Jazz exam 2

cool jazz

(1950s style); originated w/ Bix Biederbecke and Lester Young; West coast jazz; was light/relaxed timbre, flexible rhythm that was often behind the beat, clam and stable dynamics, understated/economical phrasing; wanted to gain respect, much like that of classical music; included the french horn; Miles Davis Nonet "birth of the cool"; often found on the west coast, especially LA area

pete johnson

a pianist of boogie-woogie, performed in "From Spirituals to Swing Concert" in NY at Carnegie Hall

big joe turner

a vocalist of boogie-woogie, performed in the "From Spirituals to Swing Concert" in NY at Carnegie Hall

fletcher henderson

an arranger of rhythmic swing and melody, used riffs, short choruses to allow for solos and arrangements

dizzy gillespie

an intellectual force behind bebop; was a trumpet player; 1939 employed in the Cab Calloway Orchestra; soloist, arranger, composer; combined latin-cuban jazz w/ bebop; kept bebop together; was its "head and hands"

benny moten

bandleader and businessman, top KC territory band, Count Basie took over band when he died;

Gerry Mulligan

baritone saxist and composer; one of the only popular bari sax players; "cool" era

popular song form

clear change to bridge, AABA form; 32 bars

third stream

combined jazz and classical music

the head

composed section, typically performed in unison, that frames a small-combo jazz performance by appearing at the beginning and again at the end.

send off riffs

composed segment that takes up the first four bars of a chorus

savoy ballroom

located in harlem; a common and prominent dance hall for swing to be performed

ellingtonians

made up of brass section that included Nanton and Juan Tizol on trombone, cootie williams on the trumpet, alto saxophone via johnny hodges and bari sax w/ harry carney and sonny greer on the drums; swing band

melodic paraphrase

melodic paraphrase uses a pre-existing melody as the basis for improvisation. The variations may come in rhythm or melodic contour (removing notes as well as adding them), but whatever the change, the original melody should still be recognizeable. Musicians often use melodic paraphrase when they first state a melody, to make the statement pers

Sonny Rollins

tenor sax player that worked w/ thelonius monk, wrote many influential pieces, a musician who was constantly changing and challenging himself to get better; unique timbre; solos were often a cadenza

benny goodman

white russian-jewish immigrant, played clarinet, helped cast jazz as "chamber music", interracial quartet (clarinet, drums, vibes, piano); created the Goodman quartet, which was interracial; allowed music to transverse racial barriers; performed in Carnegie Hall

Bebop

(early 1940s music); jazz became an isolated music and appeared in tiny cramped nightclubs rather than brightly lit dance halls; was seen as an "outsiders music" w/ drug abuse and racial hostility; jam sessions were musical obstacles that made inexperienced musicians feel unwelcome by using fast tempos and unfamiliar keys; Minton's Playhouse was a place where bebop notables played; used the cymbal and walking bas, not the guitar; known for DISSONANT harmonies; used the flatted fifth; took in angry and bitter musicians who were tired down by racial injustice; "uppity and daring"; declined in 1955; had smaller ensembles, extended solos, fast tempos, basic tones are there but harder to hear b/c they are masked by louder solos

trading fours

A technique in which musicians consistently alternate brief solos of pre-set length (for trading fours, four bars; musicians may also trade twos, eights, and so forth). Trading fours usually occurs after each musician has had a chance to play a solo, and often involves alternating four-bar segments with the drummer

Sidney Bechet

CLARINET/SOPRANO SAXOPHONE; intense sound; known for traveling overseas to play jazz; one of the first great soloists; worked alongside Ellington and Armstrong; New Orleans jazz

Louis Armstrong

CORNET/TRUMPET/BAND LEADER; started off in King Oliver's band; married Lil Hardin; one of the first greatest soloists; seen as a "hero" of the Great Migration and the black community; created the all-star Hot Five group; NY/big band style

Buddy Bolden

CORNET; known for playing really loud; generally acknowledged as the first important jazz musician; New Orleans Jazz; important song(s)= Funky Butt

modal improvisation

Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework.

James P. Johnson

PIANO (Stride); "Father of Stride Piano"; also a composer; famous song(s)= You've Got to Be Modernistic; NY style jazz

Jelly Roll Morton

PIANO; important figure for NOLA jazz; also a composer (seen as the "first jazz composer"); also one of the first jazz musicians (helped shape the genre); band was Red Hot Peppers

Scott Joplin

PIANO; ragtime composer; used music that was entirely notated (instead of complete improvisation); wrote numerous songs and operas; Maple Leaf Rag

Art Tatum

a blind pianist, incredible playing ability, pretty much a solo pianist but would accompany singers and others occasionally, helped inspire the bebop movement; "Over the Rainbow"

cadenza

a classical music word for a monophonic solo passage that showcases the performer's virtuosity

