What is JAZZ?

Jazz

Overview

In less than a century, this distinctly American music, called jazz, has grown from obscure, folkloric origins to become the most significant art form produced on American soil. Today it is heard and played in almost every corner of the world, and jazz has flourished in many forms, from roots blues and ragtime through New Orleans jazz to Dixieland jazz, swing, mainstream jazz, bebop, modern jazz to free jazz and electronic jazz. The amazing thing is not that jazz has come in so many forms, but that each form has been so important that it has maintained its own character and uniqueness and has survived to this day. If you want to enjoy jazz in all its forms, you need to be open-minded and to listen to it in all its forms.

The origins of jazz

Jazz music has evolved from folk music, which has a variety of origins that are not easily verified, and during the 19th century it was an important means of expression for black slaves on the plantations of the southern United States. From the end of the 19th century, jazz was based on traditional British and American music, mixed with blues, ragtime and other musical genres, a "hybrid" product. The black music of the Americas preserved a great deal of African characteristics, distinctive rhythmic features, and the characteristics of collective improvisation. The combination of this tradition with the music of the new settlements, much of it vocal, resulted in the creation not just of a new sound but of a whole new form of musical expression.

The most famous Afro-American music was religious. These beautiful, moving songs were listened to by whites, but with a more upper-class flavor than such songs sung in country black churches. Gospel music as it is known today is more accurately a reflection of the emotional power and melodicism of early Afro-Americans than an inheritance of the religiosity of the music of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers of the early decade of the twentieth century.

Other early forms of music include work songs, children's songs, and dance tunes dating back to the days of slavery, which have become an important musical legacy, especially considering that musical activity was quite severely restricted under the system of the time.

History of development

Birth of the blues

African-American music developed rapidly after the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of the Negroes. Instruments discarded by military bands combined with the newfound freedom of movement formed the roots of jazz: brass, dance music, and the blues.

The blues, seemingly simple as a musical form but actually capable of almost endless variations, has always been an important part of any kind of jazz, and it has managed to maintain its own independent existence. It can be said that without the blues there would be no rock and roll today. A brief description of the characteristics of the blues in general is that it consists of music in sections of eight or twelve bars, with tightly written lyrics, and its "melancholy (blue)" character is due to the fact that the "mi" and "si" notes in the scale are replaced by a "blue" sound. The "melancholy (blue)" character is due to the chromatic drop of the "mi" and "si" notes in the scale. In fact, the blues is a form of secular music as opposed to religious music.

Brass bands and ragtime

By the late 1880s, black brass bands, dance bands, and concert bands were appearing within the vast majority of southern cities in the United States. Meanwhile, black music in the northern United States tended to be continental in style. During that period, ragtime began to take shape. Although ragtime was primarily played on the piano, some bands began to play it as well. The golden age of ragtime was from about 1898 to 1908, but it actually spanned a great deal of time, and its influence continues to be felt. Recently, it has been rediscovered, and the new "ragtime" is characterized by a fascinating melodicism and a great use of syncopation, but its bluesy elements have almost disappeared. Ragtime is closely associated with early jazz, but what is certain is that ragtime rhythms are more stable.

The most famous composer of ragtime was Scott Joplin (1868-1917). Other famous ragtime masters include James Scott, Louis Chauvink Eubie Blake (1883-1983), and Joseph Lamb, the latter of whom, although white, nevertheless completely absorbed the form.

Entering the Jazz Age

Ragtime, especially the popular style that downplayed the jazz colors, was aimed at entertaining the middle class and was disliked by orthodox musicians. Jazz first appeared in the late 19th century, but it was not yet called "jazz"; it was first called jass, and first appeared in the urban black working-class neighborhoods of the American South. Like ragtime, jazz began as dance music. The earliest city to become synonymous with early jazz was New Orleans, a claim that is somewhat true but also somewhat exaggerated.

New Orleans: the cradle of jazz

New Orleans played a key role in the birth and development of jazz. The early history of jazz has been more thoroughly researched and documented here than anywhere else. There may have been more and better jazz in New Orleans than anywhere else between 1895 and 1917, but that by no means means implies that New Orleans was the only place where jazz was produced. The music produced in every southern American city with a sizable black population should be considered a type of early jazz. In Memphis, for example, there was W. C. Handy (1873-1958), a blues composer and collector. Other cities included Atlanta and Baltimore.

