Who will help me write an English introduction about jazz?

I. Introduction

Jazz is a type of music, originally developed by African-Americans in the first decade of the 20th century, with a clear history and unique style evolution. Jazz grew up with blues and pop music, all of which overlap in many ways. However, critics usually agree on whether artists belong to one camp or another.

Two characteristics

Since the birth of jazz, it has developed into so many styles that no single description can accurately describe all the styles. However, remember that for all generalizations, exceptions can be cited.

Jazz performers improvise within the conventions of their chosen style. Usually, improvisation is accompanied by repeated chords of popular songs or original works. Musicians imitate the vocal music style of black people, including the use of sliding tone (sliding action to change the pitch smoothly), subtle differences in pitch (including blue notes, that is, "bending sound" slightly below the major scale when playing or singing) and tonal effects such as growling and wailing.

In the process of trying to develop personal voice or timbre (a special sense of rhythm and form and personal playing style), performers create rhythms characterized by continuous syncopation (placing stress in unexpected places, usually on weak beats) and swaying. Swing can be defined as a feeling of momentum, in which a melody appears alternately with a regular beat and then slightly different. Written music scores, if any, are usually only used as guidance to provide the structure of improvisation. A typical instrument starts with a rhythmic part, including piano, string bass, drum and optional guitar, and any number of wind instruments can be added. In big bands, wind instruments are divided into three categories: saxophone, trombone and trumpet.

Although there are exceptions in some styles, most jazz music is based on the principle that an infinite number of melodies can be adapted to the chord progression of any song. Musicians improvise new melodies suitable for chord progression and repeat them repeatedly when each soloist performs to achieve the required number of choruses.

Although many different forms of music are used in jazz improvisation, two special forms are often found in jazz songs. One is the pop chorus in the form of AABA, which usually consists of 32 bars. The beat is divided into four 8 bars: bar A, repetition of bar A, bar B ("bridge" or "release", usually starting with a new key), and repetition of bar A.. The second form, deeply rooted in African-American folk music, is the 12 bar blues form. Unlike the 32-bar AABA form, blues songs have quite standard chord progression.

Three origins

Jazz is rooted in the mixed music tradition of black Americans. These include features that have survived from West African music; The form of black folk music developed in America; European pop music and light classical music in18th century and19th century; As well as popular music forms influenced by black music or created by black composers. The surviving African features include sound style, including great freedom of sound color; The tradition of improvisation; Call and response mode; The complexity of rhythm is not only manifested in the division of a single melody line, but also in the conflicting rhythms played by different members in the ensemble. Black folk music forms include field shouts, boating chants, lullabies, and later soul songs and blues (see African-American music).

European music contributed specific styles and forms: hymns, marches, waltzes, quartets and other dance music, as well as light music and Italian opera music. European music has also introduced theoretical elements, especially harmony, as a vocabulary of chords and concepts related to musical forms. Most of the European influence was absorbed through private courses of European music, even though black musicians trained in this way could only find jobs in dirty entertainment areas and boats on the Mississippi River. )

The elements of popular music influenced by blacks that contributed to jazz include banjo music performed by minstrels (banjo music originated from Slavs), syncopated rhythm pattern of Latin American music influenced by Africa (which can be heard in southern American cities), barrel piano style of mid-western pub musicians, and marching music played by black brass bands in the late19th century. At the end of19th century, another influential school appeared. This is ragtime music, a composition music that combines many elements, including syncopation rhythm (from banjo music and other black music) and the harmonious contrast and formal mode of European March. After 19 10, the band conductor W. C. Handy adopted another influential form, blues, and broke the strict oral tradition by publishing his original blues songs. Being favored by jazz musicians, Handy's songs found one of the greatest interpreters in the blues singer Bessie Smith, who recorded many of them. )

The combination of these multiple influences and jazz is difficult to rebuild, because it happened before the appearance of recording, which has provided valuable literature. Of course, every musician has a different background, and few people are directly influenced by these. For example, most jazz artists were and are urban residents, and may only know the rural black form indirectly.

Four histories

Most early jazz was played by small dance bands or piano soloists. Besides ragtime and March, the repertoire also includes various pop dances and blues. These bands usually play at picnics, weddings, parades and funerals. What is distinctive is that the band plays an elegy on the way to the funeral and a cheerful March on the way back. Blues and ragtime music appeared independently a few years before jazz appeared, and continued to coexist with jazz, which influenced the style and form of jazz and provided an important carrier for jazz improvisation.

new orleans jazz

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the earliest recorded jazz appeared, centering on New Orleans, Louisiana. In this style, the cornet, trumpet or violin play the melody, the clarinet plays the gorgeous anti-melody, and the trombone plays the rhythmic glide and emits the root sound of chord or simple harmony. Under this basic trio, the guitar or banjo plays chords and, if any, the piano; String double bass (or tuba for parade) provides double bass line; Drums provide rhythmic accompaniment. Theoretically, these characters are the same as other types of music-improvisation and other elements of black music such as blues and ragtime make jazz unique.

