The early roots of the music come from
musical styles that developed as a result of the collision of African traditions
and European forms. The music developed in spite of and as a result of
this collision.
Purely African characteristics: pitch
bending, rigid tempo, few changes in dynamics, prominent percussion role.
African-European blend: "blue" notes,
methods of producing tones, "swing."
Characteristics of both cultures: improvisation,
syncopation, poly-rhythms, antiphony (call and response).
Purely European: harmony, counterpoint,
band instruments.
These musical styles were originally
known as:
Ragtime: written music for piano and
other instruments that began during the 1880-1900 period.
Blues and Spirituals: a rural vocal
and instrumental music tradition directly descended from African sources
using European hymns and popular ballads for the original literary sources.
Marching music as popularized by Sousa.
In New Orleans, several ethnic groups
(French, Spanish, English and African) spawned a culture where social activity
was always accompanied by music in some form. Black music making had less
interference here than in any other part of the South.
A very high percentage of the early
jazzmen (black and white) came from New Orleans.
The most important are: Louis Armstrong,
Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Leon Rappolo (New Orleans Rhythm Kings),
the Original Dixieland "Jass" Band, Joe "King" Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Baby
Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Zutty Singleton.
The style was an offshoot of ragtime
that featured collective improvised counterpoint and was played mainly
in 4/4 time.
In New York, music developed on piano
that was derived from ragtime which featured a more syncopated bass line
played in 10ths. The style was called stride piano (pre-1920).
The important stride pianists are: James
P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller.
The "blues craze" (or race records)
provided work for the early jazzmen who migrated here.
New York musicians were among the first
to try to codify New Orleans and stride styles with written arrangements
for large ensembles.
Musicians of importance are: Coleman
Hawkins, Benny Carter, Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Miff Mole, Red Nichols.
Many southern blacks migrated to Chicago
during and after World War I and the musicians migrated with them. White
Chicagoans developed a style based on what they heard the blacks play.
The music was based on New Orleans music
but was mainly played in 2 instead of 4.
The important musicians of the Chicago
style were: Frank Teschemacher, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Eddie Condon,
Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Bud Freeman.
Before the Stock Market crash of 1929,
Chicago was the center of a burgeoning recording industry. Most of the
important early jazz recordings were made in the area.
These records include those of the King
Oliver Creole Jazz Band, the Jelly Roll Morton Red Hot Peppers, The Louis
Armstrong Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, Johnny Dodds and the New Orleans Wanderers,
Jimmy Noone and the Apex Club orchestra, Earl Hines, and Bix Beiderbecke.
Big Bands developed in two directions
from New York, Chicago and Detroit
Antiphony between sections was codified
in the work of Fletcher Henderson and his arrangers (including Don Redman)
and was the predominant style during the period 1929-48. This style was
also developed in the Casa Loma orchestra, the McKinney's Cotton Pickers
(Redman, Benny Carter and John Nesbitt, arrangements) and the Gene Goldkette
Orchestra (Bill Challis, arrangements).
This style remains the predominant mode
of big band arranging up to today.
Antiphony between groups of different
instruments came from the work of Duke Ellington, one of the premier composers
of the 20th century.
In Kansas City during the 1920's to
late 1930's another style developed from ragtime, stride piano, boogie
woogie (a piano style that developed in the South and Southwest independently
of ragtime), Southwestern blues and cowboy songs.
Many Southwestern and Midwestern Territory
bands such as the Oklahoma Blue Devils, Alphonso Trent Orchestra, Troy
Floyd Orchestra and the Nat Towles Orchestra contributed to the development
of the Kansas City Style.
The important musicians of the Kansas
City style were: Benny Moten, Andy Kirk, Mary Lou Williams, Harlan Leonard,
Count Basie, Lester Young, Jay McShann, Buster Smith, Tommy Douglas, Walter
Page, Jesse Stone, George E. Lee, Buddy Anderson.
The Kansas City period lasted until
about 1940 and was the impetus for modern jazz as we know it today. It
was also one of the birthplaces of early 1950's rhythm and blues.
During the "Swing Era," (ca. 1935-45),
soloists and large and small ensembles perfected the style that came from
the New York bands of the 1920's. Much of the music was jazz influenced
pop music.
Some important jazz bands and musicians
of the "Swing Era" were: Benny Goodman, Jimmy Lunceford, Chick Webb, Artie
Shaw, Charlie Barnet, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins,
Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Eldridge, Gene Krupa,
Teddy Wilson, Ben Webster, Willie Smith, Vic Dickenson, Dickie Wells, Red
Norvo, Mildred Bailey, Benny Carter, Fletcher Henderson and Mary Lou Williams.
