties never venturing too far a field. The bassists role was to help create a solid foundation. Soloing or improvising was not yet accepted.
3. The bassist played on beats 1 and 3. This is called "two beat style". Or the bassist played on every beat. This is called "walking" bass style.
4. Influential players include Walter Page, Slam Stewart, and Milt Hinton called the Judge known for his sure sense of tempo and his huge tone.
The Drums:
1. Drumming was limited in the swing era. The main role was that of time keeper. The drummer needed to make the beat obvious for the dancers and to lend a swing feel to the ensemble.
2. The drummer emphasized the back beat or 2 and 4.
3. Drumming was more conservative than that of early jazz. Once again the drummers did not want to interfere with the ostinatos that gave the big bands their characteristic swing feel.
4. Gene Krupa and Joe Jones were significant exceptions to the aforementioned rule. These drummers played with more intensity and flexibility.
5. Joe Jones (b. Illinios, 1911-d.1985) innovated the drum style by not insistently pounding the bass drum on every beat, which was the norm. Sometimes he omitted the bass drum completely from his rhythms. Played with a more sustained sound by utilizing the ride cymbal. (Called "ride rhythms"). Joe Jones played more cohesively with the bassist (Walter Page) than ever before.
6. Joe Jones was the finest and fastest drummer of this the classic jazz era. He was the force behind the most influential rhythm section of all time- The Count Basie Orchestra. "Basie's Rhythm section had a kind of throb going-no one instrument was louder than the other" explains Nat Pierce.
Harlem Rent Parties: The landlord's coming at the end of the week and you don't have rent, why don't you throw a party? No problem. Lay on some food and drink, get in a stride pianist or blues musicians to play some good time tunes and charge your friends for the privilege to cross your threshold. By the end of the week you've got a mighty hangover, your neighbors are still mad about the noise, but the landlords got his rent and the apartments yours-at least for another week. Many a stride pianist (like James P Johnson, Fats Waller, Meade Lux Lewis, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Albert Ammons and Duke Ellington) got work at these shindigs.
Duke Ellington (Edward Kennedy Ellington)
Born the son of a butler in Washington DC, he had little formal musical training. He learned most of his musical skills in the nightclubs of Harlem. From this start came The Great Duke Ellington, the sophisticate and snappy dresser, the composer and arranger, the first class pianist, the band leader and organizer, the entertainer and artist, the alchemist of sound, and the all around genius of jazz.
1. Ellington is known as the most creative and most prolific composer-arranger in Jazz history.
2. Ellington led the most stable and longest lived big band.
3. He wrote over 2,000 compositions with many of the finest musicians in the jazz world utilizing their strengths very effectively.
4. Ellington worked the famous Cotton Club in Harlem from 1927-31. The Cotton Club was opened by Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavy weight champion of the world in 1920, it was taken over by Owney Madden in 1922 who changed the name from “Deluxe” to “The Cotton Club”. It remained at the same venue- 644 Lenox Av. until 1936, when it closed pending relocation to West 48th St. in Manhattan, after race riots the previous year scared off most of the white clientele. The club survived in its new venue until 1940, when it closed for good. For two decades the Cotton Club personified NY nightlife. The cream of society came to its glittering theatrical revues, which provided employment for numerous jazz musicians. Star attractions were the resident house bands: Andy Preer's Cotton Club Syncopators until 1927, Duke Ellington, then Cab Calloway and his Missourians from 1931, and finally, Jimmy Lunceford's band after 1934.
Menu cover art from the Cotton Club
Ellington as a Pianist:
Duke started his career as a pianist in the early ragtime based style (stride-style). He later evolved into a very complimentary player. Had an impeccable sense of swing and was known for his unusual harmonies and voicings in his “comping” style.
Ellington as a Composer:
1. Ellington wrote many famous tunes with his band mates including; "It Don't Mean A Thing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Satin Doll", "Mood Indigo", "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", "Cotton Tail", "In A Mellow Tone" (on SCCJ) , "Perdido", "Caravan" and "Take The A Train". To hear his music click on his picture.
2. Ellington wrote hundreds of three minute instrumentals because that was the standard length of one side of a 78 rpm record. These mainly fall into two broad categories:
A. Portraits of famous personalities. For example a tune called "Portrait of a Lion" based on stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith.
B. Musical depictions of places; "Warm Valley" or "Harlem Airshaft" and feelings; the mixture of blue and translucency or "Transbluency".
3. Ellington was the first to take jazz into the format of extended works. Examples are the four concertos he wrote for members of his orchestra in 1936 and longer works such as "Black, Brown and Beige"(1943). A piece that chronicles the history of the African-American.
Ellington as an Arranger:
1. What sets apart Ellington as arranger is his ability to absorb the utterances of his hired soloists into his own compositional expression so that the two frequently become indistinguishable. He was able to show all of his players (not just the soloists) in their best light and thus always encouraging them to always be at their best.
2. Duke voiced across the sections (not just antiphonally). He wrote passages that were played by combinations of instruments from different sections of the band.
3. Duke was the first to use "wordless vocalizations" or "instrumental voice" in the jazz setting.
Diversity in Ellington's Music:
Duke was always receptive to the new sounds that he heard. This was a crucial factor in his ability to stay on top for his entire career. Styles that characterized Ellington's music include:
A. Impressionistic: Orchestral colors and shading, less swinging an example is"Transbluency".
B. Romantic Ballads: "Sophisticated Lady".
C. Exotic Sounds: "Caravan".
D. Extended concert works with little improvisation: "Black, Brown and Beige".
E. Concertos: showcasing a soloist in his band, "Echoes of Harlem" and “Concerto for Cootie” written for Cootie Williams.
F. Sacred concerts.
G. Swinging instrumentals: "Cotton Tail".
In Summation:
Duke was a very prodigious and prolific composer. Adding to what was mentioned above he also wrote several operas, ballets and musicals. His band never fell into any one category. The sounds he was able to coax from his players were always unique. No other band has been able to replicate the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Ellington's Influence:
Vast. Duke influenced the big bands of the thirties, arrangers of all music, composers of every ilk and even avant-garde musicians. His piano style has influenced many players including Thelonius Monk and Cecil Taylor.
Remembering ...Jimmy Blanton
By Scott Pollard
The saga of Duke Ellington's orchestra is an epic that lasted from the 1920s to the 1970s and has spanned the history of jazz itself. It is not only the story of a man and his music, but of the musicians that he wrote for and that interpreted his songs. Ellington prided himself on knowing his musicians' individual sounds so well that he could tailor each composition to the specific musical identity of each his sidemen. So to say that one or two musicians were standouts from the most fabled orchestra in American history is no small statement indeed. Yet one period is constantly referred to as the cream of the Ellington crop, the 1939-1941 "Blanton-Webster band." While Webster is regarded as one of the finest swing tenor sax players ever, he was not the pioneering musician that Jimmy Blanton, bassist extraordinaire, was.
Jimmy Blanton (1918-42) was the musical godfather of bebop bass. While some have argued that Benny Goodman alumnus Slam Stewart was the first bass player to make the bass a solo vehicle for improvisation, his solos were merely decorated bass lines. He lacked the tone, decoration and creativity of Blanton's solos. Blanton took the bass, which had previously been used only to keep time and lay down a basic harmonic foundation, to a new level where it became an instrument capable of horn-like solos that could hold their own in duets with Duke Ellington himself. Blanton truly turned the musical world onto the possibilities of using the bass as a melodic instrument, both bowed and plucked. Had he not passed away in 1942, most musicians agree that Blanton would have been at the forefront of the bebop movement.
Blanton's uniqueness lay not only in what he played, but how he played. Gunther Schuller describes the technique involved with producing such a distinctive and pronounced tone:
"Most importantly, he was the first to develop the lone tone in pizzicato? Blanton? maximize[d] the natural resonance of the string by using as much of the fleshy length of the finger as possible-plucking the string with the finger parallel to the string, rather than plucking across at right angles; and plucked the string at the point where it sets in vibration the maximum resonance? Instead of the usual quick-decay of ordinary pizzicato playing, Blanton could produce whole notes or half notes or other longer durations at will." (Schuller 1989: 111)
James "Jimmy" Blanton was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in October of 1918. His mother, a pianist who led her own band, started Jimmy on the violin during childhood. While studying at Tennessee State College, he switched to the string bass and started playing with the State Collegians and local bands led by "Bugs" Roberts and drummer Joe Smith. During his summer vacations Blanton played on the riverboat circuit with pianist Fates Marable's band, the Cotton Pickers.
After his third year of college, Blanton packed up and moved to St. Louis. In 1937 he joined the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra, playing a three-string bass. He continued to play with Fates Marable in the summer months, and at this time began to hone the skills that would be bring him fame later on.
In autumn 1939, the twenty-one year old Blanton started playing on a regular basis at the Coronado Hotel Ballroom in St. Louis. According to Miles Davis, Blanton sat in one night with Davis during his stint with the Blue Devils, the house band at the Rhumboogie Club. It was on this night that Duke Ellington, in town for a concert, stopped by and impressed by the abilities of the young musician who was to become his most famous bass player, signed Blanton immediately. Ellington was impressed with Blanton's advanced techniques that belied his young age. Also, by this time Blanton had developed a new bass technique of playing lines that sounded more like a horn than like a bass, which until then had been primarily for keeping time. Blanton agreed to join Ellington's group, but did not own a four-string bass at the time. Gene Porter, who played the saxophone, clarinet and flute in the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra with Blanton, served as the guarantor. Blanton shared the bass duties with Billy Taylor until Taylor left the Ellington orchestra in January 1940.
Tenor saxophonist Ben Webster had played sporadically with Ellington in 1935 and 1936, and joined as a full time member of the band in January 1940. With these two formidable musicians in place, the Ellington band entered its golden age. The Blanton-Webster years were unremarkable in many ways; the Ellington orchestra kept traveling all over the country for a mix of one-night stands and extended engagements, playing for audiences of all backgrounds and social circles. What was remarkable was the quality of the music Ellington wrote for these musicians, and how well they interpreted and recorded it. Thankfully, Ellington and his band entered into a new recording contract with Victor, and so went into the studio for ten different sessions. Advancements in recording techniques made during this period have resulted in every nuance of Blanton's playing being preserved for posterity. During this time Blanton also recorded on several dates with other Ellington sidemen, including Cootie Williams, Johnny Hodges and Rex Stewart.
While on tour with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in late 1941, Blanton became seriously ill and entered Los Angeles Hospital. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The following spring he was moved to the Duarte Sanitarium, near Los Angeles, where he was spent the last few months of his life. Jimmy Blanton passed away in Monrovia, California on July 30, 1942.
Bibliography:
Brask, Ole. Jazz People. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.1976.
Chilton, John. Who's Who of Jazz: Storyville to Swing Street. New York: Chilton Book Company. 1970.
Davis, Miles. Miles. New York: Simon and Shuster. 1989.
Feather, Leonard. Inside Jazz. New York: Da Capo Press. 1949.
Ownens, Thomas. Bebop. New York: Oxford.
Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era. New York: Oxford. 1989
Benny Goodman (b. Chicago, 30 May, 1909; d. 20 June 1986)
The story goes like this. In august 1935 the Benny Goodman band, packed to the gills with star musicians, was on tour in southern Ca. where its reception was less than enthusiastic. The band opened its show at the Palomar Ballroom in LA by playing soft dance music. The largely white audience of college students was unimpressed, so Goodman led the band into an up tempo arrangement of Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp. The audience went wild, as did the vast numbers listening on the radio, and swing soon swept the nation. The King of Swing was born.
1. Benny was the leader of the most popular big band of the 30's and 40's. He was an unlikely star, a white, Jewish, domineering clarinet player. But he was also younger than the average jazz musician and appealed to an increasingly educated audience that appreciated his band's mixture of tight, driving swing and a flawless musicianship, delivered by a leader whose love of the classics showed through in his precise intonation.
2. The bands showcased Goodman's technically impressive clarinet playing. He was the first jazz musician to pursue a parallel career in classical music, and he commissioned works from such composers as Bartok, Copland, and Hindemith, as well as performed pieces by Mozart, Stravinsky and other classical composers.
3. Benny has influenced all later jazz clarinet players.
4. Charlie Christian, Lionel Hampton (Vibes), and Gene Krupa are some of Benny's most famous band members.
5. At thirteen after studying with Franz Schoepp (who also taught Buster Baily and Jimmy Noone) Goodman was already working professionally.
6. He worked for Ben Pollack's big band from 25 to 29. Later he went on to Red Nichols's big band.
7. From there he worked in the studio for five years earning money to support his eleven siblings and his mother after his father was killed in a taxi accident.
8. Benny was first to perform jazz in Carnegie Hall in 1938. Asked how long an intermission he required, Goodman replied, “How long does Mr. Toscanini take?”
9. And in a much-publicized and important step he was the first to hire black musicians (Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton).
10. During the thirties he acquired a reputation for being a perfectionist and among musicians for being "difficult". He might have been a control freak and a perfectionist, and many musicians left his band after arguments, but he was also brave enough to hire black musicians at a time when mixed-race groups were frowned upon.
11. By the 1940's he had rebuilt his orchestra and expanded his repertoire to include bebop and classical/concert hall types of music.
Quintette du Hot Club de France
Django Reinhardt (1910-53) and Stephane Grappelli (1908-97) Other than the US, the country in which jazz put down its strongest roots was France. With a tradition of nightclubs and cabaret, as well as a degree of racial tolerance, France was more receptive to the brash new music than the more conservative Britain. In 1932, a group of jazz fans formed Europe's first jazz club, the Hot Club de France. At first it was just chat and records, but in 1934 the club decided to promote its own jazz quintet. One of the guitarists was Reinhardt, the violinist was Grappelli.
1. Both men couldn't be more different. Grappelli was a middle-class Parisian with classical training. Reinhardt was born a gypsy in Belgium and was entirely self-taught. Grapelli was urbane and easy going; Reinhardt was difficult, undisciplined, and unpredictable but also an innovator of genius.
2. One night in 1931 in a smoky cafe in Montparnasse, Django Reinhardt and the pioneering jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli came face to face. Grappelli, remembering that first meeting, said,” I was on stage and seeing this dark face in the crowd staring at me very intently made me nervous. At first I thought he was a gangster who didn't like my music. But of course, it was Django. For myself I can say we hit it off together perfectly. He was the most marvelous improviser I ever heard."
3. When Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli appeared together on stage they were a study in opposites. Grappelli often wore an elegant white jacket that accented his slim, aristocratic figure. Django Reinhardt, on the other hand, had the physical presence of a football player. He wore workman's boots on stage with his pants legs hoisted up to show his bare legs. He had powerful wrists and hands--and after about six months any guitar he played would have holes in the fingerboard.
4. In a time when big bands were all the rage the Quintette du Hot Club de France was a huge success.
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Please visit the outstanding website dedicated to the history of jazz and Wlliam Gottlieb's iconographic photography at
Django Reinhardt (1910-53)
Born in a horse-drawn wooden carriage in Belgium in 1910, he was the illegitimate son of a circus clown. His mother was so dark-complected that they called her Negros.
He moved back and forth through Western Europe as a boy, trying to keep out of the line of fire during WWI.
1. In 1946, while back in his caravan he received a wire from Ellington inviting him play concerts with his big band. Despite the unreliability of Reinhardt's traveling methods, he made to the US (his first question, stepping off the boat, was reportedly “Where's Dizzy Playing?” He played for the first time on electric guitar during the successful tour.
2. Reinhardt died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. He was sitting on the terrace of his local bar sipping some coffee after a 3 mile walk in the heat and humidity because it was Saturday and there were no taxis. Also because it was Saturday there was no doctors available he eventually was taken to hospital were he died the next day. He was buried on May 19th in a small cemetery in Samois-sur-Seine. The world lost the greatest guitarist of that era. But fortunately for us this illiterate, unpredictable and mysterious Gypsy made over 850 recordings during his extremely varied musical career.
3. Together Grappelli and Reinhardt changed the way people thought about how the guitar and violin could be used in Jazz.
Art Tatum (b. Toledo, Ohio, 13 Oct. 1909; d. 5 Nov. 1956)
1. Art was virtually blind from birth, he studied piano as a youth and began gigging in Toledo and Cleveland as a teenager.
2. Like no other performer in the history of the jazz piano, Tatum summarized everything that preceded him stylistically, and did so in a supercharged manner which opened the doors not only for succeeding generations of pianists but all jazz musicians.
3. He still stands as one of the most impressive and energetic jazz pianists of all time.
4. The chief source of Tatum's style was the boundless invention that went into his reworking of standard material.
5. He was always unpredictable. Tatum was known more for being a "flamboyant arranger" than an improviser. He was able to take familiar tunes and constantly hint at the underlying theme while continuously decorating it.
6. He was known for his incessant rhythmic variations and the indulgence of his musical tangents. This could change the rhythmic feel or the key of a passage in mid-solo.
7. Was a master at stride-style and horn-like lines. His embellishments could be quite florid and ferociously fast.
8. Was a master at adding or changing harmonies in the middle of a tune ("chord substitutions" or "alternate changes").
9. He was able to modulate to several far reaching keys within one phrase and successfully get back to the original key. ("playing out"). Numbers 8 and 9 greatly influence modern jazz, specifically the neophyte Be-Boppers.
10. Tatum's complex runs have been memorized and copied by hundreds of pianists.
11. His influence on jazz was enormous. His harmonic innovations incorporating the upper intervals of 9ths, 11ths and 13ths and his concept of "substitute changes" influenced many forward thinking saxophonists such as Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and later John Coltrane.
12. He became and still is the master pianist everyone tries to emulate. Pianists that he influenced were Bud Powell and Lenny Tristano.
13. He died of uremia.
Friends remember Art Tatum:
Sadik Hakim remembered hearing Charlie Parker play with Tatum in Chicago:
After his gig in the Loop, Tatum would come down to a club on the South Side, drinking beer after beer and playing for five or six hours. All the piano players in the city would be there. I remember Bird telling me then, "I wish I could play like Tatum's right hand."
Roy Eldridge remembers:
When Art first came here (New York), I was working at Small's, and me and Jo Jones carried him down to the Rhythm Club (the top Harlem jazz club) and we played two tunes before we cut him loose. Fat's was playin' pool, and Fletcher and them was playin' cards. All of a sudden, boom, we all dropped out and let Art go. Boy, you could hear a rat piss on cotton! That sumbitch tore that Rhythm Club up!
I laugh at these cats that say, "Well, I finally got a decent piano." He played any of those pianos: he'd play it if it only had four keys on it!
What Louis Armstrong was to the trumpet, Coleman Hawkins was to the tenor saxophone. Before him was almost nothing because the tenor sax was a rare instrument in the early jazz world, its clumsy, ungainly sound out of place alongside the lithe trumpets. After him, the tenor was the defining sound of jazz, its emotional tone and majestic presence is what most people think jazz is all about.
1. Hawkins was the first important tenor saxophonist.
2. He single handedly brought popularity to an instrument that was earlier considered a novelty. "He's the person who woke you up and let you there was a tenor saxophone," said Lester Young.
3. He had a deep, husky and strong tone which becomes the model for later players.
4. In 1924 he joined Fletcher Henderson's band and stayed for ten years. During which time Hawkin's dressed in the most expensive clothes, drove the fastest cars and quickly established himself as the Attila of the jazz saxophone, ruthlessly cutting down anybody rash enough to challenge him.
5. In 1934 he became disillusioned with Henderson's band and quit. Opting for a five year tour of Europe. Away from the American downgrading of his race, Hawkins cut the dash he felt he deserved, but in 1939 he leisurely returned to Chicago.
6. While he was re-establishing his saxophone supremacy he recorded "Body and Soul" which becomes a prototype for jazz sax. It is imbued with subtly amended changes, graceful swooping improvisations and faultless execution it became a classic to be placed next Armstrong's "West End Blues".
Body and Soul: One of the most popular and recorded of all American popular songs-more than 3000 versions by the time it celebrated its 50th birthday in 1980, another 1,000 or so since then. The song became a famous show stopper in a 1930 Broadway musical review called Three's a Crowd, but it was nearly cut from the show at the warm-up performances in Philadelphia. Johnny Green's music is complex with three key changes in both verse and chorus and much winding through major and minor keys, but it is the perfect vehicle for the jazz soloist, even if Coleman Hawkin's famous version suspended the melody almost entirely.
7. He was one of jazz's first theorists. He was interested in chord progressions and "alternate changes". Because of these concepts and his ability to realize them he was known as a harmonic improviser rather than a melodic improviser. (He improvised on chords rather than just the melody, playing double-tempo runs of notes and quick fire triplets and arpeggios (the notes of the chord played together with blinding melodic improvisation. He fashioned a solo that soared above the band in definitive fashion.)
8. He continued playing through the fifties and sixties primarily with smaller groups and his style still influenced many players including John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins.
9. Although his heavy-toned, gruff saxophone occasionally seemed to take second place to such young virtuosos as Stan Getz or Zoot Sims, there was never any serious doubt that he was still the finest exponent of the instrument.
10. Known as first to record Bop in 1944. In 1947 he recorded an unaccompanied improvisation called “Picasso” that was very technically demanding, even for bop standards. In 1962 he had a commercial success with a cross over Bossa Nova album. Some important players who followed in his footsteps were Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins.
10. Hawkins was one of those rare players whose style keeps evolving as they grow older. Though he was rooted in the music of the swing era, he was in at the birth of bop music in the early 1940's and recorded with the stars of that style, his was the first bop recording ever. Meetings with old tenor stars such as Ben Webster and new ones such as Sonny Rollins kept him ahead of the pack, while a bossa nova album recorded in 1962 proved his commercial antennae were still in good order. With few exceptions jazz tenor saxophone begins with the Hawk.
