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America’s Musical Landscape�8th edition

Part 3:

The Growth of Vernacular Traditions

Chapter 9: The Jazz Age

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The Jazz Age, 1

As Americans danced into the beginning of the twentieth century, saloons and dance halls rang with the sounds of:

Ragtime
The two-step
Various Latin dances

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The Jazz Age, 2

Dance rhythms became more complex

Solo instrumental lines became more independent

Instrumental timbres varied

This new music, called jazz (by 1917) was as exciting to listen to as it was to dance to

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The “Jazz Age:” The 1920s

The roots of jazz date back to long before the 1920s

But in the ‘20s, the new music came to wide public attention

Performances and recordings by numerous tremendously talented musicians who would dominate the genre for decades to come

The term “Jazz Age” came from the popular writer F. Scott Fitzgerald

This term distilled the decade---the dance marathons, speakeasies, the stock market boom, Babe Ruth, and more

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The Jazz Age: Roots

Some of the roots of jazz are:

White European marches, hymns, popular dances
Creole and Caribbean influences
Stirring, hot rhythms, dramatic percussive effects, distinctive vocal and instrumental performance techniques derived from black Africa
Ragtime

Jazz styles vary widely in mood, instrumentation, tempo, and artistic intent

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The Jazz Age: Characteristics, 1

Jazz is generally:

Regular in meter
Involves blue notes

Flexible tones, slightly above or below the normal pitch
The musician “bends” (lowers or slightly raises) the pitches

Producing fluid, emotionally expressive melodic lines

Improvised to a greater or lesser extent

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The Jazz Age: Characteristics, 2

Jazz rarely entered the popular mainstream

Reached an enthusiastic segment of the popular music audience
Jazz belongs to America’s art music tradition as well

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Blues

The basis of jazz, mainly an instrumental music, is the blues

The origins, although obscure, derive from African American traditions and date from sometime in the nineteenth century

After the Civil War, slaves and newly emancipated Black Americans sang the blues

Freedom led to lives that were in many ways equally difficult

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Blues: Origin

Away from plantations and in need of money, African Americans became migrants, went to prison, or held laborious jobs digging ditches or laying railroad lines

Sometimes they expanded their “field hollers” into simple emotionally laden solo songs

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Rural or Country Blues, 1

This new kind of solo song, introduced by blacks, was:

Folklike in sound
Highly distinctive in character and form

Early, rural or country blues addressed many aspects of life, especially:

Work
Love (unrequited, betrayed, gone wrong)

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Rural or Country Blues, 2

Blues singing style

Singers expressed troubles in an unaffected, straightforward manner

Without sentimentality
Often with wry or whimsical humor

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Blues: Form, 1

Early blues form

One line of text sung three times to a familiar or improvised melody

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Blues: Form, 2

Later form

The custom was to sing the first line twice and add a conclusion or response in the form

A A B

Statement, repeat, response
Each stanza had three lines
Each line had four measures or bars

Thus, the form is known as the twelve-bar blues

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Twelve-Bar Blues

The only purely American contribution to musical form

Hard times here, worse times down the road.

Wish my man was here to share the load.

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Blues: Melodic Characteristics

Blue notes

Glissandos

Expressive slide between pitches

Vocal and instrumental

Derived from black African singing

The African custom of treating the third, seventh, (sometimes) fifth, and (less often) sixth scale degrees as neutral or ambiguous tones

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Blues: Harmony

Provided a strong, simple, and distinctive harmonic framework for the blues musicians to improvise around

Line 1: stays tonic

Line 2: IV goes to I

Line 3: V goes to IV goes to I

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Blues: Improvisation

The asymmetrical, strictly tonal, textually simple form served improvising musicians beautifully in many ways

Vocal and instrumental timbres were limited only by the performer’s imagination and availability of instruments
Possibilities abounded for subtle rhythmic adjustments over the solid and steady beat

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Text, form, melody, and harmony supported the improvisation, 1

A line of text took about 2 ½ bars to complete, with time for:

Improvisation on accompanying instruments
Scatting or scat singing: half-spoken, half sung nonsense syllables

