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
PART 5. THE AVANT-GARDE,
FUSION, HISTORICISM, AND NOW
• Avant-garde originated in the French army to
designate troops sent in advance to scout
unknown territory. In English it was adapted
to describe innovative composers, writers,
painters, and other artists who were ahead of
their time. It represented a movement to
liberate artists from the restraints of tradition.
Two avant garde movements – 1920s and
1950s-1960s.
1920s avant garde
• A response to the devastation of WWI,
Expansion of women’s rights and advances in
technology
• Included surrealism, cubism, and imagism as
well as 12 tone music
1950s-1960s avant garde
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Similar to 1920s
Rebuilding Europe and Asia after WWII
Colonial wars and occupations
Cold War
Technology
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Demand for women’s professional, social, and
sexual parity
• New Wave cinemas
• Narrative Jazz
Avant Garde
• Umbrella term to describe an inclusive,
ongoing scho9ol of jazz that evolved as a
separate entity
• Stretched parameters to the breaking poing
• Primary figures are
– Ornette Coleman,
– Cecil Taylor, and
– John Coltrane
Ornette Coleman
• Ornette Coleman was born on March 9, 1930, in
Fort Worth, Texas. He began playing music as a
teenager and eventually became a working
musician. In the 1950s, Coleman developed a
style of improvising called “free jazz.” The nonharmonic style was controversial, but he
successfully recorded albums like Free
Jazz and The Shape of Jazz to Come. In 2007, he
received a Pulitzer Prize for his music. In June
2015, at the age of 85, Coleman died of cardiac
arrest.
Ornette Coleman
•
•
•
•
2007 Pulitzer Prize for Sound Grammar
1959 most disruptive figure in jazz
Formed the American Jazz Quintet in 1956
His compositions possessed strong melodic,
emotional character suggesting the solemnity
of dirges
• Microtonal pitches which challenged the
familiarity of the tempered or conventional
scale.
PART 5. THE AVANT-GARDE, FUSION, HISTORICISM,
AND NOW
• Ornette Coleman, “Lonely Woman” 1954
• Discussed on 311-312
Free Jazz and Harmolodics
• Harmolodic – a contraction of harmony,
movement, and melody and a catch phrase to
characterize his take on ensemble music.
Cecil Taylor, “Bulbs”
• Soon after he first emerged in the mid-'50s,
pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser
in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical.
Although in his early days he used some standards as
vehicles for improvisation, since the early
'60s Taylor has stuck exclusively to originals. To simplify
describing his style, one could say that Taylor's intense
atonal percussive approach involves playing the piano
as if it were a set of drums. He generally emphasizes
dense clusters of sound played with remarkable
technique and endurance, often during marathon
performances. Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music
is not for everyone.
Albert Ayler, “Ghosts”
•
•
One of the giants of free jazz, Albert Ayler was also one of the most controversial. His huge tone
and wide vibrato were difficult to ignore, and his 1966 group sounded like a runaway New Orleans
brass band from 1910.
Unlike John Coltrane or Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler was not a virtuoso who had come up through the
bebop ranks. His first musical jobs were in R&B bands, including one led by Little Walter, although
oddly enough he was nicknamed "Little Bird" in his early days because of a similarity in sound on
alto to Charlie Parker. During his period in the army (1958-1961), he played in a service band and
switched to tenor. Unable to find work in the U.S. after his discharge due to his uncompromising
style,Ayler spent time in Sweden and Denmark during 1962-1963, making his first recordings
(which reveal a tone with roots in Sonny Rollins) and working a bit with Cecil Taylor. Ayler's prime
period was during 1964-1967. In 1964, he toured Europe with a quartet that included Don
Cherry and was generally quite free and emotional. The following year he had a new band with his
brother Donald Ayler on trumpet and Charles Tyler on baritone, and the emphasis in his music
began to change. Folk melodies (which had been utilized a bit with Cherry) had a more dominant
role, as did collective improvisation, and yet, despite the use of spaced-out marches, Irish jigs, and
brass band fanfares, tonally Ayler remained quite free. His ESP recordings from this era and his first
couple of Impulse records find Ayler at his peak and were influential; John Coltrane's post-1964
playing was definitely affected by Ayler's innovations.
• Taylor preferred an arcane system of sketches,
fragments, codes, and arrows.
• He used no scores. Played episodes on the
piano and musicians picked up by ear and
developed by way of improvisation.
