Jazz Is the Most Democratic Music Ever to Evolve

Listening to Jazz

An Overview

Jazz has freely imported influences from diverse cultural and musical elements forming a type of music accepted as uniquely American

Jazz is the most democratic music ever to evolve

Truly American music

·  Jazz was often called “America’s classical music”

At the beginning jazz players did not foresee its acceptance as an art form

Jazz could have developed only in the United States

·  Required all the elements, good and bad

·  Rich African oral tradition of the slave culture and the formal schooling practices inherited from the Western European musical tradition

·  The urban and rural folk music as well as the white and black church music practices

·  The marching bands, the blues, the hopelessness of slavery

Historical Frame of Reference

Limited information about the emergence of jazz due to the recording capabilities of the time

We cannot notate the typical expressive singing style at that time

Understanding Jazz

Requires understanding of the jazz performer

Jazz is about personal, unique expressions

Jazz is not static within its own tradition

The interpretation of music in the jazz style-African Americans attempted to express themselves using the European music instruments in a vocal manner

HOW jazz music was played was more important than WHAT was being played

Impossible to notate the exact jazz interpretation

What to Listen for in Jazz

To appreciate music the listener must be actively involved. Understanding and enjoyment of music go hand and hand

·  Mental concentration

·  Concentrate on the non-visual elements

·  Music moves in time

·  Memory

The primary aim is to focus the attention on the various musical events as they unfold

In listening to music one must forget the visual and concentrate on the non-visual elements

Sounds associated with jazz

·  Personal expression is more important than aesthetic conformity.

o  Vibrato, bends, growls, slurs-imitating the vocal style

o  Distinctive jazz instrumentation

Improvisation and Composition

·  Classical music vs. Jazz music idiom

·  Jazz Composition

o  Composed composition-completely notated and performers are expected to perform exactly what is written (Big Band)

o  The performers may play the melody exactly but place a distinctive interpretive style (The Blues)

o  The performer may make so many changes in the melody that is barely recognizable (Swing)

o  The performer may play over the chords of a song (Be Bop)

o  The performer may create an entire musical performance without any deference to a known melody (Free Jazz)

o  Performers may improvise collectively to create new musical performances (Early New Orleans ensembles)

Rhythm – Syncopation

·  An emphasis on rhythm has always been an integral part of jazz. For many years, jazz was considered primarily dance music

·  The jazz players do not always play exactly in rhythm with the pulse

o  syncopation-places accents between the basic beats in the music, displacement of the “downbeats”

o  syncopation is responsible to a great extent for the “swing feel” most often associated with jazz.

Form

·  The overall structure of a musical composition or performance

·  Many jazz pieces have relatively simple forms