Horace Silver

a composer whose pieces incarnated the hard bop aesthetic; tenor saxophonist; had carpe verdean folk music background; formed the jazz messengers w/ Art Blakey

head arrangement

a flexible, unwritten arrangement created by the entire band

monophonic texture

a musical texture characterized by a single melody with no pitched accompaniment: for an example, listen to the opening of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues." When a monophonic texture interrupts the usual texture of jazz performance, it is known as a break.

homophonic texture

a musical texture characterized by one main melody w/ a clearly subordinate pitch accompaniment. Homophony is the usual texture in a jazz performance (an improvised solo accompaniment by a rhythm section, comprised of percussion etc.) block chords are an example

polyphonic texture

a musical texture characterized by two or more melodies of equal importance or interest playing simultaneously, such that no one melody sounds like the main melody. In classical composition, also known as counterpoint. (discussed tonaly) each instruments each having distinct melodies playing at the same time. One jazz style that features polyphony is New Orleans jazz. Listen to the following example of New Orleans polyphony by the Free Bridge Quintet. Another example shows the Free Bridge Quintet (with Prof. DeVeaux on piano) using polyphony on a modern version of Autumn Leaves."

Count Basie

a stride pianist of boogie-woogie; worked w/ Benny Moten and took over his band when moten died of tonsillectomy, was discovered by John Hammond, breakthrough w/ "One O'Clock Jump"; simple style, underplayed on piano, arrangements based on the idea that less is more; his band lasted until the swing era ended; played at the Reno club; band broke up after WWII

Fats Waller

a stride pianist, composer, singer and entertainer; pupil of Jams P. Johnson; many popular songs in jazz and pop; "Christopher Columbus"

Dexter Gordon

a tenor saxophone player that joined the Lionel Hampton band; introduced to music theory by Dizzy Gillespie; used send off riffs; traveled to europe to escape racial prejudices and became the elder statesman of acoustic jazz

downbeat

an accented beat, usually the first of the bar.

jam sessions

became important to jazz culture in Kansas city; were considered a 'musician's music' and weren't open to the public; source of head arrangements; these bands were flexible and at times endless

arpeggio

chord's notes are played successively, one at time; EX: C E G B flat or in reverse or in another sequence entirely; hawkins used a lot of them

harmonic substituions

chords richer and more intricate than those the composer provides (also utilized by Hawkins)

George Russell

composed-bandleader, not an instrumentalist, devoted much of his life to forming an intricate musical theory, called George Russell's "Lyndian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization Volume One: The Art and Science of tonal gravity"; is the de facto father of modal jazz, the harmonic approach that produced such classics as Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's GIant Steps, and Herbie Hancock's; analyzed chords in terms of related scales, led him to the conclusion that using fewer chords and focusing on their underlying scales or modes, would incline the improviser to think more melodically; undoing of song and blues form; basis for modalism as an improvisational method; modal way would come to dominated jazz in the 1960s, particularly in the realm of jazz-rock fusion; believed the human ear detects the greatest unity and finality in the C Lydian scale: on a piano, the white keys from C to C but w/ an F sharp-tritone at the very center of the scale-instead of F; rejected the idea of major/minor keys and the harmonic rules contingent on them; his techniques liberated musicians from bebop's harmonic grids; wrote for Dizzy Gillespie "Cubana be/cubana bop" which fused jazz and Afro-Cuban music and introduced modal orchestral writing

swing, bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, third stream

correct order of the jazz styles

territory bands

created by the movement of blacks into territories creating all black towns for more opportunities and decreased threats of racism; they worked in one specific area/city and were not really known nationally; an important one was Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy (w/ Mary Lou Williams)

harmonic improvisation

creating a new melodic line by drawing on notes from each chord as it goes by in the harmonic progression. Also known in jazz slang as "running the changes". An example: the opening of a song uses the harmony C in bar 1, then G7 in bar 2. (All you need to know is that the chord "C" contains certain notes, while the chord "G7" contains other notes.) During bar 1, any notes from the "C" chord will be consonant, and others are likely to be dissonant (i.e., they will produce tension that needs to be resolved). In bar 2, the situation shifts: the consonant notes are those in the "G7" chord. A soloist using harmonic improvisation must keep track of the chords (or "changes," as jazz musicians often call them) and continually adjust the melodic line to fit the harmonic background.

