MODERN JAZZ and its Restless Identity

Miles Davis 1984 in Bad Segeberg
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is an illusion brought about by the record store racks that discrete stylistic barriers separate the music we love into camps of the genre. Every music is a bastard at heart. While the contemporary apparatus for the consumption of music reinforces the notion of the genre (notable exception: the internet), with Top 40 radio stations, hip-hop magazines, and the segmented organization of the Grammys, listeners realize deep down that all this division is a lot of baloney. Music is music.

Yet, despite the intuitive understanding that the theory of genre doesn't stand up under scrutiny, it remains a powerful principle in our culture (or more accurately, our culture industry). Not only do genres define the radio station to which you tune in and instruct you what clubs to avoid on a Friday night, the genre is deeply interwoven with people's identities. High schools are the perfect laboratory for music-based social identity. The goths all seance together to the accompaniment of Manson and Ministry; Preppy kids rock the Dave Matthews while driving around in their parents' Hummers; skaters thrash to punk rock; and the weirdos gather around old jazz records, analyzing the theoretical arcana of the style and deciphering the liner notes as if they are gnomic texts. In short, the idea of genre, as much as we like to hate it, is a potent social and musical force in our culture.

But just as every individual understands that genre is a fluid concept, musicians are even more acutely aware of this fact. With very few exceptions globally, there isn't music out there that hasn't stolen ideas from other musical cultures around it. Purity simply doesn't exist, since every style is the result of a long and often contentious dialog between people, places, times, and cultures. Every genre, therefore, is the document of some deep dialectic process that continues to morph even as you look at it; every music is a Proteus of possibilities.

This is all a long-winded way of winding up to the topic at hand, the state of modern jazz. Like everything else, jazz came about through a very American sort of mixture: Delta blues met with Sousa marching bands; Debussy encountered Negro spirituals; hymn tunes and Creole culture collided. Perhaps it is no surprise then that a slew of modern jazz musicians is turning to another genre, rock, to find inspiration. Jazz, since its humble inception and by its very nature, borrows.

This is not the first time jazz has succumbed to the Siren's lure of electric guitar feedback and throbbing backbeats. Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, and a huge cast of early 1970s musicians incorporated these new sounds into their music, and the purists, predictably enough, wailed that "jazz is dead." Those guys were grabbing new sounds that they heard around them in an attempt to inject a little body and soul into a music that had gone a bit limp creatively at the time. The rock music entering jazz today, though, is of a different origin. To young jazzers today, the distorted guitar is not a fresh new sound at all - it is the sound they grew up listening to. I don't know a soul who spent their formative years of 13 to 18 listening to Miles and Shorter to the exclusion of Mudhoney and Soundgarden. To young Americans, rock (and hip-hop) is in our blood, and jazz is a transfusion we got later in life.

Brad Mehldau  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another point to mention: just as the erudite narrator in Kazantzakis's masterpiece envies Zorba's earthy, intuitive ways, so do the scholarly pursuits look upon the non-scholarly as a sort of pre-lapsarian Utopia of unmediated reality. The narrator questions his library of books just as a jazzer questions his arsenal of dense music theory. What is it about the intellectual character that looks longingly at the illiterate? I have a hunch that the ideal notion of purity has something to do with it, but more on this idea in another post perhaps; for now, let's return to the topic.

The generational shift and its mark on jazz aesthetics are becoming plain as day. Three recent records exemplify this shifting, more rocking self-identification. I don't want to labor them too extensively, so here's a brief description of a few rocking jazz picks from the last couple years:

The Bad Plus, Prog (2006)

This is piano trio music that strives for the sound of a power trio. I admit that I was a little skeptical when I heard that a "jazz" group covered "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but the Bad Plus's approach to hallowed standards of the rock world, from Queen to Black Sabbath to Bjork, is incredibly fresh. The pianist Ethan Iverson is classically trained and didn't start playing jazz until comparatively recently, and it shows (for the better): rather than playing all the standard jazz piano vocabulary, Iverson takes a neotonal, melodic approach to improvisation. It's as if Rachmaninoff sat down with a rhythm section. Stand-out songs on this most-recent collection include a crashing take on Rush's anthemic "Tom Sawyer," complete with Neil Peart's machine gun drum solo replicated in perfect detail. The original tune "Physical Cities" features a two minute long stop-and-go rhythmic interlude with completely irregular hits. It is probably the most baroque, complex passage I've heard on a jazz record in years.

Brad Mehldau Trio, Day is Done (2005)

Another piano trio album by the indefatigable Brad Mehldau, Day is Done is much more of a traditional jazz album than Prog; heads lead to solos and all the formal architecture of the style is there. However, the material is all over the map, from the Beatles to Nick Drake and Radiohead. The opening cut says it all: with a rattling menace in the drums and thick, gloopy double-stops on the bass, Radiohead's "Knives Out" signifies from the get-go that this isn't cocktail jazz. Mehldau has cultivated a uniquely idiosyncratic voice on the piano and has mastered the technique of playing counterpoint to himself. On Day is Done, one hand is playing jazz while the other is pounding power chords and flipping off the establishment. It's a tour de force of the nascent jazz aesthetic, at once fiercely urgent and sublimely graceful.

Ben Allison, Little Things Run the World (2008)

One of the young leaders of the downtown NY scene, bassist and composer Ben Allison has never been a slave to the genre. His previous albums blend psychedelia, avant-garde, and even Malian griot to create a totally idiosyncratic sound. On his most recent record from two weeks ago (with the band "Man-Sized Safe," named after Dick Cheney's sinister office safe that can fit a man in it), Allison dives into more rocking territory with a 4-piece ensemble complete with an overdriven electric guitar. The grooves are austere and stripped to the bare essentials of pulse, and the melodies are broach and spacious. It's a beautiful record, complete with Allison's signature Avant-jazz weirdness but toned down and kept simple.

