...Jazz...

Jazz is the only indigenous American musical form to have exerted an influence on
musical development throughout the Western world. Created by obscure black
musicians in the late 19th century, jazz was at first a synthesis of Western harmonic language and forms with the rhythms and melodic inflections of Africa. The African musical idiom present in black vocal music--SPIRITUALS, the work song, the field holler, and blues--was the structure through which popular tunes of the time were transmuted into jazz. The music was characterized by improvisation, the spontaneous creation of variations on a melodic line; by syncopation, where rhythmic stress is placed on the normally weak beats of the musical measure; and by a type of intonation that would be considered out of tune in Western classical music.

In its beginnings jazz was more an approach to performance than a body of musical compositions. The black marching bands of New Orleans, which often accompanied funeral processions, played traditional slow hymns on the way to the cemetery; for the procession back to town, they broke into jazzed-up versions of the same hymns, RAGTIME tunes, or syncopated renditions of popular marches. The instruments in the marching band--a cornet or a trumpet to carry the melody, with a clarinet and trombone to fill in, and a rhythm section of drums or a string bass--formed the nucleus of the first jazz bands, which usually added only a piano, guitar, or banjo.

DIXIELAND

The earliest recordings identified as jazz were made in 1917 in New York by theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band under the leadership of Nick La Rocca. The members
were white musicians from New Orleans, playing in a style that they learned from
blacks in that city. Although the early jazz artists occasionally cut records, it was only when jazz bands traveled to Chicago and New York City that the music became available nationwide through recordings released by the major record companies. The first important recordings by black musicians were made in 1923, by King OLIVER's Creole Jazz Band, a group that included some of the foremost New Orleans musicians then performing in Chicago: Louis ARMSTRONG, Johnny and "Baby" Dodds, and Honore Dutrey.

Many white groups in Chicago and elsewhere adopted the style, among them the New
Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Wolverines, led by Bix BEIDERBECKE. The characteristics of this early style, known as Dixieland, included a relatively complex interweaving of melodic lines among the cornet (or trumpet), clarinet, and trombone and a steady chomp-chomp beat from the rhythm instruments (piano, bass, drums). The texture was predominantly polyphonic. Most bands used no written notation, preferring "head" arrangements agreed upon verbally; improvisation was an indispensable factor.

During the 1920s jazz gained in popularity. The two most important recording
centers were Chicago and New York, although all sections of the country were
caught up in the dances that were closely associated with the music. The period
itself became known as the Jazz Age.

In Chicago the most influential artists were members of small bands like the
Wolverines. In New York, on the other hand, the trend was toward larger groups
with two or more trumpets, one or two trombones, three or four reeds, plus a
rhythm section. The larger groups played in revues and vaudeville shows and in
large dance halls and theaters.

NEW YORK JAZZ

As the decade progressed, the performance styles in all groups featured more
written arrangements and placed increasing emphasis on solo performance.
Representative of the many players who led the outburst of jazz virtuosity that
marked the 1920s were Sidney BECHET, Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" MORTON, Coleman
HAWKINS, Armstrong, and James P. Johnson. Among the leaders in establishing the
sound of the new big bands were Fletcher HENDERSON (with Don Redman, his
arranger) and Edward Kennedy "Duke" ELLINGTON. It was Henderson who developed the performance style that became known as SWING, featuring call-and-response patterns between brass and reeds, extensive use of the riff--the repetition of a
motif--for ensemble work and as accompaniment for soloists, elaborate written
arrangements, and the frequent insertion of improvised solos. Ellington extended
the role of bandleader beyond mere arranging and into the area of composition,
principally because of his need to provide music for the Cotton Club revues in
Harlem. Many of his compositions were popular hits in their own time and have
become standards for jazz players.

Another important facet of the jazz scene in New York was to production of vocal
blues recordings marketed principally to blacks. Because of the unique form of
the blues, many of the best jazz performers were used as back-up artists for the
insertion of instrumental "comments" between the sung phrases. The most
definitive singer of the period was Bessie SMITH, whose 1920s recordings are
considered landmarks of vocal blues.

SWING

The dominant idiom of the 1930s and much of the 1940s was swing. Utilized almost
exclusively for dancing, the music of the big bands borrowed heavily from the
techniques introduced by Henderson. Among the most popular bands were those led
by Benny GOODMAN, Glenn MILLER, Woody HERMAN, Tommy and Jimmy DORSEY, and Artie Shaw. As a counterpart of the highly arranged orchestrations of these New York-based bands, a Kansas City swing style developed under the influence of Count BASIE and Bennie Moten that emphasized a blues vocabulary and form as well
as tempos of breakneck speed and an overwhelming use of riffs. Among the outstanding soloists associated with Kansas City was Lester YOUNG of the Basie band.

