Old & New

I had originally planned to write this post on the Marsalis family, so I feel a bit obligated to talk about them a little before I get into what I actually want to talk about. Most people know the name Wynton Marsalis, but some don't realize that Wynton is not the only Marsalis in jazz. Wynton, who plays the trumpet, has three brothers who each play jazz as well: Branford on saxophone, Delfeayo on trombone, and Jason on drums. Their father, Ellis Marsalis, introduced them to music early in their lives by being a jazz musician himself (on piano). As I was looking into more of the Marsalis family history I happened upon a video of Ellis Marsalis playing a piano duet at The Marsalis Family: A Jazz Celebration. He's playing the duet with Harry Connick Jr.

Harry Connick Jr. is a jazz pianist and an actor. He was born in 1967 making him considerably younger than Ellis Marsalis who was born in 1934. Harry was born in New Orleans and his parents owned a record store so it came as no surprise when he showed interest in music. He also showed considerable talent, having been recorded with a jazz ensemble at age ten.

The reason I go into this is because I think it is amazing how the old and new jazz can come together. Ellis Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. are from completely different generations but they can come together and play together because of the bond that jazz ties them together with. Here's the video...enjoy!

Jazz, more than any other type of music, seems to bring musicians together to collaborate in new and inventive ways. We've seen it time and time again. An older jazz musician brings a younger, newer player under their wing and the music that they create is absolutely astounding because it brings together the best of the old and the new. Jazz has spanned the world and it's not going to leave any time soon because it just keeps changing. Musicians will keep collaborating and keep on producing masterpieces. This video is a great example because they're playing "Caravan" which has been around for ages, but it sounds renewed, revitalized and refreshed in this new rendition by the old and the new.

I feel like this is the point of music. As you watch the video, you can see that music is, for lack of a better word, flowing through both Marsalis and Connick, but it's much more than that. They have come to an understanding in that music. They are challenging each other and then coming together to work off of each others' ideas. And, as Marsalis and Connick are connected, so is the audience connected to them. Robert Fripp, an English guitarist and composer, once said, "The perception of the audience is the interesting part. If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on or not?".

Jazz was (and still is) misunderstood and even disliked by many people. For them, nothing is really "going on", but for those in the audience that understood or even just appreciated what was happening on the stage, jazz has always been "going on" and its' fans have always been enthusiastic and seemingly inexplicably connected to the performers on stage. Like all music, there is no universally accepted taste, but the music still brings those of us together whether it's at a concert or in a class like ours.

Critical Listening #13: Dancing Men

From the Swing Era, jazz took many new and drastic courses. Some of these new jazz genres included bebop, cool jazz, and free jazz. Though there were many small groups, there was also a reoccurrence of big bands playing new rhythms sometimes called fusion. This fusion piece is a mix of jazz elements and the heavy repetitive rhythms of rock. It is a Buddy Rich tune called "Dancing Men".

Buddy Rich, born in 1917, grew up playing the drums in the swing era, but also lived long enough to see the changes that jazz experienced. He experimented in many of these areas, playing the drums until his death in 1987.

8 bar drum introduction 

8 bar A 

8 bar B 

8 bar A 

8 bar B 

8 bar C 

8 bar A 

5 8 bar choruses -- sax solo 

8 bar A 

5 8 bar choruses -- bass solo

8 bar B 

4 bar A variation

8 bar B 

10 bar B variation

This song is written in 8 bar phrases with three main themes. The tune is hard-charging and takes a lot of energy to play especially because the first trumpet part is so high. The trumpets are supported by a strong bass line and trombone section. The drummer (Buddy Rich) keeps the energy up by filling the empty spaces and adding cymbal hits to accent certain lines. 

There are two soloists on this piece: saxophone and bass. But first I want to talk about Buddy Rich's drum fills which qualify as a type of mini-solo. Buddy Rich likes to use complex rhythms on the snare drum with hits on the other drums and cymbals. The saxophone solo is five choruses long. The solo seems to me to hint a bit at cool jazz but with an edge. The solo line is very flowing and not too harsh but the saxophonist's style is very upfront with little to no vibrato and a perpetual line of notes that reminds one of Charlie Parker and the bop era. 

The bass player has a five chorus solo right after the sax solo. It is really neat to hear a electric bass solo since they're not very common in early jazz which is what I usually listen to. The bass player plays a funk bass line using interesting rhythms in his solo. He is accompanied by the drummer playing a constant beat on the ride cymbal to keep the rhythm up and the pianist to help make sure we don't lose track of the tops of the choruses. I like this solo because it doesn't hurry at all even with the almost frantic drumming behind it. 

I thought this piece would make a good choice if for no other reason than that we tend to forget that there were still big bands in this time period even though small groups were more common. Buddy Rich throughout his career showed the unique ability to keep growing and changing his style to match and sometimes even surpass the popular music of the day. Though this tune might not be as well-known as "So What" or "Rhythmning", it is no less played in the world of jazz. 

The Chameleon

The leading experimental jazz pianist after 1945 was Herbie Hancock. It's not for nothing that he got the nickname "Chameleon". Herbie Hancock learned to play the piano as a child (starting at age seven) and studied classically until the age of twenty. In 2963, at age 23, Hancock joined Miles Davis's quintet while also continuing the solo career he had started in 1962 with the Blue Note label.

This piece is "Agitation" performed in Stockholm in 1963 by the Miles Davis Quintet (Miles Davis(trumpet), Herbie Hancock(piano), Wayne Shorter(tenor sax), Tony Williams(drums), Ron Carter(bass)). It is a post-bop piece that is a modal. We can hear Hancock's early style is very much bop inspired with the closely clustered chord progressions and the style of comping. At the very end, we hear a hint of Hancock's classical training.

After Hancock left Davis's band in 1968, he would form his own sextet and begin to create his persona as the Chameleon by experimenting in electronic jazz-funk. Hancock began to leave the piano behind to use other piano-type instruments including the synthesizer, the electronic keyboard, and even the Hohner clavinet. As a pianist it is interesting for me to hear how Hancock never loses his touch or nuances even as he changes instruments. Each of those piano-type instruments has a very different feeling when played and for some that presents problems when they switch between them--almost always the quality of playing on one instrument is lower than on the other. Hancock however keeps his style, no matter what instrument he plays on. The next piece shows where Hancock's music went with his sextet and with funk. This is "Fat Albert Rotunda" from the album of the same name which was released in 1969.

This piece shows how Hancock has grown as a pianist just by changing styles of music. He takes more chances as he plays and it pays off. This album was actually recorded as a soundtrack for the Bill Cosby cartoon Fat Albert. It opened up the door to many opportunities the biggest of which were the development of Hancock's jazz-funk style and his career as a score writer for films. Hancock would also write scores for the films Blow-Up and Death Wish as well as the soundtrack album for Round Midnight.

In his album Headhunters (1973), Hancock produced the song that would give him his nickname: "Chameleon". This song cemented his position as a crossover musician by being played on rock, pop, R&B, jazz and soul radio stations. This song contains a funk bass line with a synthesizer line that is at odds with the jazz type saxophone section and their repeated riff. Hancock uses polyrhythms and different styles of music brought together by the common bass line. This song is far ahead of its time and even seems to hint at old school hip-hop making Hancock one of the great innovators as a musician, not just as a jazz artist.

