JAZZ

WHAT IS JAZZ?

JAZZ is often heralded as the first - or most unique - genre to develop in America.

But what exactly is Jazz? The genre can be challenging to define due to the variety of styles, instrumentations, performance venues, and musical outcomes that have always been a part of its whole. In addition, as tastes and trends shift over the 100+ years since the jazz scene started, jazz subgenres rise and fall in popularity with traditionalists and modernists operating in nearly opposite worlds.

What most can agree on is that all jazz includes some amount of improvisation. IMPROVISATION is the act of performing a musical line the musician is composing on the spot in real time (and in their head). This can be done on an instrument or with the voice (jazz vocalists will most often SCAT or sing nonsense syllables to sound more like an instrument). Improvisation generally takes place over a few predetermined constants in the music such as the tempo, style, a repetitive order of musical chords called CHORD CHANGES, and the knowledge of a piece’s melody that can be referred to for musical ideas.

ROOTS OF JAZZ

In our reading last week, we began to see elements of Jazz building in pockets of the United States from the musical practices of enslaved Africans in the South to the eventual emergence of Ragtime in St. Louis, Missouri. Another early root of Jazz was the Blues. The BLUES is an American music style developed in Black communities of the rural south which harkens back to work songs of the enslaved as well as traditional Negro spirituals. The music was most often performed by a single singer accompanying themselves on the guitar although there was no set formula. Typically, a Blues song is structured in three phrases that consist of a call (where the singer makes a statement, often about something bad or that they’re complaining about), then a reiteration of the same idea with more emphasis or drama, and finally a solution phrase where they state what will happen or what they’re going to do about it.

The Blues also included “new” harmonic languages including more dissonant chords and “Blue” notes that were used in a contrary way to how Classical music was continuing to develop at this time. It should be noted that while new notes weren’t being invented to play the Blues, the unique new way in which they were being used distinguished this aural tradition from the notationally-bound Classical music forms that had more strict rules and expectations as to what music could and couldn’t be.

The Blues began to receive national recognition following trumpeter and composer W.C. Handy’s publication of “Memphis Blues” which is thought to be the first Blues published for wide scale distribution. The recording shared on this page is of an early band version of the work though it would have existed in other forms as well. While the Blues developed before the advent of Jazz as a genre, it has continued to be a foundational structure in many types of Jazz and is still performed in its traditional setting by Blues artists and Jazz artists alike.¹

It is believed that one contributing factor to the development of Jazz was the availability of marching band instruments after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Service musicians and those who inherited or purchased former service instruments began to play them in new, experimental ways, including performing marches they may have learned in the military but adding variations and improvisations to them. As the Blues popularized, musicians would start to play the genre on instruments, often altering playing technique to make their instruments sound like a voice singing the blues.

While the development of the Blues supported a new musical form and harmonic language that would be integral to Jazz, so too did RAGTIME with its rhythmic development. As mentioned in our previous unit, the genre came about by pianists “ragging” simpler, more straight-forward pieces of music such as marches until they developed highly syncopated melodies where the emphasized notes fell on “off beats,” giving the genre a driving energy and a sense of falling forward.

The new styles culminated into the first type of music that would eventually be referred to as JAZZ in New Orleans in the early 20th century though this music would not be called “Jazz” by its own performers for many years.

The word “Jazz” is somewhat obscured in origin. A 2018 article by Lewis Porter suggests the word may be an evolution of “gasm” or “gism” which meant “energy, vitality, spirit, pep”, etc. The first evidence of the word in print came from a California newspaper article on baseball in 1912 rather than referring to the music genre. The slang word may have appeared in many different spellings like Jass, Jas, and Jaz before becoming standardized. The first evidence of the word in print referencing music came out of Chicago in 1915.²

The music coming out of New Orleans at this time was still often being referred to as Ragtime, Dixieland, or eventually New Orleans or Trad Jazz. This style consists of a limited band with or without singer. The RHYTHM SECTION (the members of the band responsible for the speed, rhythm, style, and progression of chords) usually consisted of tuba (or bass), banjo, guitar, and limited percussion like a snare and bass drum, small drum set, or washboard as in the video below. The rest of the instruments would be winds (trumpet, clarinet, trombone - note that saxophone was not a part of the early jazz scene like it is today!) who were responsible for melodies, harmonizing, and improvising. These early bands would often “rag” Classical music including military marches and add a heavy amount of improvisation. One thing that makes these groups unique is that usually all the wind musicians improvise at the same time - taking turns to compliment each others’ improvised lines like an excited conversation where everyone is talking over each other and yet everyone still manages to understand.

