Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States.
It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From
its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music
from 19th and 20th century American popular music.
Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, call-response, and the swung note.
The word "jazz" (in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, free jazz and a variety of Latin jazz fusions, such as Afro-Cuban, from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s (which combines funk and hip-hop elements), and nu jazz
in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on
local, national, and regional musical cultures, its aesthetics being
adapted to its varied environments and giving rise to many distinctive
styles.
DEFINITION
Jazz can be very difficult to define because it spans from Ragtime
marches to the present day. Attempts have been made to define jazz from
the perspective of other musical traditions—using the point of view of
European music history or African music for example—but jazz critic Joachim Berendt argues that all such attempts are unsatisfactory.
One way to get around the definitional problems is to define the term
"jazz" more broadly. Berendt defines jazz as a "form of art music which
originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with
European music"; he argues that jazz differs from European music in
that jazz has a "special relationship to time, defined as 'swing'",
"a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which
improvisation plays a role"; and "sonority and manner of phrasing which
mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician".
Travis Jackson has also proposed a broader definition of jazz which
is able to encompass all of the radically different eras: he states that
it is music that includes qualities such as "swinging", improvising,
group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being 'open' to
different musical possibilities".
Krin Gabbard claims that “jazz is a construct” or category that, while
artificial, still is useful to designate “a number of musics with enough
in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition”.
In a 1988 interview, trombonist J.J. Johnson said, "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will".
While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, a common element in the African American
oral tradition. A form of folk music which rose in part from work songs
and field hollers of rural Blacks, early blues was also highly
improvisational. These features are fundamental to the nature of jazz.
While in European classical music
elements of interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment are
sometimes left to the performer's discretion, the performer's primary
goal is to play a composition as it was written.
In jazz, however, the skilled performer will interpret a tune in very
individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same
way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience,
interactions with fellow musicians, or even members of the audience, a
jazz musician/performer may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature
at will. The jazz soloist is supported by a rhythm section who "comp", by playing chords and rhythms that outline the song structure and complement the soloist.
European classical music has been said to be a composer's medium. Jazz,
however, is often characterized as the product of egalitarian
creativity, interaction and collaboration, placing equal value on the
contributions of composer and performer, 'adroitly weigh[ing] the
respective claims of the composer and the improviser'.
In New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised countermelodies. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangements were either written
or learned by ear and memorized—many early jazz performers could not
read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these
arrangements. Later, in bebop
the focus shifted back towards small groups and minimal arrangements;
the melody (known as the "head") would be stated briefly at the start
and end of a piece but the core of the performance would be the series
of improvisations. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode.
The avant-garde and free jazz idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.
DEBATES
There have long been debates in the jazz community over the
definition and the boundaries of “jazz”. Although alteration or
transformation of jazz by new influences has often been initially
criticized as a “debasement,” Andrew Gilbert argues that jazz has the
“ability to absorb and transform influences” from diverse musical
styles.
While some enthusiasts of certain types of jazz have argued for
narrower definitions which exclude many other types of music also
commonly known as "jazz," jazz musicians themselves are often reluctant
to define the music they play. Duke Ellington summed it up by saying, "It's all music."
Some critics have even stated that Ellington's music was not jazz because it was arranged and orchestrated.
On the other hand Ellington's friend Earl Hines's twenty solo "transformative versions" of Ellington compositions (on
Earl Hines Plays Duke Ellington recorded in the 1970s) were described by Ben Ratliff, the
New York Times jazz critic, as "as good an example of the jazz process as anything out there."
Commercially oriented or popular music-influenced forms of jazz have
both long been criticized, at least since the emergence of Bop.
Traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed Bop, the 1970s jazz fusion
era [and much else] as a period of commercial debasement of the music.
According to Bruce Johnson, jazz music has always had a "tension between
jazz as a commercial music and an art form".
Gilbert notes that as the notion of a canon of jazz is developing, the
“achievements of the past” may become "...privileged over the
idiosyncratic creativity...” and innovation of current artists.
Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins
argues that as the creation and dissemination of jazz is becoming
increasingly institutionalized and dominated by major entertainment
firms, jazz is facing a "...perilous future of respectability and
disinterested acceptance." David Ake warns that the creation of “norms”
in jazz and the establishment of a “jazz tradition” may exclude or
sideline other newer, avant-garde forms of jazz.
Another debate that gained a lot of attention at the birth of Jazz
was how it would effect the appearance of African Americans, in
particular, who were a part of it. It's a dichotomy that extends from
the word to the music as well. Jazz has been seen as a way to showcase
contributions of African American to American society, to highlight
black history and affirm black culture. But for some African American
musicians, the music called jazz is a reminder of an oppressive and
racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions.
ETYMOLOGY OF "JAZZ"
The origin of the word
jazz has had wide spread interest – the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century — which has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. The word began as West Coast slang
around 1912, the meaning of which varied but did not refer to music or
sex. The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as
1915 in the
Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans appears in a November 14, 1916
Times-Picayune article about "jas bands."
The word jazz makes one of its earliest appearances in San Francisco baseball writing in 1913.
Jazz was introduced to San Francisco in 1913 by William (Spike) Slattery, sports editor of the
Call,
and propagated by a band-leader named Art Hickman. It reached Chicago
by 1915 but was not heard of in New York until a year later.
One of the first known uses of the word appears in a March 3, 1913, baseball article in the
San Francisco Bulletin by E. T. "Scoop" Gleeson.
ORIGINS
By 1808 the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them.
Lavish festivals featuring African dances to drums were organized on Sundays at
Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843; there were similar gatherings in New England and New York. African music was largely functional, for work or ritual, and included work songs and field hollers. The African tradition made use of a single-line melody and call-and-response
pattern, but without the European concept of harmony. Rhythms reflected
African speech patterns, and the African use of pentatonic scales led
to blue notes in blues and jazz.
In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European-American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized such music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. Louis Moreau Gottschalk
adapted African-American cakewalk music, South American, Caribbean and
other slave melodies as piano salon music. Another influence came from
black slaves who had learned the harmonic style of hymns and incorporated it into their own music as spirituals.
The origins of the blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. Paul Oliver has drawn attention to similarities in instruments, music and social function to the griots of the West African savannah.
1890s - 1910s
RAGTIME
The abolition of slavery led to new opportunities for the education
of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited
employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in
entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide "low-class"
entertainment in dances, minstrel shows, and in vaudeville, by which many marching bands formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed.
Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African American musicians such as the entertainer Ernest Hogan, whose hit songs appeared in 1895; two years later Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo "Rag Time Medley".
Also in 1897, the white composer William H. Krell published his "Mississippi Rag" as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his Harlem Rag, that was the first rag published by an African-American. The classically trained pianist Scott Joplin
and the acknowledged "king of ragtime" produced his "Original Rags" in
the following year, then in 1899 had an international hit with "Maple Leaf Rag". He wrote numerous popular rags, including, "The Entertainer",
combining syncopation, banjo figurations and sometimes
call-and-response, which led to the ragtime idiom being taken up by
classical composers including Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. Blues music was published and popularized by W. C. Handy, whose "Memphis Blues" of 1912 and "St. Louis Blues" of 1914 both became jazz standards.
NEW ORLEANS MUSIC
The music of New Orleans
had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. Many early jazz
performers played in venues throughout the city; the brothels and bars
of the red-light district around Basin Street, called "Storyville".
was only one of numerous neighborhoods relevant to the early days of
New Orleans jazz. In addition to dance bands, numerous marching bands
played at lavish funerals arranged by the African American and European
American community. The instruments used in marching bands
and dance bands became the basic instruments of jazz: brass and reeds
tuned in the European 12-tone scale and drums. Small bands mixing
self-taught and well educated African American musicians, many of whom
came from the funeral-procession tradition of New Orleans,
played a seminal role in the development and dissemination of early
jazz, traveling throughout Black communities in the Deep South and, from
around 1914 on, Afro-Creole and African American musicians playing in vaudeville shows took jazz to western and northern US cities.