• Unit Structures described his method on
modules or units and the group worked
through each unit.
World Saxophone Quartet, “Hattie
Wall”
•
bably the first of several saxophone-only ensembles who proliferated in jazz after
1975, the WSQ is unquestionably the most commercially (and, arguably, the most
creatively) successful. Of course, commercial success is a relative thing in jazz,
especially when one is speaking of an avant-garde group. But unlike most free jazz
artists, the WSQ managed to attract an audience of significant size; large enough
to have garnered a major-label record deal in the '80s, an almost unheard-of
occurrence in that retro-jazz decade. The band did it on merit, too, with only a hint
of compromise (manifested mainly by albums of R&B and Duke Ellington covers).
By the time their first record on Elektra/Musician came out in 1986, the band had
evolved from their fire-breathing, free-improvising, ad-hoc beginnings into a
smooth-playing, compositionally minded, well-rehearsed band. At their creative
peak, the group melded jazz-based, harmonically adventurous improvisation with
sophisticated composition. All of the group's original members (Julius Hemphill,
alto; Oliver Lake, alto; David Murray, tenor; and Hamiet Bluiett, baritone) were
estimable composers as well as improvisers. Each complimented the whole,
making them even greater than the considerable sum of their parts. As a
composer, Hemphill drew on European techniques (though his tunes were not
without an unalloyed jazz component), while Bluiettwas steeped in blues and
funk. Lake and Murray fell somewhere in between. As soloists and writers, the
early WSQ covered all the bases.
•
the WSQ were founded in 1976 after the four original members (all of them wellestablished solo artists) accepted an offer by Ed Jordan, the chairman of the music
department at Southern University in New Orleans, to conduct a series of clinics
and performances with and without a local rhythm section. The enthusiastic
audience response to the unaccompanied saxophones convinced the musicians to
develop the concept. They played a gig at the (now defunct) Tin Palace in New
York, calling the group the Real New York Saxophone Quartet. They were later
forced to change the name after reportedly being threatened with a lawsuit by the
preexisting New York Saxophone Quartet; hence, the World Saxophone Quartet.
In 1977, the band recorded their first album, an almost completely improvised
effort called Point of No Return, for the Moers Music label. Later releases on Black
Saint document the band's increasing interest in composition. The membership
stayed constant until Hemphill's departure in 1989. Arthur Blythe was the first
of Hemphill's several replacements. Blythe was with the band from 1990-1992,
and from 1994-1995. James Spaulding joined briefly in 1993, and was quickly
replaced by Eric Person. In 1996, after Blythe's second tenure, John Purcell took
and held the chair.
Anthony Braxton / Max Roach, “Spirit
Possession
• American composer as well as sax, clarinet, flute and
piano player. He has created a large body of highly
complex work.
While not known by the general public, Braxton is one
of the most prolific American musicians/composers to
date, having released well over 100 albums of his
works since the 1960s.
Among the vast array of instruments he utilizes are the
flute; the sopranino, soprano, C-Melody, F alto, E-flat
alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones; and
the E-flat, B-flat, and contrabass clarinets.
• Braxton studied at the Chicago School of Music and at
Roosevelt University. At Wilson Junior College, he met
Roscoe Mitchell and Jack DeJohnette.
After a stint in the army, Braxton joined the AACM.
After moving to Paris with the Anthony Braxton Trio (which
evolved into the Creative Construction Company), he
returned to the US, where he stayed at Ornette Coleman's
house, gave up music, and worked as a chess hustler in the
city's Washington Square Park.
In 1970, he and Chick Corea studied scores by Stockhausen,
Boulez, Xenakis and Schoenberg together, and Braxton
joined Corea's Circle.
In 1972, he made his bandleader debut (leading duos, trios,
and quintets) and played solo at Carnegie Hall.
• His 1968 solo alto saxophone double LP For
Alto (finally released in 1971) remains a jazz
landmark, for its encouragement of solo
instrumental recordings. Other important
recordings include Three Compositions of New
Jazz (1968, Delmark), his 1970s releases on
Arista, Composition No. 96 (1981; Leo), Quartet
(London) 1985; Quartet (Birmingham) 1985;
Quartet (Coventry) 1985 (all on Leo), Seven
Compositions (Trio) 1989 (hat Art), Duo (London)
1993 & Trio (London), both on Leo