Famous Jazz musicians from the early New Orleans scene included pianist Jelly Roll Morton, trumpeter Buddy Bolden, and Sidney Bichet. While the genre was developed mostly by Black musicians in New Orleans, the less segregated culture of the city meant that musicians of all races were mingling and exchanging ideas more so than in other parts of America. It is because of this fact, perhaps, that what is considered to be the first documented recording of Jazz music was recorded by a band of white New Orleans musicians: The Original Dixieland Jass Band. As the story goes, Black bandleader Freddie Keppard was offered the recording opportunity but turned it down as he was concerned about others stealing his ideas off a recording, so the record producers moved on to the ODJB. The 1917 recording is of “Livery Stable Blues” - a somewhat novelty piece with little improvisation and moments of instrumental “barnyard animal sounds” produced on the various instruments.

SWING & THE BIG BAND ERA

Perhaps the most iconic style of Jazz, SWING was the main popular American genre during its heyday during the 1920’s through the 1930’s. The word swing specifically refers to a type of rhythm where instead of splitting a beat in half, the musician will split it into two uneven beats of long-short with approximately a 2:1 ratio. The resulting feel of this 2:1 is that the notes swing from one beat to the next because the internal division is not even like you would expect to hear in, let’s say, a march.

While this rhythmic development was evolving, the smaller wind and rhythm section bands of the New Orleans era were building into a larger force that would eventually become to be known as the Big Band. A BIG BAND usually consists of a specific instrumentation of 5 saxophones, 4 trombones, 4 trumpets, and a rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, drum set) although most Big Bands of the era and through today have some amount of modification. Big bands were loud and high energy and often didn’t need any kind of amplification (unless featuring an electric guitar). This standardization of instruments means that more music could be written and performed by groups with an expectation that all the notes would be covered and a booking agent had a good idea what they’d be getting when contracting with a big band for an event. In addition, the music performed by Swing bands was much more composed and predetermined than that of the more improvisatory music of the New Orleans bands. Composers (often the band leaders or band members) would write out parts for each instrument and it was expected that band members were musically literate - this allowed them to play much more (and more complex) music than the bands of the previous era.

Big Bands were usually named after their leader who was often a musician in the band. Famous Big Bands were headed by leaders like Duke Ellington (piano), Count Basie (piano), Glenn Miller (trombone), Chick Webb (drums), and Benny Goodman (clarinet). These groups tended to have a “home base” city and often a club they’d regularly perform in but often be on the road touring as well as making records. In fact, Glenn Miller was conscripted into World War II to serve as a military band leader until he disappeared when his military plane went down over the English Channel in 1944.⁴

Duke Ellington on swing …

Duke was asked to define swing, if he could. He didn't ponder very long over his reply. "Swing is an emotional element that happens after the music has stopped," he observed, "and it happens in both the audience and in the players." The Duke stopped speaking for a moment and shook his head sadly, "They's a lot of people who don't know anything about it!" - from The Harvard Crimson (1937)

DANCE

During the Big Band Swing era of the 1920’s-1930’s, Jazz was the mainstream popular music the average American was consuming. Jazz music was available on the radio, on records, in “talkie” films (films with sound), and live in dancehalls and clubs. Dancing was a main form of entertainment, socializing, and courtship in America at this time and the consistent tempo and high energy of Swing made it perfect for dancing.

Dance styles such as Swing (later clarified as East Coast Swing), the Jitterbug, the Charleston, the Carolina Shag, and Lindy Hop all developed contemporaneously to the musical form with newer styles such as West Coast Swing continuing to develop even after Big Band music had waned in popularity. Today, there are still many venues to learn and dance swing styles along to the music that saw its peak 100 years ago.