The cornetist Buddy Bolden
led a band often mentioned as one of the prime movers of the style
later to be called "jazz". He played in New Orleans around 1895–1906. No
recordings remain of Bolden. Several tunes from the Bolden band
repertory, including "Buddy Bolden Blues", have been recorded by many
other musicians. (Bolden became mentally ill and spent his later decades
in a mental institution.)
Afro-Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton began his career in Storyville. From 1904, he toured with vaudeville shows around southern cities, also playing in Chicago and New York. His "Jelly Roll Blues",
which he composed around 1905, was published in 1915 as the first jazz
arrangement in print, introducing more musicians to the New Orleans
style.
In the northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912.
The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson's development of "Stride" piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides the rhythm and bassline.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band made the music's first recordings early in 1917, and their "Livery Stable Blues" became the earliest released jazz record.
That year numerous other bands made recordings featuring "jazz" in the
title or band name, mostly ragtime or novelty records rather than jazz.
In September 1917 W.C. Handy's Orchestra of Memphis recorded a cover version of "Livery Stable Blues."
In February 1918 James Reese Europe's "Hellfighters" infantry band took ragtime to Europe during World War I,
then on return recorded Dixieland standards including "Darktown Strutters' Ball".
New Orleans brass bands are a lasting influence contributing horn
players to the world of professional jazz with the distinct sound of the
city while helping black children escape poverty.
The leader of the Camelia Brass Band, D'Jalma Ganier, taught Louis Armstrong to play trumpet.
1920s AND 1930s
THE JAZZ AGE
Prohibition in the United States (from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies becoming lively venues of the "Jazz Age",
an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs,
and show tunes. Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and
many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old
values in culture and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring 20s.
Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote “...it is not
music at all. It’s merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a
sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion.”
Even the media began to denigrate jazz. The New York Times took
stories and altered headlines to pick at Jazz. For instance, villagers
used pots and pans in Siberia to scare off bears, and the newspaper
stated that it was Jazz that scared the bears away. Another story claims
that Jazz caused the death of a celebrated conductor. The actual cause
of death was a fatal heart attack (natural cause).
From 1919 Kid Ory's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings.
However, the main centre developing the new "Hot Jazz" was Chicago, where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson. That year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers.
Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924. Also in 1924 Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist for a year, then formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, also popularizing scat singing.
Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers. There was a larger market for jazzy dance music played by white orchestras, such as Jean Goldkette's orchestra and Paul Whiteman's orchestra. In 1924 Whiteman commissioned Gershwin's
Rhapsody in Blue, which was premièred by Whiteman's Orchestra. Other influential large ensembles included Fletcher Henderson's band, Duke Ellington's band (which opened an influential residency at the Cotton Club in 1927) in New York, and Earl Hines's
Band in Chicago (who opened in The Grand Terrace Cafe there in 1928).
All significantly influenced the development of big band-style swing
jazz.
SWING
The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands,
in which some virtuoso soloists became as famous as the band leaders.
Key figures in developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and
arrangers Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw.
Swing was also dance music. It was broadcast on the radio 'live' nightly
across America for many years especially by Hines and his Grand Terrace Cafe
Orchestra broadcasting coast-to-coast from Chicago, well placed for
'live' time-zones. Although it was a collective sound, swing also
offered individual musicians a chance to 'solo' and improvise melodic,
thematic solos which could at times be very complex and 'important'
music. Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began
to relax in America: white bandleaders began to recruit black musicians
and black bandleaders white ones. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues used small combos, uptempo music, and blues chord progressions. Jump blues drew on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. Kansas City Jazz in the 1930s as exemplified by tenor saxophonist Lester Young marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s.
BEGINNINGS OF EUROPEAN JAZZ
Outside of the United States the beginnings of a distinct European style of jazz emerged in France with the Quintette du Hot Club de France which began in 1934. Belgian guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt popularized gypsy jazz, a mix of 1930s American swing, French dance hall "musette" and Eastern European folk with a languid, seductive feel. The main instruments are steel stringed guitar, violin, and double bass. Solos pass from one player to another as the guitar and bass play the role of the rhythm section. Some music researchers hold that it was Philadelphia's Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti who pioneered the guitar-violin partnership typical of the genre,
which was brought to France after they had been heard live or on Okeh Records in the late 1920s.
