musicology 3 wk 3
TRANSCRIPT
MUSICOLOGY 3
WEEK 3 – 1950’s Where do we go from here?
Notes: Other Musicians
• Charlie Parker dies March 12, 1955 in New York City. He was 34 years old.
• Parker (or “Bird”) had a huge influence on many and there was a sense of the whole of the jazz world following in his footsteps. He is one of the colossal figures of the jazz world, like Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton.
• But during his heyday of 1945 – 1955, there were many other musicians arriving and developing their own voices, for example:
o Sonny Rollins – Tenor (Sept 7, 1930 – New York) o Ornette Coleman – Alto Sax (Mar 9, 1930 – Texas) o Miles Davis – Trumpet (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991)
whom we mentioned last week. o Stan Getz – Tenor Saxophone (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) o Clifford Brown – Trumpet (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956)
• Dizzy Gillespie continued to work, including exploring the big band context.
• There were also a number of pianists, for example: o Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) o Tadd Dameron (February 21, 1917 – March 8, 1965) o George Russell (June 23, 1923 – July 27, 2009) o Bud Powell (Sept 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) o Stan Kenton (Dec 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) – Big and Orchestra
leader & Educator. “Progressive Jazz”. o Horace Silver (Sept 2, 1928) o Lennie Tristano (Mar 19, 1919 – Nov 18, 1978)
• All of these musicians exerted strong influences on the development of Jazz during the lifetime of Charlie Parker, and continued to after his death.
1950’s
• Big bands continued to tour and play, both commercially (Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, etc. And Count Basie) and more progressive (Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Sun Ra, etc)
• The 1930’s to the mid 1940’s were the hey-‐day of the big bands, the Swing Era. Although big bands continue to play today, they are not at the forefront of creative developments in Jazz. And there are very few longstanding ensembles, bands such as Lincoln Centre Band, BBC Big Band come to mind.
• A look at the music of the big band format since the 1950’s would constitute a separate lecture.
• There had always been strong individual players – Art Tatum, Bix Biderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton – who were seemingly ahead of their time, and had their own unique styles. This continued through the swing era and on through the development of Bebop.
• During the late 40’s and early 50’s more players began to explore music & improvisation for its own sake. The break from “popular” music and dancing had been well and truly made and the younger musicians were forging their own individual ideas and styles.
• As a result there was a growing sense that “style” (or a dominant style) was fragmenting.
• There was a dissolving of categories and a process of fragmentation within jazz. But this was not unique to Jazz. Perhaps it is because of our proximity to it, in that we have lots of documentation thanks to recordings, interviews and eye-‐witness accounts, or perhaps it had to do with the times.
• With the end of World War II in 1945 soldiers began returning home. There were big changes within society, with a sense of wanting a better life, and starting over. The U.S.A began rebuilding.
• The rise of popularity in television and the development of suburbs meant that life was changing in all sorts of ways.
• The beat generation began challenging old norms in their lifestyles and writings and they looked to jazz as an energetic, life affirming music.
• Certainly during the war years jazz ceased to be the dominant popular music, as it had been during the swing era. And later the emergence of popular singers and Rock n’ Roll continued to keep jazz as a subversive and counter cultural form of music.
• Many of the “styles” or approaches that were developed during the 50’s are still resonating today and what was begun during this period can be seen as the beginning of today’s music.
• There are broadly a number of styles that developed during the 50’s o Cool Jazz & West Coast o Hard Bop & Soul Jazz o Third Stream
• Also Continuing interest in traditional jazz, Swing era big band, bebop, and blues.
Trad Jazz Revival
• The late 1940’s saw a resurgence of “traditional jazz” or trad. Jazz, with Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and others whose careers were lagging re-‐emerged as outstanding traditional players, and through the 1950’s it continued to be a popular form of jazz. This revival spread around the world and was particularly popular in the U.K with exponents such as Chris Barber, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Ken Colyer. It continues today with a lot of fans.