One of the things I like most about Herbie Hancock is that just because you don't like one of his tunes doesn't mean you're out of luck. He experimented in so many kinds of music and produced so many albums that you can always just try another one and you're almost sure to find something you'll like. He was truly the Chameleon: able to adapt and blend in with many, many different musical worlds.

Most people know "Watermelon Man" and I couldn't resist including this really neat clip of Hancock playing it on Elvis Costello's Spectacle. It's a great little video clip because he starts on piano, switches to synthesizer, then back to piano, and then finally back to synthesizer again. It allows one to see that his style doesn't diminish from one instrument to the next.

The last thing I really think is special about Herbie Hancock is his view of so-called "commercialism". Many jazz artists derided the making of music to appeal to audiences (and therefore make more money), viewing it as a kind of cop-out or betrayal to the real reason for the music. Hancock, when asked if his music played down to the audience, said, "Music, by itself is not valuable. What makes music valuable is the positive effect on the people who are going to hear it. When I started thinking about the people more, I approached music from the perspective of their lives, rather than from the music itself...it's commercial because it sells, not because there's anything condescending about it". Hancock not only enjoyed the music he wrote, but wanted others to enjoy it and understand it. He wanted his music to reach out to people in ways that made sense not only to him, but to them as well. I believe that this makes his music approachable even if it is different from what we might consider "typical".

Critical Listening #12: She Just Wants To Dance

Since we talked a bit about blues and R&B, I decided to break out some classics from my music library. My dad has a great love of blues, so I grew up listening to B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Keb' Mo' among others. Keb' Mo' became one of my favorite blues guitarists. The following is "She Just Wants To Dance" from the album Keb' Mo', released in 1994.

8 bar intro
4 bar A
4 bar B
4 bar A
4 bar B
4 bar C
8 bar bridge (intro chords)
4 bar A
4 bar B
4 bar A
4 bar B
4 bar C
8 bar bridge (intro chords)
8 bar guitar solo
4 bar C
8 bar intro chords + vamp

Though Keb' Mo' is not from the time period we are learning about in class, he is the quintessential blues guitarist. This song doesn't have a typical form but the four bar phrases are easy enough to follow as is the chord progression that matches the lyrics progression.

Though the chord progression follows a steady pattern and besides the short solo, Keb' Mo' makes this song very interesting by the very way he plays. It is overflowing with blues notes and he uses a steel pick to give the guitar a unique sound. He also uses a glass slide on his pinky finger which becomes more apparent on his solo.

In any jazz with vocals, the vocals are just as important if not more important than the instrumentation. Keb' Mo' has a very unique style of singing. He bends notes with his voice, stretches some out while cutting others short (almost popping the noise at the end of the word). He varies the melody by substituting comparable notes and changing the rhythm. He also has a very welcoming and entertaining stage persona.

His guitar solo is mostly slides to a higher register, using the glass slide to give the repeated chords a grating, but extremely interesting and original sound. His solo is short and mostly just a variation on the theme, but it employs a lot of the things we talked about when we learned about vaudeville guitarists and just the blues in general.

This piece is a catchy tune that allows you to start to understand some of the appeal of blues guitar. And I can say from experience that it definitely grows on you.

The Pianist and Free Jazz

It's been a while since I talked about how the piano style has changed with jazz so that's what I'll focus on in this post. Free jazz, more than any other movement, changed the entire way the music was viewed. Now, I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of free jazz is extremely limited, but as I've been exposed to more of it, I have developed a theory about the pianists. Though there are exceptions, the style of player piano for a free jazz group became much more percussive.

It is an interesting turn of events, but it makes sense (I even wonder if it might have some roots in Thelonious Monk's strange technique). Free jazz was about letting go of the boundaries of music. It left behind the accepted standards of rhythm, harmony, melody, and structure among other things. As such, the piano became out of place in a free jazz group unless they changed. The piano had always been a member of the rhythm section and not only that, but a key member in regards to providing the harmony and chord structure a group played on.

So when free jazz began to form, pianists who desired to play it had to change their technique. Pianists didn't have the same options as horn or sax players...a piano will never growl or squeal or squawk for a player, it won't even be slightly flat or sharp. But it can be extremely loud and percussive, so that was the path those early free jazz pianists took.

Cecil Taylor is, of course, one of the most known jazz pianists. His style is commonly acknowledged as percussive. The textbook even says, "Taylor takes that percussiveness to an unparalleled extreme. He is said to treat the piano as if it consisted of eighty-eight tuned drums". Another described his playing as such: "His wild piano attacks were akin to a voodoo ceremony. He pounced on the piano with the wild abandon of an angry lion producing a cacophony of angry, disjointed sounds, but was able to coordinate everything into one irregular package of raw emotion and sound images". The following piece is a sample of Cecil Taylor's piano technique (I like this one especially because it sounds like the jungle and they've included an orchestra).

Beyond Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra, my knowledge of free jazz pianists is a little lacking so I did some research and found a few others that I find interesting. The first is Kris Defoort, a Belgian pianist and composer. He was born in 1959 so by the time he started studying free jazz it had been around for a while. He too has that special brand of percussive sound. The video below is a recent video of Defoort's Trio (it was posted in 2010).

The last musician I'd like to highlight is Satoko Fujii (born in 1958), another present day free jazz artist. Fujii is Japanese and studied classical piano until she became interested in improvisation. She has a very unique style and has cited a strong connection with the American free jazz musicians of the 60s. She prides herself on bringing back the sense of showmanship that those musicians had as well as her desire to "make music that no one has heard before". The following is a recording of her and her quartet from 2009.

The piano just won't leave. Every time jazz changes, the pianists of that generation adapt. Their love of the music allows them to change not only their technique, but the accepted technique for the piano. These pianists will continue to stretch the boundaries of both their instrument and the art.

Sources: 
Jazz by Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddins 
Jazz Musicians, 1945 to Present by David Dicaire
www.krisdefoort.com
www.satokofujii.com

Critical Listening #11: Doodlin'

The last track on "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messenger's" is a nice little tune called "Doodlin'". It is a nice hard bop tune that hints at the jazz funk that was developing. It was recorded in 1954. It is this piece I'd like to use as my critical listening. 

The form is simple enough--12 bar blues. 

1 bar piano introduction 

1st chorus (Theme A) 

2nd chorus (Theme A) 

3rd chorus (Theme B) 

4 piano solo

5

6

7 tenor sax solo

8

9 

10 trumpet solo

11

12

13 drums solo

14

15

16th chorus (Theme A) 

17th chorus (Theme A) 

1 bar extra + drum hit 

After the piano introduction, the sax and trumpet play Theme A in unison. It's a neat lick, what most musicians would call a "turn", and it is at odds with the rhythm kept by the bass and drums. It's easy to lose track of the rhythm until the lick lines back up with the rhythm section at the end of every four bar phrase. This theme is repeated in the second chorus exactly. The third chorus introduces a new theme, Theme B. Theme B is very interactive and contains a call and response between the trumpet and sax duet and the piano. Because the piano is so active in the third chorus, a perfect segue into the piano solo is provided. 

The pianist (Horace Silver) solos first. His solo builds builds on the blues scales the chord progression uses. He tends to use lots of repeated licks changing the key of the lick to match the chord progression. Silver's solo never seems to stop but neither is it very fast. With the steady walking bass and drums in the background, Silver's solo seems to hover somewhere between hard bop and cool jazz. His licks hint at hard bop but he is utterly relaxed and confident in his solo. 

