Jazz

What is Jazz?
Jazz includes a series of evolving musical genres taken from African-
American traditions.
It is a difficult concept to define since it incorporates many diverse musical styles: New Orleans jazz, New York jazz, Bebop, Cool jazz,
Fusion jazz …

The most characteristic aspects:
- It developed in the south-east of the USA, in the city of New Orleans
Foto mapa
- It is a style of music that was born in the African-American community, when black music forms (influenced by African music) with Western musical traditions that came from European immigrants: melody and harmony
Rhythm and phrasing
European music
African music
- Rhythm was very important, produced by multiple or overlapping rhythms
“call and response” format (crida i resposta).

- The importance of improvisation, the process from which a piece of music contained a melody inside an established harmonic structure. Therefore, the excecution and version of the piece was more important than the composition itself
- The close relationship- until the 1940s- between music and dance

Orígins: Work-songs, spirituals, gospel songs, and the blues
Work-songs (cançons de treball)
Songs that black slaves sang while working (s.XVII-1865).
The original locations were the cotton fields during harvest, the construction sites for railways and highways, and forced labor camps
The purpose of these songs were to make the long, hard work hours more bearable and to install a sense of teamwork.

Musically, the songs were sad and melancholy .
They used the rhythmic beats of the music to mark their work rhythm .
In general, they followed the “call and response” structure between one solist and the rest of the workers.
When the black people worked at a distance from each other, they used animated or languid cries called field-hollers
These songs were not written, but were passed on orally .

Spirituals
After slavery was outlawed in 1865, lthe black community felt the need to find a God to whom they coul tell their sins, to give thanks, to ask for strength, … Although they were legally free, the problem of racism still existed.
The majority opf the black community in the southeast turned to a protestant church that was less rígid than the Catholic church, and with greater sense of liberty.
Black spirituals were, originally, religious songs that the black community sang in church celebrations.

The purpose of these songs were to communicate with God and enforce a sense of community . Usually these songs carried a high level of ectasy and exaltation.
Musically:
- It used “swing” (balanceig) and the “call and response” structure between the preacher and the rest of the church
- Many preachers sang in falsetto, which came from an
African tradition that considered it a sign of masculinity.
Gospel Songs
Gospel songs had optimistic themes, were happy and outgoing.

Popular Figures
The Fisk Jubilee Singers , the first black group to have concerts that included black spirituals in the US and Europe starting in
1870.
Mahalia Jackson (New Orleans, 1911 - 1971). She was from a poor and very religious family. Her father worked as a barber and, on Sundays, as a preacher. Throughout her musical career, she only sang religious music, since she consided blues and jazz to be “sinful” since they did not praise God.

Blues
Blues appeared in the end of the 19th century. It derived from the work songs and field hollers
It’s main purpose was to expose everyday problems and headaches; usually those cause by social and economic situations. It is usually described as a protest song.
foto

Ragtime
The name ragtime comes from “ragged time” (temps estripat).
Musically:
-It is only played by piano, completely written with no improvisation. It is a fusion of the romantic piano music (Chopin, Liszt …), military marches, and European polka; it islso includes the rhythmic conception and spirit of previous black music
- The melody includes many syncopations (desplaçaments de l’accent rítmic) and is combined with a simple bass rhythm
It was a widely popular style of music between 1897 and 1920, both in the US and
Europe, and its most well-known melodies were used in jazz music.

Famous figure:
Scott Joplin (Texas, 1868 - New York, 1917). Born into a family of musicians: his father played the violin, and his mother, the banjo. Scott Joplin considered his works to be more of a classical style than as contemporary entertainment.
His songs “Maple leaf rag” and “The entertainer” were the most popular and were featured in the movie “The sing” (“El cop”).

The beginnings: New Orleans (1900-1920)
New Orleans is a port city (at the mouth of the Mississippi) with many jobs with exports and imports. Many black people came to live there to find work that required little experience
New Orleans has been ruled by many different countries:
From its beginnings in 1718 until 1762 it was French.
From 1762 to 1800 it was under Spanish rule.
From 1800 to 1803 it was returned to France.
In 1803, the US bought the city and the rest of Louisiana from Napoleon.
For this reason, there is a huge mixture of races and cultures in New Orleans.