11. He died in 1969 "worn thin from a permanent diet of lentil soup and brandy" Jazz: The Rough Guide
The most famous of all jazz labels was formed as a direct result of the Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie hall. The concert was set up to showcase the talents of the great boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons (1907-49), Meade Lux Lewis (1905-64) and Pete Johnson (1904-67). Boogie-Woogie's heyday was in the 20's when rent parties and honky-tonks flourished, but the depression swept all that away, and boogie-woogie disappeared from view. Until Dec. 23rd, 1938 when record producer and entrepreneur John Hammond (1910-87) promoted the Spirituals to Swing concert. He searched out Ammons and Lewis, both working as taxi drivers in Chicago. In the audience of the concert was Alfred Lion (1908-87), a refugee from Nazi Germany. So enthused was he by the three Boogie-Woogie pianists, he set up Blue Note Records and on Jan. 6th, 1939, he recorded Ammons and Lewis in four solos each and two duets. Only 50 of 78-rpm discs of the session were made, but soon the label had its first hit with Sidney Bechet's version of Summertime. What distinguishes the label, which survives to this day, was its attention to recording quality - safe in the hands of Rudy Van Gelder after 1953, and the style of its record sleeves, designed and often photographed by graphic designer Reid Miles. For many, Blue Note is the epitome of jazz chic.
Vocals, composer.
b. Baltimore, Maryland, 7 April I 9 I 5, d. New York, 17 July
1959.
"Billie Holiday's early life is obscure, but was apparently hard: she was confined to an institution as a victim of childhood rape and became a prostitute in her early teens. By November 1933, when she made her first sides with Benny Goodman ("Your Mother's Son-In-Law" and "Riffin' The Scotch"), she had discovered that although she was "scared to death'' of recording, singing could save her from drudgery or whoring. In July 1935, when she made her first great records with friends like Buck Clayton, Lester Young (a platonic soul-brother) and canny Teddy Wilson, the thought of release from such a life still rang joyously in her performances.
She signed with Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong's manager, in 1935 and toured with Count Basie in 1937 and with Artie Shaw (briefly her lover) in 1938. But she bitterly resented the second-class treatment that Shaw, as an ambitious leader, was prepared to tolerate, and from1939 turned herself into a solo act at Barney Josephson's multiracial Cafe Society club. Despite a hit with "Strange Fruit", an anti-lynching song which struck like a hammer on ears attuned to Ella Fitzgerald's satchel-swinging "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", Billie was ill equipped for a solo career: her progress through a series of nightclubs - Famous Door. Kelly's Stables. Billy Berg's Downbeat, Spotlite and a variety of others - was accompanied by a heroin habit, drinking problems and a desperate search for a husband/father figure. With a strong sexual appetite and plenty of money to spare, the still child-like Billie was easy prey for a succession of men who came, used her and went: Jimmy Monroe, trumpeter Joe Guy a practiced lowlife John Lew, finally Louis McKay, a Mafioso heavy - she was helplessly dependent on each in turn. As early as the mid-1940s it was easy to hear that her spontaneous talent was being remorselessly eaten away: "Billie is not singing her best, nor does she sing often enough" scolded Down Beat magazine in 1944, by which time she was visibly addicted to heroin. In 1947, after being arrested for drug use, she took a cure in Alderson Reformatory, West Virginia. The resulting notoriety terrified her: by the time she played a packed Carnegie Hall Concert in 1948 (to a thunderous ovation) she was beginning to believe that audiences came to see the scars on her arms (which she hid under long gloves) rather than to hear her voice.
Billie desperately wanted to work in films and in 1947 had played a maid in New Orleans: servant roles were of course standard for black performers, but Billie must have felt the indignity of the role and resented the white people who made her feel guilty for accepting it. She responded with the film's only worthwhile performance, taking out her resentment on-set but off-camera.
By 1952, after taking a second cure at Belmont Sanatorium, she was working clubs again and had signed with Norman Granz, who was to record her regularly for five years. But she was out of sympathy with the intellectualism of modern jazz, and lacked the musical knowledge to discuss the problems created by rhythm sections who professed ignorance of her tunes: no wonder that her voice sometimes sounded like a sad caricature. Granz summed up the stance that her admirers gladly adopted: "It was obvious to me that she was less of a singer physically - but you have to use a different set of values. A singer's range might become more narrow - but their understanding might become more profound."
In 1953 Billie's Comeback Story" was networked on TV; in 1954 she toured Europe including Britain; by 1956 when her bitter-flavored autobiography Lady Sings the Blues was published, she was working harder than ever. In 1957 a TV jazz show reunited her with Lester Young, and the momentary vision is still terribly moving, as the disarmingly youthful-looking singer nods approval at Young's languid lines. By 1958 she was living alone near Central Park, New York, with her chihuahua (she had recently been refused permission to adopt a child and sometimes fed her dog from a baby's bottle). On 31 May 1959 she collapsed and was taken to hospital where, on her deathbed, she was arrested for possession of narcotics.
Conclusion: At her peak, in the swing-happy 1930s, Billie Holiday was unquestionably the greatest jazz singer of all, an avant-garde artist who polished unremarkable popular songs into iridescent gems. She ecstatically re-created their melodies in a small, worldly voice that, in Barney Josephson's words, "rang like a bell and went a mile"; she conveyed a vulnerability which, as a kind Johnny Mercer once said, "made you feel she needed help"; and she projected an intoxicating sensuality when she sang lines like "If you wanna make love, OK" in "Too Hot For Words". Outwardly she was strong, proud and independent (only the young Lena Horne shares that defiant tilt of the head), but unlike Horne - and other contemporaries who, like Ethel Waters, fought the system on its own doubtful terms - Billie's insecurities led her to drink, drugs and a succession of men, making her an easy target for a witch-hunting white society. Naive as it normally is to equate singers with their songs, Billie's numbers bear out her own assertion that "anything I do sing, it's a part of my life". Songs like "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?)'' (A long-time stayer in her act), "Don't Explain'' (her hymn to forgiveness for male infidelity), and "T'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" all speak directly of the problems that quickly devastated her." Margaret Moos Pick
Louis and Billie
Billie learned to her craft by singing along with Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong records. She said she loved Bessie's powerful voice but the first time she heard "West End Blues" recorded by Armstrong's Hot Five she knew that was the sound for her.
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
A life of lucky breaks, although Ella Fitzgerald (1917-96) would be the first to point out she had worked hard to achieve them. Her first break came in 1934 when she won a talent contest at that notoriously critical venue, the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, and was promptly hired by Chick Webb to sing in his big band. She became a celebrity of the Savoy Ballroom-the main New York swing venue-and had a huge hit in 1938 with the lightweight “A-tisket, A-tasket”. Her second break came in 1939 when Webb died and Ella, barely 22, took the band over and ran it until it folded in 1942. The third was her association with the Jazz at the Philharmonic tours after 1946, which made her solo career, but it was her fourth, in 1956, that elevated Ella into a class of her own.
Ella Fitzgerald is the quintessential American jazz singer, considered one of the greatest singers in jazz history. Fitzgerald achieved spectacular success in bringing jazz into mainstream American culture and was rightly dubbed the “First Lady of Song.” In a career that spanned almost 60 years, she demonstrated the artistic potential in American popular songs, created a body of enduring recorded art, and influenced countless other singers through her jazz stylings and scat singing (improvised nonsense syllables usually sung to instrumental accompaniment).
Born in Newport News, Virginia, Fitzgerald moved as a child with her mother and her stepfather to Yonkers, a suburb of New York City. At first she hoped to become a dancer. But she loved the singing of Connee Boswell, who performed in a vocal trio. As a teenager, she began winning amateur talent contests at the Harlem Opera House and its nearby competitor, the Apollo Theater, in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. This recognition led to an invitation to sing with noted drummer and bandleader Chick Webb and his band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Upon Webb's death in 1939, Fitzgerald became leader of the band. Then, in 1941 she went out on her own during a time when other big-band singers-Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, and others-were also stepping into the limelight. By the 1940s Fitzgerald had established the style that made her famous: a warm and lovely voice, unfailingly accurate pitch, superb clarity of diction, and an irresistible sense of swing.
Fitzgerald sang many song styles with authority. In the 1950s she began a series of songbook recordings, in which she interpreted classic songs by Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and other American composers and lyricists. These recordings set high standards for the interpretation of such ballads as “The Man I Love” and “How Long Has This Been Going On?” Noted for her virtuosic scat singing (prominently featured in “How High the Moon” and “Mack the Knife”), she used her voice with all the improvisatory genius of the finest jazz instrumentalists. She also made collaborative recordings with such well-known bandleaders as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie, among others.
By the 1950s Fitzgerald was becoming an international celebrity. She topped one musical popularity poll after another and made several television appearances. By the 1960s Fitzgerald's graceful public presence and musical artistry had made her a beloved figure on the American cultural scene. She earned 14 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1967), a number of honorary doctorates, and other prizes, and she gave generously to charitable and humanitarian causes. In 1997 Fitzgerald's son and attorney presented her archives to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., which in 1998 opened an exhibition on her life and contributions.
"Fitzgerald, Ella," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.©
Women singers:
Unfairly, the most famous women in jazz are all singers. Of these, Ella Fitzgerald is renowned, but she had her rivals. Sarah Vaughan (1924-90) had perfect intonation and real improvisatory skills, but her effortless mastery could sometimes become self-parody. Dinah Washington (1924-63) suffered in different ways, for her skills at rhythm and blues, pop, gospel, jazz, and ballads meant many overlooked just how good she was, whatever she sang. Her show stopping performance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, captured on Jazz on a Summer's Day, set the record straight. Carmen McRae (1922-94) was a late starter, recording nothing under her own name until 1954, but making up for it with fine records featuring her bop-influenced style and smoky delivery. Newer on the block was Betty Carter (1929-98), whose stage performances were legendary for the relationship she established with her audience and her feminist slant on a song.
Count Basie (b. Red Bank, NJ, 21 Aug. 1904; d. 26 April 1984)
Less equals more tells you everything you need to know about the kid from Red Bank, NJ. While other pianists spread notes all over the keyboard, Basie was a minimalist, an certain chord here, a few well chosen notes there, a short melodic phrase from the right hand, a quiet stab from the left hand, was all he required to stamp his mark on his surroundings. Sparse to the point of meanness, his playing was light, airy, and swung like the Sammy Sosa.
1. Bill Basie became a professional musician in the early 1920's, playing in Ashbury Park, NJ and in New York City clubs. He toured with a vaudeville act (Gonzelle White) from 1925-27 and finally settled down in Kansas City.
2. In the early thirties Basie performed with the Bennie Moten Band. (Lester Young, Walter Page, Hot Lips Page and later Joe Jones joined Moten's band among others). Bennie died in 1935 and Basie took over and signed his band to a national recording label. The band became a 12 piece with addition of guitarist Freddie Green and saxophonist Earl Warren.
3. As a pianist Basie was informally trained by Fats Waller (who was exactly 3 months older than Basie). He had a strong foundation in the stride piano style associated with the east coast tradition (Waller) as evidenced by some of his early recordings with Moten. But the style forever associated with him is much more streamlined by comparison. His style is inextricably linked with his outstanding rhythm section, especially the Green-Page-Jones combination that was together from 1937-1949. Basie is known for his impeccable taste and rhythmic feel and keen use of musical space.
The Count Basie's Rhythm Section
1. First section to consistently swing in a smooth relaxed way. This seminal section included Joe Jones, Walter Page, Freddie Green and Count Basie.
2. Some of the qualities exuded by this ensemble that were influential are:
A. An excellent and solid sense of tempo
B. A consistent and never forced rhythmic swing
C. A quiet and relaxed manner of playing always associated with a feeling of ease
D. There was an even amount of stress on every beat instead of pushing every other beat as was common in the swing era.
E. Emphasized buoyancy rather than intensity.
Walter Page "Big One" (b. Gallatin, Missouri, 9 Feb. 1900; d. 20 Dec. 1957)
1. Walter was the first master of the walking bass style which he helped develop.
2. He was the first strongly articulated and well heard bass sound. The bass was no longer relegated to the background in the Basie outfit.