1940s AND 1950s
DIXIELAND REVIVAL
In the late 1940s there was a revival of "Dixieland" music, harkening back to the original contrapuntal
New Orleans style. This was driven in large part by record company
reissues of early jazz classics by the Oliver, Morton, and Armstrong
bands of the 1930s. There were two populations of musicians involved in
the revival. One group consisted of players who had begun their careers
playing in the traditional style, and were either returning to it, or
continuing what they had been playing all along, such as Bob Crosby's Bobcats, Max Kaminsky, Eddie Condon, and Wild Bill Davison.
Most of this group were originally Midwesterners, although there were a
small number of New Orleans musicians involved. The second population
of revivalists consisted of young musicians such as the Lu Watters band. By the late 1940s, Louis Armstrong's
Allstars band became a leading ensemble. Through the 1950s and 1960s,
Dixieland was one of the most commercially popular jazz styles in the
US, Europe, and Japan, although critics paid little attention to it.
BEBOP
In the early 1940s bebop performers helped to shift jazz from danceable
popular music towards a more challenging "musician's music." Differing
greatly from swing, early bebop divorced itself from dance music,
establishing itself more as an art form but lessening its potential
popular and commercial value. Since bebop was meant to be listened to,
not danced to, it used faster tempos. Beboppers introduced new forms of chromaticism and dissonance into jazz; the dissonant tritone (or "flatted fifth") interval became the "most important interval of bebop"
and players engaged in a more abstracted form of chord-based improvisation which used "passing" chords, substitute chords, and altered chords. The style of drumming shifted as well to a more elusive and explosive style, in which the ride cymbal
was used to keep time, while the snare and bass drum were used for
accents. These divergences from the jazz mainstream of the time
initially met with a divided, sometimes hostile response among fans and
fellow musicians, especially established swing players, who bristled at
the new harmonic sounds. To hostile critics, bebop seemed to be filled
with "racing, nervous phrases".
Despite the initial friction, by the 1950s bebop had become an accepted
part of the jazz vocabulary. The most influential bebop musicians
included saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, and drummer Max Roach.
COOL JAZZ
By the end of the 1940s, the nervous energy and tension of bebop was
replaced with a tendency towards calm and smoothness, with the sounds of
cool jazz, which favoured long, linear melodic lines. It emerged in New York City,
as a result of the mixture of the styles of predominantly white jazz
musicians and black bebop musicians, and it dominated jazz in the first
half of the 1950s. The starting point were a series of singles on Capitol Records in 1949 and 1950 of a nonet led by trumpeter Miles Davis, collected and released first on a ten-inch and later a twelve-inch as the
Birth of the Cool. Cool jazz recordings by Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Stan Getz and the Modern Jazz Quartet
usually have a "lighter" sound which avoided the aggressive tempos and
harmonic abstraction of bebop. Cool jazz later became strongly
identified with the West Coast jazz
scene, but also had a particular resonance in Europe, especially
Scandinavia, with emergence of such major figures as baritone
saxophonist Lars Gullin and pianist Bengt Hallberg. The theoretical underpinnings of cool jazz were set out by the blind Chicago pianist Lennie Tristano, and its influence stretches into such later developments as Bossa nova, modal jazz, and even free jazz. See also the List of Cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians for further detail.
HARD BOP
Hard bop is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music that incorporates influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano playing. Hard bop was developed in the mid-1950s, partly in response to the vogue for cool jazz in the early 1950s. The hard bop style coalesced in 1953 and 1954, paralleling the rise of rhythm and blues. Miles Davis' performance of "Walkin' ", the title track of his album of the same year, at the very first Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, announced the style to the jazz world. The quintet Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, fronted by Blakey and featuring pianist Horace Silver and trumpeter Clifford Brown, were leaders in the hard bop movement along with Davis.