BEBOP

At the advent of WWII, several cultural shifts in the United States affected the prevalence and the performance of Jazz. As men were being called into military service, many Jazz musicians left the rosters of their big bands, making it challenging for many bands to keep a full instrumentation to perform. Recorded music became increasingly available with the development of JUKEBOXES which were devices used to play recorded music in public places and the increase of at-home recording availability (including record players, radios, and eventually television). Demand for large big bands began to wane due to budgetary issues as well as the popular trends moving toward Rock and Pop groups that featured smaller bands. As a reaction, Jazz bands got smaller and the style trended toward a more intellectual, concert-based sound than the danceable feel of Swing. This new subgenre, known as BEBOP, was founded on the idea that musicians could play faster, more intricate, more complicated music, and this could be done with a smaller, more lithe group. The Bebop COMBO usually consisted of a three-person rhythm section (piano, bass, drums) and two horns (trumpet and alto or tenor saxophone) though the number and types of member in groups varied. Bebop usually featured a fast and complicated melody played in unison by two or three horns followed by extended solos for each member of the band, a possible TRADING FOURS section (where each band member would solo for only four short measures), then a recap of the melody. Pioneers of Bebop included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. Bebop continues to be a popular form of Jazz performed by contemporary musicians.⁵

COOL

In somewhat opposition to the intense, frenetic energy of Bebop, the counter Jazz subgenre of Cool began to evolve in its wake. Spearheaded by Bebop trumpeter, Miles Davis, COOL JAZZ was a more subdued, slower, and minimalist approach to the same concepts that were being developed in Bebop. Cool had more of a following on the west coast of the US while Bebop continued to be popular on the east coast.

HARDBOP

Another development out of the Bebop movement was HARDBOP, the east coast’s response to Cool, that brought a stronger rhythmic feel, slower tempi, and more Blues elements to the original Bebop sound. Combos like Art Blakey and Horace Silver’s Jazz Messengers continued to focus on the formula of a HEAD (main melody) followed by an expanded solo section featuring each combo member before the return of the head at the end of the chart.

FREE JAZZ & AVANT GARDE

The most eclectic and theoretical form of Jazz emerged in the late 1950’s with the near complete breakdown of Jazz’s form and structure. Similar to contemporary movements in other art forms (such as visual art, writing/poetry, and dance), Free Jazz was a philosophical movement rather than one that chased a particular aesthetic appeal. This subgenre was most notably developed by Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), a saxophonist who pushed the genre to greater expansions of improvisation while still maintaining some compositional control over the form. Musicians of the FREE JAZZ movement abandoned important elements like timing, chord progression, tonality, and style - and opted, instead, to collaborate in expressive moments with infinite possibilities. Included in these possibilities are any and all sounds that could be made on an instrument - so while the artists are capable of playing with subjectively beautiful tone, they will often include other tones on their instruments such as squawks and blats. To the casual observer, a band of Free Jazz musicians will often sound like they are a bunch of musicians all performing on a stage while not listening to each other - but there are nuances and subtleties to each musician’s performance that make it obvious they are communicating with one another.⁶

LATIN

Concurrent to the evolution of Jazz from New Orleans through the Swing era and beyond, a style of Jazz with Latin roots developed through the Americas during the 20th century. The source of most Latin influences in Jazz are Cuba and Brazil, with immigrants to America from both countries taking to the Jazz idiom. LATIN JAZZ is Jazz because it uses the same instrumentation and similar musical structures as other genres of Jazz with a continued emphasis on improvisation. Latin Jazz differs in that the feel of the music is generally “straight” versus “swung” (as in the Swing era) and utilizes a variety of rhythms and harmonic language more common in Latin American music traditions in addition to expanding the rhythm section to include more Latin percussion instruments like congas, timbales, guiro, cowbell, bongos, and maracas. A common rhythmic feel in Latin Jazz (often called Afro-Cuban) is the 3:2 POLYRHYTHM where beats of the music are split into both halves and thirds depending on which instrument is playing. Notable composers and bandleaders of the Latin Jazz scene include Tito Puente (New York), Arturo Sandoval (Cuba), Antônio Carlos Jobim (Brazil), and Dizzy Gillespie (South Carolina) who was inspired to write and perform Latin Jazz after collaborating with Latin Jazz artists.

JAZZ FUSION

Jazz Fusion (also called Fusion, Jazz Rock, or Progressive Jazz) developed in the 1960’s when musicians in the Jazz and Rock idioms began to exchange ideas. JAZZ FUSION combines elements of Jazz (like improvisation and the extended harmonic language) with elements of Rock, Funk, Pop, and Progressive Rock (like rhythms, melodic content, instrumentation, and style). Jazz Fusion aficionados appreciate the unique blend of genres which also brings more listeners to the Jazz arena while its detractors claim the genre has strayed too far into the mainstream from the roots of Jazz. Fusion artists include familiar names like Miles Davis in addition to Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra, Chick Correa, and Weather Report. Note that many artists may dabble in Jazz Fusion for an album or an era of their career without basing their entire sound and catalog on Fusion.