Chick Webb

drummer and bandleader; played w/ Ella Fitzgerald

Art Blakey

drummer in hard bop; became famous for his press roll (intense rumbling on the snare; which elevates a soloist right before going back to the chorus, worked w/ Thelonius Monk, formed the jazz messengers w/ horace silver

Swing music

from the 1930s; involved big bands, musicians had to be able to read music; involved homophonic textures; singing is unique to swing w/ people like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday; used riffs & call and response; based off arrangements; large dance orchestras divided into may sections of trumpets, saxophones, trombones and rhythms sections; more middle class profession; form of mass entertainment; songs were much more arranged; affected by great depression and WWII; was a statement of democracy that brought people together; emerged out of African American culture; four beat groove; incorporated dances like the lindy hop; banjo replaced the guitar

Artie Shaw

from the ghetto, played clarinet, started out playing for a radio orchestra; was benny goodman's rival and firm came to fame in 1936, loved fame but hated it at the same time

Kenny Clarke

had the nickname of Klook for his combined snare drum and bass drum hits; known as klock mop, drummed during WWII so his drum explosions were known as dropping bombs

Jimmie Lunceford

had tight arrangements; show band= singing, dancing, clowning; known for the Chickasaw Syncopators group which became a professional orchestra

dissonance

harmonies that are unstable within an overall harmonic context. Dissonant harmonies build tension that is resolved through movement toward consonant harmonies.

ostinatos

insistently repeated melodies known as chains which divide each beat into two

comping

inspired by Count Basie; it is involves rhythmically unpredictable skein of chords that complemented the drummer's strokes and added another layer of rhythmic structure

polyrhythm

is the simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythms, that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic conflict may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhythm), or a momentary disruption. In African derived music, including jazz. Rhythmic layers complementing each other.

Mary Lou Williams

kansas city swing a musical genius of piano and arrangements; female pioneer that showed power and taste transcend gender, performed "walkin' and swingin', later left andy krik's band and played in NY's cafe society, liked chromatic harmonies and this carried her into the bebop era; converted to Roman Catholicism

Dave brubeck

known for using irregular meters; on the cover of time magazine; wrote "Take Five" which is in 5/4 time; cool era pianist and composer

Charlie Parker

most gifted alto saxophonist in history; called bird, played in the Jay McShann orchestra; died of drug addiction and sort of marked the end of the bebop era

billie holiday

nickname was lady day; not the most impressive voice (very limited range), singing style was different b/c she sang around the beat/anywhere but on the beat, improvising style was based on melodic paraphrase; career took many turns; "Them Their Eyes"

John Hammond

not a musician; was a white/wealthy man interested in jazz music, discovered many important jazz musicians and fought racial discrimination, promoted jazz music and musicians; organized the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert that popularized boogie-woogie at Carnegie Hall

Charles Mingus

one of jazz's best bassists; was a composer, social activists and musician; influenced by sanctifed church, new orleans polyphony, swing, bop, romantic classical music and modern classical music; made jazz relevant to the civil rights era; told to drop cello b/c he was black and wouldn't get employed anywhere; worked in diverse ensembles such as Dixieland band (Kid Ory), Louis Armstrong's big band, etc.; toured w/ Lionel Hampton; 1950 received national attention in NY w/ Red Norvo Trio; organized a record label w/ Max Roach in 1952; took a job w/ Art Tatum later; contributed his music to the jazz composers workshop made up of white musicians, fuzing cool jazz and classical techniques; 1956 signed w/ Atlantic records, creating a breakthrough album Pithecanthropus erectus; encouraged musicians to 'speak out' through their music; played tributes to great figures of the past in his music; his music combined cool jazz and hard bop w/ experimental complexity and visceral pleasure

Billy Strayhorn

open homosexual, composed w/ Ellingtonians, exotic, chromatic music; wrote "Take the A Train" (1940)

Coleman Hawkins

played tenor sax; swing era soloist; part of early fletcher henderson band; made tenor a solo instrument; had a rich sound and often used melodic paraphrase, nickname was "bean" and traveled in Europe in the mid-late 30s

roy eldridge

played the first solo in "Blue Lou"; one of the important trumpet players of the Swing era; nicknamed little jazz; modeled his playing based on the sax and used harmonic improvisation and chromatic harmonies

Gil Evans

primarily an arranger for people like Miles Davis; crafted series of trumpet concerts that emphasized the power and expressiveness of Davis's playing; "Miles Ahead" established Evans as a recording artist in his own right; known for his use of the concerto form: ensemble music designed to feature a single soloist; by the 1960s, he decides to forsake freelance work in favor of leading his own orchestra; often seated at the electric piano; traveled the world; devoted a lot of his performance energy to head arrangements; band continued into the 1990s under the direction of his son, Miles evans