These are just a few records that spring to mind that define this newly developing identity of jazz (and of jazz musicians). The Ben Darwish Trio similarly occupies the space between rock and jazz, free-style improv and tight song forms, hip-hop groove, and esoteric textures. From the perspective of a musician who has been playing and listening to the new jazz for years now, therefore, I can say that this sort of thing comes much more naturally than "Autumn Leaves" and "Solar." Rock is what young Americans grew up listening to, and the fact that jazz has been borrowing from it so heavily lately is a testament to the resilience and relevance of the style in 2008. 

For a great counter-example, see Sascha Frere-Jones's recent piece in the New Yorker, "A Paler Shade of White." Frere-Jones contends that contemporary indie rock ignores what earlier rock valued so much: musical miscegenation. Not borrowing from black music has created a sterile, rhythmically bland, "white" genre that appeals to - surprise! - white youth. It's a fascinating warning of what can become of music if it gets too pure. Of course, great jazz artists have always known this.

By Zach Wallmark - Article Source: EzineArticles

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The Essence Of JAZZ MUSIC

"The Blueberries" on stage  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The essence of Jazz music is the ethereal atmosphere of the dimensional harmony created by a kaleidoscope of chromatic tones.  It is the pulsating back beat of syncopating  African rhythms through the rumble of the drums or soft sound of the brush to the snare.

The music is an expression of melody from the depth of the soul conveyed as gospel in many unique ways.  These elements combined with the free impressionistic ambiance of instrumental tones in orchestration as a foundational juxtaposition of 7th, 9th,13th chordal harmony makes this style truly unique.  The essence of Jazz music is music that is upbeat, full of pizzazz, yet laid back with style. One would never guess that this freestyle of music has a foundation that began with  Baroque elements found in Classical music.

Classical music comes from the basic structure of homophony when two or more musical lines are played vertically in the same direction as sacred music.   In fact, Jazz music is created with homophony in terms of the movement of chords to support the melodic improvisation.  However, when it comes to playing intervals and chordal harmonies, Jazz is free from the restriction of classical form. For example, if a song is written in the key of  C or a minor there are no sharps or flats written on the staff. Many times in Jazz music Accidentals are put in the music to cause a tonal effect found in chromatic tones.  Tonal effects can occur when one or more notes are altered by raising or lowering a pitch by one-half step.  Sharps are symbols in the shape of a number sign or tic tac toe board (#).  Flats are symbols in the shape of a lower case B(b), yet shaped differently like half a heart.

In some Jazz pieces, both the sharp and flat can occur simultaneously in a chord.  The result of such musical experimentation can be Dissonant chords unresolved for the purpose of producing a certain sound.  Depending on what tones are used the sound is either full of color, or full of tension.  On the other hand, Consonance is a stable balance of harmonic tones without tension.  One example of the essence of Jazz Music is the song "Route 66" with a cluster of chords with dissonant tones that move from major to minor to diminished to create tonal color.

The Tones in Jazz music is always about the speech rhythm and the chordal harmony full of color as influenced by music in the impressionism period.  The essence of Jazz music serves as a personal interpretation of the picture the performer wants us to think about.  The icing to the cake is the vocalists and instrumentalists who perform how they feel from the soul as the music beckons them to reply to its statement.  As the soloist plays or sings, the beauty of strong kaleidoscope tones in the harmony encourages one to soar especially in ballads.

All of this can occur when the harmony plays in the right position above the correct bass tones found in all Jazz masterpieces.  The true essence of Jazz music is present in its ability to shape the music through tones, the syncopation of speech rhythm, the chromatic harmony, improvisational solos, and constant motion of the bass. It is the free structure made from a balanced structure, and a music expressed from the soul.

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The History and Characteristics of the JAZZ COMBO

Studio Rivbea, NYC July 1976 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jazz is an American art form whose roots date back to the mid-19th-century slave songs and chants. The early 20th century saw the art form blossom as instrumental music in the southern United States, mainly along the Mississippi River and specifically New Orleans, Louisiana.

Early instrumental jazz combos of New Orleans varied in instrumentation.  More often than not, these early jazz groups generally consisted of trumpet, clarinet, trombone, tuba and drums.  This instrumentation became what is known as the "Dixieland" combo, making its way up the Mississippi River to Chicago where the music became popularized by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong.

Dixieland combos can be thought of as groups that play "polyphonic" improvisational music.  Each instrument is independent of every other instrument, with each player creating separate musical improvisations based on known melodies, or "tunes" of the day.

The players of these early jazz combos each had a separate role within the group.  The trumpet player was depended upon to state the melody of the song, while the clarinet would improvise complex lines above him.  The trombonist's role was to improvise or "fill in" the middle register with lines and notes that were essential to the chord changes of the song itself.  The tuba player (or bass player) generally laid down root notes (and 5ths) of each chord on beats 1 and 3 of each measure.  The tuba served as the harmonic anchor for the group. Lastly, it was the drummer's role to keep everyone together by keeping a steady beat throughout the entirety of the song.

As jazz music developed throughout the 1940s and 1950s, jazz combo instrumentation began to become more standardized.  The jazz "quintet" and "sextet" became very popular during this time.  The quintet consisted of trumpet and alto (or tenor) sax as the main melodic instruments while the rhythm section (piano, bass and drums) took care of rhythm and harmony.