THE JAZZ REVOLUTION: BEBOP

In the early 1940s a rejection of the restrictive arrangements required by big-band style spread among jazz musicians. Under the leadership of Charlie PARKER, Dizzy GILLESPIE, Thelonious MONK, and others, a style known as bop, or BEBOP, emerged on the New York scene.

It represented a return to the small group concept of Dixieland, with one instrument of a kind rather than the sections used by swing groups. Emphasizing solos rather than ensembles, bop players developed an astounding degree of virtuosity. Bop was extremely complex rhythmically; it used extensions of the usual harmonic structures and featured speed and irregular phrasing. It demanded great listening skill, and its erratic rhythms made it unsuitable for dancing. Because of its sophistication, bop resulted in the first breakaway of jazz from the popular music mainstream. The style was adopted by many performers during the 1940s and 1950s but was rejected by others who preferred the more conservative techniques of swing.

Cool

One of the most important new jazz styles of the 1950s was known as "cool." Inaugurated by a group of highly trained academic performers under the leadership of Miles DAVIS, cool was a return to the carefully organized and scored principles of swing but without the latter's emphasis on call-and-response and riffing. The ensembles played frequently as an entire unit and included a number of new instruments in jazz: French horn, flute, baritone sax, flugelhorn, and others. The players rejected the emotional emphasis of bop as well as its exploitation of range and virtuosity. They preferred to play in the middle register, utilizing a smooth attack, little vibrato, and largely on-beat phrasing.

Third Stream

Closely allied to cool jazz was the attempt to combine modern classical forms with jazz techniques. The style, known as "third stream," used improvisational segments interwoven with compositions scored for symphony orchestras and chamber groups, including string quartets. Musical forms identified with classical tradition were utilized--fugue, rondo, symphonic development. Polyphony became an important texture, best exemplified by the jazz fugues played by the MODERN JAZZ QUARTET.

JAZZ EXTREMES: THE 1960s

The jazz of the 1960s was in many ways a mirroring of the social ferment of that
decade. Much of the performance was characterized by a search for freedom from
melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic restraints. One of the leaders was Ornette
Coleman, whose 1960 album, Free Jazz, set the tone of the decade. It featured
eight musicians improvising individually and collectively without predetermined
thematic material of any kind. The ultimate result was a breakdown in the
traditional framework for improvisation, which had relied for decades on melodic
variations based normally on a stated tune or harmonic progression. Cecil TAYLOR
and others moved even farther away from traditional jazz practice and used
atonality and other dissonances.

The leading figure of the decade was John COLTRANE. In many of his performances he abandoned tonality completely and improvised at length within a single scale structure or over a single chord or mode. His many followers cultivated an almost totally emotional style, extending the expressive range of their instruments to screaming, moaning, and piercing outbursts of passionate sound. As a result, the audience for jazz decreased dramatically and many critics expressed the fear that the art was doomed.

THE 1970S JAZZ REVIVAL

The decade of the 1970s, however, brought renewed interest in jazz, with a revival of many of the older, more traditional concepts and the addition of several new ones. The popularity of big bands, using many of the devices of swing, spread to high school and college campuses. Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Woody Herman, and Count Basie provided the leadership for this renaissance of big-band style.

Many leading musicians, on the other hand, turned toward a fusion of ROCK MUSIC
and jazz, trading on the overwhelming popularity of the 1960s rock innovations.
Among the leaders in the fusion movement were Miles DAVIS, Herbie Hancock, Chick
COREA, Wayne Shorter, and George Benson. Their music placed great emphasis on
the use of electronic instruments, enlarged percussion sections, repeated melodic and rhythmic figures, and relatively long segments performed without any significant harmonic change.

Other leading players like McCoy Tyner experimented extensively with modal themes and drone effects, reflecting the black identification with Eastern religions and
spiritualism. Large-scale dissonant compositions for jazz groups gained in popularity under the influence of men like Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. At the same time, more traditional performers like the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band found enthusiastic audiences.

The 1980s were years of eclectic additions to jazz language. African music began
to penetrate and color the jazz picture, just as in Africa the new "Afro-Pop" combined jazz influences with African sounds and rhythms. Latin-American music--Brazilian music, especially--added another new strain to jazz.

More jazz musicians were classically trained, and many of them, like the MARSALIS
brothers, were technical perfectionists. Yet, in contrast to a music that was becoming more difficult and complex, interest was reviving in improvisation, the heart of jazz before the electronic age.