New Orleans stood out at the time because of its very open and liberal social atmosphere. People of different faiths and races could communicate with each other, so the musical traditions in this easily accessible environment were rich, French, Spanish, Irish and African. So it's no surprise that New Orleans is fertile ground for jazz.

If the notion that New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz is exaggerated but true, the notion that jazz was born in the red-light district is utter nonsense. While it is true that New Orleans legalized prostitution and produced some of the most elaborate and tasteful "sports houses" in the United States, the music played in these places was only piano solos, if at all. In fact, the first time people heard jazz was in a place quite different from this one.

At the time, New Orleans was notable for the number of clubs and fraternal organizations, most of which sponsored or hired a band to play at various occasions -- indoor or outdoor dances, picnics, store openings, birthday or anniversary parties. And, of course, playing jazz music was a feature of funeral procession marches, and remains so to this day. According to tradition, the band assembles at the church door and plays solemn marches and sad hymns as they lead the funeral procession in a gentle march toward the cemetery. On the way back, the pace picks up and brisk marches and ragtime take the place of elegiac chants. This procession always attracted many spectators and was significant in the development of jazz. It was at this point that the trumpeters and clarinetists showed their creative talents, and the drummers produced a rhythmic beat that became the basis for the "swing" of the beat. Generally speaking, jazz music is in duple meter, with two or four beats per measure. This diatonic rhythmic background is always present in the bass, giving jazz a stable, regular rhythmic foundation. Above the rhythmic bass are melodic, harmonic, and counterpoint voices with irregularly placed accents, whose customary use of syncopated effects creates a strong contrast between the regular bass voices.

Artistic features

In jazz tunes, in addition to the elements drawn from European traditional music, white folk songs and popular songs, the most distinctive feature is the "blues scale" (the structure of which will be described in the section devoted to the blues), and jazz harmonies can be said to be based entirely on traditional and popular music. The harmony of jazz is based on traditional harmony, but with more freedom in the use of chord changes, the main difference being the blues chords.

Jazz is very distinctive in the instruments it uses and the way it is played, and it is completely different from traditional bands. Since the Jazz Age, the saxophone has been one of the most popular instruments sold; the trombone has made a name for itself in jazz bands for its ability to produce funny or grotesque glissandos not possible with other brass instruments; the trumpet is a favored instrument for jazz musicians, and the novel sound it produces with different mutes, as well as a few notes in the highest register, is almost impossible to distinguish from a traditional jazz band. The trumpet was also favored by jazz musicians, and the novelty of the tone produced by this instrument with different mutes and a few notes in the highest registers became almost a unique jazz tonal feature; the piano, banjo, guitar, and later the electric guitar took on an important role with their percussive and powerful sound and chordal playing ability. In contrast, the most important stringed instruments in the traditional orchestra (violin, viola, cello) took a relatively secondary role; the rich tone of the horn is fascinating in an orchestra, but its temperament is too tame for a jazz orchestra, and it is hardly used by anyone. In an orchestra, each instrument is integrated into the overall sound as much as possible in terms of timbre and volume control, but in a jazz band the opposite is true, with the musicians trying to make each instrument "stand up".

The band's organization was flexible, with two basic parts -- a rhythm section and a melody section. In the early jazz bands, the rhythm section consisted of the bass horn, banjo and drums, which were gradually replaced by the double bass and guitar, and the piano. In the 1930s, a dance band, then called a "big band," emerged, consisting of three parts: a rhythm section, a brass section, and a woodwind section. The rhythm section continued to use bass, guitar, piano and drums; the brass section was usually composed of three trumpets and two trombones, but the number was not fixed; the woodwind section usually consisted of four or five saxophones, each playing a clarinet or other woodwind instrument, and, if the section was composed of five saxophones, it was usually composed of two alto, two tenor, and one euphonium. There are also commercial (sometimes called "sweet", "hotel", etc.) bands that are similar to "big bands", but the saxophones tend to be all tenor and the woodwind section more tenor.