The sextet added a trombone to form what essentially was a three-horn front line, with rhythm section accompaniment.  The extra melodic instrument of the sextet made it possible for the horns to add more harmonic depth to the sound of the group.  Each instrument had a role not only as a melodic voice but also as an integral component of the harmonic structure as well.

Modern jazz combos consist of a variety of instrumentation - 4, 5 horn combos are commonplace.  As the group grows in size, however, the name "combo" is replaced by "band" or "little big band".

The jazz combo has provided a musical and creative outlet for countless musicians over the last 100 years.  The jazz combo continues to provide jazz musicians the opportunity to work together to make music not only as a group but also to develop their own voice as individual jazz improvisers.  It is, and probably always will be, the perfect vehicle for learning the art of jazz improvisation.

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Best BLUES Instrumental Music of the Past

Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whenever I'm feeling down or just plain bad, I sometimes find it beneficial to listen to some good ole fashion blues. But not just any old blues will do. I need the music without the lyrics. Come with me now as we head out into the vast world of blues in search of the best blues instrumentals to drown your sorrows to. Here we go.

The #1 spot for our best blues instrumental music of the past belongs to "Phillip's Theme" by Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers. Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor was an American blues guitarist who originally played the piano. He is mostly known for his electric slide guitar and get down and boogie beats. I guess what really makes him stand out besides being an amazing blues guitarist is that he had 6 fingers on his left hand.

Blues guru John Mayall
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Moving on down our chart we come to #2 on my blues instrumental music chart with "The Supernatural" by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers featuring Peter Green. John Mayall was not only a talented multi-instrumentalist but a songwriter and blues singer. He pioneered English blues and has a history that spans over fifty years. He has influenced tons of other musicians like Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Fleetwood to name a few.

As all good things must end, here we are at our final spot on my best blues instrumental music list with none other than "Little Wing" by Stevie Ray Vaughan. A Jimi Hendrix cover song spoken through an amazing blues-rock guitarist Stevie Ray. I love this instrumental rendition of Hendrix's song "Little Wings". Stevie Ray Vaughan is known widely for his warm bluesy rock sound and was ranked #7 by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

As we close my best blues instrumental music of the past, I just want to say you can never have too much instrumental blues. With that said, go out into the free world of blues inspiration and bring back a little for yourself. And remember once your hooked, there ain't no cure for the blues. Until next time...

Aaron - Article Directory: EzineArticles

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JAZZ Music vs. CLASSICAL Music

Montage of great classical music composers - from left to right: first row - Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven; second row - Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi; third row - Johann Strauss II, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák; fourth row - Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to first start off with the method by which music performers approach both genres. In classical music, there is a level of precision that the artist wants to achieve, a near duplication as to what the composer intended. When I studied classical music, my piano professors wanted me to understand the sounds and style as to which the composers wanted their music played. There seems to be a consistent thought process of hearing the architecture of the music according to the time period the piece was written.

In Jazz, of course, improvisation is a skill that almost every jazz musician lives by and there is so much experimenting with chord substitutions, scales and tonality that a listener can get a different feeling of the same piece when performed by someone different. So, much is left to the performer about how to perform a piece. Of course, you have to think about your tempo, articulations but there is more flexibility in performance, especially in slower jazz pieces such as ballads. A jazz piano teacher that I once studied under, left the improvisation up to me and my only guide was basically jazz albums and transcriptions if I wanted to spice up my playing with new ideas. However, there are times in which you have to play with a certain touch such as bebop music.

Much of the material in classical music seems to have starting points as seen in runs and the practice of scales. When you practice your scales, you always start at a point, go up and come back down since this is the way that sixteenth and thirty-second notes are played. This creates the mindset that you are aiming at accuracy and uniformity in your playing. In the music, you always know where your runs are starting and when you practice your technique, that is what you know and feel as well.

When you are improvising in jazz, soloing demands that you know your instrument so well that you should be able to start on any note, anywhere on your instrument and still be able to keep with the beat and form a musical idea. In certain jazz books, the method by which you practice your scales is different than in classical music. You are instructed to practice your scales starting on any note within that scale so that when you are soloing you are not restricted by certain stopping points.

In Jazz, there is an emphasis on the individual soloist in which the audience can feel where he/she is going with their music, often unscripted, from the soul and heart. The listener has to identify with the unpredictable and the exotic dance of harmony and melody. Make no mistake that in many jazz pieces, there is not always a wild, unpredictable element. Many jazz pieces can sound like other genres of music. Sometimes, a jazz musician has to make a decision as to how he/she will have to color a chord or measure with a certain flavor of sound. Now in classical music, the audience wants to feel Mozart or Beethoven through the performer in terms of being true and authentic. Any unpredictable elements will be expected as part of the composition.

These elements of classical and jazz music are only my observations and we must keep in mind that you cannot put classical or jazz music into a box. Both will always be different and similar in ways but both will share a willingness to bring out the greatness of the music, fast or slow, happy or sad.

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JAZZ CLUBS

Porgy& Bess jazz and music club, Vienna, Austria.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jazz music is appreciated worldwide. If you are ever traveling and are new to some countries, here are where some of the best jazz clubs are located so that every place you go will be just like home.

Canadian Jazz Clubs

In Westminster, you can go to the Java Jazz Café & Bistro. Live jazz is played served with Filipino cooking, with dishes like kare-kare, milkfish and bangus. Every night there are different artists playing. Times are from Tuesday-Thursday from 12p.m. to 2:30p.m. and 5:30 to 12:00a.m. Friday it's to 1:00a.m., Saturday 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. to midnight. If you want to attend jam sessions, they are each Saturday 3p.m. to 6p.m.