By the end of the 1930's, both traditionalists
(players who played in both the New Orleans and Chicago styles) and experimentalists
were beginning to believe that the "Swing Era" music had reached a dead
end. The music of Count Basie, Harlan Leonard and Jay McShann (all from
Kansas City) revitalized the music somewhat because of their emphasis on
Afro-American values in their music.
Pianist Stan Kenton tried to turn this
music into a European Concert music by the late 1940's. He called
his music "Progressive Jazz."
The New Orleans Revival came from this
belief. This style remains in much of the amateur Dixieland groups heard
today.
The style of jazz known as bebop also
came from this belief.
The style known as "bebop" developed
as an underground movement in New York in the period 1940-45 out of ideas
initially developed independently in Kansas City and New York. Players
in this style listened heavily to Art Tatum and Duke Ellington. This
style has heavily influenced much of western 20th century music from the
late 1940's until today. It flowered in the small clubs on 52nd Street
in New York from 1945 to about 1949.
Charlie Parker (from Kansas City), Dizzy
Gillespie (from South Carolina and Philadelphia) and Thelonious Monk (from
New York) were the architects of the style. Charlie Christian (from
the Southwest via the Benny Goodman band), Jimmy Blanton (from St. Louis
and the Ellington band), Allen Tinney, Vic Coulson, John Carisi and others
also contributed ideas.
It is very clear that whites were involved
in this music from the beginning.
Bebop used rhythm differently, with
accents at unexpected places. The bassist, and not the drummer, became
the principal time-keeper. Harmony was built on the upper partials of chords,
with a common language of substitute chords that could be used at will.
Other important musicians who came up
in this period are: Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Max Roach,
Sonny Stitt, Fats Navarro, Oscar Pettiford, Al Haig, George Wallington,
Milt Jackson, J. J. Johnson, Don Byas, Clyde Hart, Betty Carter, Sarah
Vaughan, Carmen McRae.
Eventually Thelonious Monk's music evolved
into his own personal style that had little to do with bop rhythms.
Bebop was codified by the "Cool" and
"West Coast" styles. The players were mainly white.
Bop harmony was used over a rhythm that
was smoother and less frantic.
The "cool" style derived from a band
led by Miles Davis in 1949, the Claude Thornhill band, an octet led by
Dave Brubeck and pianist Lennie Tristano and his students.
Players of these styles whose music
is still heard today are: Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Lennie
Tristano, Lee Konitz, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Paul Desmond.
The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Dave
Brubeck Quartet were the most successful of the groups that were formed
during this period.
Most of the music that was overtly European
sunk without a trace by the late 1950's.
By the early 1950's Stan Kenton had
incorporated bebop and cool elements into his music. He was accepted by
academics. Kenton's efforts led to jazz studies programs that are heard
in many colleges and universities today. He continued to make sporadic
attempts to forge a new concert music throughout his career.
Empresario Norman Granz presented many
of the great "Swing Era," Kansas City and bebop soloists in an amalgam
of styles in concerts called "Jazz At the Philharmonic" from the mid 1940's
through 1967. A style developed from these players known today as "Mainstream
Jazz."
During the 1950's, bop never died. Its
harmonies and jagged phrasing developed into a style that overtly incorporated
blues and church music and was known as "Hard Bop." A later, more popular
form, "Soul Jazz" developed from hard bop.
Important "hard bop" players were: Clifford
Brown, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard,
Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, Bobby Timmons, Julian "Cannonball"
Adderley, Hank Mobley, Curtis Fuller, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Benny Golson,
Jimmy Smith, Miles Davis, Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery.
Players such as Charles Mingus and John
Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet used Afro-American styles and devices
along with some European forms in an early attempt at a fusion of the two
cultures called "Third Stream Music" that succeeded only when-Afro American
roots were not lost.
Others of importance in the "Third Stream"
experiments were: Stan Kenton, Gunther Schuller, Gil Evans and George Russell.
The "Third Stream" movement did not
succeed until the 1970's when Europeans became skilled enough at playing
jazz so that they could make a significant contribution.
Thad Jones and Mel Lewis led an orchestra
from around 1966 to 1980 that incorporated many devices from the bebop,
hard bop and Kansas City styles that maintained the big band tradition
in jazz through some lean years.
Miles Davis, arranger/orchestra leader
Gil Evans, pianist Bill Evans and others began improvising on scales or
modes instead of chords in the 1957-59 period. This became the chief method
of improvising during the 1960's for players who were not free improvisers.