The tenor player (Hank Mobley) solos next. His solo definitely seems cool. To me he almost sounds a bit like Paul Desmond though his licks are a bit harder and more defined at times. His solo becomes more solid and hard bop-ish as he progresses and this seems to energize the rhythm section. The drummer plays more hits and the bass pulls harder. Silver starts a boogie-woogie type ostinato in between phrases on Mobley's solo that will continue again in the trumpet solo. 

The trumpet player (Kenny Dorham) enters brash and swinging right from the beginning. He chooses an interesting rhythm that seems to work against the rhythm section and inspires Silver to bring back his boogie-woogie ostinato from Mobley's solo. Dorham works his way into the upper register and seems to me to almost sing the blues with his trumpet. He employs a variety of blues notes and keeps the energy Mobley introduced climbing. 

The drummer (Art Blakey) solos last. His solo is very rhythmic and loud. He plays a on the snare and toms mostly using little to no cymbal hits. He keeps time for most of his solo except for a disconcerting couple measures in the second chorus where he drops time completely (to the listener anyways...it ends up lining up completely) and plays a variety of cymbal hits. At the end of his solo (maybe as a sign to the rest of the band), he plays on the rim of his snare drum. 

The band comes back and plays Theme A twice more and ends with one extra measure that is cut off by a drum hit. The only part of this band not discussed was the bass player. The bassist (Doug Watkins) plays walking bass most of the tune, but it completely captured my attention. He plays with an excellent sense of not only rhythm, but also energy. Many times, I've noticed that bassists playing walking lines at non-challenging tempos seem bored. Watkins, although this piece isn't fast, seems to be absolutely enthralled by the piece and determined to show that in his bass line. That combined with how he and Blakey feed off the energy from the solos makes this piece an exciting listen whether you're a hard bop fan or not. 

It's About Time

Though the textbook claims that "by the 1960s, few observers could doubt that the unofficial rivalry between cool and hot had been decided in favor of hot", I have always felt more influenced by cool jazz at least in regards to piano.

When I began to play jazz piano as a sophomore in high school, I knew next to nothing about jazz. I remember being corrected constantly over playing too many "vanilla" chords, as my director liked to call them, and I struggled to improvise any solos that had direction or intricacy over the chord progressions. In short, I was an awful jazz pianist.

But with some encouragement from a friend of mine who was our band's lead tenor player, I decided to stick it out. My band director must have seen me struggling because he called me into his office one day after class and handed me a CD. It was the Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Time Out". I dutifully listened to it and it, for lack of a better phrase, caught a fire under me. I would listen to it obsessively, sitting at the piano transcribing my favorite licks by ear.

I will admit, I was never that great of a jazz pianist, but that album taught me to love jazz and taught me to listen to it. I began to understand how a person could create their own solos from nothing more than a set of chords and though my solos never sounded the way I really wanted them to, they were infinitely better than they had been and, better yet, the music I could create in my mind would occasionally find its way onto paper or into my better solos.

So, it is this album and its artists that I would like to talk about. For a young, uninspired, and lost jazz pianist, the Brubeck Quartet's cool melodies and interesting time signatures, both set me at easy and piqued my interest. The first piece on the album, "Blue Rondo a la Turk", was the focus of my critical listening last week so I'll skip to the second song.

"Strange Meadowlark" begins (and ends) with a cadenza (an unaccompanied performance by a soloist at the end or beginning of a piece) played by Brubeck. This cadenza with seems to sigh with longing for some long ago wish and shows a great proficiency for chords. As it goes on, Brubeck introduces more left hand chords that eventually lead into the theme, played by Desmond. Desmond has a very unique timbre and uses space extensively to accent the things he's played. Brubeck does the same in his solo which taught me the important of both space and understated solo lines. Too often as a pianist, I thought I had to be playing more than one note but Brubeck shows that it's not necessary to play many notes to make a good solo.

"Take Five" was written by Paul Desmond and is one of the most famous songs from this album. It is a great tune featuring Desmond extensively. Of his style, Brubeck once said, "There are so few guys that can play with the purity Paul had, but when I hear them...people who can develop a theme, and not play a million notes, but rather choice notes, I think, we were right. These are the guys who knock me out". I love this explanation because I knew that I, and most other jazz pianists, would never play licks that Charlie Parker or John Coltrane were using, but I could easily use Paul Desmond's licks. They were thoughtful, but approachable.

"Three To Get Ready" is a wonderful piece rhythm-wise. I love the way the beginning begins with straight eighth notes that eventually begin to swing, but occasionally resurface just to keep you on your toes. Brubeck's solo in this piece was one that I religiously listened to in order to transcribe portions of it and then transpose them to use them in different keys. His careful attention to accents and rhythm make a simple three note phrase seem like musical genius, and indeed it is. Rhythm can make a simple riff something else entirely.

The other three pieces on this album, "Kathy's Waltz", "Everybody's Jumpin'", and "Pick Up Sticks", were equally influential on me. I learned to play in a vast range of dynamics. Some critics have called Brubeck "heavy-handed" but I agree with his assessment of that complaint: "You know the piano was originally called piano e forte-soft and loud. I believe in using the full range of dynamics that the piano has to offer. That's what it is to play emotionally, reacting to what's going on around you". I also noticed and learned from Brubeck's comping style. He uses a lot of repetition with sparse comping, but his fills are always thoughtful and attention-catching, without displacing the soloist.

This isn't a typical research post for this class and maybe I've misjudged, but even as I learned from this album I never really understood how much I was absorbing until I began taking this class. I beginning to have a greater understanding of exactly how music affects us especially if we actively listen to it and seek to understand it. While our book did not expound much on Dave Brubeck and his Quartet, for me they will always be something more than just another band.

Sources: 
Jazz by Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddins
The Great Jazz Pianists by Len Lyons

Critical Listening #10: Boplicity

This week I'd like to examine a Miles Davis tune from the album "Birth of the Cool" called "Boplicity". "Birth of the Cool" was released in 1956 by the Miles Davis Nonet through Capitol Records. It would later lend its name to the "cool jazz" movement. Here is "Boplicity"...

"Boplicity" is a wonderful piece that swings hard, but still stays "cool" throughout its entirety. The melody seems to almost pull against the rhythm as if it would like to go even slower if possible. It gives the piece a remarkably laid back feel but keeps the undercurrent of tension that is typical of this era of jazz. 

(no introduction)

8 bar A 

8 bar A  

8 bar B 

8 bar A 

8 bar A sax solo

8 bar A sax solo

6 bar B' ensemble

8 bar A trumpet solo

4 bar bridge

8 bar A trumpet solo

8 bar A trumpet solo

8 bar B piano solo

8 bar A ensemble 

The form on this piece is a little strange. It begins as a 32 bar AABA popular song, but the solo section rearranges this basic form, as does the 6 B' section. The band has a very clear and crisp sound as they play the melody in their lower register. The rhythm section is very interactive, especially the drummer. The drummer uses brushes to add to the mellow sound of the piece. He is also very attentive to add fills and "set up" the new section. 

