Jazz
Roots of jazz and American “pop”
- African-American/Slave songs
- English folk songs
The Blues
- major form of black music until Dixieland
- lead to the birth of jazz

Jazz
(after the blues & ragtime)
•New Orleans/Dixieland
•Swing (big band swing)
•Bebop
•Hard Bop
•Cool/Third Stream
•Free Jazz
•Funk/Electronic/Fusion

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
- Made first series of recordings by an all black group
- collective improvisation
- introduced world to Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
- Played Cornet and sang
(invented scatting)
- After 1930, performed more swing
- Many jazz scholars dismiss this period

Big band swing (1930’s & 40’s)
- First began as dance music
- At first, all black or all white groups
Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
- Benny Goodman famous for both jazz and classical
- had one of the first highly respected big bands
- began to break the racial barrier

Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
- pianist and brilliant orchestrator
- sound effects, orchestral instruments,
& technically sound musicians
- interest in third stream composition (suites)
- copyrighted 952 compositions
Count Basie (1904-1984)
- pianist, more interested in swinging “hard”
- all African-American band from Harlem

Billie Holiday
very bluesy, thought of singing “too slow”
Ella Fitzgerald
- known for great technique, improvisation, and refining scatting
By the end of WWII, big bands fell out of popularity
- mostly for financial reasons
- gave way to a rise in small groups

Style: more complicated (and faster) melodies, more complicated harmonies, called for virtuosic techniques
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
- saxophonist
“Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993)
- trumpeter
First time jazz musicians began to be respected as legitimate
Style: “Straight ahead and funky”
After Bird’s death: blues popular again

Cool – less aggressive than bop, laid back
slower melodies, instruments in their mid ranges
Miles Davis (1926-1991) – trumpet
- distinct sound: quiet, with use of mute
- 3 major periods: cool, modal, electric
“Birth of the Cool”
- First cool album, major reaction against bebop

Third Stream – mixture of jazz and classical
- First appeared in big bands
- in jazz, an attempt to create a sophisticated and respected style
- Gil Evans, arranger, pushed
Miles Davis down this path during his cool period
“Sketches of Spain”
& “Porgy and Bess”

Miles Davis (1926-1991)
- Modal Jazz
- focus on writing new songs (not show tunes)
- fewer chords, sometimes repeated bass lines
1950’s Quintet
Most famous album was “Kind of Blue”
- Simpler than previous jazz albums
1960’s Quintet
- introduced Herbie Hancock,
Wayne Shorter & Tony Williams

Dave Brubeck (1920-) – pianist
- Dave Brubeck Quartet
Recorded “Time Out”
- Exploration of odd meters
Charles Mingus (1922-1979) – Bassist
- Transition from third stream to free jazz

Style: Collective improvisation, emphasis on ensemble
(not soloist + Accompaniment), “all traditional musical rules are open to question”
Ornette Coleman (1930-)
- saxophonist (sometimes plastic)
- at first, not taken seriously
1959, recorded “The Shape of Jazz to Come”
- First avant-garde jazz album
- No Chord Structure (no pianist!)

John Coltrane (1926-1967)
- saxophonist
- Got his start with Miles Davis
different from other “Cool” jazz musicians: intense sound, well developed technique
Formed his own quartet, recorded “A Love Supreme”
- a four movement suite mixing third stream & free jazz
- Programmatic work about God

Miles Davis
after Coltrane’s death, decided to break away from
“Cool” jazz
- formed groups with multiple electric keyboards & electric bass
Most famous album is “Bitches Brew”
- (Also the first Electric Jazz album)
- mixed rock and funk rhythm section with avant-garde instrumental parts

Herbie Hancock (1940-)
After “Bitch’s Brew” (last recording w/ Miles), formed his own electronic group
- Eventually became interested in funk music
recorded “Headhunters”
- Based soley on funk music
- Continued to explore pop music:
“Future Shock” &
“Future2Future”

Chick Corea (1941-)
- many influences (jazz, classical, funk, latin)
- formed the Elektric Band (introduced Dave Weckl)
Weather Report
- Joe Zawinul & Wayne Shorter
- introduced Jaco Pastorius
Pat Metheny (1954-)
- Electric guitarist
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Béla Fleck (banjo), Victor Wooten (bass)