Jazz Music

I see so little real jazz music on television or hear so little jazz music on the radio, sometimes I wonder if it ever existed at all. I studied jazz music in college. In fact I have a Masters degree in both jazz and commercial music. It wasn't until after I graduated I got serious about jazz music. If you grow up in an area rich with music, including jazz, you don't necessarily have to spend countless hours listening to recordings. You can go to the clubs and hear the music live. That's what I did. There were enough jazz musicians in both Chapel Hill and Columbia from which to learn some of the craft of jazz. You can't learn the entire history of jazz listening only to live players, unless the area in which you live is dotted with historical replica bands covering all the major style periods in the evolution of jazz music. Wow! That was a mouth full. That is why it is important eventually in your career as a musician to study, buy, and listen to jazz records starting at the beginning. The beginnings of jazz are somewhat vague, but it is easy to document the first recordings. It started in the l920's in Chicago. Jazz traveled up the Mississippi River to Chicago passing by Kansas City and St. Louis on the way. It was there the advent of recording technology began to preserve the efforts of notable jazz musicians. There is a lineage, an evolution so to speak of jazz music over the decades to come. Some of the basic style periods are: New Orleans jazz. Some people refer to this as "Hot Jazz." This was where it all started. A bustling port city rich in cultural heritage. The Creole/Cajun influence was there. French/Carib/Albino people. The brothel or whore house was an important place, because it was here this music proliferated. That should tell you it is related to some bodily function, and not eating. The "Red Light" district or French Quarter or Bourbon Street areas of New Orleans. Was jazz an illicit music? Maybe having a good time is no longer allowed in our modern American society. Snorting coke certainly went out of fashion after the l980's. I guess if you can go to jail for the rest of your life for 'trafficking' narcotics, that is an effective deterrent. (much like a majority of the over-the-top, knee-jerk reactionary legislation this neo-conservative, religious, right-wing government has enacted) Based in a reality of the human being? I think not. Along this line, how in history could the sport of skateboarding become... Are you ready? A Crime. What? A Crime. Riding a board with four little wheels over concrete and asphalt is a crime? I guess the "New School" of ollying and grinding has maimed or even destroyed public property. This has given the skate punks a bad name. They do mean to be rebellious as the catch phrase "Skate and destroy" suggests. This is why the Old School of skateboarding appeals to me. Surfing. Sidewalk surfing, a peaceful, serene, pacifying activity that nourished the soul and relaxed the mind. I never liked that term, "Skate and destroy." It is not effective propaganda for the mass acceptance of skateboarding as a national pastime. I think that needs to change, and skateboarding should be assimilated back into the mainstream. Let's get rid of the "Us vs. Them" way of thinking. Whereas Punk music once could be viewed as that avenue for rebelliousness, we need to find another style of volatile and VITAL music that characterizes our youth population. Anybody? Class? Bueller? Where is Ferris Bueller? I was startled and alarmed when a fellow skater stopped me and told me you could get a $180.00 ticket for riding a skateboard in the parking lot of a shopping mall. With the plethora of homeless people, thieves, and drug dealers in our town, I don't think the threat of a lone skater is viable. Threatened by a teenager riding a little board? Come on now. Back to jazz. The "Second Line was a style of playing that came from marching bands of the day. Black bands used to march in the streets of New Orleans, and like Glenn Miller's version of the St.Louis Blues March, the second row of snare drummer began to "swing" the formerly straight march rhythm because it felt good. I never knew that Second Line didn't "swing" in the sense of l950's style New York jazz. It doesn't really use the triplet as a subdivision. It uses syncopation like I talked about earlier. It swings with the feel of Ragtime, which I did know is straight. It swings because it is straight, and that is interesting in itself. When they attempted to shut down the Red Light district and clean up the prostitution, probably for religious and social reasons similar to the philosophy of the Bush regime, the musicians had to travel up the Mississippi to look for work in Chicago. Here, probably because of the colder climate and urban setting, the music became more "hard edged." It was faster and more aggressive, like the hustle and bustle of a large city. It stands to reason the environment in which a music is bred and thrives, like Vienna, Austria back in the High Classic Period of music history, is responsible for the "feel" of the music. There is a stark difference between Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana. Let's hope the powers at be are going to preserve the origins of this national treasure. Bill Basie was playing "Early Swing" in Kansas City, Missouri. When I discovered Early Swing, it took the place in my heart of what I learned in college as real jazz. It is more two-beat based music, like the feel from New Orleans, but it was a little more sophisticated as to serve as dance music for society. It didn't have the freedom or independence or improvisational character of the three horn based "Hot Jazz." It was more refined, more composed, and therefore more acceptable to mainstream society, just like Motown. Buck Clayton, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Jimmy Lunceford come to mind. I love this music, because it is relaxed and feels good. Mainstream World War ll Era Swing could be epitomized by the traveling Glenn Miller orchestra. This began in the Great Depression, because people were hungry for good entertainment in the midst of a national disaster of the stock market collapse. Does this mean there needs to be a national tragedy to spark an artistic renaissance? I am still waiting after 9/11 for this to happen. Not so, it seems. Swing bands were combos or small groups. They played sophisticated songs and arrangements that later grew into the Big Band. What was the first Big Band? That is a good question and "I don't know." "Why do you continually disrupt my class Mr. Spicolli?" "I just thought we could have a little food on our time!" "I don't know." I learned in college if you don't know something, the answer to a question for example, then it is quicker and more prudent to move on. Simply say "I don't know." Count Basie, or Bill Basie ended up with a Big Band, but (alliteration) you need an arranger for this. Sammy Nestico was in the military learning to write arrangements. Gil Evans started early with Claude Thornhill. It is evident there were many things happening AT THE SAME TIME, and many of them were unrelated. Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstein, and Paul Whiteman all come to mind in a mixed bag of orchestra-like musical groups. Some had more classical instrumentation, but the classic form of the Big Band resolved as: four trumpets, five trombones, five saxes, and four rhythm. Often times there was a vocalist. Jazz musicians like to solo, and harking back to the days of New Orleans probably like to play music in a more "use friendly" environment meant for only a special few. The Lester Lanin model of playing for Victorian-styled society was squaresvill man. Bebop was invented. This music was meant for the musicians enjoyment. In New York they took the dance floors out of the clubs and the club owner had to pay a hefty tax to get it back. Bebop became listening music for this reason, not to say that you could not dance to it. Cause and effect. No dance floor, people sit, drink, and listen to the music. "Yea for our government!" More later.