3. Walter played each beat evenly.
4. He meticulously balanced his sound with rest of the rhythm section.
5. Joe Jones said: "...without him I wouldn't have known how to play drums. For two years Page told me how to phrase. And aside from that he told me a few of the responsibilities that go into making up an artist's life."
6. In Dec. 1957 on his way to a TV Sound of Jazz recording he collapsed, was rushed to the hospital and died shortly thereafter.
7. Walter Page was the last of the great pre-Blanton bassists and a force in the greatest jazz rhythm section of all time.
Freddie Green (b. Charleston, SC 31 March 1911; d. 1 March 1987)
1. Freddie went to NY city as a teenager and worked by day as an upholsterer and at night he played in the jazz clubs. He was discovered by John Hammond and introduced to Count Basie. Basie reluctantly auditioned him in a dressing room and the next day Green was on the band bus heading for Pittsburgh. He stayed for thirteen years, cementing the Basie rhythm section.
2. He played an unamplified guitar, utilizing steady, propulsive swing rhythms.
3. He played in close coordination with the bass and drums.
4. In later years when less reliable timekeepers joined the band Freddie's metronomic guitar playing was his leader's rock.
5. It was a shock to Green when Basie's small group of 1950 excluded him: he climbed up on the bandstand one night, uninvited, and never allowed himself to be left out again.
6. Freddie Green had an affair with Billie Holliday in the forties.
Jazz drumming:
The main role in early jazz music was to make the beat obvious for dancers. This was done by marking time on the bass drum. The cymbal and snare provided punctuation and ornament. Joe Jones changed all this by using his high-hat. He transferred the basic pulse to the high-hat, leaving it slightly open to produce a light continuous sound, unlike the staccato bass drum beat of the earlier drummers. Playing four evenly stressed notes in each bar, Jones used the other drums for punctuation. He was also first at using brushes rather than sticks, this also giving his playing that light, airy fell that complimented Basie's band to perfection.
Joe Jones (b. Illinois, 7 Oct. 1911; d. 4 Sept. 1985)
1. Joe Jones was the finest, fastest drummer of the swing era and the pulse that powered Count Basie's All American Rhythm Section.
2. Joe Jones was with Basie until 1944 when he was drafted, then again from 1946-8. At this time he was a star in his own right and he branched off to start his solo career.
3. His style was looser and more self assured.
4. He played quieter and sometimes completely omitted the bass drum.
5. Joe used wire brushes and the high hat cymbal.
6. He created the sustained cymbal jazz drum sound that has continued to epitomize the jazz sound even today.
7. Quoted before his death Jones said, "As of today I don't know nobody I can talk to except Roy Eldridge, because there's nobody playing in the music business that's had the kind of experience he and I had." (from an interview in the early 1980's)
Other band members of note were Trumpeter Buck Clayton, Trombonist Benny Morton and vocalist Jimmy Rushing.
Basie's Comping Style:
1. Although he did not create it he is so thoroughly associated with comping he might as well have. Comping utilized improvised voicings and rhythms to accentuate the soloist.
2. His style was light and bouncy with syncopated interjections.
3. Basie's style was copied by all jazz pianists and by the late 1940's comping had become central to modern jazz.
Count Basie's Arrangement Style:
1. Basie's arrangements were characterized by being less elaborate and generally lighter and more relaxed than his contemporaries such as Ellington.
2. His band originated in Kansas City and these the mid-western groups were territorial bands or bands that played music that was indigenous to the area. This also becomes known as "Kansas City Style Jazz". These bands played mainly blues oriented riff tunes.
3. Commonly riff style big bands created their tunes and arrangements spontaneously during a performance or rehearsal. These tunes would be memorized by the performers. This type of tune was called a "Head Arrangement".
Lester Young, "The Prez" (b. Woodville, Mississippi, 27 Aug. 1909; d. New York, 15 March 1959)
A pork-pie hat on his head, a tenor held at an obtuse angle to his right, a strange way of talking and a totally individual way of playing, Lester Young was the bohemian high priest of hip. He was also the man unfortunate enough to play tenor sax at a time when Coleman Hawkins was on top. When Young took over from Hawkins in the Fletcher Henderson Band in 1934, he suffered the indignity of being criticized for not sounding enough like his predecessor. Fletcher's wife even played old Hawkins' records to inspire him to toughen up his sound.
1. He and Coleman Hawkins were the greatest tenor saxophonists of the classic years. Whereas Hawkins was cocksure, full-toned and full of bravado, Young was cool, light toned, laid-back and avuncular.
2. Lester practiced deliberate restraint, he like Armstrong was able to use only the most essential melodic material.
3. Lester was a member of Count Basie's band on and off through the 30's and 40's. He also played with Bennie Moten in the early 30's like Basie. He left Basie soon after and joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra where he had to deal with a certain amount of humiliation. Henderson's wife played him records of Hawkins', praising his bigger sound, and even Billie Holiday, a platonically close friend, tried to help him down this un-needed road ("We'll get us a tone"). Young bore the idiocy with characteristic patience and fortitude. "To each his own" was his favorite phrase.
4. After two more years of wandering, including a failed audition with Earl Hines, with relief he rejoined Basie's band. And once again he was accepted on his own terms. He now was able to display a kind of music he had been instructed to suppress.
5. In 1940 Young left Basie again due to a flat work patch and depression over the death of a friend. In 1944 after completing a short film for Warner Bros. called Jammin' The Blues (which was nominated the following year for an academy award), after a nights work , he was spotted by a plain-clothes army official and summarily conscripted. "It was a nightmare- one mad nightmare," he said later. Young was sent to Georgia by his racist captors and he ended up in a disciplinary center. When he emerged after an illness in 1945 he bore deep mental scars.
6. When he emerged he had to face the new world of Bebop, new recording techniques and a flock of his disciples who were achieving fame at his expense and with his ideas. He performed sporadically for the next ten years but heavy smoking and drinking affected his health and performance.
7. In 1958 he was playing the Blue Note and planning an album with Gil Evans. "He wanted to make the album, but he wanted to die more," Gil Evans recalled. "He came in from his home on Long Island and decided to stay at the Alvin Hotel, just across from Birdland. He never ate a thing. Then he got back from Paris, got on the hotel room again and had a heart attack." A few months after Lester died Billie Holliday also passed on.
8. Lester's saxophone approach was very influential. He was known to add color tones or extended chord tones instead of just arpeggiating the chord. (Like Hawkins).
9. His ability to create new easily singable melodies is unsurpassed in jazz history. He improvised long lines that sometimes continued through the turn-arounds and bridges.
10. Lester Young's influence on the younger generation of tenor players was tremendous. Hawkins' was admired by them, but it was Lester's sound, swing, and melodic conception that they took as their model. Criticized by playing too much like Lester, Brew Moore retorted "Anybody who doesn't play like Prez is wrong!"
11. Idiosyncratic in everything he did the Prez even had his own language: “Ladies” were musicians, Billy Holiday was “Lady Day”, Buddy Tate was “Moon”, Count Basie was “The Holy Main”. He coped with life by creating a monosyllabic language where “eyes” meant desire and “bells” approval.
12. Dexter Gordon (1923-89) who came to prominence in the 1940's said he once put the tenor down for two years after hearing the Prez.
The Kansas City Five Recordings
1. Combo recordings of Basie's rhythm section in the Late 1940's.
2. These recordings become the model for the succeeding generation, the Bop era.
Count Basie after the 1940's:
1. Still employed many elements of his famous All-American Rhythm Section.
2. Basie continued to play the same.
3. Freddie Green was also his stalwart companion keeping the rhythm section in the groove.
4. Drummers changed (to replace Jones) but still did not perform in the contemporary manner. They did what worked best for the Basie sound.
5. The band still maintained the unique distinction of being able to swing hard while playing soft.
In conclusion Count Basie treated the big band like an oversized combo. He placed more emphasis on simplicity and swing and less on complexity and colorful sounds.
The Demise of Swing:
1. The new music (Bop) becomes more complex. Bop uses angular melodies, chromaticism, non-duplication, polyrhythm and faster tempos. All of these traits require more from the average listener therefore making this music generally less appreciated than the earlier more tuneful pop driven swing music.
2. Economically big bands became too expensive. World War II started which also began the draft. Money was tight and less was spent on entertainment.
3. Petroleum products were hard to come by. Tires, records and gas were rationed.
4. Taxes were raised to help pay for the war machine. One tax affecting music was the "Cabaret Tax". This was an entertainment tax on bar owners which consisted of 10 cents per person per hour. Any aspect of entertainment was taxed musicians, singers, dancers etc....
5. The juke box spread in its use and many bar owners chose this new untaxable form of entertainment over live entertainment.
6. Musicians went on strike and refused to record any instrumental music until bar owners hired live musicians. Because of this there were no instrumental recordings from 1941-43.
7. Some bar owners were able to afford the combo (trios, quartets etc...) which was the size of choice for the beboppers.
8. The attitude of the musicians also changed. They were tired of the same old format and were yearning for something new and challenging.
9. The new musician wanted to be a soloist. They also did not want to pander their art and play for dancers. The new musician wanted to be listened to. Musicians of the 1940's considered their music as exciting, complex and emotive as "Classical Music" and therefore they believed it should be esteemed and appreciated in the same manner. This new music and the new musician performing this style of music wanted to be afforded the same type of respect that classical musicians enjoyed.
10. The new musician wanted to be seen as an "artist" not an "entertainer".
Bop
The new noise at Minton's Playhouse. While the world went to war, jazz stayed behind and staged a revolution. Like all revolutions it began with a few outbursts by a dedicated sect of hotshots, but soon it spread like wildfire and everyone was involved, whether they liked it or not. Most did not, even the genial Louis Armstrong, said that the new music, known as bop, had “no melody to remember and no beat to dance to.” Unlike swing which embraced its audience with open arms, bop appeared to turn its back on them. Eventually the revolutionaries won, as with all revolutions, they became the new establishment.
The seeds of the revolution were sown at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, opened by saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. When bandleader Teddy Hill took it over in 1940, he set up regular Monday night jam sessions were such notables as Dizzy Gillespie (1917-93) and Charlie Parker (1920-55) could blow with the house band, which included pianist Thelonius Monk (1917-82) and drummer Kenny Clarke (1914-85). Collectively and individually, they turned their back on the simplicities and certainties of swing and began to develop a far more complex music.
1. Developed not as a reaction to against swing but was a natural progression from the swing era.
2. Musicians studied the early greats Armstrong, Hawkins, Young, Tatum, Eldridge, Charlie Christian and the Count Basie All-American Rhythm section.
3. The first Bop musicians were Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Sphere Monk followed by Miles Davis and Bud Powell.