There are three soloists in this piece: sax, trumpet, and piano. The sax solo is very bluesy with plentiful bent notes. It is only 16 bars but seems longer because of the player's complete relaxation. The piano comps underneath uses simple block chords. The trumpet solo is louder and, in my opinion, full of emotion. The trumpet solo seems to build on the main theme especially when he is backed by the ensemble. The piano solo is a simple 8 bar solo, but it is very interesting because of the pianist's use of space. For a whole bar of his solo (the fifth one to be exact) he plays absolutely nothing, letting the audience wonder what will come next. It's an excellent technique at creating interest and tension. 

This piece, while not difficult or long, is a quirky little tune that is both easy and enjoyable to listen to. The soloists show a great deal of experience by being completely at ease. The ensemble seems to epitomize "cool" and its no wonder that the "cool" movement took their name from this album. 

The Vibes

When we think of a typical jazz band, we generally think of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section containing bass and drums, maybe even piano and guitar. However, jazz bands have always been extremely versatile in their instrumentation. The bass player displaced the tuba, while the guitarist displaced the banjo. Clarinetists and violinists are frequently heard in jazz. Occasionally the brass section is extended with the flugelhorn or French horn. One of my favorite additions to a jazz band, in particular a small jam session setting, is the vibraphone.

The vibraphone, known more commonly as the vibes, was invented in the 1920s in the United States. It is classified with the xylophone, marimba, and glockenspiel as a percussion instrument. It was primarily played in wind ensembles within the percussion section until the 1930s. The following piece is a percussion arrangement that includes vibraphone. The creator of this video posted the sheet music in the video so if you follow the top line it makes the vibraphone part easier to pick out.

The vibraphone was first used in jazz shortly after its creation. Lionel Hampton was a drummer who after discovering and becoming interested in the vibraphone, convinced Louis Armstrong to add vibes to one of the songs they were recording: "Memories of You". The following video is that recording.

Though the vibes are technically a percussion instrument, their ability to play multiple notes at one time (using multiple mallets) makes them similar to the piano as well. Notice the introduction to this piece played entirely by vibraphone. If the vibes were left out of the recording, that introduction could have been played by the piano easily.

Lionel Hampton was aptly named the King of the Vibes. He brought the instrument into the spotlight and made the vibraphone a home in the jazz world. He would join the Benny Goodman band and later create his own groups, all along nurturing and perfecting the art of the vibes as a jazz instrument. The following clip from the movie A Song is Born shows a fantastic jam session of the song "Stealin' Apples" featuring Benny Goodman on clarinet and Lionel Hampton on vibes as well as the pianist (I believe it's Mel Powell, but I'm not positive). If you pay attention you'll also notice some other jazz greats, such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and Tommy Dorsey.

Though Lionel Hampton will always be King of the Vibes, my first experience with the vibraphone as a jazz instrument came from the tune "Bag's Groove" by the Miles Davis Quintet. Bags was the nickname of Milt Jackson, another jazz vibraphonist. "Bag's Groove" was first recorded in 1954 and has since become a jazz standard.

Milt Jackson has a very different style than Lionel Hampton. He loved to play in 12 bar blues form and was a bebop player rather than a member of a swing band like Hampton. If you listen to his solo in "Bag's Groove", you will notice that Jackson tends to avoid chords for individual notes and interesting rhythms while Hampton's solo in "Stealin' Apples" is riff with chords and swings much harder than Jackson's solo. They both show a fondness for tremolos though Hampton's are about three times as fast as Jackson's.

There are many other great vibe players out in the jazz world and the vibes have never stopped being a jazz instrument. Though they're not something that we first think of when we look at the instrumentation of a jazz band, the vibraphone is definitely worth listening to and everyone should have a few vibe players in their jazz repertoire. 

Critical Listening #9: Blue Rondo a la Turk

Since we're still learning about bebop, I decided to explore some of the less typical bebop. This piece, although more popular than most bebop, stretches the boundaries of what was termed bebop. In some ways it is a cool jazz or West Coast jazz style but it still shares the angular quality of the original bebop. The piece is "Blue Rondo a la Turk" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

In this piece we hear drums, bass, piano, and alto saxophone. It has a lively beat though not particularly fast. The most interesting feature of this music is its time signature. Most jazz music is in 4/4 and therefore has a steady kind of marching beat. Brubeck experimented with many types of time signatures and this particular song is written in 9/8. Typically, 9/8 is split into (3+3+3)/8 but Brubeck splits his in (2+2+2+3)/8 in the form of a Turkish folk rhythm.

At the beginning of the piece Brubeck introduces the theme. It is 32 bars long with 8 bar sections and seems to have an ABAC form. He is accompanied by Paul Desmond, the sax player, on the B section. After this, the A theme is taken up by the sax player with Brubeck in the background. They improvise over the B and C sections using some difficult rhythmic phrases but always coming back to the A theme at the appropriate times. The continue the end of the second chorus into the large and heavy block chords Brubeck was known for.

From here we have a bridge where the time signature switches between 9/8 to 4/4 with Brubeck playing the 9/8 measures and Desmond playing the 4/4 measures before settling on a lazy 4/4 for the saxophonist solo.

The saxophone solo is played in 4/4 with 12 bar choruses. Four choruses are taken. The style here is very much cool jazz. The eighth notes aren't completely straight but they don't swing like in a typical swing song; they sound very angular. Desmond uses little vibrato except on very long notes. He bends lots of notes which introduces interesting and new pitches into his solo. If you listen closely to the bass, it is easy to hear how the saxophonist is improvising directly from the chords of the walking bass line. Desmond also frequently runs over into the new chorus with his old ideas, even running into Brubeck's solo by a few beats.

Brubeck takes a solo after Desmond which is also in 4/4 and four choruses long. Brubeck's solo is full of the same angular eighth notes but his solo still seems to swing pretty hard. Part of this can be attributed to Brubeck's style of playing. In comparison with Desmond's playing, Brubeck's seems very heavy-handed. He fills his solo with lots of triplet grace notes and simple ostinato which evolve into his signature block chords before receding to his previous ideas.

After Brubeck's solo, we find ourselves in the bridge again with Desmond playing the 4/4 measures and Brubeck playing the 9/8 measures except this time we transition back into 9/8 and the main theme. The ideas we saw at the beginning of the piece are repeated but we build up to the climax of the block chords more quickly and stay there, ending on on a very solid major chord following by a drum hit.

The rhythm section on this piece is easily ignored but fundamentally important. The bass and drums keep the tempo from dragging or speeding up even with the time signature changes. Though we may not consciously appreciate the drummer's accents, the solo section would seem very empty without them.

This piece is a great example of how jazz can split into many different genres, but still be intrinsically related.

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk is a very interesting character in jazz history. While many jazz musicians seem to stretch the boundaries of music as it was known at their time, Monk takes this to a new level. Not only his music, but his very technique and persona were radically different from anyone in his time. Because of the overwhelming amount of information about Monk, my post this week is going to be limited to his music.

In a world of bop where most playing is angular, Monk's playing seems ever more angular than most. Monk's playing is usually described as percussive or harsh. The following pieces are a good example of this: 

'Round Midnight

Trinkle Tinkle

Even though these two pieces have opposite styles, Monk's has the same feel. He plays very harshly even on the ballad piece. He doesn't use any semblance of legato but rather separates almost every notes other than his arpeggios. 