A musician named Buddy Bolden seems to have led some bands that influenced early jazz musicians, but this kind of music and its sound have been lost to later generations. Although some jazz influences can be heard in some early phonograph records, there was no jazz band record until 19 17. This band is composed of a group of white musicians in New Orleans, called Primitive Dixieland Jazz Band, which caused a sensation overseas and in the United States. Among the band's many successors, two groups stood out in the early1920s, especially famous: The King of Rhythm in New Orleans and the Creole Jazz Band, which was led by influential style designer and trumpeter Kim Oliver. A series of records recorded by Oliver's band are generally regarded as the most important jazz records of the New Orleans band. Other leading New Orleans musicians include trumpet players Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard, tenor saxophonist and clarinet player Sidney Bechet, drummer Warren "Baby" Dodds, and pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. However, the most influential jazz musician trained in New Orleans was louis armstrong, the second trumpet player of King Oliver.

Armstrong's influence

Armstrong is a dazzling improviser technically, emotionally and intellectually. He and his generation changed the form of jazz and brought the soloist to the forefront. In his recording groups "Hot Five" and "Hot Seven", he proved that jazz improvisation can go far beyond simply decorating the melody-he created a new melody based on the chords of the original melody. He also set a standard for later jazz singers, not only by changing the lyrics and melody of songs, but also by improvising without words, just like a musical instrument. This form of vocal improvisation is called scat singing.

Chicago and new york City.

For jazz, the1920s was a decade of great experiments and discoveries. Many musicians from New Orleans, including Armstrong, moved to Chicago, Illinois, which influenced local musicians and promoted the development of Chicago style. This style originated from the New Orleans style, but it emphasizes solo and often adds saxophone to the instrument, which usually produces more tense rhythm and more complex texture. Musicians who work in Chicago or are influenced by Chicago style include Trombonite Jack Teagarden, Bantoles and guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Jean krupa and clarinet player Benny Goodman. Bix Beiderbecke is also active in Chicago, and his cornet lyric style provides another choice for Armstrong's bravura trumpet style. Many Chicago musicians finally settled in new york, another important jazz center in the 1920s.

D jazz piano

/kloc-another carrier of jazz development in the 1920s was piano music. Harlem, new york City has become the center of a high-tech and difficult solo style called "Stride Piano". In the early1920s, the master of this method was James P. Johnson, but the most popular performer of this idiom was Johnson's favorite pupil Fats Waller, a talented singer and artist.

The second piano style developed in the1920s was Buji Wooji. A kind of blues music played on the piano, which consists of a short and strong bass pattern, which is played repeatedly by the left hand and freely by the right hand, using various rhythms. Bukit Woogi became particularly popular in the1930s and1940s. Leading Buchwood pianists include Midlex Lewis, Albert Amons, Peter Johnson and Pine Top Smith.

/kloc-the most outstanding pianist in the 1920s was Earl "Fatha" Hines. The performer he trained in Chicago was considered to have wild and unpredictable imagination, and he could rival Armstrong in pure innovation and appeared in some of his most influential records. His style, combined with Waller's more fluent methods, influenced most pianists of the next generation-especially Teddy Wilson, who joined Goodman's band in the1930s, and Art Tatum, who spent most of his time as a soloist and was revered for his superb skills and complex sense of harmony.

Big band era

It was also in the1920s that a large group of jazz musicians began to play together, imitating the pattern of social dance bands. These are the so-called big bands, which were very popular in the 1930 s and the early 1940 s. This period is called the swing era. A major development in the era of swing music is the change of rhythm, which smoothes the rhythm of two beats in some early bands into a smoother four beats. Musicians have also developed short melody patterns, called repetitive segments, in the call and response patterns. In order to facilitate this process, the orchestra is divided into instrument groups, each group has its own impromptu repetition, and musicians also have the opportunity to play solos.

The development of big bands as jazz media is strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Don Lederman, the arranger of Henderson Band, and later Henderson himself introduced written jazz scores, which were widely praised for their efforts to capture the unique improvisation quality in small band music. In order to realize this improvisation, Lederman and Henderson got the help of talented soloists, such as tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Armstrong, who played in Henderson's band during 1924 and 1925.

In the late1920s, Ellington led a band in the cotton club in new york. He continued to conduct his orchestra until his death in 1974. He created a variety of experimental concert works, ranging in length from "ko-ko" for three minutes (1940) to black, brown and beige (1943) for an hour, and such as "Loneliness" and "Loneliness". Ellington's music is more complicated than Henderson's. His orchestra is a cohesive ensemble, and solos are created for the unique qualities of specific instruments and players. Other black bands popular with musicians and audiences were led by Jimmy Rensenford, Chick Webber and cab calloway.

In the mid-11930 s, a different style of big band jazz developed in Kansas City, Missouri, and was represented by Count Bessie. Basie's band was originally formed in Kansas City, reflecting the region's emphasis on improvisation and making the prepared paragraphs relatively short. The wind instruments in his band exchange ensemble fragments in the interaction of free and strong rhythm, and pause to adapt to the instrument solo. Especially, Lester Young, the tenor saxophonist of Bessie, has a free rhythm, which is rare in the improvisation of soloists in other bands. Yang's exquisite tone and long and smooth melody, coupled with the occasional avant-garde horn or giggle, opened up a new way, just like Armstrong's trumpet and cornet playing in the1920s.

