The origin and meaning of jazz:
Jazz took shape at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The recognized birthplace is New Orleans, a subtropical city in Louisiana, southern United States.
Among many popular musics, jazz is the earliest and most influential music genre in the world. Jazz is actually American folk music. European church music, African American violin and banjo traditional music combined with African singing and African American labor chants formed the original "folk blues", and "ragtime" and "folk blues" constituted early jazz.
From the 17th to 18th centuries, Western colonialists trafficked large numbers of black Africans to the Americas and became slaves of white people there. They were forced to labor and tortured. In the fields and after work, black slaves missed their hometown and relatives and often sang a kind of lamentation to express their painful feelings. This kind of music also permeates some religious songs. Because blue is regarded as a melancholy color among the American people, these sad songs are collectively called Blues. The Chinese transliteration is "Bruce". We often find music titles with Blues in American music works, such as "Rhapsody in Blue", "Blue Tango", "Blue Love", etc.
Another origin of jazz comes from a type of piano music called "Ragtime". "Ragtime" is the transliteration of the word Ragtime. The meaning of the word is "jagged beat". Therefore, it is also called "Sanpai music". It also developed from African folk music. At the end of the 19th century, a black pianist named Scott Joplin (1869-1917) created a new style of piano music: the right-hand treble part plays a main melody or a very special syncopated rhythm. Arpeggio. In general music in 4/4 time, the first and third beats are strong beats, and the second and fourth beats are weak beats. In the treble part, every beat and a half, that is, three eighth notes, there is a strong sound, and the left hand It is to regularly play a rhythm composed of light and heavy quarter notes. The first and third beats are bass strong beats, and the second and fourth beats are chords and weak beats. In this way, the left and right hands form an interlaced beat, which makes the music humorous, joyful, and lively. Because of this creation, Joplin is known as the "King of Ragtime".
Some people say that the word Jazz evolved from the African dialect Jaiza. The original meaning of this word is "speed up the drumming"; another way of saying it is: In the early years, there was a musician named Jasper in New Orleans. Everyone got used to calling him Jas. Later, it was passed down again and again, and it became Jazz. ; Others say that the word Jazz evolved from the word Chaz.
Most of the early black jazz musicians did not know how to read music. When they played, they just relied on inspiration and freely changed familiar tunes. So it has a strong improvisational nature. Since there are not many people, three or five musicians often work together. Over time, a tacit understanding will naturally form between them.
In the winter of 1923, Paul Whiteman, the foreman of the "Palace Band" in New York, approached the composer Gershwin and said that he wanted to hold a unique concert, including a finale program that would surprise the audience. Combining jazz and symphony, Gershwin was a musical innovator. He started writing in January 1924 and completed it in just one week. Since the "blues scale" and seventh chords composed of minor thirds, perfect fifths, and minor sixths are mainly used in it, the music is named "Rhapsody in Blue", which is translated as "Rhapsody in Blue" in my country. 》. The performance was a great success. Since then, jazz has been revived by serious musicians and intellectuals, and many composers have followed suit and created many jazz-style musical works, such as some American musicals, Hindemith's "Dance Suite", Sturt's Lavinsky's "Black Concerto" and other works all use jazz music materials and rhythms.
Characteristics of jazz music:
(1) In terms of the major scale, its third (Mi) and seventh (Si) notes are often lower ( It is usually said to be a flat semitone, but in fact it is less than a semitone). Sometimes the fifth level (Sol) tone is also dropped a half step.
These flat notes are often supplemented by portamento and vibrato, which further enhances the melancholy and sad color of the song. Because of these characteristics, the scale formed in this way is called the "blues scale".
(2) Syncopated rhythm and triplets are often used in the melody, resulting in an inversion of light and heavy notes;
(3) The rhythm is mostly double beat, usually 4/4, and sometimes Part of it is in 2/4 time;
(4) In terms of lyrics and melody structure, blues mostly uses symmetrical and rhymed two-line words. Repeat the first sentence. Each tune has 12 bars and each sentence has 4 bars, thus forming a solid musical structure of three sentences: ‖∶A∶‖＋B
(5) Commonly used chords include tonic chords (Ⅰ) and dominant chords (Ⅴ ) and subordinate chords. (IV), therefore, the harmony sounds harmonious and simple.
Other characteristic factors:
Jazz singing uses meaningless "liner words" to form a unique style of jazz singing under the rules of improvisation.
The syncopated rhythms of jazz are complex and diverse. In particular, continuous syncopation across bars often shifts the original rhythm throughout the bar, creating an erratic sense of wandering.
The original 4/4 rhythm was changed to 3/16.
The melody of jazz often uses the blues scale (1 2 b3 3 4 5 6 b7 7) to form its characteristics. Sometimes #4 and other changes are added to the blues scale to make it Become more colorful.
Jazz harmony is much more complex than pop music harmony. It is based on seventh chords and uses a large number of extended tones (such as 9th, 11th, 13th) and alternative chords. Sometimes there are continuous descending pure fifth subdominant chord progressions, giving it a rich and colorful harmonic effect.
Improvisation is one of the playing (or singing) skills that jazz musicians (or singers) must practice.