Within the black population, there were many different communities:
The creoles : blacks that came from the mixture of Frenchcolonial culture. They were not descendents of freed slaves and felt more French than anything else.
The African-Americans . Descendents from slaves with a huge ties to African culture.
The tension that existed between the two communities brought the necessity to create distinct ways of expressions that were original and authentic.

The large musical traditions from New Orleans were shown in many ways:
Street parades were important during cultural and political activities in the city. There were many rivalries between marching bands, and when two met on the same corner, they would try to play louder than the other.
Funerals , where a band would accompany the family to the burial playing slow and sad music and, after the burial was over, they would come back playing marches and upbeat music

Musically, the style of New Orleans included:
- Bands of 6 to 9 musicians
- The trumpet played the melody, the clarinet improvised, and the trombone played the lower harmony (with many “glissandos”)
- The drums marked the rhythm
- They would play ragtime, blues, or famous marches

The huge success of this type of music began to interest white musicians.
Dixieland music (Terra del Sud), is the name given to bands from the South with white musicians.
The most famous group of the kind was called the Original Dixieland Jazz Band .

In WWI, NewOrleans was converted into a military port. This brought a lot of tension between the black inhabitants, and the white soldiers
In 1917, Storyville (the region where many blacks lived) was closed “due to the danger it brought to the troops’ moral” . The bars, dance halls and brothels all closed leaving many musicians without work.
This brought about a migration to Chicago , where many musicians went to further change the style of Jazz

The style of Chicago (1920-1930)
The style of Chicago began in the South Side , a neighborhood where many of the musicians from
New Orleans came to live.
Although still played by predominantly black musicians, more white musicians began to have interest in Jazz.
The emergence of the first record companies and radio stations helped make Jazz popular not only in the US, but in Europe as well.

Musically the style of Chicago was very similar to that of
New Orleans but with a few changes:
- The bands consisted of 10-12 musicians and played in a more stable way without a lot of movement:
In the rhythm section:
The contrabass replaced the tuba
The piano and guitar manitained the harmony
The drum section grew
Within the melody: the trumpet, clarinet and trombone continued to be popular, but the saxophone was becoming more popular
- The harmonies were more refined
- Soloists were beginning to be more important than the band as a collective

In 1925, it became obvious that many Mafia members were trying to control Chicago
In 1929, Senator Dennen , proposed
“the cleaning of the morals of the city.
” A Dry Law was created, and police began to crack down on nightclubs that sold alcohol.
Many clubs closed, and Chicago’s nightlife began to disappear.
People had less money due to problems with Wall
Street, and began to listen to jazz on the radio or on records instead of spending money going out.
This caused a second migration to New York City .

Louis Armstrong “Satchmo” (1898 or 1900 - 1971)
“My father didn’t have time to teach me anything, he was too busy chasing women!”
Trumpet player, singer and composer. Armstrong was born in New Orleans to a poor family. His mother was a prostitute, so he was raised by his grandmother.
One night in 1913, Armstrong was thrown into jail for firing shots into the air. In juvenile detention, he first learned how to play the cornet. He taught himself how to play, which led to him having his own personal style, and a cronic problem with his mouth from not
“correctly” playing the instrument
In 1915 he left the facility, and started playing throughout New Orleans.

In 1922, he ws invited by Joe King Oliver to play in his band in Chicago. A year later he married the pianist from the group, Lil Hardin and in 1925 he formed his first group the
“Hot Five”, which later became the “Hot Seven” . This was the golden age of Louis Armstrong as a trumpet player.
In 1929, he decided to leave to New York and play as a soloist with many popular orchestras. He also participated in many concerts, made a few movies, and little by little, became a grand “showman” that would stand out for his singing (mainly his voice).
From 1947 until his death in 1971, Armstrong was accompanied by a group called the “All Stars”, that revived the music from New Orleans. This period was when he became most popular

Musically, Louis Armstrong is known for:
-Expressively playing the trumpet, often using “vibrato”
-His use of “swing” rhythm and his solos
- for being the creator of “scat” (singing without saying anything

New York (1930-1945)
The era of Swing: big bands and popular soloists
In 1935, New York became the center for Jazz
The “Race Records” (records of black music) and the radio continued to play jazz until the 1930s, when Swing became the most popular style of music.
More musicians in each band led to the evolution of the big bands
Swing can be understood as a lifestyle and, more than anything else, Swing is dance!