MODAL JAZZ
Modal jazz is a development beginning in the later 1950s which takes the mode,
or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation.
Previously, the goal of the soloist was to play a solo that fit into a
given chord progression.
However, with modal jazz, the soloist creates a melody using one or a
small number of modes. The emphasis in this approach shifts from harmony
to melody.
The modal theory stems from a work by George Russell, but again Miles Davis unveiled this shift to the rest of the jazz world with
Kind of Blue,
an exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz and the best selling
jazz album of all time. Other innovators in this style include Jackie McLean,
John Coltrane and Bill Evans, also present on
Kind of Blue, as well as later musicians such as Herbie Hancock.
FREE JAZZ
Free jazz and the related form of avant-garde jazz broke through into an open space of "free tonality" in which meter, beat, and formal symmetry all disappeared, and a range of World music from India, Africa, and Arabia were melded into an intense, even religiously ecstatic or orgiastic style of playing.
While loosely inspired by bebop, free jazz tunes gave players much more latitude; the loose harmony and tempo was deemed controversial when this approach was first developed. The bassist Charles Mingus
is also frequently associated with the avant-garde in jazz, although
his compositions draw from myriad styles and genres. The first major
stirrings came in the 1950s, with the early work of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. In the 1960s, performers included John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and others. Free jazz quickly found a foothold in Europe – in part because musicians such as Ayler, Taylor, Steve Lacy and Eric Dolphy
spent extended periods in Europe. A distinctive European contemporary
jazz (often incorporating elements of free jazz but not limited to it)
flourished also because of the emergence of musicians (such as John Surman, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Albert Mangelsdorff, Kenny Wheeler and Mike Westbrook) anxious to develop new approaches reflecting their national and regional musical cultures and contexts. Keith Jarrett has been prominent in defending free jazz from criticism by traditionalists in the 1990s and 2000s.
1960s AND 1970s
LATIN JAZZ
Latin jazz combines rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as conga, timbales, güiro, and claves,
with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments
(piano, double bass, etc.). There are two main varieties: Afro-Cuban jazz
was played in the US right after the bebop period, while became more
popular in the 1960s. Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement in the
mid-1950s as bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor started Afro-Cuban bands influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente and Arturo Sandoval. Brazilian jazz such as bossa nova is derived from samba,
with influences from jazz and other 20th century classical and popular
music styles. Bossa is generally moderately paced, with melodies sung in
Portuguese or English. The style was pioneered by Brazilians João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim.
The related term jazz-samba describes an adaptation of bossa nova
compositions to the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.
Bossa nova was made popular by Elizete Cardoso's recording of
Chega de Saudade on the
Canção do Amor Demais LP, composed by Vinícius de Moraes (lyrics) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (music). The initial releases by Gilberto and the 1959 film
Black Orpheus brought significant popularity in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America,
which spread to North America via visiting American jazz musicians. The
resulting recordings by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz cemented its
popularity and led to a worldwide boom with 1963's
Getz/Gilberto, numerous recordings by famous jazz performers such as Ella Fitzgerald (
Ella Abraça Jobim) and Frank Sinatra (
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim)
and the entrenchment of the bossa nova style as a lasting influence in
world music for several decades and even up to the present.
POST BOP
Post-bop jazz is a form of small-combo jazz derived from earlier bop styles. The genre's origins lie in seminal work by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Generally, the term post-bop is taken to mean jazz from the mid-sixties onward that assimilates influence from hard bop, modal jazz, the avant-garde, and free jazz, without necessarily being immediately identifiable as any of the above.
Much "post-bop" was recorded on Blue Note Records. Key albums include
Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter;
The Real McCoy by McCoy Tyner;
Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock;
Miles Smiles by Miles Davis; and
Search for the New Land by Lee Morgan
(an artist not typically associated with the post-bop genre). Most
post-bop artists worked in other genres as well, with a particularly
strong overlap with later hard bop.