Repetition of the first line gave time to plan the response

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Text, form, melody, and harmony supported the improvisation, 2

Melodies could be embellished and colored by scoops, slides, blue notes, other effects

The basic harmonic patterns allowed variety; the simple chords supported without getting in the way of creative ideas

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The Evolution of Rural Blues

Evolved from intensely personal introspection to a form of shared entertainment

Sung around campfires in the poorest living quarters to ease spirits after a day’s work
An instrument accompanied the voice, answering the singer and filling out a line with its own melodic interest

This call and response effect is an African tradition essential to blues
Chords and structured regularity of blues reflect white customs, but were subject to the performer’s interpretation

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Listening Example 34

Hellhound on My Trail

Composed and performed by

Robert Johnson (1911-1938)

Listening Guide page 152

Meter: Quadruple
Tempo: Slow
Form: Twelve-bar blues
The bluesy mood fits the impassioned nature of the text; the varying length of the lines indicates the informality and improvisatory nature of country blues. Hear blue notes and melodic embellishment.

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Classic Blues, 1

Classic Blues: blues conceived primarily as entertainment

Performed in theaters, clubs, and on commercially distributed recordings

Classic blues performers often had a band backing them up

Piano assumed increasing importance

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Classic Blues, 2

More professional, more stylized, and more universal than the earlier primitive or rural blues

Classic blues found a wide audience among both white and black Americans

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Blues Singers, 1

Rural blues singers were mostly men, including

Huddie Ledbetter
Blind Lemon Jefferson

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Blues Singers, 2

Early classic blues singers were mostly women

The great blues lyrics were written from a woman’s viewpoint

Most lyrics concern love—especially “love gone wrong”

1920s: Theatrical performance had become acceptable for women (white or black)

The field offered new social and economic opportunities

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Blues Singers: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939), 1

Considered the mother or the queen of the blues

Born Gertrude Pridgett, known as

Ma Rainey
Madame Rainey

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Blues Singers: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939), 2

Ma Rainey was one of the most imitated and influential classic blues singers and composers

She established a link between early rural blues and sophisticated blues performances recorded for commercial distribution

Taught Bessie Smith

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Blues Singers: Bessie Smith (1894-1939), 1

The most famous of the classic blues singers

“Empress of the blues”

Her performances:

Imbued with intense personal feeling

Embellished melodies and bent tones to communicate the deepest emotions

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Blues Singers: Bessie Smith (1894-1939), 2

Of the great classic blues recordings, Bessie Smith’s earned the most money for her recording company, Columbia Records

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Listening Example 35

Lost Your Head Blues

Performed and probably composed by Bessie Smith, voice

with trumpet and piano

Listening guide page 154

Form: Twelve-bar blues
Meter: Quadruple
Tempo: Moderately slow
Harmony: Based on the I, IV, and V chords
Hear expressive slides and blue notes in voice and trumpet

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Urban Blues

Professional publishing and recording industries recognized the commercial potential of the blues

1912: blues began to be published as sheet music
White composers started to write blues
The word “blues” appeared in titles of pieces

Including some that weren’t blues at all

1920s: Blues race records were mass produced

Race records: the unfortunate industry term for recordings intended for a primarily African American audience

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Urban Blues: For a Mainstream Audience, 1

Blues composers adapted the twelve-bar form to appeal to a mainstream (white) audience

Intended for performance by professional musicians, so-called urban blues was often more:

complex in form than earlier rural blues
sophisticated in harmony

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Urban Blues: For a Mainstream Audience, 2

Form

The three-line form was retained
But one or more verses were in four-or eight-line form

It grew popular, with close connections becoming established between instrumental jazz and urban blues

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Urban Blues and Jazz

The great blues singers made some of their finest recordings with the outstanding jazz musicians of their day

Instrumental jazz and urban blues shared:

Folk or popular heritage
Steady beat
Subtle rhythmic variations
Versatile blue notes and fluent improvisation

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Urban Blues:�W. C. Handy (1873-1958)