If careful attention is played to the video of "'Round Midnight", Monk is seen to frequent lift his hands off the piano only to let them drop back down. He also plays with his elbows stuck out at awkward angles and with flat fingers. He even plays with his elbows instead of his hands sometimes. Playing with his elbows sometimes makes him play multiple notes that are very close together. This same sound is heard frequently in his playing because he plays flat fingered which causes him to hit multiple accidental notes.

To some, Monk's playing sounds sloppy and unpracticed. However, while Monk's playing is highly unorthodox, his style is very much the product of practice and skill. When Monk plays lyrical passages or arpeggios, it is easy to see that he has had classical training and that it has stuck with him. Monk's "sloppiness" is his own choice. By abandoning his orthodox training, Monk created his own musical persona and style that while largely unaccepted during the 40s was admired during the 50s and 60s.

Sources: 
Bebop by Thomas Owens
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley

Critical Listening #8: Love For Sale

For my listening this week, I chose Dexter Gordon's "Love For Sale". It was released in 1962.

In this piece we can hear drums, piano, bass, and tenor saxophone. The tune has a form of AABA.

Intro -- piano comping, drums with a latin beat, bass
8 bar A
8 bar A
8 bar B
8 bar A
2 chorus sax solo
2 chorus piano solo
1 chorus sax solo
8 bar A
vamp -- fade out

When Gordon plays the first chorus, he plays the theme in a very square, bop manner but the tune is still recognizable. Underneath this the bass player plays a rhythmic bassline (not walking) while the pianist comps. The drummer plays a slow four on the toms and rims, but switches to a cymbal sound in double time on the B section.

Gordon's first solo section starts with a four note pick-up into his first chorus. His solo hints more at Lester Young's style than Coleman Hawkin's. He plays along the chords instead of "in" them. His style is slightly more relaxed in his solo than his angular rendition of the main theme. He takes similar riffs and repeats them over different chord progressions. He plays with little to no vibrato. At one point, however, he uses a slow tremolo and he also uses many blues notes which add a different flavor. In his second solo section (after the piano solo), he begins with a variation on the melody from "Mexican Hat Dance". His solo runs straight into the main theme to end the piece.

The piano solo is less angular than the sax solo. It seems to me to have more of a cool bop, rather than a hard bop feel. The pianist plays lots of series of triplet grace notes as well as using the blues scale extensively. The solo is much lighter than the sax solo and seems more at ease. The higher register only adds to this impression. In some instances tension is built by using dissonance and repetition. The piano solo ends with some block chords that overlap with the beginning of Gordon's second solo section.

The rhythm section on this piece is not particularly entertaining, but they keep a good beat and tempo. The drummer offers the most variation with changes to double time and differing drumming styles. The drummer uses a latin feel on the rims of the snares with the toms, but also uses a very "static-y" cymbal feel during both the solos and the B sections.

This piece is definitely a hard bop piece. It has the jam session feel as well as angular melodies over the chord progressions, a rhythm section with a comping pianist, and a solo member backed by just a rhythm section.

Bebop and the Hipster Counterculture Movement

At the end of chapter eleven, our book mentions how bebop was marketed and pushed as popular music, but as that began to fail the music industry turned it into an "edgy modern music and comic novelty". Bebop had a very distinct culture movement that followed in its wake. Ironically, given its comeback as a popular word, the members of this1940s counterculture movement were called hipsters.

Slang has always been a big part of the jazz world. Words like cat, swing, gig, chops, even boogie-woogie,   seemed to point out who was "in the know" in the world of jazz. As swing gave way to bebop, the audience changed too. The younger generation was attracted to this strange, new music that was rejected by the mainstream. Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones) said, "At first it [bebop] was strange and the strangeness itself was strangely alluring...A new language a new tongue and vision for a generally more advanced group in our generation...Bebop suggested another mode of being. Another way of living". 

Coupled with bebop's "strangeness" was the musicians themselves. Dizzy Gillespie is attributed to influencing the hipster movements' style with his goatee, horn-rimmed glasses, beret, and zoot suit. Though Dizzy disdained hard drugs, many of the other artists didn't. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Theodore Navarro,  Dexter Gordon, and many others were addicted to drugs (usually heroin). This influence was seen in the hipster movement just as much as Dizzy's style was. 

Bebop, for some time, became a symbol of rebellion. In 1948, Ross Russell, owner of Dial Records, described this attitude: "Bebop is music of revolt; revolt against big bands, arrangers, vertical harmonies, soggy rhythms, non-playing orchestra leader, Tin Pan Alley -- against commercialized music in general. It reasserts the individuality of the jazz musicians as a creative artist, playing spontaneous and melodic music within the framework of jazz, but with new tools, sounds, and concepts".

With the end of World War II, many people became disillusioned, especially black jazz musicians and those who disagreed with the blatant racism of the time. Bebop and the hipster movement seemed to show that. "Bebop", Michael Brecker said, "was about change, about evolution. It wasn't about standing still and being safe".

Though this mood was prevalent, many jazz musicians have disdained or at least denied any active influence on their part. Lennie Tristano was openly disdainful of the hipster movement saying, "the supercilious attitude and lack of originality of the young hipsters constitute no less a menace to the existence of bebop". Louis Armstrong disliked the very idea of bebop opining that "[Bebop musicians] want to carve everyone else because they're full of malice, and all they want to do is show you up, and any old way will do as long as it's different from the way you played it before. So you get all them weird chords which don't mean nothing, and first people get curious about it just because it's new, but soon they get tired of it because it's really no good and you got no melody to remember and no beat to dance to. So they're all poor again and nobody is working, and that's what that modern malice done for you".

Though some will blame the musicians and some will absolve them, I believe that Dizzy Gillespie said it best: "We didn't go out and make speeches or say, 'Let's play eight bars of protest.' We just played our music and let it go at that. The music proclaimed our identity; it make every statement we truly wanted to make". The hipster movement is an interesting glimpse into the begin of major counterculture movements and how those movements are influenced by music. It seems to be the precursor to the later hippie and beatnik movements.

As with all other forms of jazz, bebop seemed to portray the growing feelings of the era. While the Jazz Era had been filled with the glamour of the 1920s and the Swing Era had been filled with the patriotism and optimism of the 1930s, the Bebop Era was unsettled and strange. Bebop was a far cry from the music ten years earlier, but like all jazz music it fits the underlying current of the country perfectly.

Sources:
The Rise of a Jazz Art World by Paul Douglas Lopes
John Coltrane by Bill Cole
To Be, Or Not...To Bop by Dizzy Gillespie and Al Fraser
Jazz by Scott DeVeaux and Gary Giddens
dmep.montereyjazzfestival.org/dmep/spotlight/randy-brecker

Critical Listening #7: Salt Peanuts

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie is commonly acknowledged as one of the major forces behind the bebop movement. Gillespie was a talented trumpeter who worked with Charlie Parker (generally considered one of the most gifted alto saxophonists in jazz history). This piece, entitled "Salt Peanuts" is a quirky tune written by Dizzy Gillespie in 1942. This recording is by Dizzy Gillespie and His All-Stars and was made on May 11, 1945 in New York City for Guild Records. It features Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Charlie Parker on alto sax, Al Haig on piano, Curley Russell on bass, and Sid Catlett on drums. 

8 bar drum intro

8 bar band intro

8 bar A

8 bar A 

8 bar B 

8 bar A 

8 bar C?

