Jazz Overview
In less than a century, this distinctly American music called jazz has developed from an obscure, folk-derived music to a native American music. The most important type of art. Today it is listened to and played in almost every corner of the world, and jazz flourishes in many forms, from roots blues and ragtime through New Orleans to Dixieland, swing, and mainstream jazz. , bebop, modern jazz to free jazz and electronic jazz. What is amazing is not that jazz appears in so many forms, but that each of its forms is very important and has maintained its own characteristics and unique charm and has been passed down to this day. If you want to appreciate all kinds of jazz and experience all the fun in it, you must have an open attitude, be tolerant and listen.
Looking for the roots
Jazz developed from folk songs and has many sources, which is difficult to verify carefully. But its roots were certainly brought from Africa by black slaves. They tore themselves apart from their ancient cultural traditions and developed folk songs into a new form of communication that told stories through song. Black music in the Americas retains a lot of African characteristics, obvious rhythmic features, and the characteristics of collective improvisation. This tradition was combined with the music of the new settlement, which was mostly vocal, and the result was not just a new sound but a completely new form of musical expression.
The most famous Afro-American music is religious. White people also listened to these beautiful songs, but they had a more upper-class flavor than the songs sung in rural black churches. Gospel music as it is known today more accurately reflects the emotional power and melodic sense of early African Americans than it is a religious inheritance from the music of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers of the first decade of this century. .
Other early musical forms include work songs, children's songs and dance music dating back to the slavery era, which have become important musical heritage, especially considering that under the system at that time, musical activities were quite restricted. Strict restrictions.
The Birth of the Blues
After slavery was abolished and black slaves were emancipated, African-American music developed rapidly. The abandoned instruments of military bands and their newfound freedom of movement formed the basis of jazz: brass, dance music, blues.
As a musical form, blues seems simple, but in fact it can have almost infinite variations. It has always been an important part of any kind of jazz, and it has successfully maintained its own independent existence. It can be said that without the blues, rock music would not be possible today. A brief explanation of the characteristics of general blues is: it is composed of music with every eight or twelve bars as a section, and the lyrics are tight. The reason for its "melancholy (blue)" feature is that the "mi" sound in the scale is And the "si" sound dropped a semitone. In fact, blues is a secular music form that corresponds to religious music.
Brass Bands and Ragtime
By the late 1880s, black brass bands and dance bands appeared in most southern cities in the United States. and concert band. At the same time, black music in the northern United States tended toward European styles. During this period, Ragtime began to take shape. Although ragtime is primarily played on the piano, some bands have begun playing it as well. The golden age of ragtime was roughly from 1898 to 1908, but its time span was actually very long and its influence was endless. Recently, it has been discovered again. The new "Ragtime" is characterized by charming melody and extensive use of syncopation, but its blues factor is almost gone. Ragtime is closely associated with early jazz, but it is certain that ragtime has a more stable rhythm.
The most famous composer of ragtime is Scott Joplin (1868-1917). Other famous ragtime masters include James Scott, Louis Chauvink Eubie Blake (1883-1983), Joseph Lamb, etc. Although the latter is white, he completely absorbed the connotation of this music form.
Enter the Jazz Age
Ragtime, especially the popular style that downplays the color of jazz, is aimed at the middle class and is disliked by orthodox musicians. In the last decade of the 19th century, jazz music gradually took shape, but it was not called "jazz" at that time. It was originally called Jass and first appeared in the residential areas of black workers in southern cities in the United States. Like ragtime, jazz began as dance music. It is somewhat true, but also somewhat exaggerated, that the city that first became synonymous with early jazz was New Orleans.
New Orleans: The Cradle of Jazz
New Orleans played a key role in the birth and development of jazz. Here, the early history of jazz has been researched and documented in greater depth than anywhere else. During the period from 1895 to 1917, the jazz in New Orleans may have been more diverse and better than in other places, but this does not mean that New Orleans is the only place where jazz was produced. The music produced in every southern American city with a significant black population should be considered a form of early jazz. For example, W. appeared in Memphis. C. Handy (1873-1958) was a blues composer and collector. Other cities include Atlanta, Baltimore, etc.
New Orleans at that time stood out because of its very open and liberal social atmosphere. People of different faiths and races can communicate with each other, so the musical traditions in this easy communication environment are very rich, including French, Spanish, Irish and African. It's no surprise, then, that New Orleans was fertile ground for jazz.
If the idea that New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz is exaggerated but still somewhat true, the idea that jazz was born in the red-light district is complete nonsense. While New Orleans did legalize prostitution and produce some of the most sophisticated and tasteful "sports houses" in the country, the music played in these places was little more than solo piano, if any. In fact, people first heard jazz in a very different place.