SOUL JAZZ
Soul jazz was a development of hard bop which incorporated strong influences from blues, gospel and rhythm and blues in music for small groups, often the organ trio, which partnered a Hammond organ player with a drummer and a tenor saxophonist. Unlike hard bop, soul jazz generally emphasized repetitive grooves and melodic hooks, and improvisations were often less complex than in other jazz styles. Horace Silver had a large influence on the soul jazz style, with songs that used funky and often gospel-based piano vamps.
It often had a steadier "funk" style groove, different from the swing
rhythms typical of much hard bop. Important soul jazz organists included
Jimmy McGriff and Jimmy Smith and Johnny Hammond Smith, and influential tenor saxophone players included Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Stanley Turrentine.
JAZZ FUSION
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion
was developed by combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms,
electric instruments and the highly amplified stage sound of rock
musicians such as Jimi Hendrix.
All Music Guide states that "..until around 1967, the worlds of jazz
and rock were nearly completely separate." However, "...as rock became
more creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz
world became bored with hard bop and did not want to play strictly avant-garde music, the two different idioms began to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces." Miles Davis made the breakthrough into fusion in 1970 with his album
Bitches Brew. Musicians who worked with Davis formed the four most influential fusion groups: Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra emerged in 1971 and were soon followed by Return to Forever and The Headhunters.
Although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of
jazz's significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hard
bop scene into fusion. Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd
time signatures, syncopation, complex chords and harmonies. In addition
to using the electric instruments of rock, such as the electric guitar,
electric bass, electric piano and synthesizer keyboards, fusion also
used the powerful amplification, "fuzz" pedals, wah-wah pedals, and other effects used by 1970s-era rock bands. Notable performers of jazz fusion included Miles Davis, keyboardists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, vibraphonist Gary Burton, drummer Tony Williams, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, guitarists Larry Coryell, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Frank Zappa, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and bassists Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke. Jazz fusion was also popular in Japan where the band Casiopea released over thirty fusion albums.
In the twenty-first century,
almost all jazz has influences from other nations and styles of music,
making jazz fusion as much a common practice as style. The host of a
progressive radio jazz program, Passport to Modern Jazz on KRVS-FM, D'Jalma Garnier, plays New Orleans jazz from all periods, as well as latest contemporary and avant-garde, like the Bulgarian wedding band Ivo Papasov that successfully fuses Bulgarian folk using the kaval with American free jazz instrumentation and riffs.
JAZZ FUNK
Developed by the mid-1970s, is characterized by a strong back beat (groove), electrified sounds,
and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers. The integration of Funk, Soul and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is indeed quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs and jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
At the jazz end of the spectrum, jazz-funk characteristics include a
departure from ternary rhythm (near-triplet), i.e. the "swing", to the
more danceable and unfamiliar binary rhythm, known as the "groove". Jazz-funk also draws influences from traditional African music, Latin American rhythms and Jamaican reggae, most notably Kingston band leader Sonny Bradshaw.
A second characteristic of jazz-funk music is the use of electric
instruments, and the first use of analogue electronic instruments
notably by Herbie Hancock, whose jazz-funk period saw him surrounded on stage or in the studio by several Moog synthesizers. The ARP Odyssey, ARP String Ensemble and Hohner D6 Clavinet
also became popular at the time. A third feature is the shift of
proportions between composition and improvisation. Arrangements, melody
and overall writing were heavily emphasized.
OTHER TRENDS
There was a resurgence of interest in jazz and other forms of African American cultural expression during the Black Arts Movement and Black nationalist period of the early 1970s. Musicians such as Pharoah Sanders, Hubert Laws and Wayne Shorter began using African instruments such as kalimbas,
cowbells, beaded gourds and other instruments not traditional to jazz.
Musicians began improvising jazz tunes on unusual instruments, such as
the jazz harp (Alice Coltrane), electrically amplified and wah-wah pedaled jazz violin (Jean-Luc Ponty), and even bagpipes (Rufus Harley). Jazz continued to expand and change, influenced by other types of music, such as world music, avant garde classical music, and rock and pop music. Guitarist John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra played a mix of rock and jazz infused with East Indian influences. The ECM record label began in Germany in the 1970s with artists including Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, the Pat Metheny Group, Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, John Surman and Eberhard Weber, establishing a new chamber music aesthetic, featuring mainly acoustic instruments, and sometimes incorporating elements of world music and folk music.