8 bar A by Parker (vocals by Dizzy)

8 bar A by Parker (vocals by Dizzy) 

8 bar solo over B by Parker

8 bar A by Parker (vocals by Dizzy)

8 bar (1 chorus) piano solo

8 bar C?

32 bar (4 chorus) piano solo

32 bar (4 chorus) alto solo

8 bar call and response between trumpet and alto

32 bar (4 chorus) trumpet solo

24 bar (3 chorus) drum solo

8 bar ending (same as band intro) 

This tune is clearly a bebop piece. It is very easy to see the differences between this song and pieces from the swing era. For one the tempo is even faster than a swing tune and the tune doesn't really seem to imply that you should be dancing although it does make you want to move. The melodies are also extremely angular and don't swing in the way we're used to. This tune does retain the typical 8 bar phrases and is AABA. It also has a very heavy four beat feel. 

Every member of this band except the bassist takes a solo at some point. Charlie Parker first solos over the B part of the second chorus. He later takes a 4 chorus solo. Both of these solos are marvelous. Parker brings his warm tone on the alto sax to an otherwise angular and almost harsh piece. But with his excellent feeling for time and ability to play at a high speed, Parker never once drops the energy of the piece. Because of the almost perpetual fast notes, the few longer notes Parker plays have so much more feeling than they would have otherwise. For me, this solo exemplifies the saying, "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast". Parker may play a lot of notes but each one of them is given the proper attention. 

Dizzy Gillespie also takes a four chorus solo. His solo is much more "in your face" than Parker's. Like Parker, Dizzy plays at an impressive speed with a finesse that is remarkable. His sound is much more "brassy" and therefore comes off as harder than Parker's. He also has a tendency to sit on long, high notes even though they are sometimes dissonant to the underlying chords. This causes a tension in the music that carries over into the drum solo. 

Sid Catlett's solo is all about energy. It's all about hitting as much and as hard as possible. He uses a series of rim taps and even for about half a chorus falls back into just keeping time. This solo pushes the song towards its end and keeps it driving hard the entire time. 

Al Haig plays an 8 bar solo and then later plays a 4 chorus solo. His 8 bar solo is almost just a rhythm case showcase as Haig doesn't really elaborate beyond the chords of the piece. However, in his 4 chorus solo he expands the harmony of the chords. In typical bebop fashion, his left hand is rather sparse. We can hear it clearly near the end of his solo, but he never really plays more than the chord progression in the left hand. His right hand performs a series of runs and riffs at the same speed as the other soloists, although Haig uses syncopation very strongly so his riffs are not as never-ending as Parker's seem to be. 

This tune showcases some important bebop features. The rhythm section is much more audible (partially because of the small size of the group) and much more active. The bass keeps the walking bass line grooving and the drummer provides interesting hits to set up new choruses. We can hear the pianist comping short, sharp chord progressions under the melody. Interestingly enough, we also hear some call and response between the trumpet and sax. 

"Salt Peanuts" is a great piece to show the contrast between bebop and swing as well as their similarities. 

From Rhythm to Comping

As the 1940s dawned, America was ready for modern jazz or "bebop". The draft had thinned the ranks of the big band and the nation was more somber as a whole. Bebop was more inclined towards listening than dancing so it made sense that it would come to the forefront in this new word torn by a second World War.

The changes that occurred in the entire rhythm section made the changes to jazz piano possible. The bass changed its role from merely a two beat feel to a "walking" four beat feel. The drums began to play crashes on the cymbals and hits on the toms that accented whatever the band or soloist might be doing and also usually set up the head of a tune. The guitar, although it had reached some recognition as a solo instrument, was many times still given the job of playing chords on every beat. Because of these changes, the pianist's left hand was released from it's job of keeping rhythm with techniques such as stride or boogie-woogie piano.

So what would a pianist do with this new found freedom? That depended solely on where bebop wanted to go. Bebop was unique in it's use of the chord progressions rather than the melodies for solos. Because of the importance of being able to hear the chord changes, pianist began doing something referred to as "comping". Comping was a slang term for accompanying. Instead of a busy left hand stride or the like, the pianist would instead play various voicings of the chords that the tune contained. The chords they played were generally short and placed in rhythmically logical places. This left the right hand free to "fill" the spaces in another band member's solo or even solo themselves. Pianists began to accompany themselves not only rhythmically, but harmonically.

Listen to the following pieces, paying careful attention to the pianists. The first piece is Dixie Jass Band One-Step by Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The second piece is Dinah by the Benny Goodman Quartet. The third piece is Body and Soul by Coleman Hawkins. The fourth piece is Cherokee by Bud Powell.

The first piece is New Orleans style. One can barely even hear the piano let alone notice anything special about what it is doing. The second piece the piano is a bit more clear with some stride rhythms in the left hand and a short solo over the bridge of one of the choruses. In the third piece we really begin to see bebop piano. Though there are no piano solos or even really any fills, the piano is very clearly comping the chords that Coleman Hawkins is playing is solo over. In the last piece, we see Bud Powell who is considered the quintessential bebop pianist. His left hand comps chords that we barely notice while his right hand plays his ideas with great agility.

The piano's intrinsic ability to change with this new type of jazz, not only allowed it to remain in the heart of jazz but also brought it to the forefront of the jazz community with everyone from swing band leaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington to bebop pianists like Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell.

Critical Listening #6: Pitter Panther Patter

One of the major changes that led into the modern jazz era is the transformation of the rhythm section. There were many pioneers in this realm. Count Basie's rhythm section is always hailed as one of the best rhythm sections that ever was because of their superb balance and communication. There were many others who changed the way rhythm worked. Charlie Christian changed the guitar from merely keeping time to, with the help of an amp, a solo instrument. Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, and Jo Jones were all inspirational and excellent drummers. The roll of the bass was also changed.

The bass had always been relied on for a steady beat that would keep the entire band together. Bass solos were altogether lacking of anything other than a walking bass line. Jimmy Blanton, among others, was integral in revolutionizing the way bass was played. The following piece is from a series of duets with Jimmy Blanton on bass and Duke Ellington on piano.

8 bar introduction
8 bar A
8 bar A
8 bar bridge
8 bar A
8 bar B
8 bar B
8 bar bridge
8 bar B
8 bar C
8 bar C
8 bar C
8 bar C
8 bar A
8 bar A'
8 bar bridge
8 bar A

This piece is in standard 32 bar popular tune form (generally AABA) with three different main themes. It has a fairly quick tempo. Obviously the only two instruments are piano and bass. This is more or less a swing piece although it seems different because of the lack of brass and sax sections.

For Duke Ellington this piece isn't anything new stylistically although it's still an interesting listen. Ellington introduces the piece with a series of runs down the keyboard (3 2-bar phrases) after which Blanton walks for two measures and then the A section starts up. Ellington sets up the theme during each of the three main themes making the song easily followed and recognizable. He uses a series of interesting techniques, such as blues notes (on the piano, they're actually half steps as pick up notes) and tremolos.

An interesting thing about the form of this piece is the bridges. Each bridge holds a sort of call and response with Ellington playing the call and Blanton responding.

When we listen to this piece it may not seem like much. After all, we've grown up in a world where the bass has moved beyond being a background noise, but in the early days of jazz the bass's only job was to keep time. Typically they played a broken chord pattern on every beat (referred to as "walking" the bass--you can hear an example of this in the seventh and eighth bars of the piece). With this tune (and much of his other music) Blanton does something completely different.