4. Bop was less popular than swing because it did not attract dancers. This music was meant to be listened to.
5. Bop continues to gain disciples even today.
6. Even today, jazz musicians are evaluated by how well they can improvise in the Bop style.
Bop and the War: Many musicians were called up to fight. A shortage of shellac restricted record production, and the American Federation of Musicians imposed a recording ban in protest of unlicensed broadcasting of records. Singers, unaffected by the ban, grabbed much of the market by providing sentimental lyrics a stressed out population demanded. One exception to the ban was recordings made as a part of the war effort; more than 900 records were released on V (Victory) disks exclusively for distribution to military personnel. A by-product of the ban was that the early days of bop went completely unrecorded, until the music burst onto an unsuspecting public during 1944. America had it easy. In occupied Europe both Nazis and Soviets considered jazz a degenerate music. Jazz clubs were closed, and many musicians ended their lives in concentration camps.
Bop Contrasted With Swing:
1. Bop mainly consisted of small combos.
2. There were less written arrangements than was common in the swing groups.
3. Much faster tempos on the whole.
4. Clarinet was not used.
5. Extreme instrumental proficiency was required and the norm. (virtuosity)
6. Rhythm guitar became rare. (The Freddie Green style of chunking chords on every beat was replaced by the more flexible and variable rhythms of the comping pianist).
Stylistic Differences
1. Improvisation was more complex and it contained:
a. more themes per solo (flexibility)
b. less similarity among the themes (non-duplication)
c. more excursions outside the original key (modulations)
d. much more rhythmic complexity (polyrhythms)
2. Melodies were more complex.
3. Harmonies were more complex.
4. The entire tune and the progressions associated with the tunes projected a more unresolved quality.
5. The accompaniment rhythms were more varied.
6. Comping was the style of accompaniment preferred. (Over stride-style and chord chunking)
7. The time-keeping rhythms were played by the drummers on the suspended cymbals.
8. Surprise as a musical element was highly valued.
9. In general, Bop was more agitated than its forebears.
10. Bop improvisations were fast, jagged and full of twists and turns. The rhythms employed were quick and unpredictable. This creates a dialogue between the musicians. The ability to listen to and react to the music spontaneously is the driving force behind Bop. Playing through turn-arounds and bridges becomes common. Listen to Shaw 'Nuff.
Bop Harmony
1. Added chords. Bop harmony used altered chords, extended chords and substitutions. (Tatum)
2. Color tones especially the flat fifth become standard alterations to the harmonies.
3. Common standards such as "Cherokee" and "All the Things You Are" were stretched into difficult work-outs with many varied and altered changes.
(b. Kansas City, 29 Aug. 1920; d. 12 March 1955)
If Armstrong elevated jazz from entertainment to an art form, Parker placed it firmly in the avant-garde. For jazz critic and poet Philip Larkin, Parker stood alongside Ezra Pound and Picasso as one of the high priests of modernism, playing supremely ugly music that had gone astray. Larkin strongly disapproved of this new brash style, but few now share his criticisms of jazz's finest modernist, indeed its finest musician.
1. Charlie is the important saxophonist in Jazz history and had as much a far reaching influence as Armstrong.
2. Parker dropped out of school when he was fourteen and concentrated all his efforts on mastering his instrument and watching local greats such Lester Young and Count Basie.
3. His first gig was with altoist/bandleaders Tommy Douglas from 1936-37 and Buster Smith from 1937-8. He briefly played with several more big bands including Earl Hines' from 1942-43 and Billy Ekstine's in 1944.
4. He and Dizzy Gillespie, his colleague under both Hines and Eckstine, established bop on the small group scene of New York's 52nd Street.Young Miles Davis begins to work with Parker regularly in Charlie's quintet.
Please visit the outstanding website dedicated to the history of jazz and Wlliam Gottlieb's iconographic photography at
5. Gillespie and Parker decided to go to the West Coast in 1946 and are featured at The Jazz at the Philharmonic. This was a flop. In a few months Gillespie was headed back to NY. Parker stayed and ran out of money spending it all on his drug habit. He eventually admitted himself to the state mental hospital for six months of forced recuperation from the precious ten years of his heroin addiction.
6. Bird comes out of the hospital clean and healthy and returns to NY where he dominates the Jazz scene. This is the most productive period of his life.
7. In the early 50's his career skyrockets and by the mid-50's he was a living legend. Unfortunately this also coincides with a relapse into his drug problems.
8. The later period of his life finds Parker, the greatest saxophonist of all time, unable to secure employment due to his unreliability perpetuated by his out of control drug habit. He was even barred from entering the club named after him, "Birdland". He sold his saxophone to buy drugs and in May 1953 he performed on a plastic saxophone with Gillespie, Max Roach, Charlie Mingus and Bud Powell. Even though Parker performed on a plastic sax many still consider this the finest jazz concert of all time.
9. Occasional reunions with key associates from the forties (especially Gillespie) showed him still capable of superlative playing. But his addiction to narcotics, plus a huge intake of alcohol, eventually ended his life. He died in the home of jazz benefactor Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswater. At his death the coroner mistakenly deduced Parker to be 55 years old. He was only 34!
About the lifestyle: Long before rock musicians made fools of themselves by taking copious amounts of drugs, jazz musicians were doing it to the extreme. Long hours, late nights, grueling schedules, and an erratic lifestyle led inevitably to drugs cocaine and marijuana in the 20's and 30's and heroin in the 40's. Hard drugs fueled and later exhausted Parker (who often had his horn in hock to pay for his next fix), pickled Chet Baker for life, and ate most of Billie Holiday's earnings-appallingly; she was arrested for narcotics possession on her deathbed. Mane a young musician in the 40's or 50's and you are probably naming an addict.
10. In Summation: Parker was a compulsive in everything he did, consuming vast amounts of drink, drugs, food, women, and music. By the time his body eventually gave up the struggle, he had transformed jazz by consuming its entire history and reinventing it afresh. Not by himself, but it is fair to say that without his brilliance the future of jazz would have sounded very different. Parker's skill lay in his speed of thought, his fertile mind and agile fingers enabling him to construct perfect solos at a great speed and for considerable lengths of time. Soaring across bar lines, he developed solos over complex chord changes that were harmonically advanced but sounded completely natural. He paused in unexpected places added emphasis where least expected, and changed speed as if on a whim, but each time delivering the perfect solo, with a light, bouncy touch
(ALA Lester Young) and a tone that could slice through butter. Everything he did gave the impression that it was all so childishly easy-the phrase “effortless superiority” was coined for him. The older generations of musicians were upset that their skills were no longer up to the task, and struggled to keep up. Parker's influence is felt by jazz musicians of every ilk.
Charlie's musical innovations include:
a. new ways of selecting notes that would be compatible with accompaniment chords.
b. new phrasing that lent a syncopated character to his playing.
c. methods of adding chords to existing progressions and implying additional chords by his selection of notes in his improvised lines.
d. His influence led to an overall increase in tempo, an increase in double timing and an increase in the average amount of melodic material used in improvisations. (He astonished other musicians with his melodic imagination, his unprecedented mastery of the jazz sax and his speed of improvisation).
Parker's Influences and His Sound:
1. Parker's tone was biting and dry. The tone preferred by the Kansas City style saxophonists such as Buster Smith and Johnny Hodges. He used less vibrato and had a lighter color.
2. Parker was inspired by many broad based sources including: Armstrong, Lester Young, the melodies of blues singers, pop tune melodies, traditional melodies, and themes from western art music (operas, symphonies etc...).
Parker's Tunes:
They were not melody like in the pop tune sense. They were catchy in a jazz vein. Tunes such as "Now's the Time", "Billie's Bounce", "Anthropology", Scrapple From the Apple", "Au Privave", "Moose The Mooche" and "Orinthology" etc... have become jazz standards. The music of Bop.
Parker's Impact:
Parker stands beside Armstrong as a great innovator and true genius that foresaw the direction jazz would follow. His influence is vast. Parker influenced every jazz musician that came after him. Without Charlie Parker jazz would not be what it is today.
Anecdotes:
Al Cohn tried to explain the impact that Parker had on his contemporaries:
The thing about Charlie Parker was that he was such a giant, he was so much better than everybody else. It's not like there was this guy, and that guy. There was everybody else, and then there was Charlie! You could take his solos, if you would put them on paper and analyze them, they really had substance, creativity, the way he used changes. There wasn't anybody else doing that then. He was a great influence musically, but a terrible influence in other ways.
An early humbling experience as remembered by Parker:
I'd learned the scale and learned how to play two tunes in a certain key, the key of D for the (alto) saxophone, you know, F concert. I'd learned the first eight bars of Lazy River and I knew the complete tune of Honeysuckle Rose. I didn't ever stop to think about any different kinds of keys or nothing like that. So I took my horn out to a joint where the guys, a bunch of fellows I'd seen around, were, and the first thing they start playing was Body and Soul. So I go to playing my Honeysuckle Rose and they laughed me off the bandstand, laughed at me so hard I had to leave the club.
John Welch: “I was eighteen years old and very naive. I had studied arranging with Bill Russo. I went out to South Dakota to the University there to study music and found myself really unhappy with the situation. I wrote back and forth to Bill Russo and he got me in with Lennie Tristano in New York City for lessons. So, I took the bus to New York and my first weekend in New York I went down to the village with my horn (trombone) to a club called the Open Door. There was a big sign on the window saying Jam Session - Sunday Afternoon. This was Sunday afternoon so I went in with my horn and a group was playing Blues in F. So I though, well great, I enjoy playing Blues in F. I put my case on the table, took my trombone out and just walked right up and started to sit in with them. My playing at that point in my life was influenced by George Brunies, a Dixieland trombonist, so I started playing tailgate trombone with this group. They immediately brought Blues in F to a screeching halt and the piano player said, `Cherokee in E' and took it at a tempo you wouldn't believe. I thought, well that's cool. I don't know Cherokee and I don't play very well in that key and I sure can't play that fast on trombone so, I'll sit this one out. So, I went back to the table and laid the horn down in the case on the table and sat there. Everyone was looking at me as though cancer had arrived. Finally, a guy in the audience came over and started unscrewing my horn, taking it apart and putting it away in the case. And he just looked down at me and said, `kid your obnoxious.'
The band that day at the Open Door was Bud Powell, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and none other than Charlie Parker himself!
George Wallington was the fellow who came over to my table and dismantled my horn. And after he said that, I got the message! I realized I had really done something terrible. So they broke the set and Bird came over, came right straight over to my table. I remember him turning the chair around so he was leaning on the back as he faced me. Then he started talking to me. He said, “look kid, what you were doing didn't really fit in with this group but you were doing it well. You really were laying down. That's great! And you just keep going.”
Bird was so compassionate in that moment with me when everyone else was ready to kill me. And this struck me very much. As a matter of fact, when I think of Charlie Parker I would have to say he affected me much more as a human being in my reaction to other human beings at that moment than musically.”
Sadik Hakim, whose name then was Argonne Thornton, met Parker in Chicago and began dropping by to hear him play at a job he had found at the Rum-Boogie Club:
Bird was never there for rehearsals. He always came about two or three minutes before the show hit. He'd look at the third alto part, glance at his lead part, and when the curtain came up, Bird was playing that music like he owned it, plus adding things to the part.
One night Jimmy Dorsey was playing at the Sherman Hotel in the Loop, and he came down to hear Bird. Bird's bandleader knew what was happening. He called "Cherokee", which featured Bird. Bird, of course, played like a man possessed. Jimmy Dorsey came back to the dressing room, introduced himself, and said to Bird, "Here, man, you need this much more than I do," and he gave Bird his brand new Pad less Selmer. I was with Bird the next day when he put it in pawn. I begged him not to. His own horn was a wreck, held together with tape, gummed paper, etc. This didn't matter to him.