1980s - 2010s
In 1987, the US House of Representatives and Senate passed a bill proposed by Democratic Representative John Conyers, Jr.
to define jazz as a unique form of American music stating, among other
things, "...that jazz is hereby designated as a rare and valuable
national American treasure to which we should devote our attention,
support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and
promulgated."
TRADITIONALIST AND EXPERIMENTAL DIVIDE
In the 1980s, the jazz community shrank dramatically and split. A mainly older audience retained an interest in traditional and straight-ahead jazz styles. Wynton Marsalis
strove to create music within what he believed was the tradition,
creating extensions of small and large forms initially pioneered by such
artists as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. In the 2000s, straight-ahead jazz continues to appeal to a core group of listeners. Well-established jazz musicians, such as Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter and Jessica Williams continue to perform and record. In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of young musicians emerged, including US pianists Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Chris Potter and Joshua Redman and bassist Christian McBride.
In the United States, several musicians and groups explored the more experimental end of the spectrum, including trumpeters Rob Mazurek and Cuong Vu, saxophonist Ken Vandermark, guitarist Nels Cline, bassist Todd Sickafoose, keyboardist Craig Taborn, drummer/percussionist John Hollenbeck, guitarist John Scofield and the groups Medeski Martin & Wood and The Bad Plus. Outside of the US, the Swedish group E.S.T. and British groups Acoustic Ladyland, Led Bib and Polar Bear
gained popularity with their progressive takes on jazz. A number of new
vocalists have achieved popularity with a mix of traditional jazz and
pop/rock forms, such as Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Kurt Elling and Jamie Cullum.
SMOOTH JAZZ
In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called pop
fusion or "smooth jazz" became successful and garnered significant radio
airplay. Smooth jazz saxophonists include Grover Washington, Jr., Kenny G, Kirk Whalum, Boney James and David Sanborn. Smooth jazz received frequent airplay with more straight-ahead jazz in "quiet storm"
time slots at radio stations in urban markets across the U.S., helping
to establish or bolster the careers of vocalists including Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Sade. In this same time period Chaka Khan released
Echoes of an Era, which featured Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. She also released the song "And the Melody Still Lingers On (Night in Tunisia)" with Dizzy Gillespie reviving the solo break from "Night in Tunisia".
In general, smooth jazz is downtempo (the most widely played tracks are in the 90–105 BPM range), layering a lead, melody-playing instrument (saxophones–especially soprano and tenor–are the most popular, with legato electric guitar playing a close second) over a backdrop that typically consists of programmed electronic drum rhythms, synth pads and samples
. In his
Newsweek article "The Problem With Jazz Criticism"
Stanley Crouch considers Miles Davis'
playing of fusion as a turning point that led to smooth jazz. In Aaron
J. West's introduction to his analysis of smooth jazz, "Caught Between
Jazz and Pop" he states,
I challenge the prevalent marginalization and malignment of smooth
jazz in the standard jazz narrative. Furthermore, I question the
assumption that smooth jazz is an unfortunate and unwelcomed
evolutionary outcome of the jazz-fusion era. Instead, I argue that
smooth jazz is a long-lived musical style that merits multi-disciplinary
analyses of its origins, critical dialogues, performance practice, and
reception.
ACID JAZZ, NU JAZZ AND JAZZ RAP
Acid jazz developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and influenced by jazz-funk and electronic dance music. Jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd are often credited as forerunners of acid jazz.
While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition
(sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is
just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz
interpretation as part of their performance. Nu jazz
is influenced by jazz harmony and melodies, there are usually no
improvisational aspects. It ranges from combining live instrumentation
with beats of jazz house, exemplified by St Germain, Jazzanova and Fila Brazillia, to more band-based improvised jazz with electronic elements such as that of The Cinematic Orchestra, Kobol, and the Norwegian "future jazz" style pioneered by Bugge Wesseltoft, Jaga Jazzist, Nils Petter Molvær, and others. Nu jazz can be very experimental in nature and can vary widely in sound and concept.