John Coltrane developed from this period
into one of the most influential musicians of the last half of the 20th
century. His playing led directly to much high energy rock of the late
1960's and 1970's and remains the standard by which saxophone technique
is judged today.
Ornette Coleman, independently of Davis,
developed his own modal style based on Southwestern blues. The style of
playing did away with bar lines and meters and was more free flowing. The
style came to be known as "Free Jazz." In addition, other "Free Jazz" players
arose who did not base their playing on the blues.
Among the early innovators in this style
are: Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor,
Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Sunny Murray.
The groups led by Miles Davis from 1963-1969
played in a style derived heavily from Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane.
The players in these groups were George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Herbie
Hancock, Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Tony Williams and Jack
DeJohnette. This style eventually became known as "Free Bop" and is one
of the major styles played today.
A very popular musician, playing out
of a Coleman/Coltrane style was Charles Lloyd who led a quartet featuring
Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette. The latter three musicians
have been major innovators in a variety of styles since 1967.
The groups of Miles Davis from the mid-1960's
spawned musicians who developed the "Jazz Rock" fusion style of the 1970's
which featured electrical amplification, modal playing and rock rhythms.
A. The important players are: John McLaughlin,
Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter and the groups
known as the Fourth Way, Weather Report, Return to Forever, Tony Williams'
Lifetime and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
This music quickly reached a dead end
due to the endless rapid streams of unaccented eighth notes. It remains
the basis for "lite jazz" today.
A group of romantics who played strictly
acoustic music developed at this time in response to jazz-rock. The music
developed from Ornette Coleman's theories. It dates from ca. 1969, and
eventually was watered down into "New Age" music by others.
Important musicians of this style are:
Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Gary Burton.
Today, nearly all styles can be heard,
because the musicians are, for the first time, aware of the entire tradition
that goes back to the turn of the century. This has led to a situation
in which the majority of the new players since 1980 have based their playing
on styles such as hard bop and free bop. There has been little expansion
of the language in those styles by these players. Much of the music is
of the "jazz repertory" variety, even that label is not stated as such.
An uninformed public has been led to believe that what these players are
playing is the latest innovation.
The prevalent styles today are the Free
Bop, Hard Bop, and Mainstream styles.
The Mainstream style is derived from
an amalgam of music from the Kansas City, Swing and early bebop eras and
may be the only style whose younger practitioners have continued to develop
and expand the musical language. Many of the younger practitioners of this
style are accepted by the older players, in contrast to the behavior of
the older players in some of the other styles prevalent today. Many of
the older players playing in this style were employed by Norman Granz and
Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1945 to about 1970 and recorded with Verve
and Pablo records.
Some of the important players and groups
in the Mainstream style are Oscar Peterson, Benny Carter, Harry "Sweets"
Edison, Ray Brown, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, J. J. Johnson, AL Grey, Ernie Watts,
Gene Harris, Clark Terry, Scott Hamilton, Phil Woods, Hank Jones, John
Clayton, Warren Vache, Flip Phillips, Cyrus Chestnut, Kenny Barron, Barry
Harris, Tommy Flanagan, Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, Lew Tabackin,
George Gruntz, Adam Makowicz, Hal Galper, Ahmad Jamal, Benny Green, Maria
Schneider Orchestra, Herb Ellis, Jeff Hamilton, Benny Green.
Some of the contemporary musicians and
groups who continue to contribute and expand the jazz language in other
styles are: McCoy Tyner, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Wynton Marsalis (early
in his career), Lester Bowie, the World Saxophone Quartet, Anthony Davis,
David Murray, Roy Hargrove, Oliver Lake, Hamiett Bluiett, Julius Hemphill,
John Hicks, Joanne Brackeen, Jane Ira Bloom, Jay Hoggard, Donald Harrison,
Terence Blanchard, James Carter, James Newton, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette,
Max Roach, Jacky Terrasson, Charles Gayle, Marty Ehrlich, David Douglass,
David S. Ware, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Charlie Haden, Don Pullen,
George Adams, Joe Lovano, Anthony Cox, Jerome Harris, John Abercrombie,
Jerome Harris, the Vienna Art Orchestra, the Willem Breuker Kollektif,
Jan Garbarek, Carla Bley, Paul Bley, Steve Swallow, Myra Mehlford, Marilyn
Crispell, Paul Motian, Joey Barron, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Ornette Coleman,
Geri Allen, Steve Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Werner, Bill Frisell, John
Scofield, Greg Osby.