At the time, New Orleans was notable for its many sororities and fraternal organizations, most of which sponsored or hired a band to perform on various occasions—such as indoor or outdoor dances, picnics, etc. , store openings, birthday or anniversary parties. Of course, playing jazz was also a feature of funeral processions and remains so to this day. According to tradition, the band gathered at the door of the church, played solemn marches and sad hymns, and led the funeral procession slowly toward the cemetery. On the way back the pace quickened and lilting marches and ragtime replaced dirges. This kind of procession always attracts many people to watch and is of great significance in the development of jazz. It was at this time that the trumpeters and clarinetists showed off their creative talents, and the drummers also played a rhythmic beat, which became the basis for the "swing" of the beat.
Early Musicians
The majority of the musicians in these early bands were craftsmen of some kind (carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, etc.) or those who worked during weekends or holidays. A worker who performs music and earns a little money.
The first famous New Orleans musician, the first jazz musician, was Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), who was a barber. He played cornet and formed a band in the late 1890s. He was perhaps the first to combine roots, rough blues with traditional band music, a step that was significant in the history of jazz.
Bolden was admitted due to a psychotic episode while performing at a parade in Mardi Gras and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital for stubborn patients. It is said that he made the recording, but so far this has not been confirmed. What we know about his music comes from the memories of other musicians who heard him perform in their youth.
Bunk Johnson (1889-1949) played second cornet in Bolden's last band. In the last ten years of his life, Bunk Johnson was most responsible for the renewed interest in New Orleans classical jazz. He is a brilliant storyteller with a colorful personality.
Most of the legends of New Orleans are related to him, but those told by him are mostly exaggerated.
Many people, including some senior jazz fans, believe that early jazz musicians were self-taught geniuses who could neither read music nor take a day of music lessons. This statement is more than romantic, but it is completely wrong. Almost all the important figures in early jazz had at least a solid foundation in orthodox music, and some had even deeper attainments.
Nevertheless, their innovative spirit in the use of musical instruments is still unique. The most notable example is Joseph Oliver (1885-1938) (nicknamed "The King"), who was a cornet player and band leader. He used everything he could find, including drinking glasses, buckets of sand, and plastic bathtub stoppers, to create a variety of timbres on his cornet. Freddie Keppard (1889-1933) was Oliver's main competitor. Keppard did not use mute equipment, which allowed him to be proud of being the most resonant cornet player in New Orleans. Koppard was also the first New Orleans native to bring jazz to other parts of the United States, performing vaudeville in New York with the Original Creole Orchestra in 1915.
Jazz goes north
By around 1912, the typical jazz band instruments included cornet (or trumpet), trombone, clarinet, guitar, double bass and drums. (The piano is rarely used because it is inconvenient to transport). Early jazz now gives the impression that banjos and tubas are more prominent. In fact, it was only a few years later that jazz bands began to use them. This is because early recording technology could not handle the softer-sounding guitars and double basses. pickup.
The leader of the jazz band at that time was the cornet, the trombone echoed the chord with it in the bass area in a slide manner, and the clarinet played a decorative role between the two. The earliest improviser in jazz was a clarinetist, and Sidney Bochet (1897-1959) was one of them. He was a proficient musician before he was ten years old, and later turned to playing mainly tenor saxophone. He was also the first jazz musician to become famous abroad. In 1919 he visited England and France, and in 1927 he visited Moscow.
Most jazz musicians claim that their music has no name other than ragtime and syncopated sounds. The first person to use the word jazz was the band of trombonist Tom Brown, a white man from New Orleans. He used the term in Chicago in 1915. The origin of the word is unknown, and its original meaning remains a matter of debate.
The first band to use the word "jazz" and make it popular is also a white band, and it is also from New Orleans. This is the "Original Dixieland Jazz Band" (OriginaI Dixieland Jass Band) ). This band achieved great success in 1917 and 1918. They were more or less the first jazz band to record records. Most of the members of this band had played in the band of "Dad" Jack Laine (1873-1966). Jack Laine was a drummer who is considered the first white jazz musician. In any case, the music fusion characteristics in New Orleans are relatively obvious. There were some less dark-skinned African-Americans who “mixed” into the white bands.
By 1917, many important jazz musicians, both white and black, left New Orleans and went north. The reason isn't the closure of New Orleans' notorious red-light district, it's simply economic. The war in Europe brought American industry to a boom, and these musicians, like millions of workers, flocked north, where they were guaranteed to find a better job.
Little Louis and "King" Joseph O1iver
"King" Joseph O1iver moved to Chicago in 1918.
He was originally in the best band in his hometown. To fill his vacancy, he recommended 18-year-old Louis Armstrong - people older than him called him "Little Louis". He was born in On August 4, 1901, the family was considered extremely poor among black people in New Orleans. His earliest musical activity was organizing a quartet of boys to sing on the streets for money. Later he sold coal and worked on flood control embankments.