If you are ever in Victoria, go to the Hermann's Jazz Club on 753 View Street. This club has been around for 25 years. You can enjoy good food and international jazz music from the hottest musicians around.

In Vancouver, you can go to Capones Restaurant & Live Jazz Club. Jazz music is played there every night of the week. The food is excellent food and wine. Some of the dishes are pizzas, pasta, tapas and there are also some signature entrees. The musicians that play here are literally chosen to play there from the area and offer great west coast jazz music and blues. You have to call and book in advance to get a table here.

Cuban Jazz Clubs

If you are heading to Havana, be sure to stop at La Zorra Y La Cueva Jazz Club. Open every day, you can eat, drink, dance and enjoy the best jazz music as only the best of musicians play here. Dress tropical for this club.

Chinese Jazz Clubs

In Bejing, you can go to The Big Easy. Modern jazz music and blues are played there. Ted's Café plays traditional jazz on Saturday nights. In Shanghai, you can go to the CJW. The CJW is the Cigar Jazz Wine House. It is on the highest floor of the fifty-story Bund Centre. The atmosphere is very modern, eccentric with lava lamps, transparent beaded curtains. The food is traditional western and Chinese fusion.

Israeli Jazz Clubs

In Binyamina, you can go to the milestone. The Milestone is set in a beautiful park inside a Roman fortress. The times are from weekends Thursday to Saturday. The jazz music is played by the best Israeli jazz musicians. Gourmet food is served, and there is also an amphitheater. If you are in Haifa, go to the Hottentot. Performances are just about every single day. The atmosphere is laid-back, there are good food, drinks and a gallery.

French Jazz Clubs

I had to save the best clubs for last. French jazz clubs. The French are serious when it comes to jazz music. All kinds of jazz music are played from standard to amateur. There are many, many jazz clubs here. Quite a few American jazz musicians chose to live there permanently or temporarily and have enhanced their lives all around. Here is a couple of the best jazz clubs in France. In Paris 4th, there is Franc Pinot. Those that love swing and bebop music should come here. This club has natural acoustics and is located in the heart of Paris. Times are from 7p.m. to 9p.m., but it depends on who is playing for the night. In the 15th, there is Jazz Club Lionel Hampton where the best bands and artists play contemporary jazz. If you want to enrich your spirit, go travel to other places to appreciate jazz music.

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All About JAZZ DANCE

Jerome Robbins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Art of Jazz dance is an amalgamation of different styles of dance that began between the 1800's, and the middle of the 1900's rooted in African American movement.  One man known for this type of dance was the star of vaudeville Joe Frisco around 1910 who danced in an unrestrained fashion in close vicinity to the ground while tossing his cigar, and Derby in a juggling manner. The Jazz dance style up to the middle of 1950's was Tap dance which was always performed with Jazz music such as the Jitterbug, Swing, Boogie Woogie, Lindy Hop,  and the Charleston.  Katherine Dunham is renowned choreographer and dancer studied the cultural dances of Caribbean in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago, Martinique and Shango making this African American dance a modern work of pure art.

She took this style to Hollywood and Broadway who embraced a more refined Jazz dance.  Modern Jazz Dance is a smooth style of dance roots from Tap, Ballet and Jazz music which is performed in many musicals from the Pajama Game to Cabaret to Chicago to music videos and the Las Vegas showgirl performances. The usual technique for Jazz dance is that of a ballet dancer for balance and strength from doing slow movements. In contrast, the typical Jazz dance has sharp movements, but the skills of ballet smooth it down into a refined style.

Moreover, Jazz dance is such a versatile style that it can be combined with other dances from lyrical, contemporary and hip-hop. Jazz dance like Jazz music can be combined with other dance styles to enhance the dance to another level. For instance,  The United Kingdom witnessed a new movement of dancers in the 1980's who danced when the Jazz and Funk music clubs was becoming unpopular known as Street  Fusion Jazz Dance. Due to the new modern music scene, new groups who longed to keep the tradition of Jazz dance, and still leave room for the new styles.

There are two groups known for street fusion jazz dance known as IDJ ( I Dance Jazz), Brother in Jazz and Jazz Cotech.  Famous people of the world of Jazz dance is Fred Astaire, Jerome Robbins, Jack Cole, and Bob Fosse. In the world of Jazz Dance, there are terms people use to describe various dance moves.

Jazz Dance Terms:

Adlib, Axel Turn, Ball Change, Barrel Jump, Barrel Turn, Bounce, Cake Walk, Catwalk, Catch Step, Chasse`, Coffee Grinder, Contract, Curve Or Arch, Dolphin, Drop and Recover, Fall, Fall Over The Log, Fan Kick, Figure 8, Flick, Flick Kick, Freeze, Funk, Head-Roll, Hinge, Hip Walk,  Hip-Fall, Hip-Roll, Hitch Kick, Hop, Jazz Drag, Jazz Run, Jazz Split, Jazz Square, Jazz Walk, Jump Over The Log, Kick, Knee Fall, Knee Slide, Knee Turn, Lay Out, Limbo, Mess Around, Moonwalk, Pencil Turn, Pitch, Pivot Step, Primitive Squat, Release, Ripple, Shimmie, Shiver, Shoulder Fall, Shoulder Roll, Sissonne Fall, Skate, Snake, Snap, Spins, Spiral, Stag Leap, Step, Switch, Table Top, Tilt, Touch, Tripplettes, Turns, Twists, and the Worm.