Parker's addiction to heroin, which began when he was seventeen, created most of his money problems during his life. Although he was able to function better than most addicts, his habit increased his tendency to ignore time schedules on jobs. It forced him to put a higher priority on finding a supply of narcotics than on obligations to his employers and his side musicians, and it ate up whatever money he made, even when his price increased considerably during his years as a star soloist. He showed a friend the veins on his arm one day and said ruefully, "This is my Cadillac," and holding up his other arm, "and this is my house."
b. Cheraw S. Carolina, 21 Oct. 1917; d. 6 Jan. 1993.
1. His father was an amateur musician who played bass, mandolin, drums and piano and through him Dizzy gained a working knowledge of several instruments. However, he died when Dizzy was ten and the boy was mostly self-taught as a musician.
2. At sixteen he won a scholarship (for sports and music) to Laurinburg Institute in NC. He spent two years there playing music but not studying it. In 1935 he moved to Philadelphia, playing in small groups and a big band led by Frank Fairfax.
3. He developed fast and was soon a virtuoso soloist in the style of his idol Roy Eldridge.
4. From 1939 to 1941 he was one of the three stars of Cab Calloway's Big Band and his style was starting to develop some of the characteristics of bebop.
5. During this period he made friends with Parker and was sitting in at Minton's Playhouse, where he, Thelonius Monk, Kenny Clark and Charlie Parker where working out their revolutionary ideas.
6. He and Parker both played in Hines' and Ekstine's Big Band's in the early 40's. In May 1945 with his All Star Quintet (Charlie Parker, Al Haig-piano, Curly Russell-bass, and Sid Catlett-drums) he recorded the first full blooded bebop tracks including "Salt Peanuts", "Shaw 'Nuff" and "Hot House." These tracks shook up the jazz world with their brilliant and alien virtuosity.
7. Dizzy Changed Jazz history in three ways:
a. Dizzy created a totally original trumpet style which took virtuosity to undreamed of limits.
b. Along with Parker, Dizzy established bebop as a valid and contemporary style for both small groups and big bands.
c. Gillespie changed the way jazz musicians behaved towards one another: whereas previous generations of musicians had been reluctant to share their knowledge with up and coming players, Gillespie proselytized, taught and encouraged musicians on all instruments, drawing them into the music scene and recommending them for various jobs. His generosity and confidence in his own abilities were such that he assisted and nurtured the talents of potential rivals including Fats Navarro, Kenny Dorham, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown and later Lee Morgan.
8. His solo style reached its full glory in the mid-40's; the trumpet had never before been played with such speed such flexibility, dynamism and drama. Essentially unmatched until Marsalis.
9. Like Parker he used quotes from many different sources and was able to utilize a variety of tone colors.
His Impact:
1. Dizzy's pet phrases became the stock clichés for bebop. (A dictionary of bebop phrases.)
2. Unparalleled trumpet mastery.
3. Dizzy wrote many compositions mainly in the 1940's. These become standard bebop tunes. ("Groovin' High", "Salt Peanuts", "A Night in Tunisia", "Manteca")
4. Gillespie led a string of high quality combos and big bands featuring many great players
5. He was one of the first to incorporate Afro-Cuban music in jazz.
6. Dizy created the language of bop with new phrases and ways of matching solo notes to the accompaniment.
"Dizzy Gillespie was one of the most important figures in jazz history and like Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis; he influenced players on all instruments. There are other parallels with Louis Armstrong; in fact, Gillespie's whole career was like a magnificent extension of Armstrong's. Louis created a whole trumpet style and a complete musical language in his small group recordings of 1925-8, and then he spent the next decade refining it and polishing it, after which there were no significant changes or developments. During the 40's Dizzy created a new trumpet style and, with Parker and others, a new language for small groups and big bands; during the 50's he continued to refine his art, after which there were few significant changes.... Both he and Louis were accused by solemn jazz purists of demeaning themselves by clowning and humor in an attempt to "commercialize" their music. Such accusations betray a dismal lack of understanding. To both men humor and clowning were the natural outcome of their high spirits and the way they viewed the world, and humor is a way of distancing and dealing with an often unsympathetic and sometimes openly hostile environment...." Jazz: The Rough Guide pg. 236 by Ian Carr.
Anecdotes:
John Coltrane worked with Dizzy, and years later made this comment:
I don't make it a habit of wishing for what I don't have, but I often wish I had a lighter nature. Dizzy has that beautiful gift. I can't say, "Be happy, people." It's something I can't command. But you have to be true to your own nature.
Billy Ekstine had Dizzy in the trumpet section of his band, and remembered his clowning:
I'd be out on the stage singing, and I used to notice people laughing, or something like that. And then I'd turn around and look back at Diz, and he's just looking straight ahead. Well, all the time that I'm singing, he's doing pantomime to the audience, pointing at me saying that my teeth are false. And he's pointing saying that I'm a faggot, and that I go with him and all. And when I turn around and look, he's just looking straight up in the air.
b. Rocky Mount, NC 11 Oct. 1917; d. 17 Feb. 1982.
1. Monk was brought up in New York since he was five. He took piano lessons at age eleven and two years later he played Harlem rent parties and accompanied his mother's singing in church.
2. He studied briefly at the Julliard School and free-lanced with all kinds of groups. Mainly performing in 1940-2 with Kenny Clark at Minton's one of the breeding grounds for the new bebop music.
3. He was a regular pianist with the Coleman Hawkin's sextet from 1943-45 also in this period he played with Dizzy Gillespie's first quintet.
4. He was falsely imprisoned for drugs in 1951, and was deprived of New York employment for six years after his release.
5. He is known for his unorthodox melodies and for creating chord progressions that challenge improvisers.
6. His tunes are perfectly structured. So complete and concise that they are as perfect a jazz tune as there is.
7. Monk's music utilizes strange accents, unexpected endings, large leaps and many challenging harmonies that bebop musicians embraced as there own.
8. Monk's tunes that became standards include "Straight No Chaser", "Blue Monk", "Well You Needn't", "'Round Midnight", "Criss-Cross", "Crepescule with Nellie" "Monk's Mood", "Trinkle Tinkle"and "Epistrophy" to only name a few.
As A Pianist:
1. Monk was influenced originally by the stride-style players such as Waller, Ellington and Hines, he developed his own style which was much more economical and percussive in nature; the way in which he would analyze and develop the phrases of his own pieces in improvisation illustrated how they had been put together in the first place.
2. Monk was the most unique of all the bebop jazz improvisers.
3. He used strange clashes and strange scales (the whole tone etc.) Much of his music is unsettling.
4. Monk utilized strategic silence. Silence becomes as important as sound in Monk's creations.
5. Every concept, phrase etc. is used for maximum rhythmic effect, much like a great drummer would. His pianistic style was intense and percussive.
Although he contributed harmonically to bebop, he often criticized the beboppers for being more interested in straight ahead blowing than in exploring the ins and outs of his material. Some later soloists, in particular Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane got closer to his ideal.
Bebop Bassists:
Few bassists could copy Duke Ellington' young protégé Jimmy Blanton, but three in particular were able to not only reach that level but expand from there.
Oscar Pettiford b. Ok. 30 Sept. 1922; d. Copenhagen, 8 Sept. 1960.
1. Pettiford began on the piano, but took up the bass at fourteen, touring in his families band led by his father Harry "Doc" Pettiford.
2. In 1943 he worked with Roy Eldridge, as well as several key recording sessions with Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines and Ben Webster. In 1944 he co-led a quintet with Dizzy Gillespie. Later in his career he worked with Thelonius Monk and Art Blakey as well. After touring Europe with the Jazz From Carnegie Hall package in 1958 he settled in Copenhagen, Denmark. He worked with Stan Getz and Bud Powell until his sudden death from a polio-like virus.
4. Pettiford was in on the earliest Bop recordings and he was viewed as the reincarnation of the recently deceased Jimmy Blanton. His playing is an extension of Blanton's ideas towards melodic phrasing and soloing. "Laverne Walk" and "Trictatism" are pieces written by Pettiford and still considered test pieces for up and coming bassists. One of the greatest bass players who ever lived. (Also, the first to take pizzicato bass style and use it on the cello-early 1950's)
Charles Mingus b. Nogales Ariz. 22 April 1922; d. Cuernavaca, Mexico, 5 Jan. 1979.
1. Mingus was brought up in Watts, LA and started on trombone and cello as a child switching to the bass at sixteen.
2. Early in his career he worked with Barney Bigard (1942), Louis Armstrong (1943) and Lionel Hampton (1947-8). He moved to NY in the early fifties and began gigging with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Lennie Tristano, Duke Ellington, Bud Powell and Art Tatum.
3. Mingus idolized Duke Ellington and later in his career he successfully headlined his own big bands. Mingus was an early champion of "modal jazz" and "free jazz" (later deploring what he considered to be the excesses of "free jazz" while still reveling in the concept of collective improvisation)
4. He was a great jazz historian, his music and quotes contain tributes to such varied musician's as Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller and the Duke.
5. He was he first bassist of his generation to go beyond Blanton's style and ignore the harmonic fundamentals when soloing and to imitate saxophone and piano lines.
Ray Brown b. Pittsburgh, PA 13 Oct. 1939.
1. Brown was just nineteen when he began gigging with Dizzy Gillespie in 1945-7. He formed his own trio in the late 40's and toured with Ella Fitzgerald, to whom he was married from 1948-52.
2. Ray Brown stepped into the NY scene as Oscar Pettiford left it to join Duke Ellington. His style did not add significantly to the Blanton style other than for a more bluesy inflection in his solos. What he is triumphantly known for is his big toned, swinging and driving style that few players have been able to equal.
Bebop Drummers
Joe Jones and Sid Catlett were swing drummers who influenced the bebop drummers. Sid Catlett was able to bridge the two styles and successfully recorded and played bebop. Listen to "Shaw 'Nuff" Some important bebop drummers include:
Kenny Clarke b. Pittsburgh, PA 9 Jan 1914; d. 26 Jan 1985
1. In 1941 Clarke led the house group at Minton's with Thelonius Monk and encouraged sitters-in such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker.
2. In 1942 Clarke was briefly with the Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald bands. He was drafted and later after his service in Europe he performed with Dizzy Gillespie's big band.
3. Clarke was one of the founding members of the Modern Jazz Quartet in the early 50's. He left the group in 1955. In the middle 50's he recorded with Milt Hinton, Billy Eckstine and Charlie Parker to name but a few (he was recorded on more than 100 albums in the span of one year during this period).
4. Clarke settled in France, but continued to collaborate with many jazz greats throughout the rest of his career.
Clarke's Drumming style
1. Kenny added the frequency and the spontaneity of the kicks and prods in performance. (Syncopated percussive sounds that deviate from the repetitive timekeeping rhythms) This is where he got his nickname. "Klook" was an abbreviation of the term "klookmop", which describes a rim-shot followed by the bass drum, sounds he used as a punctuation of a soloist's statement. These were used in two ways:
a. As a type of communication between himself (the drummer) and the soloist.
b. Or as "chatter". A way to provide energetic activity that increases the excitement of a performance.