Jazz rap developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and incorporates jazz influence into hip hop. In 1988, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie's 1962 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr's debut LP,
No More Mr. Nice Guy (Wild Pitch, 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of
Mo' Better Blues, sampling Charlie Parker and Ramsey Lewis. Gang Starr also collaborated with Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard.Groups making up the collective known as the Native Tongues Posse tended towards jazzy releases; these include the Jungle Brothers' debut
Straight Out the Jungle (Warlock, 1988) and A Tribe Called Quest's
People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (Jive, 1990) and
The Low End Theory (Jive, 1991).
The Low End Theory has become one of hip hop's most acclaimed albums, and earned praise too from jazz bassist Ron Carter, who played double bass on one track. Rap duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth incorporated jazz influences on their 1992 debut Mecca and the Soul Brother. Beginning in 1993, rapper Guru's Jazzmatazz series used jazz musicians during the studio recordings. Though jazz rap had achieved little mainstream success, jazz legend Miles Davis' final album (released posthumously in 1992),
Doo-Bop, was based around hip hop beats and collaborations with producer Easy Mo Bee. Davis' ex-bandmate Herbie Hancock returned to hip hop influences in the mid-nineties, releasing the album
Dis Is Da Drum in 1994.
PUNK JAZZ AND JAZZCORE
The relaxation of orthodoxy concurrent with post-punk in London and New York City led to a new appreciation for jazz. In London, the Pop Group began to mix free jazz, along with dub reggae, into their brand of punk rock.
In NYC, No Wave took direct inspiration from both free jazz and punk. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch's
Queen of Siam,
the work of James Chance and the Contortions, who mixed Soul with free jazz and punk,
Gray, and the Lounge Lizards,
who were the first group to call themselves "punk jazz".
John Zorn
began to make note of the emphasis on speed and dissonance that was
becoming prevalent in punk rock and incorporated this into free jazz.
This began in 1986 with the album
Spy vs. Spy, a collection of Ornette Coleman tunes done in the contemporary thrashcore style.
The same year, Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson recorded the first album under the name Last Exit, a similarly aggressive blend of thrash and free jazz.
These developments are the origins of
jazzcore, the fusion of free jazz with hardcore punk.
In the 1990s, punk jazz and jazzcore began to reflect the increasing awareness of elements of extreme metal (particularly thrash metal and death metal) in hardcore punk. A new style of "metallic jazzcore" was developed by Iceburn, from Salt Lake City, and Candiria,
from New York City, though anticipated by Naked City and Pain Killer.
This tendency also takes inspiration from jazz inflections in technical death metal, such as the work of Cynic and Atheist.
M-BASE
The M-Base movement was started in the 1980s by a loose collective of young African-American musicians (Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Greg Osby
etc.) who emerged in New York with a new sound and specific ideas about
creative expression. With a strong foothold as well as in the tradition
represented by Charlie Parker and John Coltrane as in contemporary African-American groove music and with a high degree of musical skills,
the saxophonists Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Gary Thomas developed unique and complex, nevertheless grooving
musical languages. In the 1990s most participants of the M-Base movement turned to more conventional music but Steve Coleman,
the most active participant, continued developing his music in
accordance with the M-Base concept. In a long research process he
developed a philosophical and spiritual concept connecting with certain
cultural efforts that express fundamental aspects of nature and human
existence in a holistic way. Steve Coleman found these efforts all over the world and they reach far back into ancient times.
Thus, he gave his music a specific meaning which is similar to the intentions of religious music, of European composers like J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as of musicians in the tradition represented by John Coltrane.
In accordance to this spiritual perspective, Coleman’s music became
rather advanced in several aspects. His audience decreased a bit but his
music and concepts have been a heavy influence on many musicians
- both in terms of music-technique
and of the music’s meaning.
Hence, “M-Base” changed from a movement of a loose collective of young musicians to a kind of informal Steve Coleman “school”
with a much advanced but already originally implied concept.
Source: Wikipedia.