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The History Of VOCAL JAZZ

The Old Plantation (anonymous folk painting).
Depicts African-American slaves dancing to banjo and percussion
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jazz music made its mark in the hearts of Americans ever since the 20th century when people embraced the musicians of the time. However, when the singers came on the scene strong with skills in the art of scatting that is a vocal form of Jazz improvisation, the ability to articulate music expressively, and have that pizzazz to swing to the rhythms effectively makes a Jazz virtuoso. Jazz music bore another gift on the American public to spread to the world during the 1940's when singers came together to form groups.  The sound of acapella harmony of many voices like in a church choir using a juxtaposition of Jazz harmony is ethereal and divine.

In fact,  due to the success of such groups as the Mills Brothers, Boswell Sisters,  Andrews sisters, and Modernaires during the 1930's 1940's made Jazz fans of vocal Jazz music seek more.  As a result, record stores stocked up on the music of vocal Jazz music, and it became a tremendous success that made quartets like Manhattan Transfer a household name today.

In addition, America has the largest selection of vocal Jazz music even though there are vocal Jazz ensembles all over the world. These new vocal Jazz groups do not all sing acapella style music that is common to the barbershop. Vocal Jazz groups commonly use a Jazz band to accompany them as they perform. Jazz music may not be as strict as classical music, but it is in a class all it's own. It takes great skill to sing Vocal Jazz as it does with Classical and many other styles of music. Meaning, everyone cannot be a good jazz soloist, but it doesn't mean that they cannot sing in the vocal jazz ensemble.  Each singer must match in volume, resonance, and key in order to be a worthy member of the vocal Jazz ensemble. Ever singer must be able to sing their parts and be heard as well as blended into the group.  There are times when different people in the vocal Jazz group will be asked to scat to the music and take the challenges that some complex Jazz music holds with great skill.

All the beauty that Vocal Jazz possessed in the past did not always keep it in popularity.  For instance, there was a time in the 60's when Jazz music no longer had mass appeal due to the American interest in Rock music. Imagine the record companies who supply music to the radios and the nightclubs who allowed popular acts to perform live suddenly locking Jazz musicians out.  Yet, Jazz never lost its following despite the ever-changing interests of the public. Vocal Jazz singers attempted to begin again in the 70's, but the public did not show much interest in a style that was considered passé.

Fortunately, those who loved the music and dedicated themselves to the music caused people to take notice from the latter part of the 80's to the millennium where Jazz singers came prepared to recreate Jazz again. Vocal Jazz singers went along with the times to keep the traditional Jazz and add new elements that the public would like to hear.

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JAZZ Essentials

Photo  by brizzle born and bred 

I used to tell people I met on airplanes or at parties that I wrote about jazz for a living. Once they got past wondering just what type of "living" that amounted to, they'd smile and say, "I love jazz," then pause, adding, "But I don't know that much about it."

They were leery, thrown off by chart-and-graph references to jazz's development — stuff like how '40s swing begat '50s bebop, which gave rise to '60s free-jazz and all that. As if there was a textbook (well, actually some critic friends of mine are writing one, but that's another story) and there might be a test, you know. Not to mention the political squabbles: why swing was king or bop the thing or how '70s fusion killed it all.

Or maybe they'd been put off by all that technical talk: flatted fifths and extended chords and the numbers behind swing's rhythmic propulsion — like it was rocket science or something.

Then there's the cult aspect: those older guys bending and swaying at the back of the club, making like Jewish elders swaying to an fro at temple, or the generalized bowing down before deities such as Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker and John Coltrane (not to mention the infighting about just who deserves saintly status).

Thing is, jazz isn't any of that — and is all that. Appreciation requires no previous knowledge, yet continued listening offers all constant enrichment. The technical aspects of jazz's musical achievements have both the beauty and complexity of higher math: And the music has genuine religious heft, owing to both time-honored spiritual traditions and in-the-moment meditative thought.

I can't give you a 12-best list, or tell you that what follows tells the story in full. But the following list expresses lineages of thought, instrumental technique, rhythmic ideas and group conception. The dots are easy to connect, the names clearly indicated and the sounds unforgettable.

And this list is like those sponge toys that, placed in water, magically grow overnight. Listen, and you'll find expansive knowledge easily absorbed, not to mention natural links to many more artists and recordings.

Listen Hot Fives And Sevens

Artist: Louis Armstrong

Release Date: 1925

To tell the story of jazz without Louis Armstrong up top is to cut off the head of the living organism that is jazz. Armstrong was a giant of a trumpeter, he was an influential singer and perhaps most important, he transformed jazz from a strictly instrumental music into a complicated blend of solo and ensemble sound. In that sense, nearly all the 20th-century jazz that followed flowed from the innovation of these recordings. Over the course of these sessions, you can hear the transformation in process, from traditional New Orleans collective style to a different blend, with the clarion call of Armstrong's horn pointing the way.

Listen The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces Volume 1

Artist: Art Tatum

Release Date: 2001

Anyone edition drawn from this eight-CD set will do. And anyone is enough to give a sense of the enormity of Tatum's genius and its far-reaching effects on all the music that followed. Tatum simply played more piano — got more out the instrument — than any other musician. He was a direct link from the whorehouse piano men to the classical soloist. Here, late in life, he plays song after song and, beginning with "Too Marvelous for Words," he builds each one into a concerto of melody, harmonics, and improvisation that set the bar high and establish the logic for much of modern jazz.

