JAZZ. THE AMERICAN ARTFORM

THE ORIGINS OF JAZZ

‘Whose music is it anyway?’ and other stupid questions

•Approaches to jazz history:–Tracing cultural influences

• African influences• European influences• West Indies influences

–Tracing social trends which influenced jazz history–Tracing demographic trends which influenced jazz

history

•Jazz – in its early history often referred to as ‘race music’ IS NOT ‘race music’, which is not to say race did not play a part in its creation and evolution

•The American artform

•Most ethnically diverse and racially integrated American city of the 19th century•Part of Lousiana purchase•French and Spanish influences•Descendants of French and Spanish colonists and African slaves – Creoles of Color – the largest non-slave Black population in the South•Significant presence of Carribean culture

New Orleans

African influences in jazz•Slave songs and dances

–Original African rhythms / Syncopation –Congo Square, New Orleans

•Plantation worksongs•Baptist Church’s Gospel spirituals

–Call and response–Ring shouts

•Blues–Simple chord structure – three chords–Stress on individual performer’s skill and aptitude –

technique and the feeling–The story (uplifting rather than depressing)

First confusions: Minstrelsy•Minstrel shows

– White performers with ‘blackface’ to pass for Black performers

– At times Black performers blacked to pass for white performers blacked to pass for Black performers

– A wide repertoir of hugely popular songs (including ‘Jim Crow’)

– Original American popular culture– Strengthening racist stereotypes

European influences•Military bands popular in New Orleans after the Civil War•Dixieland•European instrumentation•European folk music•Further confusions:

•Creoles of color – classically trained musicians, playing ‘European music’ for mostly white audiences

»This changes after Civil Rights Cases of 1880’s and after Jim Crow laws are introduced in Lousiana»Creole musicians are now forced to seek new audiences and look for new artforms»Ragtime (the most popular music of the turn of the century)

Further confusions: Creole culture•Mardi Gras parade

– introducing the Brass band•Ragtime

–Scott Joplin•Creole musicians combine brass band tradition with new syncopated music (ragtime), the blues, West Indies influences – earliest jazz

–roots of the traditional New Orleans Jazz Band

Before jazz was jazzTerritory bandsJass bands

Further confusions – ‘inventors of jazz’:First ‘recorded’ jazz (or jass)

Original Dixieland Jassband (1917)Massive commercial successOther recordings follow

Jelly Roll Morton

The Jazz Age (1920’s)Migrations to the north - two directions: Chicago, New YorkProhibition EraThe Speakeasy

Louis Armstrong scat singing (Heebie Jeebies 1926)Duke Ellington‘jungle music’ first broadcast from the

Cotton Club – jazz goes national

The BluesBesie Smith

Ethel Waters

The Swing Era•Jazz primarily dance music

–Charlston–Foxtrot

•Swing–Strong swing rhythm – strong rhythm section–Improvised solos

•Benny Goodman•Count Basie

Towards freer improvisation – jazz is no longer about dancing

•Virtuosity– Louis Armstrong– Art Tatum

•The birth of Bebop– Usually fast tempos (although the blues returns as a major

inspiration)– Virtuosity– Improvisation (against a strong rhythm section, following

simple chord progressions taken from swing melodies or blues)

• Shifts of tempo, departures from the theme– Coleman Hawkins, Body and Soul– Dizzie Gilespie– Charlie Parker– Clifford Brown