2. Like Joe Jones he did not pound on the bass drum, but played it more lightly (called "feathering").
3. Playing time keeping rhythms on the suspended cymbals was popularized by Joe Jones. It was standardized by Kenny Clarke. This led to his very legato smooth sound, described as "so marvelously alive yet effortless that fellow musicians called it his "heartbeat".
4. Kenny Clarke also wrote a number of tunes, and especially of note, he co-wrote "Epistrophy" with Monk and "Salt Peanuts" with Gillespie. (Both are built around the cross rhythm of 3 against 4, which is the source of so much of the freedom of bebop.)
Bop Piano
1. The piano was slow to catch up to the solo playing by the likes of Parker and Gillespie.
2. Pianists eventually mastered the art of comping associated so strongly with Basie. (Comping is the technique of spontaneous chording that flexibly interacts with improvised solo lines.)
3. The bebop pianists took advantage of the string-bass providing the bass lines. They were able to concentrate more on the upper register and to add colors.
4. This led to the development of new ways to utilize the left hand that becomes the characteristic style of jazz piano for the several decades.
Earl "Bud" Powell b. NY, 27 Sept 1924; d. 31 July 1966
1. Earl Powell studied European music as a child. Encouraged by Thelonius Monk he joined Cootie Williams band from 1943-45. After this period he becomes active in the 52nd Street scene and later recorded with Charlie Parker.
2. "Bud" was hospitalized in 1945, allegedly as a result of police brutality, and suffered recurrent mental instability for which he received recurrent electro-convulsive therapy in 1951-2.
3. Powell lived in Paris from 1959-64. He became ill with tuberculosis and upon recuperation he made a return to the NY scene for two months in 1964. From 1965 until his death in 1964 he disappeared entirely from view. For his funeral more than 5,000 people lined the streets of Harlem. The story of Powell's stay in Paris and his subsequent return to NY are the basis for the screenplay of the movie 'Round Midnight.
As a Pianist:
1. Powell was very influential. He was along the lines of Earl Hines and James P. Johnson for his time.
2. He copied Parker and Gillespie with his right hand and improvised in a fast bebop style.
3. Powell de-emphasized the left hand. He popularized the technique of inserting brief, sporadically placed two and three note chords that reduce the harmony to its barest minimum.
a. As Count Basie would comp for a soloist, Bud Powell created a way in which he would comp for his own solos (his right hand).
Dexter Gordon b. LA, 27 Feb 1923; d. 25 April 1990. tenor sax
1. Dexter began his career with Lionel Hampton's band at the age of seventeen. He later worked with among others Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson and Billy Ekstine. Gordon was incarcerated for drug possession from 1952-54 and 1956-60 leading to two comeback recordings which were well received.
2. After Dexter's first trip to Europe in 1962 he settled in Copenhagen where he remained for 14 years. He returned stateside in the mid-70's, again to the huge adulation of Jazz aficionados. He was virtually in retirement during the 80's until he was asked to play the lead role in the Bertrand Tavernier film Round Midnight (1986) loosely based on Bud Powell's life.
As a Saxophonist:
1. Gordon was the first bebop tenor sax player.
2. Gordon was deeply influenced by Lester Young, but his tone was deep, dark and full.
3. His solo improvisations were melodic, soulful and logical. His authoritative delivery only increased as he aged.
4. Gordon used all types of quotes from bugle calls to popular tunes.
5. Dexter liked to make firm statements and follow through with them.
6. Dexter Gordon enjoyed a long and varied career from the 1940's through the 1980's. His style became the model for later hard bop players.
The Popular Appeal of Bebop
1. With the advent of bebop jazz started to resemble classical chamber music rather than American popular music.
2. Jazz reaches the level of art music in the sense that its performance requires highly sophisticated skills and it was appreciated by a small relative elite.
3. Bop has more musicians as fans than most other types of music. The reason why might be that musicians understand and appreciate the subtle underlying complexities in the music. However, you don't need to be a musician to like bebop; in fact no understanding of music is necessary for a listener to enjoy bop jazz. The main requirement one needs is to enjoy the sounds one hears.
Why is Bebop Not as Popular as Swing?
1. By comparison, bebop was not nearly as popular as swing. when Charlie Parker died he was well known in the jazz circles but relatively unknown outside that preferential area. However, Benny Goodman was and still is a household name around the world.
2. Bebop did not have the same splashy visuals associated with it that was common place in the swing shows. There were no staged shows. no singers or dancers. this was music that was meant to be listened to intently to appreciate it.
3. Bebop musicians presented a more serious demeanor.
4. Again there were no singers involved in the formative years, hence there were no lyrics. This immediately produced a feeling of less familiarity among casual listeners. Most people want their music to simply please and entertain and do not require more than a familiar tune with a steady tempo to satisfy this need.
The Complexity of Bebop:
1. Historically, average listeners have shown they like uncomplicated music that is predictable with themes they can sing along with and remember easily.
2. Bebop is neither uncomplicated nor predictable. the melodies are catchy but in a bebop sort of way. they are not easy to follow.
3. The rhythm section also followed this trend towards more complexity and less predictability. There are more surprises in bebop not only with the soloists but throughout the ensemble. Surprise was a highly valued element in this music.
The Danceabilty of Bebop:
1. People did not dance to bebop. Some reasons why might include any or all of the following:
a. too fast
b. the beat was not made obvious enough
c. not enough repetition or predictability (less ostinato patterns)
d. less singable melodies
The Abstract Sound Associated With Bebop:
1. Where is the melody?
a. There is less use of familiar themes, and more non-thematic improvisation.Essentially, the improvisation is the melody but in a very non traditional sense.
2. How about the relationship between the melody and the harmony?
a. The inexperienced listener finds the relationship between the line and the chord changes hard to hear and hard to understand.
3. The most probable and prominent factor that lends to the abstractness associated with bebop is the simple fact that this is mainly improvised music. Swing bands used written arrangements that were interspersed with the occasional solo improvisation. Bebop groups were combos that featured extended solos over sometimes strange forms.
Commercially Successful Bebop
1. There have been a few cross-over bebop groups. The most well known being The Modern Jazz Quartet. These groups use some of the same features outlined for swing. Singable melodies, written arrangements and vocals (words).These are the sounds associated with an off shoot of Cool Jazz school called Chamber Jazz.
Cool Jazz
It is tough to label any genre of art specifically. However, historians and students alike, find it easier to assign names to certain specifics and document when, where and with who these occurred. It must be noted that any label is subject to further study and debate by jazz historians. Most importantly, many of these musicians, and groups thereof, were actively performing jazz without regard to what label future jazz historians would assign them. Each exhibited there own unique trends that encompassed some or all of these general characteristics listed:
Simpler, softer, more tuneful, more use of preset arrangements, avoidance of the roughness and brassiness associated with bebop. Again, a substantial amount of the music assigned the label "cool" is indistinguishable from "bebop" and some musicians given the "cool" label take umbrage with the term.
Lenny Tristano
b. Chicago, 19 March 1919; d. 18 Nov 1978
1. Tristano, who was blind from childhood, started learning the piano when he was only four and later studied the clarinet, saxophone and the cello. He performed in various commercial settings in Chicago during the forties. In late 1949-53 he began to perform in his sextet with Lee Konitz.
2. Lennie's style was different than the Parker, Gillespie sound of bebop. He didn't swing in the customary bebop manner. His was a tight unsyncopated style known for its severity. Tristano aspired to a pure dispassionate piano sound. He argued equally that his saxophonists should use a flat uninflected tone so their lines would stand or fall on the quality of their construction and not on emotional coloration.
3. After the early fifties he remained mostly a pedagogue, performing on rare occasions. As a teacher he made his students learn to perform and improvise in the Baroque style. He also required students to learn Lester Young solos note for note.
4. As a pianist, his earliest recordings clearly show his mentors to be Art Tatum and Lester Young as well as JS Bach.
5. At times he was very harmonically advanced, utilizing several chord changes in a single measure.
6. Lennie was not influenced melodically by bebop.
7. Again, his music did not swing in the customary manner.
8. He was the first to record the concept of "free jazz". In his 1949 sextet he persuaded his players to improvise simultaneously without preset limits as to key or duration. This was the inspiration for the blues derived "free jazz" movement of the late 50's which Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor championed and are generally but mistakenly given credit for introducing.
9. Tristano made few recordings. He was mainly considered an underground figure. But his influence on a number of important players is extensive. His style of piano was a clear influence on the much imitated Bill Evans who had a huge impact on jazz piano. He also influenced Cecil Taylor. In turn you can trace his influence up to modern jazz pianists such as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett.
One of his most important disciples was:
Lee Konitz
b. Chicago, 13 Oct 1927.
1. In the late 1940's with in Tristano's sextets Lee developed a sound that was new to jazz. He was one of the few altoists of his generation not to be overwhelmed by the example of Charlie Parker.
2. Saxophonists used to argue as to who was faster Konitz or Parker? When most saxophonists were trying to imitate Parker, Konitz developed his own style that was; airy and dry in tone, soft in texture, light, slow in the use of vibrato, adept and a master of the high register. His sound was more akin to Lester Young; but performed on the alto saxophone.
3. Lee was known for his exceptionally long, sinewy lines, with irregular but not strong accents and a thin deliberate uninflected tone. His style typified the cool jazz style.
4. As he matured his style gradually incorporated more rhythmic vitality and complexity. He also allowed himself a much greater variety of emotion to be expressed by the sound quality alone. He switched to the tenor in the 70's and continued to be a major contributor.
The Birth of The Cool Sessions
1. The "Miles Davis Nonet" also known as the "Birth of The Cool Band". The group included Lee Konitz and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. Had a regular rhythm section but included the french horn and the tuba (no tenor sax).
2. This band was extremely influential and ushered in the cool jazz era. It was known for its lightweight tone and subdued effect.
Miles Davis' contributions to "Cool Jazz" and the art of jazz in general are monumental and because of his importance I have set aside a section to discuss just Miles Davis and his music.
The West Coast Style
1. Consisted of primarily white musicians centered around LA in the 50's.
2. Mainly from big bands that stopped touring. These players worked commercially (Hollywood) and performed jazz as a sideline.
3. Many were from the Stan Kenton and Woody Herman big bands.
4. They copied the Miles Davis Nonet instrumentation and the cool style that was in vogue.
5. This music is more closely associated with Lester Young and the Count Basie combo sound than that of Parker and Gillespie.
Stan Kenton and his Big Band
b. Wichita, Kansas, 19 Feb 1912; d. 25 Aug 1979
1. Stan Kenton led a big band in the forties that achieved great success in the swing style. His band first became nationally recognized through live broadcasts then touring from 1941-48.
2. As the band matured Kenton became more and more experimental. The music was described by Kenton himself as "progressive jazz". He tried to solidify his reputation as a brash experimentalist from 1950-2 with the forty piece Innovations In Modern Music Orchestra. Even including some totally composed avant-garde works. This trend away from his roots alienated many listeners and thereafter Kenton decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and he reverted to updated swing.
3. This later style was influenced by the cool jazz groups.
4. His big band style was very distinctive and emphasized composition over improvisation. In essence he was attempting to create a new 20th Century concert music. This music did not swing, but it did vividly explore rich, modern harmonies.