Louis Armstrong's first music lesson was in a reformatory. He was sent to the reformatory for 18 years because he used an old pistol to discharge blank bullets into the street on New Year's Eve in 1913. months. By the time he came out of the reformatory, he was musical enough to find work in a city band. The first famous musician to discover the young man's musical talent was "King" Joseph Oliver, who gave Louis music lessons and was admired by him.
Creo1e Jazz Band
When Oliver invited Armstrong to join his band in Chicago, Chicago had become the jazz center of the new world. Although New York is the place where the "Original Dixieland Jazz Band" (ODJB) achieved great success, and the trend of dancing to music caused by them was temporary, the bands in New York seem to have only inherited the vaudeville style of ODJB without learning other aspects. The essence of music. They were just imitations (the first and most successful was Ted Lewis). There were also very few Southern musicians in New York at the time, so they could not bring the pure style of New Orleans.
But it was different in Chicago, where there were a lot of musicians from New Orleans. Prohibition had just been repealed, and the city's nightlife was exciting. The one band that was much better than any other band here was "King" Joseph Oliver's "Creo1e Jazz Band" (Creo1e Jazz Band), especially after Louis Armstrong came to Chicago in 1922. This band represents the last glory of the New Orleans classical jazz ensemble style and heralds the beginning of a new style. In addition to these two cornet players, other stars in the orchestra include the Dodds brothers, clarinetist Johnny Dodds (1892-1940) and drummer Baby Dodds (1898-1959). Baby Dodds brought the subtlety and inherent dynamics of jazz drum rhythms to a new level. Together with another New Orleans-born drummer, Zutty Singleton (1897-1975), he brought the concept of "swing" to jazz drumming. But the "preacher" of swing music is undoubtedly Louis Armstrong.
The first jazz record
The "Creo1e Jazz Band" began recording records in 1923. Although this was not the first New Orleans black band to record records, it was the best. . Their records were widely distributed across the country, and the band's influence on other musicians was huge. Two years earlier, trombonist Kid Ory's (1886-1973) Sunshine Orchestra had become the first band to record jazz, but they did so in an obscure California company. The company soon went bankrupt and their records were rarely heard.
Also in 1923, the "New Orleans Rhythm Kings", a white band active in Chicago, began recording records. This band is far more musically complex than the original "Original Dixieland Jazz Band". For one recording session, they hired the famous New Orleans pianist and composer Ferdinand Morton, nicknamed "Jelly Roll." In the same year, Ferdinand Morton also began recording his own album.
"Jelly Roll" Ferdinand Morton
A series of recordings made by Ferdinand Morton for the Library of Congress in 1938 have become a treasure for understanding early jazz.
He is very complex, conceited, ambitious, and, to exaggerate, a liar, a pimp, and a gambler, but he is also an outstanding pianist and composer. Perhaps his greatest talent lay in organizing bands and arranging music. The series of records he recorded with his Red Hot Peppers from 1926 to 1928, together with the records of Joseph Oliver, can be said to be witnesses of the most glorious period of New Orleans traditional jazz and part of the great achievements of jazz.
Louis Armstrong in New York and the Birth of the Big Band
For the creative genius Louis Armstrong, tradition was undoubtedly like a curse. In late 1924, he accepted the invitation of Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952), the most prestigious black band leader in New York, and bid farewell to Joseph Oliver. Fletcher Henderson's orchestra performed at the Roseland Dance Hall in Parkway, New York. This was the first major orchestra of great significance in the history of jazz.
The first big band developed from the standard dance band at that time. It consisted of three trumpets, one trombone, three saxophones, two other reed instruments, piano, Banjo, bass instrument (double bass or bass brass horn), drums. These orchestras all perform according to the score (arrangement or "song sheet"), but they also give the soloist, who is the key player, the freedom to create and express themselves, and they can play without following the score.
Although Fletcher Henderson's band was outstanding at the time, when Louis Armstrong joined, the band still seemed not smooth and flexible in rhythm. His smooth and elegant solo on the recording sounds like a diamond on a tin base.
Louis Armstrong's style characteristics were already mature at that time. He was the first to play extremely beautiful and attractive music on the trumpet. His creative take on the tune is refreshing yet logical. His balance in rhythm (what jazz musicians call "time") makes other musicians' performances seem stiff and clumsy compared to his.
His influence on other musicians was huge, but Fletcher Henderson did not give him many solo performance opportunities. This may be because he thought that the white dancers he played for were not ready to accept Louis. Armstrong's innovative style. During his year in the band, Louis Armstrong transformed the band stylistically, and eventually the styles of big bands across the United States were transformed by him.
