Exam 1 Flashcards
Appreciating Jazz Improvisation
-New Ideas and embellishments more important than the tune
-Tune’s spirit and chord progression
-in early jazz reffed to it as “messing around”, “passing” or “Jazzing up
Origins of Jazz
-ragtime, blues, and brass band music
-much of the performance was improvised
-looser and more relaxed rhythms
-anticipating jazz swing feeling
-generated some of its own repertories
-its improvised form made it more complex than ragtime and blues
-the early jazz was more exciting than ragtime and blues
Early Combo Jazz
-began in New Orleans
-several significant soloists
-Trumpeter Luis Armstrong
-clarinetist, saxophonist Sidney Bechet
-Jolly R Morton most significant composer/arranger
-finest recording during 1920s in Chicago
Dixieland
-Austin High Together with New Orleans Rhythm kings created a white parallel to the New Orlean combo style called “Dixieland”
East Coast Piano Tradition
-New Jersey-born James P. Johnson continued through Fats Waller to Count Basie
New Orlean’s Style
the music recorded by New Orlean musicians in Chicago during 1920s
Earliest Jazz Style
(Chicago period of the new Orlean’s musicians)
-collective improvisation
-all group members playing at the same time
-creating phrases that compliment other player’s phrases
Trumpet often played the melody
-Clarinet played busy, fast notes
-trombone plays simpler figures, low-pitched harmony notes
-create motion in pitch range lower than trumpet and clarinet
-the skills the improvisor had to have to blend with the improvisation of other players
-delicate balance and sensitivity interplay in collective improvisation
Obbligato
-Clarinet decorating trumpet’s melody
-designate a musical figure that sounds in the background
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band
-made the first recordings in Chicago
-white New Orlean Musicians who organized a band in Chicago in 1916 and played in NY in 1917
-“Dixie Jazz Band One-Step” was the first jazz record ever issued (1917)
-leadership of Cornetist “Nick LaRocca”
-High sales, International fame
Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
-New Orlean group with the best black jazz Musicians in Chicago
-Joe Oliver created the group in 1918
-recordings made during Oliver’s leadership in 1923 are regarded as the first black New Orlean Combo Jazz recordings
-Members: Trumpetist Luis Armstrong, Clarinetist Johnny Dodds, and drummer Warren Dodds
Chicago Style
-three different groups in Chicago: 1-transplanted New Orlean’s black musicians 2-White New Orlean counterparts (New Orlean
-these two groups influenced a group of young white musicians that many of them were Chicago native, these young musicians developed Chicago school or style
Stride Piano Playing
-Jazz Piano Style with roots in ragtime
-uses percussive striding left-hand figures
-low bass notes alternate with mid-range chords
-right-hand plays energetic melodies and embellishments
Jelly Roll Morton
-Pianist, Composer, arranger, and band leader from New Orlean
-one of the first jazz pianists and one of the most important composers
-performing jazz and ragtime styles
-using rhythmic techniques that swung
-using long-short long-short patterns on 8th notes (strong-weak)
-playing lighter and more sewing feeling
-playing two or three lines at the same time
-solo breaks in the same manners as the horn
-Mixing ragtime with less formal more blues-oriented New Orlean Styles (Maple Leaf Rag)
Maple Leaf Rag Jello Roll Morton
-mixing ragtime with less formal more blues-oriented New Orlean Styles
-playing 2,3 lines at the time
-long-short patterns
-left-hand stride style
-syncopated melody
-lots of 7th chord usage32 bar blues
Earl Hines
-Early Jazz Pianist
-Significant influence on piano playing in the 1930s and 1940s
-different jazz techniques
-influential recording with Armstrong
He affected so many musicians after him
-influence on Modern Jazz
-his piano music is called brassy
-punching quality piano sound
-trumpet or horn-like style
-doubled right0hand melodies in octave
Fats Waller
-one of the best-known stride pianists
-excellent technique and bouncing swing feeling
-influence on Modern Jazz pianists
“Handful of Keys” by Fats Waller
-stride style
-walking tenths
-horn-like lines
-flowery embellishments
-octave coaching
-tremolo
-solo breaks for the right-hand
-brief double-time figures
-off-balance left-hand rhythms that are highly syncopated, seeming to come out of nowhere
-swing feelings
Boogie Woogie
left-hand playing subdivision of each beat
-these left-hand styles developed in southern pianists around 1912
James P Johnson
-born in New Jersey
-part of East Coast jazz piano tradition
-transition from ragtime to jazz
-one of the first jazz musicians to board cast on the radio
-Carolina Shout:
-father of stride piano (his own brand of stride)
-stiff rhythms and broken chord melodies
-march-like bass of ragtime harmonic sophistication and attention to chord voicing
-won many competitions in NY
-wrote 230 popular tunes
Luis Armstrong
-father of jazz or “pops”
-born in New Orleans
-his most significant recording, “Luis Armstrong and his hot five”
-his colleagues in New Orleans, clarinetist Johnny odds and trombonist Kid Ory
-his solos with hot five during the 1925-28 recording became a model for the sewing era
-appeared in more than 50 movies
-“Hello Dolly” was #1 on the charts