Famous Figures:
In the world of “big bands”...
The “big band” of Edward “Duke” Ellington
A famous pianist, composer and arranger. From 1927 to 1931 he was widely popular. Amongst all of his different styles, his “jungle style”, was the most popular.
In it, he used a wide range of instruments from the jungle.

Billie Holiday “Lady Day” (1915 – 1959)
“My mother and father were just a pair of kids when they got married. He was 18, she was 16, and I was already 3”.
Billie Holiday had a sad childhood and adolescence. When she was 13, she moved to New York to become a prostitute. She was arrested and put in prison for 4 months.
When she left, she applied to be a ballerina, but was always rejected. However, one company asked her to sing, and she was given a contract.
In 1933 a producer from Columbia Records discovered her at “Monette’s Club”. This gave her many opportunities at jazz clubs and bars.

Starting in 1935 she became very successful, and began to sing with many orchestras and had concerts all over the
US. Around 1942 she became addicted to alcohol and drugs, and her health and voice began to suffer.
In 1947 she was arrested for possession of heroine, and spent 9 months in jail. From this moment on, it was impossible for Billie Holiday to live a normal life: she was forbidden entry at any club in New York that served alcohol, she was constantly monitered by police, and any mistake would send her to prison...

In 1952 she began a detox program and was signed to
Verve Records for 5 years. She toured in Europa
(1954), participated in various TV programs and i acted in many sessions with the famous “Jazz At The
Philarmonic” (JATP).
Billie Holiday died in New York, July 17th of 1959, three and a half months after the death of Lester
Young, who gave her the nickname, “Lady Day” and who was her musical confident.

Bebop (1945...)
Starting in 1945, a group of young musicians with a strong musical background bgan to start a new style of Jazz in New York . Their intention was to look for new alternatives to the contemporary commercial forms of jazz . In other words they wanted to In order to recover the most authentic essence of jazz- improvisation and simple musical structures.

According to Dizzy Gillespie , one of the creators of the new style, “bebop” was an onomatopeia that the musicians of this “new jazz” used to indicate an end of a musical phrase. In addition to the name, “bopers” developed a whole new personal style: they were well-dressed, wearing dark glasses and usually, a beret.

Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920 – 1955) Dizzy Gillespie ( 1917-1993)
Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City and began to play music when he was little.
When he was 17, he was already playing the saxophone professionally and was married, but was also a drug addict.
Dizzy Gillespie was the youngest of nine siblings in a wealthy family. His parents paid for him to have formal music lessons, and he quickly caught the attention of famous and important musicians.
In 1942 the two met for the first time in the club “Savoy Ballroom” in New York. Here, they would play together for the first time, starting the new style of jazz.

In 1945 Parker and Gillespie, together with other supporting musicians, became the first to play the new style of jazz called bebop. Their popularity with the public ranged from extreme admiration to a loathing and cold hatred. It seemed everyone had an opinion about these two! Things would quickly change...
In 1946, Parker didn’t arrive with the rest of the group at an airport, making Dizzy mad enough to form his own group.
Parker would continue to perform, but his drug addiction became a huge problem. After setting his mattress on fire in a hotel room, he was placed in a mental facility. There, he received help for his drug addiction.
In 1947, he left the hospital and formed a new quintet, but this project didn’t last, as the other musicians left him for not being professional.

Parker continued to perform, but he wasn’t able to beat his drug addiction. After his daughter’s death, he began to use more frequently. In 1955, he died of a heart attack.

Dizzy Gillespie, however, would continue his musical career for decades.
Starting in 1948, he began to incorporate more latin rhythms into his music. He would also travel to Africa and different Latin American countries (mainly Cuba) to perform, and would be named a Cultural
Ambassador for the United States!
Although he was not as creative as Charlie Parker,
Dizzy would become even more famous due to his outgoing personality, good humor, and professional attitude. This also helped Bebop become a famous style of music.
In 1993, Dizzy died after a long battle with many cardiac illnesses.

And after bebop...
After Bebop, many avantguard styles of jazz appeared. However, none have had the same impact as earlier jazz movements. Most of these styles are still played throughout the US and the world today. They include:
Cool-jazz (1950): a slower, calmer form of jazz.
It was created to be opposite of the Bebop movement. The most famous musician from this period is Miles Davis , a trumpet player.
Free-jazz (1960): became famous for not using any form of harmonies or any pre-determined format.
John Coltrane is a famous musician from this period
Fusion (1970): a style that incorporated music and influences from rock, flamenco and electronic music