No longer does he constrict himself to a steady four beat pattern. Blanton makes the bass swing. His fills after each theme and response in the bridges is full of jazz techniques that we would normally identify with any instrument other than the bass. It is an enlightening and exciting moment to see the fundamental change in bass performance.

This little tune isn't much at first glance, but it shows the way jazz was changing especially in the rhythm section as well as in the group size. The evolution of the bass player's job in a band would make the small ensembles of modern jazz more interesting and diverse while still keeping them small.

Bebop!

From the advent of jazz, the piano had a crucial, yet ever-changing, role. In the beginning, the piano player was only there to keep rhythm and chord changes. This is seen easily from the piano players in New Orleans jazz bands. Ragtime showed that the piano had certain traits that could be integrated into jazz in a more interesting way. Stride allowed the piano to continue its important jobs in the rhythm section as well as become a solo instrument. Stride also provided a new type of driving force behind piano playing. Though stride in its original form would eventually fade from the limelight, portions of stride are still found in jazz piano today. Many great pianists before and in the Swing Era led their own bands or solo careers that cemented the place of a piano in a jazz band. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Luckey Roberts, and many others had pushed the piano to its limits and shown the country exactly what they could do.

All of these different discoveries and styles of playing would become intrinsically important as the Swing Era ended. After World War II came to an end, America changed and, as America's music, it was natural that jazz would change as well. The end of World War II had been accompanied by a great sense of American pride and victory, but that would soon change. Clashes with communist Russia, the possible infiltration of all levels of American society by those communists, and the ever more clear racial inequalities would cause this new America to be full of struggles and confusion and the new jazz form showed that. This new jazz was called bebop.

Bebop was (and still is) very different from the jazz that came before it. Instead of big bands, small groups were formed. Jazz was no longer a music meant for dancing, nor did it have that same comforting swing beat. Bebop was generally not based on popular tunes which was another big change. Bebop was more hard driving with fast tempos and abstract ideas. Harmonies were more complex and riffs less easy to follow.

The piano was suited for this new type of music. The ability of a pianist to see their entire instrument and most pianists natural grasp of their instrument in strange keys or rhythms made bebop a natural progression. Thelonious Monk once said, "Where is jazz going? I don't know. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens". Bebop seems to personify this idea--that the music had reached the top of an art (in regards to swing) and needed somewhere else to go.

Bebop would be the answer to the question, "Where is jazz going?". It's easy to trace its coming in hindsight. Ragtime and stride took the technique of different ideas in either hand of the pianist to a new level. Count Basie taught us about space and time, while Duke Ellington educated us on things like "jungle music". Art Tatum would prove to be extremely influential with his showy runs and quick fingers. Though the older generation would not accept bebop as readily as it had accepted swing, bebop was there to stay.

Critical Listening #5: Everybody Wants to be a Cat

Jazz is an extremely pervasive music in our culture even though the Jazz and Swing Eras ended decades ago. This song is from the Disney movie "The Aristocats". Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmQe_tFEvz0&feature=related

starting at 1:10
8 bar A
8 bar B
8 bar A
8 bar B
8 bar A
4 bar drum fill
8 bar trumpet solo
....

This is an interesting piece. If we start at time 1:10, it's a 32-bar popular tune with a duple beat. You can hear a piano, a trumpet, drums, bass, saxophone, trombone, accordion, and some type of xylophone, as well as vocalists. The dialogue makes the beat a bit hard to follow but it follows the same basic 32-bar form.

The song has a very New Orleans sounds with an almost polyphony sound during the trumpet solo. It also includes many other types of jazz. Personally, my favorite is the boogie-woogie piano during one of the fills. They also include a sort of jazz ballad with a harp accompaniment.

The solo in this piece is very appropriate for the New Orleans feel, as it is simply a variation on the main themes of the song. The rhythm section keeps things swinging (one could even say groovy) and the instrumentation gives it that New Orleans/marching band feel.

The lyrics of this song make it interesting as well. It shows a great deal about the culture of jazz. they include scat singing which is very typical of jazz vocalists. The use of words like swing, square, dig, gig, and modulate show the writer's understanding of the jazz terminology. The best word they use is simply the word "cat". In this song it becomes a play on words since Louis Armstrong first referred to people as "cats".

The characters of this jazz band also show the diversity of jazz. You have a clearly Oriental cat, a Russian cat, as well as other very distinct and colorful cats.

This song shows an awful lot about the culture of jazz and how we both perceive it and choose to portray it. Jazz has become so ingrained into our media and entertainment that we barely even notice it's there, but we never fail to enjoy it.

The Beginning of a New Art

This week I want to drift away a bit from a general history and talk about a pianist that I think was integral to the progression of jazz piano: Art Tatum.

Art Tatum was born in 1909 in Toledo, Ohio. His parents were amateur musicians who encouraged his interest in music. He studied not only piano, but violin and guitar at the Toledo School of Music. Most impressive, however, is that he was legally blind.

Art Tatum had a distinct style that would change the way people played the piano. He had a extremely strong grasp on chord theory and technique which allowed him to slip between classical and jazz piano easily. His performance of Dvorak's Humoresque is a good example of this.

Dvorak's Humoresque

Dvorak's Humoresque performed by Art Tatum

Art Tatum was regarded as a virtuoso (or an artist of masterly technique and skill), but he took his playing beyond his natural talent and continued to push himself. In his performance we can see not only portions of the stride piano that was so famous, but also an arabesque playing type and the beginning of a swing feel. Tatum also furthered the popularity of solo pianists, playing as one for most of his life. 

Though Tatum's style was not one of completely original melodies, he introduced a number of new techniques into piano solos. This techniques include the many "flowery" cadenzas and arpeggios his music is rife with as well as complex harmonies. Even Tatum's interpretation of stride was different. Of that style, Dick Hyman (another jazz pianist) said, "When Tatum got to (stride), it became less obvious, more fluent, and began to take on the dimensions of the right hand, something that pianists hadn't heard before". Tatum moved jazz piano away from the realm of the rhythm section and into its' own spotlight. 

Besides Tatum's technical proficiency, his speed was enormously impressive. Listening to any of his recordings is almost guaranteed to leave the listener in shock. When pianist Hank Jones first heard Tatum's records, he was certain that they were tricks of overdubbing. While listening to this next piece, try to see past the tempo and noise to the complex harmonies and various techniques that Tatum is employing. 

Tiger Rag

Though Tatum lived for less than 50 years, he left a great legacy and inspiration to jazz pianists throughout the ages. I think the best tribute to his work are the words spoken by Johnny Guarnieri. In an interview in 1977, just over 20 years after Art Tatum's death, Guarnieri spoke of him: 

Tatum, of course, was the best of all the pianists including stride, but he wasn't satisfied just to play stride. You couldn't call him a boogie woogie pianist, but you could be sure that if he played boogie woogie, he'd do it better than anybody else. 

Tatum helped me a lot. He said something I have never forgotten. Every time you want to get people's attention, play softly. It's easy to play loud, but if you want to play both fast and loud, your arms tense up and you can't go on. My first reaction to him was like the other pianists. They were saying, "Well, we're going to cut off our wrists or give up piano playing." He inspired you to practice. I wanted him to know that I was a better pianist than I had been when he heard me earlier. 