-displaced the Beatles with “what a Wonderfull World”
“Dippermouth blues” by Armstrong and hot 5 or 7
-King Oliver’s Creole Jazz band
-refer to Armstrongs’s big mouth
-Joe Oliver’s Cornet Solo “blue notes”
-articulation and level of technique
“Hotter than that” by Armstrong and hot 5 or 7
-polyrhythm sounding of two pulses while sounding other rhythms that a basis of three pulse
-the swing feeling and rhythmic excitements of jazz
-tension
-the singer intentionally delayed the positioning
Dixie Jazz Band “One-step”
-marching band style
-bass drum played on beats one and three, while the snare drum played on two and four
-wood block and cowbell
-note decoration by clarinet player
-was the first instrumental jazz recording, high sells
-music was worked out in advance
-doesn’t have the swing qualities
-loaded with syncopations from ragtime
“Black Bottom Stomp” by Jelly Roll Morton’s red hot peppers
-Morton employed New Orlean-born musicians brother black Chicago groups
-well-organized sound
*go back to J Morton card
“West End Blues” Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
-composed by King Oliver
-Earl Hines Piano
-intro solo one of the most famous
-trumpet sustains in the high note and gradually descends
-unaccompanied solo passage coming from light classical music
-cornet virtuosos in band music
FIRST Chorus:
12-bar blues played slowly
-soft sustained trombone notes
-sustained notes of clarinet sometimes patrolling with trumpet
–trombone and clarinet indicate a change of chords
-piano chords sound in unison with banjo chords
SECOND Chorus:
-trombone solo, high registers
-accompaniment includes staccato chords from the banjo and tremolo chords from the piano
-slow rhythm played by dummer
THIRD Chorus: -an improvised duet between clarinet and Armstrong’s vocal
-call-and-response format
-an early example of “Scat Singing”
“Weather Bird” by Louis Armstrong and “Father” Hines
-percussive attacks and rhythmic tension on the piano
-a sense of tempo
-Hines, one of the most rhythmically compelling jazz pianists
-improvise a ritard for the last three or four bars
and sustain the final chord
-blues turn around in the last four chords
-trumpet displacing the rhythm with the same pitch
“Potato Head Blues” Armstrong
-having tuba
-manipulation of the tune
-syncopation
-creating color in the pitch by altering the fingering
-no-diatonic pitches that got surrounded by diatonic pitches
-back to New Orlean improvisation
“Struttin with some BBQ” Armstrong
-Armstrong’s classic improvisation
“Singin the Blues”by Frankie Teumbauer
-relaxed, melodic, and tender early jazz
-C Saxophone
-slow vibrato
-Beiderbecke’s solo, advanced use of the tune’s harmonies
-choosing notes that go beyond the tune’s accompanying
-possibly the first “cool jazz”
-instrument’s tone colors are pale, not bright
-use of the guitar(Lang) as countermine to soloist
-almost like classical chamber music
“Wolverine Blues” Jelly Roll Morton
-one of the most swinging of the early jazz
-forceful piano style
-left0hand stride style
-imitating a tuba or string bass
-and mid-range chord imitating banjo or guitar
-influence of ragtime
-use of stop-time breaks
-Morton’s change in volume
“You’ve got to be modernistic” by James P Johnson
-composed and performed by Johnson
–stride style and virtuoso techniques
-stride bass style in the left hand
-he worked on the music in advance
-the chorus of the trio section contains the most improvisation
St. Louis Blues by Bessie Smith
-sang by the most famous early blues singer
-12 bar blues
plus an 8-bar bridge and an additional 12-bar blues
-AABA forms
-call and response between singer and trumpet
-using mute to not cover the singer
-organ creates harmony and rhythmic stability
Duke Ellington
-Among the most significant in jazz history
-created a jazz classification of his own
-composed different styles of music
-big bands were influenced by his style
-his piano style influenced many pianists
-derived from James P Johnson’s stride style
–he set the mood for his pieces and ornamented the solos
-band leader and large ensemble -composed more than 2000 pieces
-diversity of theme
-using wordless vocal
Count Bessie
-Pianist
-bandleader
-Modern Jazz Stylist
-having rhythms sections
-simplicity and swing feeling
-stride pianist with a light touch
-made silence as important as notes-using riffs
Charlie Parker
-modern saxophonist
-post-swing era
-most development of bop
-one of the most important music figures in 2oth century
-new ways of selecting notes
-new ways of accenting note
methods of adding chords to existing chord progressions
-double-timing and fast tempos
-lots of melodic ideas
Dizzy Gillespie
-modern jazz trumpeter
-bop trumpet player
–modeled some of his lines from Parker
-virtuoso trumpet player
–phrases full of surprises and changes of direction
-playing single note each time differently
Thelonius Monk
-bop pianist and composer
-melodies were unorthodox and chord progressions challenged improvisers
-influenced the flavor of modern jazz
-his music having logic and symmetry
-master of placing accent in irregular order
Kenny Clarke/Max Roach
-drummer
-one of the original pioneers of bop
-increased the frequency of kicks
-a combination between drummers and solo performers
-drummers not only beat keepers
-using “chatter”
-feathering the drums instead of pounding it
-choice of a percussion instrument for the time-keeping