Another characteristic of jazz, in comparison with traditional music, is the method of articulation and the timbre of its sounds, both instrumental and vocal, which are sufficiently distinctive that one would never confuse them with the timbre of any traditional music. Most of these peculiarities come from the imitation of Negro American folk songs with instruments or vocals. If we have the opportunity to hear real Negro field and spiritual songs, we will find how characteristic and stirring are those drastic changes from raspy to mellow, from choked to loud, from harsh to soft, from savage to lyrical. And in jazz, the addition of non-singing growls, hollers and moans accentuates this feeling. In addition, special playing and singing techniques are also important means of creating special effects, and the most commonly used of these techniques is vibrato, which is different from the traditional concept. As we know, the so-called vibrato is the result of regular changes in pitch (and sometimes strength); for example, the vibrato on the violin utilizes such changes to produce a vibrant sound effect. Vibrato in jazz music is changeable, the direction of change is generally from narrow to wide amplitude, speed from slow to fast, and often near the end of a tone to increase the amplitude and speed of the jitter, more strengthen the expressive power of this technique. At the same time, at the beginning of a note, jazz musicians would slide up from the bottom to a predetermined pitch, and at the end, slide down from the original pitch. All these variations cannot be detailed in a score, but experienced jazz musicians have mastered this type of method, and especially this concept, and can "create" these effects according to the melodic or accompaniment patterns. It can therefore be said that jazz is created by composers and musicians*** together, thanks to the tradition of improvisation and the individual play of technique. The reason why traditionally educated musicians find it difficult to perform jazz is that they have not developed this particular musical concept. If we carefully compare the difference between a real folk singer and a formally trained singer singing the same folk song, we will have a more intuitive idea of what this means.

From its earliest days, jazz has attracted many composers in transition, and in 1920, American conductor Paul Whiteman organized a famous orchestra to bring adapted jazz compositions into the concert hall. This new trend was fiercely opposed by many "serious" jazz enthusiasts, but it was from this point on that jazz became a household name and a popular favorite in the United States and Europe. It was at this time that Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was born, and it was Grofé, the composer of the Whitman Band, who orchestrated the work. According to the manuscript notes, it took only three weeks to write the work, and it was an almost immediate sensation when it was performed. There are also many works by European composers that are based on or influenced by jazz, such as Debussy's piano pieces "Dance of the Ugly Black Monster Gait" (1908), "The Troubadour" (1910), and "General Ravena the Odd One Out" (1910); Ravel's slow movement from his Violin Sonata (Blues); Stravinsky's Regattamento for 11 Solo Instruments (1919) , The Soldier's Tale (1918), and Concerto in Ebony; Hindemith's Chamber Music No. 1 (Op. 24, untuned) and Suite for Piano (1922).

Three Steps to Getting Started

In contemporary China, the majority of music lovers have a great deal of freedom to enjoy the music they are interested in, and jazz has undoubtedly become a music category that more and more music lovers pay attention to, love, and even become obsessed with. Compared with classical music, jazz's innate commoner pedigree makes it more close to the general public, even the streams that lead cars and sell pulp can be close to it, and its sound can be heard everywhere in bars and restaurants. Compared with rock and other contemporary popular music, jazz seems to have a more profound emotion as well as a more profound and implicit form of expression, or swinging lightly, or heavy beat like a rock, with its own intoxicating beauty. More than classical music, jazz is "vulgar" and more than pop music, "elegant" - jazz is a kind of "intermediation" of elegance in vulgarity and vulgarity in elegance. The "in-between" character of jazz makes it easy to attract a wide audience, including many classical music fans and pop music fans, and in contemporary China, the jazz appreciation boom is on the upswing.

To be honest, the more I listen to jazz, the more I feel my own ignorance, knowledge is shallow - jazz is born a hundred years, there are many schools of thought, countless masters, a variety of masterpieces, the exhaustion of the rest of his life for dozens of years can not listen to the end of the heh! Jazz is a treasure trove of music, and the breadth of its content and the variety of its genres are just too great to be counted.

Precisely because jazz is as vast as the ocean, so, the first time to listen to jazz, readers who are still waiting to get started must find the right way to start from the point of view, and ultimately, in order to get into the room, a glimpse of the secret of the mystery.