Other Styles Cool & West Coast
• Miles Davis leaves Charlie Parker’s band in 1948. • During 1946-‐47 a young arranger Gil Evans writes arrangements for the
Claude Thornhill Orchestra (Thornhill was a pianist and band leader) Miles Davis looked to the Thornhill orchestra as an inspiration for his nonet recordings in 1949 and 1950, which later came to be called “The Birth of the Cool” – The line up of musicians on this recording is like a who’s who of “Cool” musicians. Including Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, Max Roach, etc.
• Led by Miles Davis, it grew out of a collection of like minded musicians congregating at Gil Evans apartment, always with an open door, in New york.
• The music was compared at the time with impressionistic classical music, more concerned with texture and tone colour, by way of unusual instrumentation, than it was with flashy solos and chromaticism.
• In a similar way, and at the same time pianist Lennie Tristano was recording and influencing a small group of students through his teaching and through his recordings a wide range of other musicians.
• Tristano was a blind pianist who expanded jazz in a number of ways. He was outspoken and a keen intellect. He was blind and had tremendous aural skills.
• Voted Musician of the Year 1947 by Metronome magazine. • Tristano used dynamics and subtelties, and by doing so was able to use
accents that challenged the listeners perception of bar lines and beats. • This led to rhythmic advancements which influenced other pianists such
as Bill Evans & Dave Brubeck. • He also emphasised the importance of feeling the music, and for the music
to have emotional as well as intellectual content. • Listen: Tautology, Marshmellow • Tristano played with an influenced Saxophonists Lee Konitz (who was on
the Birth of the Cool dates with Miles Davis) and Warne Marsh. And although Tristano played less and less as the 50’s progressed Konitz, Marsh and others that Tristano had played with an influenced took up his aesthetics and continued to develop them.
• Another Saxophone player was Stan Getz whose vibrato less style really exemplified the cool sound. Listen: Early Autumn 1948
• The longest running cool band is/was the M.J.Q. or Modern Jazz Quartet. Led by pianist John Lewis, they dressed immaculately and played arrangements to match such as Django and Bag’s Groove. They began life as rhythm section to Dizzy Gillespie. But Lewis had an overriding interest in Classical music, and explored the “classical realm” as it is sometimes put.
• Long forms, composed contrapuntal lines, lots of dynamics, the use of compositional themes, and a tight-‐ness of playing that all gave a more sophisticated and cool impression of the music and the musicians.
• Django Reinhart, after whom the MJQ’s Django is named, is a good example of an individual who followed his own path of stylistic development and continued to refine and develop his playing during his lifetime.
• Often overlooked in narrative, linear histories of jazz, Django Renhart was a guitarist often cited as responsible for “Gypsy Jazz”
• A combination of John Lewis’s interest in classical music, (including studying with Schoenberg and Darius Milhaud) and Lennie Tristano’s rhythmic developments was realized in the music of Dave Brubeck.
• Brubeck formally studied music at college and lived and worked on the West Coast of the U.S.A. This meant that he was influenced by, and working amongst the cool sounds of the West Coast.
• Brubeck worked for a long time with Alto player Paul Desmond, who like Lee Konitz had a very light tone, with little if any vibrato. Their music came to epitimise for many the sounds of Cool Jazz. Like the others dynamics played a part in their music, as did rhythmic freedom, but more than the concepts of Tristano’s wrong footing of rhythmic groupings and accents, the Brubeck group explored the use of unusual time signatures.
• Gerry Mulligan, Baritone Sax, was on the Birth of the Cool recordings and his work as a composer, arranger and player, also gives him a strong place in the develop of Cool Jazz.
• Importantly he worked with Chet Baker, one of the best known Cool jazz trumpet players, after Miles Davis.
• Interestingly the Mulligan/Baker Group was a piano-‐less quartet.
• During the 1950’s Bill Evans began his career. He was influenced by the cool school of jazz and by all aspects of it – the introspection, the rhythmic developments, the dynamic and intellectual concepts. He came to be one of the most influential pianists of all time.
Hard Bop & Soul Jazz
• Like the MJQ, Art Blakey’s Jazz messengers, were a long running institution in the history and development of Jazz.
• Art Blakey had played with many of the greats, and his work with Dizzy Gillespie in the early 50’s provides a precussor to the development of the style know has hard Bop.