Some variations of jazz:
Early jazz
Early jazz (1900-1917) has a 32-bar, 4-phrase AABA pop song style. Tunes; 4-bar, two-key ragtime tune; and 12-bar instrumental blues tune. The harmonic rhythms of ragtime tend to be faster than the other two. Blues music has the slowest harmonic rhythm, but its solo melody line has more inflections, different attacks, and many pitch changes. There are also many early songs in the repertoire with "blues" as the title, but in fact they are pop songs or other cognate forms.
Early jazz band setups averaged eight musicians. Two additional instruments are added to the regular format of a New Orleans style jazz band. Sometimes a cornet and a rhythm instrument are added, and sometimes a violin is added as the leader. During the performance, every member of the band, not just the soloist, must improvise. Spontaneous mutual humility and cooperation, limited only by the structure of chord progressions, this new sound was identifiable to any listener in the early 20th century as "jazz."
Free Jazz
Free jazz was born in the 1960s. As soon as this brand-new music appeared, it was deeply loved by the majority of jazz musicians and jazz fans.
Free jazz is different from previous jazz in that there are not many restrictions on harmony and melody. Players can play freely, boldly and as they wish during the performance. Free jazz has a brand-new rhythm concept, in which the beat and symmetry are completely disrupted. At the same time, it also emphasizes the intensity and tension of the music itself, adding a large amount of dissonance, and combines different music from Africa, India, Japan, and Arabia. Incorporating the Indian sitar, tabla, amplified thumb piano, siren, and a host of electronic equipment and percussion, some free jazz bands look like a non-jazz avant-garde. band.
Swing music
In the late 1920s, the Great Depression occurred in the United States, and jazz became popular in some secret hotels, bars, brothels and other places, resulting in the emergence of some more suitable for dancing. Jazz Band - Swing Big Band.
The earliest swing band to appear was Fletcher Henderson's big band, but it was the success of Benny Goodman's big band in 1935 that really established swing music, which lasted until 1946. Swing music remained an important force in popular music until the end of the big band era. Swing music is different from early jazz in that it places less emphasis on ensemble play and more emphasis on solo performance. The personal improvisations were mainly based on melody and were more adventurous than previous performances.
During this period, many jazz artists often communicated, discussed, and learned from each other with some European classical music artists, so you can also hear echoes of Beethoven and Brahms in swing music.
Swing music inherited some of the traditions of early jazz, while also opening up new areas for individual performance. Many big band musicians later became jazz superstars.
Cool Jazz
In 1950, the album "The Birth of The Cool" released by Miles Davis' nine-member group marked the birth of Cool Jazz
The tone chosen by Sir Cool is soft and elegant, and the sound quality is soft and dry. In solo, it gives you a soft, soothing and restrained feeling. The ensemble part is subtle and profound, sometimes reminding you of classic European chamber music. Although cool jazz also incorporates the advantages of Bop's tone, melody and harmony, it is more soothing and smooth than Bop's improvisation, and the timbre is more harmonious. Compared with Bop, Cool jazz often highlights a sense of relaxation, without Bop. Such strong inner tension.
Cool jazz drummers are also quieter and do not interfere with other sounds. In short, Cool jazz style is controlled and "point-to-point", which is why its fans call it "Cool".
Fusion
In the 1970s, Fusion music gradually developed. Its initial definition is actually a kind of music that combines jazz improvisation and rock and roll rhythms. However, as pop music, rhythm and blues and various music forms gradually prosper in the world music scene, Fusion music draws on these music styles. The Fusion music we are now familiar with has actually become a hybrid music with the name of jazz. .
Regtime
Regtime (Ragtime) jazz is produced by merging the characteristics of European classical music and European military music. He disrupted the strict rhythmic rules of classical music and showed the performer's slowness in mastering the rhythm. The progression of a piece of music usually involves a slow onset and then emphasis on the syllables. This style was very common in piano playing at that time. Regtime jazz was very popular in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. Although this style had a very significant impact on the form of jazz, it cannot be called real jazz because it lacks the feeling of Blues and has no sense of improvisation.
Bebop
The word "Bebop" comes from the meaningless syllables (or meaningless yelling) that jazz musicians make when practicing vocals or humming instrumental melodies. ). Bebop phrases often end suddenly with a distinctive "long and short" sound pattern at the end, and this rhythm is often hummed as "ribop" or "bebop". The word first appeared in print as the title of a record recorded by the Gillespie Six in New York in 1945 - "Salty Peanut Bebop".
Bebop developed from the swing era tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Don Byas, piano players Art Tatum and Nat Cole, trumpeter Roy Eldgridge, Count Bassey's rhythm section, and Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, miles Davis and Bud Powell.
Bebop music is usually performed by a small jazz band composed of 3 to 6 people. They did not use musical notation, a principle they used to counter swing music's use of adapted scores.
The performance procedure is to first play the melody completely once (or twice if it is a 12-bar blues), followed by several improvised solo refrains accompanied by a rhythm group (usually piano, double bass and drums). Repeat the melody of the first refrain to end the song. The rhythm section repeats the harmonic patterns (including variations) throughout the piece to maintain the structure of the piece.