Listen The Carnegie Hall Concerts: January 1943

Artist: Duke Ellington

Release Date: 1943

Little in jazz compares with the majesty, finesse, integrity, and spark of Duke Ellington's bands during the '40s. It was a moment when jazz straddled two functions as it never will again: it was popular music, reflective of the nation's heart and mind, and artistic revolution, charting new waters. In Ellington, as perhaps in no musician other than Louis Armstrong, jazz had a leader who understood both drives. It was a dream of Ellington's to play Carnegie Hall, and it anticipated the Lincoln Center achievements of Wynton Marsalis today. This recording contains both shorter tunes (marvelous miniatures of great scope) and Ellington's more ambitious, longer-form work "Black, Brown, and Beige." There are stellar solo statements by players including saxophonists Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges, but really, it's the brilliant cohesion of the full band and Ellington's overall vision that makes this music timeless.

Listen Tomorrow Is The Question

Artist: Ornette Coleman

Release Date: 1959

Ornette Coleman's music has always leaned on tradition — listen to some Charlie Parker and you'll hear echoes of it here — distilled into something new and pointed straight toward the future or curled up like a quizzical phrase. Here, Coleman's title begs both ideas. And the music announced his pianoless quartet setup: the harmonics of chord changes alone would no longer confine Coleman's music, replaced by his own personal science bent on liberation. The way Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry shadow each other's lines and exchange ideas, the process sounds closer to pure joy than hard science. Nearly a half-century later, it still sounds fresh.

Listen Alone In San Francisco

Artist: Thelonious Monk

Release Date: 1959

The hippest, most addictive thing I got turned onto in college was Monk's music. I'd never heard anything like it, and it opened up a whole new idea for me of how the piano could sound and of what music could do: his compositions, his every arpeggio or tone cluster, contained math, R&B, Abstract Expressionism and slapstick humor. I went on to discover a world of jazz musicians, all touched directly or indirectly by Monk, but none who sounded quite like him. And though Monk recorded quite a few notable albums leading stellar bands, though his music led others to play with a special insight and cohesion, it's Monk alone at the piano that I crave: Straight, no chaser. Here, early in his career, by himself, Monk transforms San Francisco's Fugazi Hall with the unique architecture of his piano playing. This isn't what all of the jazz sounds like: It's what the world of jazz after Monk looks like.

Listen Bill Evans Trio: Sunday At The Village Vanguard

Artist: Bill Evans

Release Date: 1961

There's plenty of religious, folkloric and literary evidence to support the idea that three is a magical number: Bill Evans's trio might be jazz's mightiest argument for that case. Evans was one of jazz's most lyrical pianists, and he's at his best here. But it's the nature of this trio that elevates most of all: neither Evans nor bassist Scott LaFaro nor drummer Paul Motian sticks to customary roles. And in the three-pointed cheese slice of a room that is the Village Vanguard (the closest thing to sacred space remaining in jazz today), the music takes on a prayer-like quality.

Listen Live Trane: The European Tours

Artist: John Coltrane

Release Date: 1961

By 1961, Coltrane's soloing style — the free flow through chord changes and scale-based improvisations that critic Ira Gitler dubbed "sheets of sound" — was his signature. His band concept was similarly bent on expanding boundaries and explosive energy. Coltrane may have laid down some of jazz's most memorable studio sessions, but there's really nothing like him caught live. These tracks, drawn from a three-LP set, find him in two powerful contexts over the course of four years: in a 1961 quintet including Eric Dolphy on alto sax, flute and clarinet; and fronting his classic quartet at concerts in 1963 and 1965. The fire and especially the communion between Coltrane and drummer Elvin Jones on the later material is a thing to behold.

Listen Spiritual Unity

Artist: Albert Ayler

Release Date: 1964

The first release on Bernard Stollman's ESP label, this is the session that pushed Albert Ayler to the forefront of jazz's avant-garde. He remains a touchstone for any open-minded musician wishing to explore the sonic possibilities of a given instrument, to exploit the aggregate effect of any small group and to mine the spiritual heft of musical expression. To some, the arsenal of sounds Ayler coaxed from his saxophone — screams, squeals, wails, honks and a mile-wide vibrato when he felt like it — represented newfound contortions of sound; to others, they harked back to early jazz evocations, like Sidney Bechet's soprano sax. Ayler's appeal anticipates the current axis that connects punk rockers to free jazz: He took the simplest of song structures and turned them into the most complex of visceral splatters. His "Ghosts," here rendered in two versions, will truly haunt you.

Listen Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods

Artist: Dizzy Gillespie And Machito

Release Date: 1975

Back when I edited a jazz magazine, I'd find regular annoyance with writers who thought Latin jazz was a tiny sidebar to American jazz. Jazz is many stories, a central one being the African Diaspora. The music of Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean are cousins to American music (and they contain some rhythmic secrets we've forgotten, I'd say). Cuba, in particular, has a special musical relationship with the United States, and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was one among jazz's ranks who honored that truth with depth and style. Though Dizzy made his Big Cuban Bang decades earlier, this 1975 session finds him with the famed band of Frank "Machito" Grillo, featuring the great Cuban trumpeter Mario Bauzá. Composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill's "Oro, Incienso y Mirra" is as modern a fusion of cross-cultural ideas as you'll hear today.

Listen to Raining On The Moon

Artist: William Parker

Release Date: 2002

Born in 1955 [ck], William Parker is just a bit older than the music we know as free jazz. Some say that that musical revolution is dead: They're wrong. The most vital life signs are found on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and at the center of this scene is the loud, insistent sound of Parker's bass. He is something of a father figure, dispensing life lessons as well as musical wisdom, much like legendary bandleaders Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, and Charles Mingus. Among Parker's many bands is the quartet he leads here (with Leena Conquest adding soulful vocals). Among the deep connections, he shares is the one you can feel powerfully throughout this music, with drummer Hamid Drake.