• Hard Bop refers to a more blues oriented style of Bebop playing, harking back to the early days of jazz when the distinction between blues and jazz was not yet realized.
• Blakey came to work during the early to mid 50’s with Horace Silver on Piano and Clifford Brown on Trumpet.
• Clifford Brown was an exceptional trumpet player with tremendous technique and control. His brief life (?)
• The pianist Horace Silver was also an adept composer and he wrote catchy of “Latin-‐tinged” melodies. This led to his being thought of as a
more “funky” blues player. Importantly though he also had a simplicity to his melodies that meant they gained popularity with the general public.
• Like Cool, Hard-‐Bop provided a real relief to the fast and furious aspects of Bebop that many in the general public found alienating.
• To begin with, almost by mistake, Horace Silver recorded in a trio format. But after several recordings it was suggested to him that he expand the line up and include some horns, this led to recordings with other like minded musicians, again with Art Blakey and as well as Kenny Dorham and hank Mobley. The result became the Jazz Messengers.
• Almost contradicting the technical prowess of these musicians, having grown up in the bebop era, was the simplicity of the melodies and grooves. And that marriage between really great technical players playing seemingly simple melodies enables the music to have an infectious groove that, in a lot of bebop material, had been missing.
• The earthy, gospel tinged feels of an earlier time meant that in some instances Hard-‐Bop almost became a dance-‐able form of jazz. (See later Sampling)
• The music was recorded on Blue Note, a lable which came to define the Hard-‐Bop sound. And there are many, many albums that help define this style of jazz.
• Like Bill Evans, John Coltrane must also be introduced at this point. He played with Miles Davis 1955 until the late 1950’s and his work during this period is included in the Hard-‐Bop tradition.
• However an interesting cross over is that Coltrane played with Miles on the definitive cool recording Kind of Blue. Making the point that categorization is not a straight forward, or always helpful pursuit.
Third Stream
• Not nearly as dominant as Cool or Hard-‐Bop, Third Stream was a term coined by Gunther Schuller, a Composer and French Horn player.
• Gunther Schuller recorded with Miles Davis in 1950 on the Birth of the Cool project, and because of the unusual instrumentation and his composition skills, Schuller is seen as the focal point for this style.
• Others include Teo Macero and Charles Mingus (who will be discussed more in the coming weeks)
• Though perhaps not strictly Third Stream, George Russell was a hugely important composer, pianist, and theorist during this period who worked with Gunther Schuller and sits probably most comfortably in this “style”
• He wrote the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation, published in 1953, which is the only original theoretical conception published in jazz. The aim of which was towards the development of improvisation and modes beyond the chord-‐scale relationships of traditional Major harmony. (While fascinating, this work is better discussed in a jazz theory context.)
• Russell’s Workshop Sextet in the mid 1950’s and subsequent recording document his theories in relation to jazz in practice.
• A fascinating album featuring Art Farmer and Bill Evans, it explored many of the areas, already discussed, that were being examined during the period in jazz.
Recordings
• As a result of all this divergence there were many, many recordings made during the 1950’s and almost anyone is worthy of further discussion.
• Take for example the year 1959 – Albums recorded during that year include Miles Davis Kind of Blue, John Coltrane Giant Steps, Dave Brubeck Time Out, Charles Mingus Ah-‐Hum, Ornette Coleman The Shape of Things to Come.
• All these albums covered and defined new ground, exploring new ideas in tempo and rhythm, time signatures and rhythmic complexity, harmonic structures, social conscience, freedom, as well as prime stylistic conventions of the time. ]
• Jazz had become a music of the intellect and of the world, and the results of the “fragmentation” of the 1950’s are still being felt and grappled with today.
Albums
• Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool • Stan Kenton – Presents • Lennie Tristano – Wow • Modern Jazz Quartet – Django • Errol Garner – Concert by the Sea • Horace Silver – Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers • Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners • Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus • George Russell – The Shape of things to come • Miles Davis – Kind of Blue • John Coltrane – Giant Steps • Dave Brubeck – Time Out • Ornette Coleman – The Shape of things to Come • Etc….