5. The musicianship in his ensembles was of high quality. These musicians all reached the level of standards associated with the European concert tradition.
6. Kenton's music tended towards the serious and intense, and especially in his more experimental period, on massiveness.
7. Kenton's ability to motivate the public and to get the best musicians to produce high quality music are his more important contributions to jazz. He was financially free because of his earlier successes in the swing style so he was able to pursue his artistic whims and musical ideas.
8. Another very important contribution from Mr. Kenton was the creation of the college big band curriculum. This allowed the big band genre to remain constant and began the college jazz education establishment.
Gerry Mulligan
(Baritone and soprano Saxophonist) b NY, 6 April 1927; d 20 Jan 1996.
1. Mulligan was first recognized as an arranger, selling his first arrangements to his local radio station. His first recorded works were for Gene Krupa and Caude Thornhill in 1948; in both bands he also briefly played alto.
2. Through Thornhill he met Gil Evans who introduced him to Miles Davis and this leads to him writing and playing baritone in his Miles Davis Nonet.
3. Gerry led his own 12 piece band from 1960-63, then again from1978 until his death. He wrote for Stan Kenton in the early fifties and he appeared with Dave Brubeck Group from 1968-72.
4. Gerry originated the idea of piano-less quartets. this created a less filled sound, emphasizing the bass lines. This sound becomes indelibly associated with the “West Coast Cool” style. So much so, that 30 years later his style is still considered “WCJ”.
As A Saxophonist:
1. Gerry maintained a soft, dry and lightweight tone.
2. Mulligan's style was less complicated, and subsequently more predictable.
3. His rhythms were unsyncopated, smooth (rather than harsh), and he rarely double timed his solos.
4. His phrasing was logical, tuneful and legato.
5. He represents one of the few peaks in baritone history, always maintaining his roots in the swing style.
Dave Brubeck
b. Concord, Calif., 6 Dec 1920
1. Dave Brubeck was a group leader of unparalleled popularity in the 50's and 60's. Brubeck did much to popularize and promote jazz with the white middle-class audience.
2. He studied composition with Darius Milhaud, and early in his career he led experimental and strongly European-influenced jazz groups in San Francisco.
3. His quartet in its heyday featured Paul Desmond on sax. He was later replaced by Gerry Mulligan in 1968 after he left the group. Brubeck's biggest hit was written by Paul Desmond called “Take Five”.
4. Brubeck is not known as a pianist so much as a bandleader and composer.
5. Dave's music had much in common with classical European music. It contained inventive and original melodic lines, characterized by there tunefulness and predictability. His music is pretty, light and pleasant.
6. Rhythmically, Brubeck was innovative. He popularized the “odd” time-signature (five, seven, or nine beats per bar). His rhythmic innovations alone lead to respect from other jazz musicians and secure his unique place in jazz history. (Although his most popular tune was written by Desmond)
7. Dave also forwarded the idea of two instruments improvising at the same time (in this case, saxophone and piano).
The Popular Appeal of Cool Jazz:
1. From cool jazz emanates some of the most popular musicians in jazz history. Including, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, The Modern Jazz Quartet and The Dave Brubeck Quartet.
2. No matter how popular this music became, it still was not on the same level as “pop” music in its overall appeal.
Hard Bop
Once again a label becomes problematic. This genre most commonly referred to as Hard Bop also is known as “funky jazz”, “post-bop”, “mainstream”, etc. Much of this music is indistinguishable from bebop. When it does vary these characteristics can be observed:
1. The improvising is somewhat simpler. Based more on bluesy inflections.
2. The drummers become even more active.
3. The tone colors preferred are deeper, darker and rougher.
4. There is less reliance on pop tune forms and more original, innovative chord progressions used as a basis for improvisation.
5. This music is more predictable than bebop and has less of the start and stop feeling associated with its predecessor.
6. Hard Bop is characterized by a hard driving, relentless push coupled with a constant swing feel.
7. The piano like the drums also expands its role. Comping incorporates more varied rhythms and alternative chord voicings.
8. This music evolved around the country. It was not particular to any one geographic area. LA-Dexter Gordon, NY-Sonny Stitt, Miles Davis, and Fats Navarro Indianapolis-Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard (trumpeter), and Slide Hampton (trombonist).
Clifford Brown b. Wilm. Delaware, 30 Oct. 1930; d. 26 June 1956
1. Clifford Brown is not well known outside musician circles.
2. His father was an amateur musician, and gave Brown a trumpet when he was 15. He studied jazz harmony, theory, piano, vibes and bass. By 1948 he was performing with the likes of Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, JJ Johnson and Fats Navarro.
3. In 1949 he went to Maryland state University to study music, and did some arranging for the college band. From June 1950 to May 1951 he was in the hospital after a car crash the t almost killed him. He resumed playing due to the encouragement of Dizzy Gillespie and others.
4. After this period he received wide acclaim, and headed the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. he won the new star award in the Down Beat critic's poll, but in the same year he was killed in a car accident. The group he headed for two years with Max Roach was one of the finest of the fifties and some of the groups live recordings rank with the best in the history of jazz.
As a trumpeter:
1. Clifford absorbed his influences of Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie at an early age. By the age of 22 he was a unique and original stylist in his own right. He had one of the fullest and most beautiful trumpet sounds in all of jazz. He is known for perfection in his trumpet performance and simplifying bop instead of blazing new trails.
2. Gillespie tended to sacrifice tone in order to achieve almost supernatural speed, flexibility and range. Brown (and Navarro) sought tonal beauty, with Brown having the edge in terms of breath and resonance.
3. Clifford's sound was brassy with plenty of vibrato. He had an excellent range, great stamina superb execution and an inexhaustible capacity for melodic invention. He was confident with all these attributes at every tempo. Above all his music always exuded warmth and joy, creating a more easily accessible sound than many straight forward bop enthusiasts.
4. His music lives on in the styles of Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Wynton Marsalis.
5. His music reflected his personality- he was clean living, disciplined, and had a warm and gentle disposition which made him much loved by his associates.
Art “Bu” Blakey b Pittsburgh, 11 Oct 1919; d 16 Oct 1990.
1. Blakey started out as a self taught pianist. He was already leading big bands at fifteen, when he was suddenly displaced by Errol Garner he migrated to drums.
2. Art then worked with Fletcher Henderson Big band in 1943-4. after this he began to record with many of the bebop greats occasionally leading his own groups. He fronted a famous live recording with Clifford Brown and Horace Silver in 1954.
3. Art was a convert to Islam and was given the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina; hence his later nickname “Bu”.
4. A 1954 studio date with Horace Silver created the Jazz Messengers, which later becomes the trade name for all Blakey's subsequent groups. The list of jazz greats who were in Blakey's group at one time or another is long. Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton, Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis and Chick Corea to name only a few.
As A Drummer:
1. Blakey brings the drummer to the forefront of the jazz combo sound.
2. Art was able to cue and underscore transitions and solos within the pieces.
3. Blakey epitomized the loosening of the jazz drumming style. He was always a very dynamic player. Always intense, hard driving and uncompromising. His energy always enhanced the ensemble, no matter what personnel at any particular moment his groups have become cornerstones in the jazz tradition.
1. After starting on the tenor as well as piano Horace Silver and his trio toured with Stan Getz, who became the first person to record Silver tunes in 1950-1.
2. Horace is known as a composer, bandleader and pianist. Single handily creating the “hard-bop” writing style. (Essentially incorporating a bebop rhythm section and contrasting this with simpler swing-era phrasing for the front line instruments).
3. “Opus de Funk” was one of the first uses of the word in a tune title.
4. Horace's music is more blues based, less chromatic. He utilized brief, catchy phrases that were sometimes executed in a very forceful and percussive manner.
5. Less extended improvisation utilizing extreme virtuosity. His ideas were more complete and succinct in nature.
6. His new style of accompaniment, perfected in the late 1950's, sounded more like pre-written arrangements. This all led to more continuity and more restriction for the soloist.
7. Silver is the most prolific hard Bop composer. He used arrangements of Latin American music, The Blues and Gospel.
8. Horace continues to perform even into the 90's. Many important performers have had stints with him- Art Farmer, Randy and Michael Brecker and Joe Henderson.
Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley b Tampa Fl 1928; d Aug 8 1975.
1. Adderley was a school music teacher in Fort Lauderdale both before and after army service, leading his own groups part-time. Encouraged by Eddie Vinson and others to move to NY he did so in 1955, (shortly after the death of Charlie Parker), he made an immediate impact. Some considered him the successor to Parker, Adderley always felt such praise was undeserved.
2. Although Parker also had a big impact on his solo style, he was much influenced by swing era stylists. His rounded tone and less emphatic accents revealed an appreciation for Benny Carter.
3. Cannonball reached a creative peak in the late 50's performing with Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Cannonball was able to reach the level of outstanding performance associated with Parker and Coltrane in the Davis ensembles.
4. His tone quality was deep and full at times even sounding like a tenor. Listen to “Two Bass Hit” for comparison with Coltrane's sound.
5. Adderley's style was warm, bluesy, fun-loved, with frequent use of double-timing and popular tune quotes.
6. Some of his solos evoke a deep calm and quiet reflective quality. He was a master melodist. Listen to “Kind of Blue”.
7. Later he performed with his brother Nat Adderley (cornetist). Many of these tunes are associated with the best of the “soul jazz” movement of the 60's. Many were funk oriented such as “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”.
8. Cannonball died of a stroke in 1975.
Jazz Guitar Greats
Django Reinhardt
Charlie Christian
Grant Green
(also w/Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessell)
Charlie Byrd
Herb Ellis, Barney Kessell and Charlie Byrd
WES MONTGOMERY
Goerge Benson
Russell Malone
Joe Pass
"I was raised on Rock - the Beatles, Stones...I worshipped Hendrix, Clapton and Beck. I dug Johnny Winter. I was wild about Zappa. I didn't know Joe Pass at the time. But strangely, he would play a significant role in my gradual conversion to jazz.
I was 19 when I came across "The Trio", an eye-opening 1973 recording for Norman Granz's Pablo label by the Oscar Peterson Trio featuring Joe and bassist Niels-Henning. As an aspiring player coming from a rock background, my ears had been acutely attuned to guitar technique. And while Hendrix and Zappa had stretched my six-stringed consciousness considerably up to that point, what Pass did on the instrument completely blew me away. I became mesmerized by his playing. The insistent rhythm, the driving sense of swing in his solos, the unerring flow of melodic ideas and uncanny ability to alternate between chords, bass lines, and single-note lines without dropping a beat caused my jaw to drop. "The Trio" sent me on a search for more examples of Pass's incredible playing, which led me to more gems like the "Virtuoso" series. Mind you, this was long before I became a jazz critic...I was paying for these out of hard-earned money.
I finally got to see the great man in concert when he came to Milwaukee with Ella. Needless to say, I was awestruck. In talking to guitarists who were in audience that night, I noted they found the concert at once inspiring and depressing. As much as they were knocked out by Pass's brilliance, it seemed light-years beyond their own reach and presented the daunting prospect of a lifetime of woodshedding to get there. Many a guitarist wanted to throw his ax in the trash after witnessing Pass in concert. He set a standard for guitar that none has surpassed."
-Bill Milkowski, Jazz Times