William Christopher Handy

African American bandleader and�composer
Called himself “father of the blues”

Led blues into the world of commercial�popular music

Played cornet in a minstrel troupe�when young
Later formed his own dance band

When the band moved to New York, Handy began writing and publishing urban blues

W. C. Handy

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Listening Example 36

St. Louis Blues

By W. C. Handy

Performed by:

Bessie Smith, vocals

Fred Longshaw, reed organ

Louis Armstrong, trumpet

Listening guide page 156

Form: Modified twelve-bar blues
Meter: Quadruple
Tempo: Slow

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New Orleans Jazz, 1

Musical instruments from Civil War military bands became readily and cheaply available

Black musicians began playing them in their own manner

Improvising freely on favorite tunes

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New Orleans Jazz, 2

New Orleans:

Small brass bands played for parades, concerts, funerals

For funerals: a famous tradition that survives today

After solemn processional music to and from the cemetery—waiting for an interval—the band breaks into joyous music celebrating mourners’ healthy return to everyday life

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New Orleans Jazz: The Bands, 1

The bands’ instrumental techniques became more individual

Tempos became faster
Mood became more high-powered and intense

Some of the musicians knew how to read music

Most did not, and improvised freely on familiar tunes

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New Orleans Jazz: The Bands, 2

Small bands called combos of black musicians provided indoor entertainment

The hot new dance music combined with the steady beat and stirring tempo of European march and dance tunes, with:

complex syncopations with an African and Caribbean quality

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New Orleans Jazz:�The City of New Orleans, 1

New Orleans’ rich cultural climate featured music including:

Popular French, Spanish, Creole, and black tunes
Serious and comic opera
Marching, dance, and concert bands

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New Orleans Jazz:�The City of New Orleans, 2

The city generously nourished the new vernacular sound

The Storyville red-light district, gambling saloons, bordellos, and dance halls offered job opportunities for jazz musicians

New Orleans produced a large number of astonishingly talented jazz musicians

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New Orleans Jazz: Combos

Consisted of three to eight players

Clarinet, cornet, trumpet, trombone, rhythm section

Rhythm section included banjo, tuba, drums
Later combos playing indoors added piano, and sometimes replaced tuba with string bass

Musicians improvised around a popular tune

The rhythm section marked a beat, a straight four-to-the-bar

ONE two three four

These early performances were collective improvisations with soloists taking turns improvising complex variations on a melody

Other musicians provided rhythmic and harmonic support

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New Orleans Jazz: �Louis Armstrong (1900-1971)

Armstrong began as a cornetist

Played in King Oliver’s band as a boy
Formed his own band in the early 1920s
Called the Hot Five; later, the Hot Seven
Made important jazz recordings including�his wife’s composition “Hotter Than That”�(Listening example 43)

Armstrong switched to trumpet

Developed amazing virtuosic techniques

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Louis Armstrong, 1

As an instrumentalist

Expressive, technically brilliant solo improvisations

The wide emotional range of his playing greatly expanded musicians’ and listeners’ concept of what jazz was all about

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Louis Armstrong, 2

Armstrong also sang

Scatted creatively, humorously, expressively

Finding sadness, humor, or elation in a song, he delivered them as natural, purely human statements

Personalized his performances in a way no one had before; made the music his own

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Listening Example 37

Hotter Than That (excerpt)

By Lillian Hardin Armstrong

(1898-1971)

Performed by Lillian Hardin

and the Hot Five

Listening Guide page 159

Meter: Quadruple
Tempo: Fast
Instruments: Cornet, trombone, clarinet, piano, banjo, guitar

Notice how the cornet,

trombone, and clarinet take

turns improvising while the

other instruments provide

rhythmic accompaniment.

Armstrong’s cornet solos

dominate. In his scat singing

Armstrong “plays” his voice

like another instrument,�revealing a seemingly

limitless range of creative

and expressive techniques.

