Music 331 UW

Field Hollars

Work Songs

Religious Songs

Sung by solitary field workers

Bent, liquid, or sliding pitches

Descending melodic voices

Nasal vocal quality with vocalistic effects

Sung by a group of workers accompanied by tools of labor

Bent, liquid, or sliding pitches

Descending melodic voices

Lead singer/backup group relationship

Basic harmony employed by the singers

“Backbeat” rhythm provided by the tools of labor

A mixture of Southern Baptist service and traditional ceremonial procedures of Western Affrican religions

Astoundingly emotional music that greatly influenced the twentieth century American popular styles

Examples – lining hymn and prayer

Ring shouts

Spirituals and lullabies

A-A-B

Derived from religious hymn formats

A: statement of problem

A: repeat of the above, sometimes with additional words

B: response to the A statement (solution, moral messages)

A: I chord = home key

A: IV chord resolving to the I chord

B: V chord resolving to the I chord

intense, gritty, gowling vocal style

use of yodeling and other vocalistic ornamentation

percussive style guitar playing; hard plucking

strong rhythm guitar 4-beat pulse emphasized

use of bottleneck on the guitar – sliding, or liquid notes

Greatky influences the development of electric rhythm and blues

Hellbound on My Trail – 1937 (TX)

Primitive recording made in warehouse

Cutting, intense vocal style

Mixture off declamatory and harsh, intense blues singing

Predominant A-A-B form; lyric phrases of varying lengths

Guitar used as an extension of his voice; aggressive, rhythmic plucking

Johnson influenced the vocal style of Bob Dylan

Mississippi

A-A-B form formally structured into three 4-bar phrases = 12 bar blues

Vocal style related to European “trained” vocal techniques

Use of steady vibrato

Powerful vocal style

Vocalist accompanied by a band

Call and response – emsemble approach

Lyrics were more sophisticated and dealth with universal themes rather than local topics

Lyric Themes: Local events, people; love, death, freedom

Song Structures: A-A-B; three unequal phrases

Vocal Styles: Raw, nasal vocal sound; vocalistic effects such as “bent” notes, scoops, smears; “liquid” quality

Accompaniment: Folk-singing style; self-accompaniment on guitar or banjo

Performers: Itinerate male folk singers traveling the rural South (Mississippi Delta region)

Bessie Smith

1925

classic example of urban or city blues

Begins with a non-blues verse

Powerful vocal style

Use of vibrato

Blues notes are evident throughout, although they are sung without as much sliding or “liquid” vocal sound of country blues

Cornetist Louis Armstrong answers vocal lines

root of jazz

provided basis for improvisation

provided a standard repertoire of songs for jazz musicians

Introduced “blues notes” 

Used vocal inflections to make instruments sound like human voices

Jazz got its soul from the blues

Original form lacks improvisation, not considered true jazz

Thoroughly composed music originally for piano

Sources: Dance (exaggerated black dance style), Improvisation, and Rhythm (music felt “ragged”, left hand played 2-beat, right hand syncopated melody lines).

important ragtime composer

Scott Joplin

composed 1899

based on march music of John Phillop Sousa

A-A B-B A C-C D-D

Each theme 16 measures in length

Composed music

Left hand: 2-beat figures; Right Hand: 3-note melodic patterns

provided ealy model for jazz performances

horn players played syncopated melodies over the top of a steady beat

Early jazz horn players borrowed ragtime (right-hand) melodic phrasing ideas while improvising

Early jazz players emulated ragtime’s left-hand 2-beat march rhythms

nineteenth century

brass bands of New Orleans represented several cultures

reclassified creoles as blacks ; stripped them of rights

classically-trained Creole musicians began interacting with blues singers, ragtime pianists, and black brass band musicians

Punch Miller Band

early favorite

New Orleans jazz

Featured cornetist Ernest “Punch” Miller

Use of counterpoint (multiple) melodies played simutaneously

Turk Murphy Band

New Orlans jazz band musicians jammed with ragtime piano players and blues singers at night in the bars and clubs in Storyville

re-creation of a Storyville bar band

original melody of Scott Joplin’s tune is paraphrased

term came form streets of black Storyville

slang for sexual activity

first important New Orleans jazz musician and improviser

powerful cornetist

After 1910

Gave way to new centers of activity in CHicago, Kansas City and New York

There were no recordings in New Orleans/Storyville

free rhytmic improvisation

vocabularity of the blues

Original Dixieland Jass Band

first jazz recordings 

White musicians

Clarinet shreiks, comical trombone swoops

Trumpet “horse whinnies”

Very little improcisation

Cowbells, blocks, etc

Joe tutored young Louis Armstrong

New Orleans style

King Olover’s Creole Jazz Band

12-bar blues

4-part collective improvisation

;

after his release in 1914, Joe Oliver became his mentor

;

Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five

Armstrong – cornet

Johnny Dodds – clarinet

Kid Ory – trombone

Lil Armstrong – piano

Johnny Cyr – banjo

their recordings revolutionized jazz

12-bar blues

solo improvisation

Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five

Scat singing

First recorded example of improvised scat singing

Made scat singing popular

Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five

first recording of an extended jazz solo improvisation

Louis featured as a soloist

Louis Armstrong’s Hot Seven

Armstrong plays two solos

;

changes the focus of jazz performances from collective improvisation to solo

abondoned the stiffness of ragtime and defined the art of swinging

first jazz soloist to improvise melodic lines that could stand by themselves

Extended vocabulary

Popularized Jazz 

Influenced with swinging techniques and scat singing style

clarinetist

New Orleans style

Blue Horizon

1940
Sidney Bechet

“sung” the blues through his clarinet

12-bar blues

Vocalistic effects on clarinet (scoops, soaring notes, wailing high notes, intense beat notes, blues notes, wide vibrato – very emotional)

Chicago Jazz

(categories of musicians)

older white musicians

transplated jazz musicians

young, white, musicians who studied the New Orleans style

solo improvisation; collective furing melody

2-beat feel derived from ragtime

Chicago jazz style

Spent only a short amount of his life in Chicago

Developed technical habits that led to a new, unique sound: mellow, shallow, yet very expressive

The Wolverines

incorporated advanced harmonies in their music

Cool approach, reflective tone quality, lyrical improvisations

incorporated a “rip” –a sudden loud upward slide– as a climatic point in his solo

Chicago jazz

Evolved out of New Orleans stride

Jelly Roll Morton was primarily responsible for its development

LH: bass notes on beats 1,3: chord on beats 2,4

RH: melody lines/improvisation

Faster tempos, more complex harmonies, less reliance on the blues, more reliance on technique

born in New Orleans

Boasted that he “invented jazz”

Probably the first player to “jazz up” written melodies 

Grew out of New Orleans stride style

Faster, more melodically complex

Forerunner to boogie woogie

“father of Harlem stride”

piano style

Solo laced with impressionistic harminic devices including tritones and whole tone scales

developed a percussive appraoch to piano playing

Perfected an approach to playing melodic lines by doubling the melody in octaves (played high pitch and low pitch)

Utilized flowery classical establishments  which added a sense of formal dignity

Bridged from stride to swing

1930s

Fats Waller

sounded as if he had four hands and two pianos at once

Fast temps

Stride Piano

leading exponent of boogie woogie

Driving walking left-hand bass line riff patterns

Highly syncopated blues-based riffs in the right hand

Legally blind, self-taught pianist

Stride

Never made popularity with general public

1930 – 1945

Played for dancers and “jitterbugs”

12-16 musicians: big band

many came out of Chicago jazz scene

1920s as a combination of:

Society bands

New Orleans and Chicago jazz

Sweet Bands: utilized very little or no jazz improvisaton in their music

Hot Bands: preferred to feautre jazz improvisation

first significant jazz composer

intentions were to combine written and improvised jazz

experimented with various sound textures

first to utilize the string bass in place of tuba

Created the standard walking bass lines commonplace in contemporary lines

Known as “father of the modern big band”

Developed effective block chord voicings within a section

Introduced concept of soli (plural of solo)

Introduced shout choruses

Clarinetist – Chicago jazz scene

Regular on national network radio program NBC’s Let’s Dance

“King of Swing”

first jazz musician to have success in the classical world

Benny Goodman Sextet

Swing Era

Solos by Christian, Hampton, and Goodman

Use of riffs to accomany soloists

Vibraphone riff

Swing Era

One of the first ti play rhytms on high hat cymbals

inspiration for succeeding jazz drummers

played at the Cotton Club in Harlem

portrayed African – American culture through his music

A-A-B 24-bar

loved sound of muted brass instruments

created a “gowling trumpet”

Duke Ellington Orchestra

Ellington called for extensive mutes in this piece

Concerto: performed by a soloist, usually with large ensemble accompaniment

Tone poem: impressionistic compositions

12-bar blues form

saxophone soli, call and response, and a driving shout chorus

Swing

Kansas City big band style

Blues-based music

Improvisation was the primary focus

Well known for its “head arrangements)

Basie’s rhytm was known as the All-American Rhythm Section

“Father of the Tenor Sax”

Swing Era

International jazz musician

Guitars played like percussion instruments

Django Reinhard 

Very strong four beat pulse

Swinging groove

pianist

Gemini from Zodiac Suite

Mary Lou Williams

Bass line moving in one direction

Piano line moving in opposite

Boogie woogie