Other/kloc-trendsetters in the late 1930s included trumpeter Roy Eldridge, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke and vibraphone player lionel hampton. Jazz became more and more flexible and stylized in the 1930 s. Ivey Anderson, Mildred Bailey, Ella Jane Fitzgerald and especially Billie Holiday are all leading singers. During this period, Europeans also became more active in jazz. For example, Christian was influenced by Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, and his excellent recordings can be bought in the United States.

The Interaction between Pop Music and Classical Music

The pioneering efforts of Armstrong, Ellington, Henderson and others made jazz have a major impact on American music in the1920s and191930s. Pop musicians, such as bandleader paul whiteman, use some more obvious jazz rhythm and melody methods, although compared with the music of major jazz musicians, they have less freedom and skills in improvisation. In order to combine jazz and light music, Whiteman's band also premiered jazz symphonies by American composers such as george gershwin. Closer to the authentic jazz tradition of instant messaging and solo is the music played by Benny Goodman (who used many Henderson arrangements), Jean krupa and Harry James.

Jazz composers have appreciated classical music since the time of ragtime music. Some musicians in the swing era "jazz up the classics" in works such as "Bach enters the city" (created by Ale c Wilder and recorded by Goodman) and "Ebony Rhapsody" (recorded by Ellington and others). In turn, composers of concert music pay tribute to jazz in their works, such as Contrast by Hungarian Bela Bartok (1938, commissioned by Goodman) and Ebony Concerto by Russian-born igor stravinsky (1945, commissioned by Woody Herman). Other composers, such as American aaron copland and French darius milhaud, also acknowledge the spirit of jazz in their works.

1940s and post-war decades

/kloc-the most influential jazz musician in the 1940s was Charlie Parker, who became the leader of a new style, which was usually called bebop, but also called rebop or bop. Like Lester Young, Charlie Christian and other outstanding soloists, Parker has also worked with big bands. However, during the Second World War (1939- 1945), changes in wartime economy and audience tastes forced many big bands to close down. Their decline, coupled with the brand-new Bibop style, triggered a revolution in jazz.

Bebop is still based on the improvisation principle of chord progression, but the rhythm is faster, the phrase is longer and more complicated, and the emotional range is expanded to include more unpleasant feelings than before. Jazz musicians began to realize that they were artists, and like their predecessors, they promoted their products by adding vocal music, dance and comedy.

In the center of the commotion stood Parker, who could play anything, any speed and any key on the saxophone. He created beautiful melodies, which are associated with potential chords in an advanced way, and his music has endless rhythm changes. Parker often collaborates with trumpeter dizzy gillespie, who is famous for his amazing speed and range and bold sense of harmony, pianist Earl "Bud" Powell and drummer Max Roach, both of whom are leaders in their respective fields. Also highly respected are pianist and composer thelonious monk and trumpet player Z Navarro. Sarah Vaughan, a jazz singer, had contacts with Bibop musicians in the early stage of her career, especially gillespie and Parker.

1The late 1940s brought the explosion of jazz experiments. Modern big bands led by Gillespie and Stan Kenton have flourished together with small bands with innovative musicians such as pianist Lennie Tristano. Most of these groups draw inspiration from 20th century works by masters such as Bartok and Stravinsky.

The most influential jazz experiment influenced by classical music in the middle of this century was recorded by an unusual nobody in 1949 and 1950. He was a disciple of Charlie Parker, a young trumpeter named Miles Davis. The written arrangement by Davis and others is soft but very complicated. Many bands have adopted this "cool" style, especially on the West Coast, so it is called West Coast Jazz. With the careful performance of tenor saxophonists Zut Simms and Stan Getz and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulliga Ann, West Coast jazz was very popular throughout the1950s. Also in the 1950' s, pianist Dave Brubeck (a student of Milhard) and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond were very popular for his performance of blending classical music and jazz.

However, most musicians, especially those on the east coast, continue to develop in the hotter and more dynamic bebop tradition. The main representatives of hard pop style or East Coast style include trumpeter Clifford Brown, drummer Art blackie and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Their unique playing methods make him one of the main geniuses of his generation. Another derivative of Parker's style is soul jazz, played by pianist Horace Silver, alto saxophone cannonball Adley and his brother, trumpeter Nat Adley.

H1late 1950s,1late 1960s and1late 1970s.

In the third quarter of the 25th century, jazz took on several new features. The years around 1960, together with1late 1920s and1late 1940s, are considered as one of the richest periods in jazz history.

H 1 sir modal

1955 Miles Davis organized a quintet, which was played by tenor saxophone player John Cortland. His complicated playing style was in sharp contrast with Davis' rich, calm and expressive melody. Cortland poured out a series of notes with speed and passion, exploring every melody idea, no matter how strange; However, he played a slow song calmly and calmly. In his solo, he showed an extraordinary feeling for form and rhythm. On 1959, Ke Chuan appeared in a landmark Miles Davis album "A Little Blue". Together with pianist Bill Evans, Davis designed a set of works for this album to keep a key, chord and mode as long as 16 me.