American Point of View
Definition
Jazz is an American art form that originated sometime around the turn of the 20th century. Its roots lie in the blues, which is believed to have been carried across the Atlantic Ocean to America during the slave trade of the Colonial era. Since its birth in New Orleans, the music has spread all around the globe and has evolved into many different and distinct styles.
Elements commonly found in jazz are improvisation, modal scales, and bent notes. Brass instruments such as the trumpet and saxophone are typically played along with the piano and drums. Jazz has never been concretely defined, and there are several opinions on what is and what is not jazz.
Prominent artists include Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and many others. A large number of musicians did not reach their peak in popularity until after their deaths and remain overlooked. Despite this, their contributions have and continue to influence other genres of music.
Jazz was brought to Europe in 1918 when an all-black army regiment from New York landed in France to prepare for battle in World War I. The regiment included a marching band, and French audiences soon became captivated by its music. The first international jazz festival was held in Paris in 1949, and there are now over fifty festivals held each year all over the world.
The Big Band era was the only time that jazz was the most popular form of music in America. Its journey into the mainstream began in the 1930's when band leader Benny Goodman hired Fletcher Henderson, who's band in the 1920's featured Louis Armstrong and saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. Henderson's orchestra was the most popular of the 1920's, and together with Goodman they refined the sound to give birth to the 'Swing' style.
The swing bands typically had about a dozen to twenty-five members, but some exceeded fifty. Unlike the Dixieland that came before it, it featured little improvisation and was highly arranged. The rise of Big Band occurred at the same time that the radio industry took flight, which helped spread the music to both coasts.
The success of Goodman's band paved the way for Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and bands that were formed by members. The infatuation with Big Band ended soon after World War II, but many continued with the style for decades after.
Bebop was created in the clubs of Harlem, namely Minton's Playhouse, in the early 1940's. It served as a reaction to the Swing music of the 1930's, and the early Beboppers were seen as outsiders and noncomformists. Jazz historian Leroi Jones observed, "These musicians seemed no longer to want to thought of merely as 'performers,' in the old Cotton Club-yellow hiney sense, but as musicians. And this was an unforgivable change of emphasis for a great many people."
Musicians that played regularly together at Minton's were Charlie Parker, drummer Kenny Clarke, pianist Thelonious Monk, and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. A new and radically different style of drumming became a central component of Bebop, courtesy of Clarke. Bebop shifted focus back to the soloist and away from the arranger.
Bebop groups almost always consist of a trumpeter, drummer, saxophonist, pianist, and bassist. The tempo is usually much faster than the jazz of the Big Band era. It was written off by critics because it was not "real" jazz, but gained acceptance in years following.
Fusion
The fusion of jazz and other styles of music started in the late 1960's as experimentation with electric instruments associated with rock became more common. The genre is credited as a creation of Miles Davis, who left his mark on virtually every direction that jazz took in his involvement of more than fourty years. The seeds were planted in Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro, but 1969's In A Silent Way is regarded by most as the first jazz fusion album.
Bitches Brew, also released in 1969, is the quintessential album of jazz fusion. It was unlike anything that had ever been done before, featuring electric piano, guitar and title track of twenty-seven minutes. New production techniques and touches added by Teo Macero were also important to the overall sound.
Members of Davis' bands steered the movement in the 1970's. John McLaughlin, who played guitar on both In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, formed his own band named the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Joe Zawinul assembled Weather Report, and Herbie Hancock found fame with his Headhunters.
Several artists from the rock spectrum took notice of the work that Davis and his collective put out. Carlos Santana recorded albums with both Alice Coltrane and John McLaughlin, Frank Zappa moved toward instrumental jazz-rock (Hot Rats, The Grand Wazoo), and band such as the Soft Machine and Caravan became central figures of the 'Canebury Rock' scene in England.
Jazz-Rap: Starting in the late 1980's, groups based primarily in New York began to blend horn samples of old recordings with the rhythms of hip-hop. These samples were then made into 'loops' to go along with the drums. Taking cues from predecessors such as the Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and Grandmaster Flash, many of the songs dealt with issues pertaining to both the African-American community and the nation as a whole.
Pioneers De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, and A Tribe Called Quest formed the Native Tongues Posse and often collaborated with each other on albums. The genre has never been commercially successful, but their work has been met with very little criticism. The Native Tongues had a large impact on alternative and underground rap, being cited as an influence by Gang Starr, Organized Konfusion, Main Source, Digable Planets and even French rapper MC Solaar.
3 Feet High and Rising (De La Soul), The Low End Theory (A Tribe Called Quest), In Full Gear (Stetsasonic), and Mecca and the Soul Brother (Pete Rock and CL Smooth) are all essential albums of the genre. More recently, producer Madlib released Shades of Blue, a remix album of Blue Note records.
Vocal Jazz
Jazz is not entirely instrumental. Louis Armstrong contributed scat vocals to many of his own songs, and improvised in the same way that the musicians did. His 1926 song Heebie Jeebies displays one of the first examples of scat singing.
Ella Fitzgerald worked with numerous orchestras throughout her career, among them being Armstrong's Hot Five. Bessie Smith also recorded with Armstrong until her early death in 1937. Along with Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan are the most important female jazz singers of the 1940's and 50's.
Janis Joplin gained fame with her distinct style of singing and owed much of it to the aforementioned. She replaced Bessie Smith's unmarked tombstone shortly before her own death in 1970. Jefferson Airplane's (named after Blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson) Grace Slick and Joni Mitchell
