Jazz Flashcards
What is the function of the work songs and the spiritual?
Spirituals helped African Americans live through slavery. Spirituals, like blues tunes, helped people cope with their horrible reality. Spirituals and work songs recognized the pain of people’s sufferings and gave voicing and allowed a therapeutic way of facing those hardships.
Features of African American Culture
The will to adorn, simile (“One at a time like lawyers going to heaven”), double descriptive (high-tall), verbal nouns (bottomly), imitation, the break, the juke (negro pleasure house/club) absence of privacy, angularity,
What is the Blues?
The blues is a type of music used for therapeutic purposes derived from Spirituals and Work Songs. (usually a 12-bar sequence) Developed in the rural south toward the end of the 19th century. This type of music migrated to the cities in the 1940s.
Country Blue
after slavery during the reconstruction period, mostly male dominant. (Guitar, harmonica) e.g. Robert Johnson
City Blues (Classic Blues)
during the migration of blues, blues went to cities. Usually performed with a piano and sung by a female vocalist. E.g. Bessie Smith
Incantation and Percussion
“Shuffle is the beat of the heartbeat and the heartbeat is the shuffle of the blues.”
Two basic elements of blues are song and dance or Incantation and Percussion. Blues is like medicine. You play the blues to get rid of the blues.
Robert Johnson
Country blues pioneer from Mississippi Delta. Played guitar and sang. Amazing feeling and multiple guitar lines going while singing. Inspired rock and rollers including Eric Clapton and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Many of his songs have been recorded by countless artists including Love in Vain and Sweet Home Chicago.
Bessie Smith
Classic Blues singer came to fame in 1920s with songs like Gimme a Pigfoot and St. Louis Blues. Had a strong powerful voice and presence and represented early 20th century of the modern liberated woman.
Scott Joplin
pianist/composer who combined European piano with African American style syncopation. (songs included: The Entertainer)
New Orleans
1718-New Orleans was a major warm water Southern port. Founded by the French, french developer- Lemoines who brought over Mardi Gras. Enslaved Africans helped build the city. BLACK CODES- What blacks could do and not do.
CONGO SQUARE- Where the enslaved could celebrate every Sunday with traditional ceremonies etc. New Orleans was a melting pot of different cultures. Congo Square was highly influential for jazz because it allow a merge of different cultures and ideas. New Orleans also had a major opera house. Black Africans were also a cultural mix because they were all from different countries. Congo Square was shut down around the 1880s.
New Orleans Music
Steady beat, collective improv- 3 simultaneous voice improving together (Livery Stable Blue) Marching band, bluesy, bent notes, rough timbre.
Jelly Roll Morton
First great jazz composer. (Black Bottom Stomp, King Porter Stomp.)
American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer. His Band was called the “Red Hot Peppers”
King Oliver
Cornet, Great early soloist from New Orleans. Took band to Chicago and called for his protege Louis Armstrong to join him.
1923- he takes a solo for 3 chorus’ and the solo was born
Original Dixieland Jazz Band
White band from New Orleans made first jazz recordings in 1917. Million seller: “Livery Stable Blues”. Exemplified collective improvisation with front line of clarinet, trumpet and trombone. Also percussion, tuba, banjo and piano.
Louis Armstrong
Trumpet and vocalist- showed the world how to swing with his relaxed and driving time feel. Virtuoso instrumentalist who knew how to bring his audience with him