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The Many Styles Of JAZZ MUSIC

Jazz Music - Photo by ** RCB ** 

The essence of the appeal of Jazz music has expanded and became reinvented from the use of elements found in African drumming, spiritual and hymn music, bluegrass hillbilly music, blues, impressionist, and classical traits to newer sounds. Jazz music became popular on radio and underground clubs that influenced other parts of the world. For instance, Europe's French Jazz scene created Gypsy Jazz and South America's Brazilian and Afro-Cuban Jazz sounds.  Not only did make its mark on the world, but it also found its way back to its roots through urban contemporary gospel music of percussion as well as brass instruments.

Today the contemporary gospel music uses guitars, keyboard, piano, drums and brass instruments for their sound. One can usually tell during the ballads how Jazz chord harmonies are used in the keyboard and piano. The harmony in Barbershop music like Jazz came from the African American Black gospel church community which uses close four-part harmony without accompaniment.  This particular style of music without accompaniment is known as A capella.  The Mills Brothers were popular Jazz musicians who learned how this harmonization in the barbershop owned by their father.

In many Jazz groups such as Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices, Acoustix, Bara Vox, Beach Front, BR6 and more the harmonies are similar to that of barbershop. These harmonies are from the chromatic chordal harmony found in Jazz Music.  The group Take 6 has expanded the traditional four-part harmonies to six tones. Jazz Music did not stop there but grew into an array of different styles that produce different aesthetic appeal.

The aesthetic appeal can be found in how each part of the music makes one feel once heard. All the different elements from the lyrical content to the kaleidoscope of colorful harmony to the depth of the mood provides its own ambiance of sound. To give examples:

On the extent to which Jazz has expanded are listed below as new expressions to the music.

Vocalese - From 1952 to 1962 Eddie Jefferson and Jon Hendricks made their mark by using their vocals as a substitute for the musical instrument in the exact melody. Meaning, the voice imitated the exact solo of a saxophonist solo. It was not widely accepted until the musicians above made it popular.

Cool Jazz-  From the latter 1940's and 1950's a softer more gentle style of Jazz of both bop and swing with arranged harmonies that are present in Jazz ballads today.

Hard Bop-From the middle of 1950's the church's spiritual and gospel roots of African style returned to the Jazz music which assisted in the making of Rhythm and Blues. One example of this music is Davis' work titled "Walkin".

Mainstream- From the 1950's era, Jazz improvisation changed from single line melodic ornamentation to chordal which appeared again as a loose form of Jazz music in the later part of the 1970's and 1980's. This style was influenced by the cool, classical, and hard bop Jazz styles.

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DIZZY GILLESPIE

Dizzy Gillespie in a Concert, 1988,  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is not one person around who knows jazz music that did not hear the name Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy Gillespie was a composer, singer, jazz trumpet player and bandleader. He along with Charlie Parker was the creator of modern jazz music and bebop. Dizzy also started Afro-Cuban jazz. He had the gift of making new harmonies that were layered and complex. At the time, it was not done in jazz before. He was most remembered for the trumpet he played that was bent. It was accidentally ruined when he was on a job in 1953. Surprisingly, Dizzy liked it  because of the way it changed the tone of the instrument.

Dizzy was born John Birks on October 21, 1917 in South Carolina. He was the youngest in the family of nine children. His father was a horrible man who beat his children all the time, and died when dizzy was 10 years old. He taught himself how to play trumpet when he was twelve years old. He won a scholarship to Laurinburg Institute but, dropped out of school and went to Philadelphia to pursue music full-time. He played with Frankie Fairfax and recorded for the very first time in 1937. He then was a part of Cab Calloway's band, but was criticized for his solos, calling them "Chinese music". He was thrown out because Cab said that he sent a spitball at him, and Dizzy, angrily stabbed him in the leg with a knife.

Dizzy was a part of Duke Ellington's, Woody Herman and many other bands. It was with Billy Eckstine's band where his unique playing fit better than anywhere else. He met again with Charlie Parker. Together they played famous clubs such as Monroe's Uptown House, and Minton's Playhouse. This is where jazz music progressed again and bebop was created. In the beginning a lot of people didn't like bebop. They were used to the old jazz music, and thought the new sound of bebop was a threat and were afraid of it. Dizzy's style had an effect on trumpeters and the younger musicians that he was able to mentor. Examples of bebop music are "Groovin' High", "Salt Peanuts" and "A Night In Tunisia". Musicians that he taught bebop to were Miles Davis and Max Roach.

Eventually, the band departed, as the audience grew wary of the new jazz music. Dizzy wanted to go big, and tried to create his own big band in 1945 but was not successful with it. He started other small groups and finally put a big band together that was a success. He soloed many times with Jazz at the Philharmonic.

Dizzy proved himself overseas in France when he began his third big band, and did several concerts and albums.

During the 1940's Dizzy was composing Afro-Cuban music. Afro-Cuban music is a combination of Latin and African music, pop and salsa. The work that is the most well known are "Tin Tin Deo" and "Manteca". Dizzy was responsible for finding musician Arturo Sandoval while he was on a tour in Cuba researching music.

Dizzy continued to reach people with his music even on television and film. He was on Sesame Street and The Cosby Show. He died in 1993 from Pancreatic Cancer, he was 75 years old. He had two funerals, one was for friends and family and the other funeral was for the public in Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Dizzy Gillespie was a special innovator in jazz and is continually remembered at the New York Bahai Center.

