Acid
Jazz
The
music played by a generation raised on jazz as well as funk
and hip-hop, Acid Jazz used elements of all three; its existence
as a percussion- heavy, primarily live music played it closer
to jazz and Afro-Cuban than any other dance style, but its insistence
on keeping the groove allied it with funk, hip-hop and
dance music. The term itself first appeared in 1988 as both
an American record label and the title of an English compilation
series which reissued jazz-funk music from the '70s, called
rare groove by the Brits during a major mid-'80s resurgence.
A variety of acid jazz artists emerged during the late '80s
and early '90s: live bands such as Stereo Collective, Galliano
and Jamiroquai as well as studio projects like Palmskin
Productions, Mondo Grosso, Outside and United Future Organization.
Acoustic
Blues
A
general catch-all term describing virtually every type of
blues that can be played on a non-electric musical instrument.
It embraces a wide range of guitar and musical styles including
folk, the songster traddition, slide, fingerpicking, ragtime,
and all of the myriad regional strains (Chicago, Delta, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Texas, Piedmont, etc.) that thrived in the early
days of the music's gestation. But Acoustic Blues is
not limited to merely guitar music; its "acoustic" appellation
being an elastic enough term to also include mandolin, banjo,
piano, harmonica, jug bands, and other non-electric instruments
including home made ones, like the one string monochord bottleneck
diddleybow.
Acoustic
Chicago Blues
This
describes the version of music emanating from the Windy City
in the years before the twin arrivals of Muddy Waters and
electric guitars changed everything. Chicago was recording
central for most blues recording artists of the 1930s and
1940s and most performers were plugged into was became
known as "the Bluebird Beat," an acoustic based progenitor
of the later Chicago blues band lineup. Its music is earmarked
by what is usually described as a "hokum style," heavy
on lyrics that promote a light hearted atmosphere, propelled
by a jazz influenced beat and a more city derived slant
to it.
Afro-Cuban
Jazz
Afro-Cuban
jazz is a combination of jazz improvising and rhythms from Cuba
and Africa; it is also known as Latin Jazz although several
of its practioners prefer the former term. There were some hints
of Afro-Cuban jazz in isolated cases during the 1920s and '30s
(Jelly Roll Morton's "Spanish tinge" in some of his more rhythmic
piano solos, a few Gene Krupa performances where he sought to
include South American rhythms and even in the Latin pop
music of Xavier Cugat) but one can really trace its birth to
trumpeter-arranger Mario Bauza. Bauza introduced trumpeter Dizzy
Gillespie to the masterful Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo (they
teamed up during 1947-48 to create innovative music before Pozo's
death) and also persuaded Latin bandleader Machito to use jazz
soloists. During the late '40s Stan Kenton began to integrate
Latin Rhythms in his music and, with the rice in popularity
during the 1950s of Tito Puente and Cal Tjader, Afro-Cuban jazz
caught on as one of the most popular jazz styles. In more recent
times some groups have developed Afro-Cuban jazz beyond its
boppish roots, performing Monk and Coltrane tunes, adding funk
to the mixture and having more adventurous solos. The spirit
of the music (a true fusion between North, South and Central
America) and an emphasis on infectious rhythms are the keys.
Avant-Garde
Avant-Garde
Jazz differs from Free Jazz in that it has more structure
in the ensembles (more of a "game plan") although the individual
impro- visations are generally just as free of conventional
rules. Obviously there is a lot of overlap between Free Jazz
and Avant-Garde; most players in one idiom often play in the
other "style," too. In the best Avant-Garde performances it
is difficult to tell when compositions end and impro- visations
begin; the goal is to have the solos be an outgrowth of the
arrangement. As with Free Jazz, the Avant-Garde came of age
in the 1960s and has continued almost unnoticed as a menacing
force in the jazz underground, scorned by the mainstream that
influences. Among its founders in the mid- to late 1950s
were pianist Cecil Taylor, altoist Ornette Coleman and keyboardist-bandleader
Sun Ra. John Coltrane became the avant-garde's most
popular (and influential) figure and from the mid-1960s on
the avant-garde innovators made a major impact on jazz,
helping to push the music beyond bebop.
Ballads
The
word "ballad" often has two meanings: a lyrical and melodic
piece that can be sung, or simply any selection taken at a slow
tempo. In the "AMG" we generally use the former definition while
the latter can be said to be played at a "balled tempo." Although
there were sentimental ballads in the 1800s, the idiom
came of age with the rise of the great American popular song
and such composers as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin
and Cole Porter among others. Even if there have been some standard
ballads written since 1970 (only a few from the pop and rock
fields are easily transferable to jazz), the majority of the
repertoire of jazz-influenced ballad singers tends to date from
the 1920-60 period.