The first step, general listening

Friends who have studied foreign languages know what is "general listening". I borrowed the word "pan-listening" to mean that friends can distract themselves from jazz when they first start to play jazz, so that they can listen to jazz while doing other things, and then enjoy the emotion, spirit, and surface characteristics of the piece (such as arrangement, rhythm, scale, etc.), and then listen to the music. You can listen to jazz while doing other things, and get a little taste of the emotion and spirit of the piece, as well as the surface characteristics (such as the arrangement, rhythmic characteristics, scale characteristics, etc.).

In terms of the content of "general listening", it is appropriate to take those jazz masterpieces that are more traditional in terms of composition, arrangement and interpretation, especially those classics that are called "STANDARD", and it is better to have the interpreted versions of the masters. These are especially the classics known as "STANDARDS" and preferably interpreted by the great masters. These compositions can make the first-time listener perceive the inherent rhythmic and harmonic characteristics that distinguish jazz from other types of music. Friends can ask old-time jazz fans and record collectors to recommend some classic recordings for their own enjoyment, and in this article.

Second step, general reading

"General listening" can make friends of jazz this music category has a general, rough intuitive understanding and sense, and in the "general listening" must be "general reading! After "general listening" comes "general reading"! Friends can put your own can find and have insight about jazz history, classification, famous artists, masterpieces and other aspects of the knowledge of books and text (including the network) are used to read, do not have to pursue in-depth study, as long as there is a certain degree of understanding and mastery on the line, involving the broader the better.

Of course, "general reading" does not mean that you see the book to read, because now the domestic jazz appreciation books, although many kinds of books, but which is really good and bad, quality varies, to read if you have to choose. If you are surrounded by senior jazz fans who can recommend relevant books and articles to you, it would be better, so that you can make you go through a lot of detours. When reading relevant books and articles, you should try your best to find relevant classical recordings of famous artists and songs to listen to them, so as to listen to and verify the readings, so that the information you read in the text can be hooked up with the musical information you hear in the recordings, and in this way you will have a better understanding of all aspects of jazz music. In this way, you yourself will have a knowledge of all aspects of jazz from the sensibility to the rationality and from the rationality back to the sensibility of the initial understanding, to this point, you can say that it is already "one foot across the threshold"!

The third step, listening

After listening and reading, you should have a rough understanding of jazz in general, and a rough understanding of the rationality and perceptual cognition, but in order to "enter the room", really get started, you must continue to the next step, and that is, "listening"! The next step in the process is "listening".

With the "general listening" of the "absent-minded", distracted, superficial different, "fine listening" must be undistracted, mental concentration, in-depth consideration! To this time, friends should be more targeted to find some wonderful jazz recordings, listen carefully and y analyze some of the details, including the composition, arrangement characteristics, rhythm and harmonic characteristics, jazz characteristics of the skills (such as SCAT vocal mimicry, syncopated performance, re-tempo, improvisation, etc.), jazz characteristics of the instrument (such as the vibraphone and the electric organ, and bass, saxophone, and other instruments of the mass), and so on. (such as vibraphone and electric organ, and a lot of bass, saxophone, etc.), etc. When choosing recordings, of course, it is better to listen to the famous performances of the masters, both the famous albums and the well-compiled "platters" of selected recordings. Considering that the greatest vitality of jazz lies in the freedom of improvisation during live performances, friends can also choose to listen to more live recordings of famous performers, listen to the improvisational splendor, listen to the solo and ensemble details of the musicians, and listen to the process from theme to improvisation. This selective listening can, of course, be supplemented by extensive reading of the text to help raise awareness.

After the three steps mentioned above, I believe you already have a certain understanding of jazz, and have developed your own unique approach to the practice of jazz appreciation. At this point, you can let yourself free, not confined to genre, not limited to type, you can feel free to listen to a wide range, you can also feel free to read and learn. In this way, you will not only "enter the room", but will also have more insights into the harvest!

Types

Blues (Blues) Blues music was created to express the personal feelings of the singer, as the name suggests, this music sounds very melancholy (Blue). This way of expressing inner thoughts directly in song was very different from the music of white society at the time. The most important composer of blues music is W. C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues", born in Alabama in 1873, who created many well-known blues music, such as: St. Louis Blues, Yellow Dog Blues, Aunt Hagars' Blues, The Memphis Blues, and The Memphis Blues. Blues, Yellow Dog Blues, Aunt Hagars' Blues, The Memphis Blues, Beale Street Blues and many more.