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Chicago Jazz, 1

1920s:

Authorities shut down New Orleans’s lucrative Storyville district

Many outstanding jazz artists moved to Chicago
Chicago became the new performing and recording center for jazz
The city had a large population, thriving speakeasies, fledgling recording opportunities

Also jobs in railroads, stockyards, mills

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Chicago Jazz, 2

Jazz musicians from all over the country were attracted to the city

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Chicago Jazz: Dixieland

Young white musicians in Chicago became enamored of the sounds of the New Orleans combos

Dixieland: The term for this white imitation of New Orleans jazz

The term Dixieland came to be applied to all early jazz

However, musicians distinguished between New Orleans Dixieland and Chicago Dixieland

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Dixieland

Chicago combos added a saxophone to the New Orleans instrumentation

Replaced the banjo with a guitar

The tension and tempo of the big city defined Chicago jazz

Chicago jazz began and ended with more complex improvisations than New Orleans musicians used
Emphasized the role of soloists to a greater degree
Contained a marked backbeat

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Before the end of the Roaring Twenties…

The heart of jazz shifted again, to New York City, where there were:

Numerous combos
Many jazz pianists

Kansas City jazz: another important regional jazz style that was already evolving

It would reach its peak in the next decade

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Jazz Piano

Jazz pianists, whose instrument could sound its own harmonies:

Could practice independently of others
Enjoyed greater opportunities than other jazz instrumentalists to maximize their individuality

Developed distinctive styles influential in the transfer from ragtime to jazz

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Jazz Pianists, 1

Jelly Roll Morton

Often considered the first jazz composer
The most innovative writer of “hot tunes” before Duke Ellington
Combined ragtime and boogie-woogie techniques

Earl Hines (1903-1983)

Played with a swinging, flexible style usually associated with band instruments, not piano

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Jazz Pianists, 2

Art Tatum (1910-1956)

One of the most admired pianists in jazz history
Combined complex, ingenious harmonic changes and powerful technique with elements of stride piano style

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Jazz Piano: Boogie-Woogie, 1

Boogie-Woogie or piano blues was a popular piano style combining the form and harmony of blues and a faster tempo and dance beat

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Jazz Piano: Boogie-Woogie, 2

Unlike ragtime, this style was improvised

Syncopated right hand melody
Rhythmic left hand ostinato

An eight-to-the-bar accompanying pattern (subdividing the four beats of a measure into eight pulses, in the pattern LONG-short-LONG-short-LONG-short-LONG-short) resulted in complex cross rhythms, with brisk tempo and driving intensities.
The fast tempo and power of Boogie-Woogie made it fun to dance and listen to

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Stride Piano, 1

Retained the regular left-hand metrical pattern of ragtime

Alternating low bass notes on one and three with midrange chords on two and four under an improvised melody in the right hand

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Stride Piano, 2

James P. Johnson (1894-1955)--The “father of stride piano”

Furthered the transition from ragtime to jazz
Played more dissonant, loosely structured, more strictly improvisational, and more highly syncopated music than other 1920s jazz pianists

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Listening Example 38

Carolina Shout

By James P. Johnson

Listening guide page 162

Meter: Duple
Form: After a four-measure�introduction, the piece goes�through five strains followed�by a cascading four-bar coda,�or ending section

Johnson composed other kinds

of music as well, including “The Charleston,” which flappers joyously danced through the roaring twenties, but he is best remembered for great stride compositions such as this one

A shout was a form of religious

dance popular on plantations throughout the nineteenth century

in which slaves expressed,

according to African custom,

their new Christian fervor

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Fats Waller (1904-1943), 1

Studied jazz piano with James P. Johnson

Developed his own legendary jazz piano style

More driving, intense, and virtuosic than Johnson’s

One of the great jazz entertainers

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Fats Waller (1904-1943), 2

Composer of hundreds of tunes

Rarely wrote out his pieces in full

Wrote a simple melody line and fragmentary additional notations

None of Waller’s published compositions or piano rolls is considered representative of the performances Waller would have realized from the same pieces

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Coming in the 1930s…

Sweet jazz soothed troubled audiences during the Great Depression

Real jazz—hot, and mostly black—went underground during that era

But during the 1930s

Jazz found a popular audience
Big band music came into its own

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