Don Redman (1900-1964), the main arranger of the Fletcher Henderson Band, heard Louis Armstrong play and took notes. Another saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins, also developed his own saxophone playing style after collaborating with Louis Armstrong, thus becoming a guide for saxophone performance in the next decade.
While in New York, Louis Armstrong also recorded with Sidney Bechet and Bessie Smith (1894-1937), the latter being the greatest blues singer. In 1925, Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago and began recording records under his own name with a small band, the Hot Five, whose members included his wife, piano player Lil Hardin Armstrong (1899-1971). , trombonist Kid Ory1, clarinetist Johnny Dodds, guitarist Johnny St. Cyr.. Their first album, which focused on the personality of Louis Armstrong, became a sensation among musicians first in the United States and then around the world. It can be said that without the record player, the spread of jazz and even its overall development would be impossible.
"King" Louis
"The Hot Five" (The Hot Five) is strictly a recording band.
For each piece, Louis Armstrong played it on different occasions, including in a theater orchestra pit. His skills improved day by day, and finally, in 1927, he switched from playing cornet to the louder trumpet. Occasionally he would show off his unique bean paste singing voice, but just for the sake of novelty. The potential of his singing voice was revealed in 1929, when he returned to New York to participate in a musical performance, in which he sang the famous song "Ain't Misbehaving" and played A famous piece written by pianist "Fat Man" Thomas Waller (1904-1943). As a result, he became an instrumentalist, singer, and performer in jazz.
The artistic peak of Louis Armstrong was reached in the following year when he collaborated with another pianist, Earl Hines (1903-1983). "Dad" Earl Hines was the first collaborator on the same level as Louis Armstrong, and the two inspired each other in inspiration. Their collaboration resulted in several true jazz masterpieces, including "West End Blues" and the duet "Weatherbird."
Jazz Age
Lewis was an instant hit in the music scene of the 1920s. In fact, he single-handedly helped shape the vocabulary of jazz music at that time and beyond. But much of the Jazz Age jazz was lively dance music played on banjos and saxophones by young people with little understanding of the blues or the music of Louis Armstrong. Still, a surprising amount of the music produced during this happy dance era contained genuine jazz elements.
Paul Whiteman——King of Jazz?
As a band leader, the most famous one is Paul Whiteman (1890-1967). He is called the King of Jazz. Ironically, his first successful band played no jazz at all, and the bands he later led played very little jazz. But the dance music played by these bands was extremely exciting. Because of Paul Whiteman's generous spending, he attracted some of the best white musicians to compose and perform for his band. From 1926 onwards, Paul Whiteman sometimes gave solo opportunities to some jazz-influenced musicians, including cornetist Red Nicho1s, violinist Joe Venuti, guitarist Eddie Lang (1904-1933), and members of the "Dorsey Brothers" band. Trombonist and trumpeter Tommy (1905-1956), clarinet and saxophone player Jimmy (1904-1957), these people later formed their own bands.
In 1927, Whiteman accepted the main musicians of Jean Go1dtte's jazz band, including a young cornet player (sometimes also playing piano), who was a rare talented composer. This is Bix Beiderbecke(1903-1931). Bix's deeply lyrical, personal music and his early death made him one of the first (and most enduring) jazz legends. His romanticized version of his life inspired a book and a movie, both of which were far from reality.
During the peak of Bix's creativity, his best personal friend and his best musical friend was undoubtedly the saxophonist Frank Trumbauer (1901-1956). People affectionately referred to the two as "Bix and Tram". Without the wonderful echoes and solo performances of the two, the album recorded by the Whiteman Band would be just a glass of water, very boring.
Beiderbecke’s Legacy
Bix’s bittersweet lyricism influenced many aspiring jazz groups, including the so-called “Austin High School Gang,” a group of talented of young Chicagoans, only a handful of whom actually attended Austin High School.
Some of these people had several enthusiastic advocates after the swing dance era, including drummer Gene Krupa (1909-1973), Dave Tough (1908-1948), clarinetist Frank Teschemacher (1905-1932), saxophonist Bud Freeman (1906-1991), pianist Joe Sullivan (1906-1971), Jess Stacy (1904-); guitarist and entrepreneur Eddie Condon (1905-1973). Their contemporaries and sometimes comrades-in-arms included the clarinet genius Benny Goodman (1905-1986) and the slightly older Mezz Mezzrow (1899-1972), who published his autobiography "Really the Blues" in 1946 ( "Real Blues"), which, despite its inaccuracies, is still one of the best jazz treatises.
Although Trumbauer is not as famous as Bix, the number of musicians influenced by him is not less than that influenced by Bix. Among them are the greatest saxophonist in the history of jazz, Benny Carter (1907-) and Lester (Prez)Young(1909-1959).