Ragtime is an early form of jazz that used black melodies, syncopation, cyclical themes, and distorted phrases, and was prevalent before and after World War I. It originated in the St. Louis and St. Louis area. It originated in St. Louis and New Orleans, and became popular in the South and Midwest of the United States, where it influenced the soloing and improvisation styles of traditional New Orleans jazz. Busted beat later developed into a combination of pop music, marches, waltzes, and other popular dance styles, and as a result, songs and instrumental orchestral compositions in busted beat appeared, and it became popular not only among black musicians and fans, but also among white middle-class Americans.

New Orleans Traditional Jazz (New Orleans Traditional Jazz) The elements of this style of music, just as the United States is a large melting pot of national cultures that complex, diverse, it includes: blues, dance music, marching, pop songs, hymns and broken phrases (Rags) and other musical elements, to counterpoint (Countpoint) and traditional beat music. The New Orleans Traditional Jazz Orchestra is a musical system that combines the elements of blues, dance, pop, hymns, and rags, and is driven by the main musical elements of counterpoint and syncopation, combined with a large number of solos, improvisational ornamentation, and rewrites of the melodic core. New Orleans traditional jazz bands are mainly small groups, playing the main theme instruments: cornet, black flute, saxophone and expandable horn; accompanied by tuba, banjo, bass (often pizzicato), violin, drums and piano. They are often multi-part simultaneous counterpoint blowing, creating a lively, joyful atmosphere.

ODJB (The Original Dixieland Jazz Band) This is the first white quintet in history to record jazz in 1917, and its five original members were all born in New Orleans: Nick LaRocca (leader, cornet), Larry Shield (harp), Eddie Edwards (telescoping), and the band's first soloist, Eddie Edwards (drums). Edwards (retractable horn), Tony Sbarbarl (drums), and Henry Rags (piano.) After a gradual rise in Chicago, the ODJB moved to New York City, where it became a local sensation. However, the band's lack of creativity and its appeal to the masses was soon challenged by a new generation of talented jazz musicians, and the group disbanded in the mid-1920s, leaving jazz history in its wake.

Dixieland jazz was an early jazz style developed by jazz musicians in New Orleans and Chicago during the period 1917-1923, and it was also a branch of traditional jazz from New Orleans. Dixieland originally meant "Dixie's Land", so you can imagine its association with marching songs and the like. Most of the material for this style comes from the blues, marches, and popular music of the time, and even a small section of a piece of music can be used to extend and expand, which is the death of improvisation. Some scholars of jazz history refer to "New Orleans Traditional Jazz" played by "white" musicians as Dixieland Jazz, while "NewOrleans Traditional Jazz" played by black musicians is called "New Orleans Traditional Jazz". New Orleans Traditional Jazz" by "white" musicians, and "New Orleans Traditional Jazz" by black musicians.

Big Band The Big Band era originated in the mid-to-late '20s, with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman as the main jazz styles, and it flourished not only in the mid-'30s swing period, but also in the mid-'40s growl, the mid-'50s growl and the mid-'50s jazz. It flourished not only in the swing period of the mid-1930s, but also in the roaring music of the mid-1940s, the cool jazz and improved roaring music of the 1950s, the free jazz of the 1960s, the jazz/rock fusion of the 1970s, and even the new roaring music of the 1980s. The big band is usually 10 or more people, covering 3 or more trumpets, 2 or more expanding horns, 4 or more saxophones and accompanying instruments such as bass, guitar, drums and piano, and through this large organization, it plays a wide variety of jazz style repertoire.

Swing originated around 1930 and reached its peak between 1935 and 1946, and was best represented by the Benny Goodman Sextet, led by the "King of Swing. The popularity of jazz big bands in nightclubs, dance halls, and other venues in major U.S. metropolitan areas drew many young fans to the scene, and there was a need for more danceable music to satisfy the young and middle class people who flocked to the scene. Swing later evolved with the Duke Ellington Big Band as a backing band and recital music for cabaret performances (e.g., Duke Ellington performs regularly at Carnegie Hall every year); swing is also known as "four-beat jazz" because it is suitable for dancing, with four beats per measure.