Though Tatum preferred to expand upon others' melodies rather than write his own, he changed the style of jazz with his flawless technique and beautiful ornamentation. Though some will say that his music is unjazzlike or too busy, I believe critic Gary Giddins (who also helped co-author our book) said it best when he said of Tatum's style, "That is the essence of Tatum. If you don't like his ornament, you should be listening to someone else. That's where his genius is".

Tatum pushed the bounds of jazz piano and in the process left important lessons with a new generation. Even in my own playing I have found great comfort and encouragement in his words:

"You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!" 

"There is no such thing as a wrong note." 

Sources: 

Stride! by John L. Fell and Terkild Vinding

Jazz by Scott DeVeaux and Garry Giddins

NPR's "Art Tatum: A Talent Never to Be Duplicated"

Critical Listening #4: Song of the Volga Boatmen

The song I'd like to examine this week is Glenn Miller and his Orchestra's version of "Song of the Volga Boatmen". "Song of the Volga Boatmen" is originally a traditional Russian which is a sea shanty sung by barge-haulers on the Volga River. Glenn Miller's arrangement of this song reached number one in the US charts in 1941. For anyone interested in a more original version of the song, this link is the Russian Red Army Choir's performance of it. I chose this song because it shows the prevalence of swing in American society. Like the Ellington song suggests, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, and if a song didn't have that "swing" people were likely to make it swing.

8 bar intro--piano, bass, drums
8 bar A--trombones!
8 bar A--louder trombones, saxophone, fills by trumpet using mute
8 bar B--whole band, builds in intensity
8 bar C--whole band, more growth
4 bar saxophone soli
8 bar saxophone solo, with brass fills
4 bar drum fill
22 bar polyphony theme variation
4 bar bridge (two sax, two brass)
8 bar A'
8 bar ending

"Song of the Volga Boatmen" is clearly a big band piece of the swing era. It has a rather slow tempo, but what it lacks in speed in makes up for in intensity and drive. In this piece we hear piano, bass, drums, trumpet, saxophone, and trombone. Since this piece is adapted from a traditional Russian piece, it makes sense that it follows a loose 32 bar form.

The 8-bar introduction to this piece features the piano playing the basic riff of the piece supported by drums and bass. The trombones then take up this melody for 8-bars before they are joined by a trumpet player who fills in the empty spaces. The trumpet players unique sound comes from the fact that he is using a mute. Through the B and C sections the band builds in intensity to the saxophone soli that brings the tone back down for the saxophone solo. After a 4-bar drum fill, we see a new turn in the music. The band plays a sort of planned polyphony that combines variations of all the main themes (A, B and C). The band continues to swing with an intensity that is impressive all the way until the very end of the piece that ends with a piano glissando followed by two chords from the band accompanied by drum hits.

There is only one real soloist in this piece and that's the saxophonist. The solo is only 8 bars long, but it plays an important roll in bringing the tone of the piece down a little while still keeping with the same intensity. One can almost imagine the lazy river that the saxophone seems to portray, while the brass in the background reminds us that there's still a danger and a work to be done.

The rhythm section in this piece is most apparent at the beginning when they introduce the theme. Beyond that we hear the drums most. The drummer accents all the large "hits" in the music as well as keeping time. The bassist must also be excellent, though hard to hear, because he keeps a rather slow tempo-ed song from speeding up.

This song is a great example of the desire to make everything "swing". This song goes from being a traditional sea shanty to a swing tune without losing any of the feeling that it is supposed to contain. The bands' drive towards the high point at the end just makes a person want to dance. The polyphony at the end is an impressive show of what a good arranger could do for a band and also shows the faint influence that New Orleans jazz still had almost 100 years later.

The Limitations of Ragtime and Stride

As music developed in the bars and brothels of Storeyville and other such suspect places, it became something new, something different, something called ragtime. Before jazz really evolved, there was ragtime. While ragtime is very, very different from jazz, it influenced the jazz piano of the 1920s considerably.

Ragtime is a type of playing that is characterized by its polyrhythm and excessive syncopation, or emphasis of the weak beat. Though it is heavily syncopated, ragtime is supposed to be played at a very steady and certain beat with no variation from the original tempo. A rag is generally played in 16 bar theme in duple meter. It has a lively, dancing tempo.

Some of the most famous rags were produced by Scott Joplin. Scott Joplin composed many rags but some of his most famous are Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. I, however, have chosen to include his Peacherine Rag and Elite Syncopations.

Elite Syncopations

Peacherine Rag

From these two pieces you can clearly hear some of the key traits of ragtime. It has that very steady tempo. It makes you want to dance (that's not really a requirement, but it certainly helped in the popularity of ragtime). It does not "swing" at all--the rhythm is very straight even if it is syncopated. Most importantly, if you listen closely to the left hand (the lower part), you can occasionally hear something that sounds like early stride piano. 

Ragtime is a very interesting form of music in that it both stays the same and changes. Joplin's rags are still famous over 100 years later and yet there are a great number of derivations of original ragtime. I think that can be heard in Jelly Roll Morton's piece Wolverine Blues which is featured below. Keep in mind as you listen that this piece came out over 20 years after either of the aforementioned rags. 

Wolverine Blues

Though Wolverine Blues clearly shares some traits with ragtime, it also has more of what we might call a "jazz" feeling. For one thing, ragtime was usually just a piano whereas here we have a trio of piano, drums, and clarinet. The beginning of the piece sounds like a rag but it is more flashy with a bit more swing then a typical ragtime piece would have, as well as some impressive glissandi. 

Stride piano was roaring by this time. James P. Johnson, Luckey Roberts, and Duke Ellington all used this style and it is apparent in many tunes, both solo piano and in an ensemble. Stride piano allowed a pianist to not only play a solo, but to help set down a chord progression as well. For this reason it is a very important addition to the art of playing the jazz piano. 

Though stride piano contained solos, it was also rather limited because of its lack of original melodies. Dick Wellstood, a stride pianist who played in the 1940s despite the advent and rise of bebop, explained it this way: 

One of the weaknesses of stride playing is that it is not melodic in the manner of, say, the playing of Earl Hines or the boppers, but rather consists often of pianistic filigree over the melody of a tune. That is to say, the stride players loved to take a reasonably simple melody ("Liza", "I Know That You Know") and state it, and restate it, on the beat, off the beat, in thirds, in sixths, with syncopated bass, in different keys, etc. But the restatements themselves seldom had much melodic interest; they were usually just arpegiated figures, ornamenting the melody or establishing a rhythmic pattern. 

It is easy to see this by listening to one of the songs that Wellstood mentions: Liza. Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away) was written by George Gershwin and then played by many other musicians after him. The first video is of Gershwin's piece (it is not, however, performed by him), while the second video is a version performed by James P. Johnson (usually considered the father of stride piano).

Liza (as written by George Gershwin)

Liza (performed by James P. Johnson)

It is easy to see what Wellstood meant. Though both of these versions are beautiful, Johnson's is never much different from the original score that Gershwin wrote. Johnson's piece lacks a new idea, a higher improvisational form than just variation. 

Ragtime and its predecessor stride piano are both important to the progression of jazz piano, but their shortcomings would ultimately leave jazz pianists wanting more and would force pianists to come up with new ways to express themselves in jazz.

Sources:
Stride! by John L. Fell and Terkild Vinding
That American Rag by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones
parlorsongs.com/insearch/ragtime/ragtime.php