JAZZ TODAY

Today, Jazz continues to be a flourishing and evolving genre of music with not only musicians in the United States but Jazz artists around the world. Jazz can be heard in clubs, bars, restaurants, dance halls, music festivals, on concert stages, in schools, and in the streets. It is a living art form that will continue to exist as long as there are artists seeking a mode of instant aural expression. With such a wide range of styles and subgenres through its 100+ year history, it is nearly impossible not to find one type of Jazz that speaks to you.

MUSIC ELEMENTS OF JAZZ

An enormous generalization …

ACOUSTICNESS

Jazz tends to lean more acoustically than many other popular American genres that rely more heavily on electronic instruments and computerized sounds. Jazz almost never has computer/digital elements and the only electronics tend to be electric guitar, electric bass, and electric keyboard/organ (and even these instruments are often overlooked for their acoustic counterpart). Jazz is a genre in which one will find acoustic instruments of all sorts including the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and other instruments not readily associated with jazz like violin, flute, clarinet, and cello.

DANCEABILITY

Jazz ranges from highly danceable to intentionally undanceable depending on the subgenre and its purpose. Early jazz such as Swing was created for the purpose of dancing while later styles became more intellectual - designed to be listened to and thought about. Some of these later styles like Bebop are too fast to dance to. Others like Free and Acid Jazz have an irregularity to them that make them impossible to dance to.

ENERGY

The basis of jazz is human emotion and expression so most jazz tunes have quite a bit of energy, even when performed at slower tempi.

INSTRUMENTALNESS

Jazz has a much higher instrument to voice ratio than most American popular genres and most jazz subgenres are almost entirely instrumental. Bands with dedicated singers still include many opportunities for the instrumentalists to be featured and take improvised solos.

LIVENESS

Due to the improvisatory and communicational nature of Jazz, the music is highly live. Recordings are usually done with all musicians in the same room and attending live performances is a much higher priority in jazz circles than in fanbases of other genres.

SPEECHINESS

While there is a direct correlation between the improvisatory nature of Jazz instrumental/vocal solos and the lyrical flow of Hip-Hop and Rap genres, Jazz remains mostly low on the speechiness spectrum and there are few examples of rappers setting their spoken word to Jazz. Some spoken word in a jive rhyming scheme was set to Jazz in a short trend during the 1960’s and some jazz artists have been featured on rap albums while some rappers have included jazz influences in some of their songs and albums, i.e. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015).

TEMPO

Not only is there no specific tempo for Jazz, it is one of the most widely ranging genres in terms of tempo. If the Jazz is designed to be danced to, it will have a strict, danceable tempo which can often edge on the faster side (as many styles of dance that accompany jazz are designed for fast moves). Outside of dance music, Jazz often feels incredibly fast or incredibly slow with tunes in subgenres like Bebop clocking over 200 bpm while slow ballads sometimes dropping below 60 bpm (less than one beat per second).

VALANCE

Valance is another extreme in Jazz depending on the type of music and its purpose. Because Jazz is meant to convey visceral emotions, valance almost always skews to one extreme or the other from the very upbeat Swing to more mournful subgenres like the Blues or sorrowful ballads.

REFERENCES

1. “Blues Classroom.” 2003. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom.html
2. Porter, Lewis. 2018. “Where Did 'Jazz,' the Word, Come From?” WBGO. https://www.wbgo.org/music/2018-02-26/where-did-jazz-the-word-come-from-follow-a-trail-of-clues-in-deep-dive-with-lewis-porter
3. “Biography.” Louis Armstrong House. https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/biography/
4. Enright, Ed. “Big Band Swing.” Downbeat. https://downbeat.com/S=0/site/jazz-101/P7
5. Enright, Ed. “Bebop Emergence.” Downbeat. https://downbeat.com/S=0/site/jazz-101/P8
6. Ephland, John. “Free Jazz.” Downbeat. https://downbeat.com/S=0/site/jazz-101/P13