Thelonius Monk

rarely worked/composed themes longer than thirty-two bars; worked almost exclusively w/ blues and song forms; the most widely performed of all jazz composers after Duke Ellington, wrote only 70 pieces, he composed no hits and only one sound (Round Midnight); recruited by drummer Kenny Clarke to play at Minton's Playhouse; accompanied Charlie Christina, Dizzy Gillespie and other advanced musicians in after-hours jam sessions, placing himself at the center of bebop's development; his early composition was was the ballad "Round Midnight" played by trumpet player Cootie Williams; hired by Coleman Hawkins in 1944 for the quartet he was leading; signed w/ Blue Note in 1947, his style was mocked by many critics and fans; thought to have a neurobiological disorder called Asperger's syndrome; 1955 signed w/ Riverside; album called Brilliant Corners; performed at Five Spot and led a quartet w/ tenor saxophonist John Coltrane; 1962 signed by Columbia Records; time magazine ran an article on him being one of jazz's most admired musicians; gaining acceptance he withdrew personally and professionally; used AABA tunes and blues and made abstractions; used quirky dissonances (minor ninths, flatted fifths, and minor seconds); "Thelonius" is a bebop-monk style piece

Charlie Christian

really popularized the electric guitar in jazz b/c he helped show that it wasn't just an accoutrement; had its own special sound and qualities; hired by Benny Goodman; "Topsy"

Cab Calloway

showed white people what it was like to live in Harlem, played at Savoy ballroom and cotton club, went into singing after band disbaned; scat singer

flatted fifth

sound known as the "devil in music"

Duke ellington

swing pianist; displaced fletcher henderson's band as the most prominent black dance band, his career spanned 1/2 a century, even after swing; composed off of styles and various sounds he heard; good relationship w/ his musicians; worked w/ musician's styles and personalities; wrote a lot of pieces, collaborated w/ theater; worked w/ co-composed w/ Billy Strayhorn; traveled across Europe and became a black spokesperson for black America

Lester young

tenor sax, nickname was the "pres", worked w/ Count Basie in KC, embodies aesthetic of "cool", personal style; wore a porkpie hat, used his own slang/ lingo, played sax at a weird angle, playing style-light timbre, elusive rhtyhms

Kansas City

the southwest's urban swing headquarters were located here

changes

these are harmonic progressions that are present in blues which changes to 1,4,5,1

global jazz

this describes a period in which jazz flourished in underground european nations and was made more popular by coleman hawkins who embarked on a five year visit to many europeans countries

Boogie-woogie

this is a blues piano style; rhythmic foundation in the left hand via ostinatos and chains; right hand plays variable bluesey patterns; double time; incorporated the eight-beat feeling (which doubles the walking bass line); social music for dancing and blues singing; played in speakeasies; part of black urban life in 20's-30s, crossed racial barriers; declined in the early 30s but was later promoted by John Hammond and the white public alongside a greater appreciation for black folk tradition

Body and soul

this piece discussed the many controversies surrounding composition and improvisation; Coleman Hawkin's improvisation of Johnny Green's version of this song did not accrue him any royalties b/c the first four bars of the song were copyrighted even though the rest of his improvisation was entirely unique

New Orleans Style

this style combined polyphonic textures, featuring instruments such as the trumpet, trombone, string bass, tuba, cornet, clarinet which all comprised the front line; prominent musicians in this era included buddy bolden, original dixieland jazz band (produced the first recording), Creole Jazz Band, and the red hot peppers (jelly roll morton); example of this is "down home rag"

django reinhardt

this was a guitarist from Belgium; a gypsy musician; hand caught on fire so he became crippled; guitar became more of soloing instrument

composition era

this was a time in which influential performers in the 1950s post-bop era combined modern jazz w/ traditional techniques such as polyphony, stride, piano, short breaks and cadenzas as well as standard jazz and pop themes; this era produced full time composers who did not necessarily work as instrumentalists

Hard bop

this was the revival of bop but w/ a harder edge; Miles davis helped to transition from cool to hard bop; embodied general attitude of being tough, urban and straightforward ; resisted overt experiment (as opposed to cool jazz in which experimentation was a big feature); located much more on the East Coast in the big cities;

Glenn Miller

trombonist, had the most popular swing band of the 1940s; wanted to appeal to dancers more than jazz; played for armed forces

virutosity

used to identify an artist of masterly technique and skill (many would use this to describe art tatum)

march ragtime

very clear shift to a new key; very different strains

John Lewis

was a cool era pianist; worked w/ Parker and Gillespie; unique piano style because he played in a light manner that was rhythmically firm and inflected the blues; also a composer

Kansas city swing

was a distinctive four beats to the bar groove, dance music, as its core was Walter Page: popular group known as the blue devils, had no leader, cooperative band that voted on everything, active in Kansas city from 1920-1930 and used copious head arrangements

stop time

where the band will stop playing during a solo but at a certain distance apart the band will come in on a single note. a technique in which a band plays a pattern of short chords separated by silences. The intervening musical space is then filled in with monophonic improvisation. Stop-time is usually used in early jazz. Typical patterns for stop-time include playing on the downbeat of every other measure; or playing on beats 1, 2, and 3 of a measure. A break is a short little section where just as soloist will play and then after or more bars the band will come in.