WAYNE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
MUS 112-40 Introduction to Jazz
Fall, 2015-2016
Tuesday/Thursday 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
SJAFB Library Bldg.
Instructor Information
Instructor: Dr. Joseph Hodges
Telephone Numbers: (252) 523-9093 (H) (252) 527-8591 Ext 2379 (O)
Office Hours: 8-9:30 a.m.
E-Mail Address: jmhodges@waynecc.edu
jhodges@lenoir.k12.nc.us
FAX Number:
(252) 527-9014
Dr. Hodges’ Playlist
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVilO
s2j2UbIxOcAxOUPzqfMniAaHM3db
18. Historicism: Jazz on Jazz 373
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Sugar Foot Stomp (1926)
Dippermouth Blues(1923)
Embraced as Swing Era anthem.
Two ideas
– Jazz as art – for – art’s-sake
• Masters move the music along with radical leaps of
creativity
– Jazz as fusion tradition in which jazz evolves in
response to contemporary pop culture.
Historicism
• Originated in 19th century as alternative
theory to the notion that great men and
women and their words arise independently
of history
• It connects each new undertakintg to its
predecessors, emphasizing historical evolution
over individual genius, position an exchange
between past and present called dialectic by
Friedrich Hegel.
1980s
• New Historicism says that work of art5 must b
e viewed within the context of the place and
time of its creation
• Rejects the New Criticism which analyzes
works of art as sufficient unto themselves.
• Hew Historicists look beyond a work to the
historical and social conditions that
conditioned it.
Martin Williams
• Leading advocate of New Criticism as applied
to jazz
• Always focused on particularity of a musical
work paying little attention to historical details
Reclaiming and defining the Past: From
Bunk to the Academy
• First movement to counter prevailing musical
tastes in favor of an older neglected jazz style
did not take place until the height of the
Swing Era
• 1939 publication of Jazzman by Frederick
Ramsey and Charles Edward Smith
• Argued that true jazz was an essentially New
Orleans derived, African American, bluesbased music
Bunk Johnson
• Romanticizing jazz’s traditional roots while
ignoring modern using stylists (Lester Young, Roy
Eldridge, Billie Holiday, and Lionel Hampton
• Focused on New Orleans trumpet player of
uncertain years named Willie “Bunk” Johnson
(1889-1949)
• Claimed to have played with Buddy Bolden in
1895 and to have influenced Louis Armstrong
(denied)
Bunk Johnson
• First recorded in 1942 and spurred a major
revival of traditional jazz.
• Beset by technical limitations but a rosy,
glowing tone and undeniable predilection for
blues and lyricism.
• Died summer of 1949.
Lenox School of Jazz
• 1950s offered nonstop parade of new styles –
cool, hard bob, Third Stream, soul, and avantgarde - along with ingenious improvisers and
innovative composers.
• 1958 critic Stanley Dance coined mainstream to
describe giant swath of jazz situated between
reactionary traditionalism and radical modernity
• Musicians from Armstrong and Ellington to
Goodman and Lester Young.
• Dance hated bebop
• Jazz made inroads in to academia and arts
establishment but very slowly.
• Much of the historical and educational activity
stimulated in area rarely singled out in jazz
histories: eastern Boston, Massachusetts
• First jazz curriculum at Lenox School of Jazz in
1957 (Berkshires near Tanglewood).
• Under direction of John Lewis.
• Faculty included Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar
Peterson, Ray Brown, Jimmy Giuffre, George
Russell, Max Roach, Gunther Schuller, J.J.
Johnson, and Ornette Coleman.
• Newport Jazz Festival – founded by George
Wein (owner of Storyville and Mahogany Hall)
Avant-Garde Historicism and
Neoclassicism
• Anthony Braxton
Wynton Marsalis
Ronald Shannon Jackson and
James Carter