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Jazz Musician: LIONEL HAMPTON

Lionel Hampton during a concert in Aachen (Germany)
on May 19th, 1977
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One great jazz musician was Lionel Hampton. Lionel was a bandleader, actor, jazz vibraphonist and percussionist. He has worked with other famous jazz musicians such as Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones, and Charlie Parker. Lionel was raised by his grandmother in the south before he relocated to Chicago. In the 1920's he started playing the xylophone and drums. His first instrument was the fife drum.

When he was a teenager he played drums for the Chicago Defender Newsboy's band. When he lived in California, he played for the Dixieland Blue-Blowers. The first band that he recorded with was The Quality Serenaders, then he left again to go play with another band, Les Hite band. It was here that he began studying the vibraphone. Louis Armstrong asked Lionel to play the vibraphones on two songs. That is when he made the vibraphone a popular instrument.

While still with the Les Hite band, Lionel went to the University of Southern California taking music. He also worked with the Nat Shilkrer orchestra. In 1936 he was in the film Pennies From Heaven, starring Bing Crosby. He was next to Louis Armstrong but hid by wearing a mask when he was playing the drums.

In 1936 he was fortunate to meet Benny Goodman who came to watch him perform. Benny asked him to join his trio which consisted of Benny, Gene Krupa, and Teddy Wilson. It was then renamed the Benny Goodman Quartet. The year before, Lionel worked with Billie Holiday with Benny's orchestra. This group of artists was one of the first integrated jazz groups that performed openly in society.

Lionel recorded with several groups while still with Benny Goodman, but in 1940 he left to create his own big band. Lionel's orchestra was a hit in the 40's and 50's. "Flying Home" featured an Illinois Jacquet solo that began a new style of music, R&B. The song was so popular that he did another version called "Flying Home, Number Two", with Arnett Cobb. Lionel's music was a mixture of jazz music and R&B during this time. Some great jazz musicians that worked with him during this time were Johnny Griffin, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie.

As time went on, in the 1960's and after, his success lessened. He was still performing hits from the 1930's-1950's. In the 1970's he recorded with the Who's Who Record label, but still did not do as well as he could have.

Going the college route seemed to help a bit. His band played at University of Idaho's jazz concert regularly. In 1985, the named it the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Two years later, they named the music school the Lionel Hampton School of Music. It was the only music school at a university that was named after a jazz musician. Lionel kept playing until he had a stroke in 1991 in Paris. Even though he had to stop performing as much, he did a performance at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2001, not long before he died. This jazz music legend will never be forgotten.

More about Lionel Hampton on Wikipedia.

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Portuguse Fado Music and American Jazz Saxophone - Is There a Connection? Oh Yeah

Photo by Glyn Lowe Photoworks.

Fado music reveals the heart and soul of Portugal

Fado is a style of music that originated in Portugal in the early 1800's. Influences possibly came from the Moors, Arabia, and Africa, all of which the Portuguese had contact with. The Moors were North African Muslims who occupied Portugal and Spain from the 700's to the 1500's. They were eventually driven out by crusaders but left great influences in food, cooking, architecture and music.

Many North Americans have never heard of fado, not surprising since it's not being played on your local commercial radio station. Those that I've met and have had a chance to hear it usually fall in love with it. Musically, it's very pleasing to the ears and follows a predictable musical pattern. I think it has similarities to the Blues in America. Not so much in the harmonic chord progression of the 1, 1V, V that the blues is based on but the way the music itself came into existence and what it means and represents to its people and country today.The lyrical content of the Fado is usually about longing, lost love, hardships, the same things a blues song is usually about. Sonically it sounds much different.

I hated this music when I was a kid! Sitting in the back seat of my parent's car, being forced to listen to it, not understanding the lyrics, and it sounded so foreign next to the pop radio stations I listened to on my own time. I avoided it when I could and basically forgot about it as I grew up.

One day, in my 20's and off and away on the saxophone I heard a recording by the Portuguese jazz saxophonist Rao Kyao playing Fado music on his sax, no singing, just beautiful melodies played on a tenor. This put it in a whole new light for me. I guess I started to hear it differently since it was a sax speaking to me rather than some old Portuguese singer singing about stuff I couldn't understand, I could understand this though... Listen to Rao Kyao

The typical instrumentation is 2 Portuguese guitars which in Portuguese is called a guitara and 2 regular acoustic nylon string guitars which the Portuguese call a viola.

The biggest star of Fado was Amalia Rodrigues who died a few years ago but was active for most of the second half of the 20th century. She was known and appreciated internationally and brought the fado of Portugal to the world. There have been Plays and films written about her...

She also brought one of the great American tenor saxophonists into the studio with her group to lay some sax down on a few tracks. Don Byas was a contemporary of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, the great saxophonists of the early jazz swing era in America around 1940. But Byas moved to Europe, living in France, Holland, and Denmark in the mid 40's and remained there for the rest of his life. Fortunately, while in Portugal for a brief moment he was called into a studio session with the great Amalia and so history was made with one of the greatest American jazz tenor saxophonists together with the greatest Portuguese fado singer.

If you've never heard fado music, do yourself a favour and check it out!

*Note: For the complete article with audio samples go to JohnnyFerreira.com

By Johnny Ferreira Johnny Ferreira is an award-winning saxophonist, international touring and recording artist. Advocator of saxophone music that rocks, jumps, and swings. For more information, music, and articles including audio samples visit http://JohnnyFerreira.com Article Source: EzineArticles

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