Big
Band
Big
Band refers to a jazz group of ten or more musicians, usually
featuring at least three trumpets, two or more trombones, four
or more saxophones and a "rhythm section" of accompanists playing
some combination of piano, guitar, bass, and drums. "Big band
music" as a concept for music fans is identified most with the
swing era, although there were large, jazz-oriented, dance bands
before the swing era of the 1930s and 1940s, and large jazz-oriented
concert bands after the swing era.
Classification
difficulties occur when music stores shelve recordings by
all large jazz ensembles as though it were a single style,
despite the shifting harmonic and rhythmic approaches employed
by new ensembles of similar instrumentation that have formed
since the swing era.
By lumping the music of all large jazz bands together, marketers
overlook the different kinds of jazz that large groups have
performed: swing (Duke Ellington and Count Basie), bebop (Dizzy
Gillespie), cool (Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Gil Evans),
hard bop (Gerald Wilson), free jazz (some of Sun Ra's work
after the 1950s), and jazz-rock fusion (Don Ellis' and Maynard
Ferguson's groups of the 1970s). Not all of them are "swing
bands."
Many
listeners consider "big band" to denote an idiom, not just
an instrumentation. For them, the strategies of arranging
and soloing that were established during the 1930s link all
large jazz ensembles more than the different rhythmic and
harmonic concepts distinguish those of one era, for example
bebop, from those of another, for example those of jazz-rock.
Another
important consideration is that journalists and jazz fans
of the 1930s and 1940s drew distinctions between bands that
conveyed the most hard-driving rhythmic qualities and frequent
solo improvisations and those that conveyed less pronounced
swing feeling and improvisation. The former were called "swing
bands" or "hot bands" (for example, Count Basie's and Duke
Ellington's). The latter were called "sweet bands" (for example,
Wayne King's, Freddy Martin's, and Guy Lombardo's). Although
the big band era ended by 1946, there have been some large
orchestras used in jazz ever since if virtually none (other
than the Count Basie ghost band) operate on a full-time basis.
Nearly all are led by arrangers.
Boogie-Woogie
Boogie-woogie
is a jazz piano style using two pulses stated by the left hand
for every beat and the 12-bar blues chord progression as its
repertory. The brief, continuously repeating patterns from the
left hand give the style its identity. It's jazz flavor comes
from rhythmically and melodically playful phrases improvised
by the pianist's right hand.
First
popularized during the late 1920s by Pinetop Smith, boogie-woogie
experienced a strong revival during the late 1930s and early
1940s through the recordings of Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons,
Pete Johnson, Jimmy Yancey, Cripple Clarence Lofton, and Cow
Cow Davenport. This genre had considerable influence on accompaniment
styles in the popular music called rhythm & blues, as
well as the beginnings of rock 'n'roll.
Bop
Also
known as bebop, bop was a radical new music that developed gradually
in the early 1940s and seemed to explode in 1945. The main difference
between bop and swing is that the soloists engaged in chordal
(rather than melodic) improvisation, often discarding the melody
altogether after the first chorus and using the chord as the
basis for the solo. Ensembles tended to be unisons, most jazz
groups were under seven pieces and the soloist was free to get
as adventurous as possible as long as the overall improvisation
fit into the chord structure. Since the musicians were getting
away from using the melodies as the basis for their solos (leading
some listeners to ask "Where's the melody?"), the players were
generally virtuosos and some from popular music a dancing audience,
uplifting jazz to an art music but cutting deeply into its potential
commercial success. Ironically the once-radical bebop style
has become the foundation for all the innovations that followed
and now can be almost thought of the establishment music. Among
its key innovators were altoist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy
Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, drummer Max Roach and pianist-composer
Thelonious Monk.
Bossa
Nova
Influenced
by the West Coast jazz, in the 1950s composer Antonio Carlos
Jobim helped to form a new music that blended together gentle
Brazilian rhythms and melodies with cool-toned improvising,;
the rhythms are usually lightly as 3-3-4-3-3 with beats 1,4,7,11
and 14 being accented during every two-bars (played in 8/4 time).
Joao Gilberto's soothing voice perfectly communicated the beauty
of Jobim's music.
The late '50s film "Black Orpheus" helped to introduce Jobim's
compositions to an American audience and other important early
exponents of bossa nova were guitarist Charlie Byrd, tenor saxophonist
Stan Getz (Byrd and Getz teamed up for the highly influential
Jazz/Samba) and housewife-turned-singer Astrud Gilberto who,
along with her husband Joao and Getz, made "The Girl from Ipanema"
a huge hit. The very appealing bossa nova's popularity peaked
in the mid-'60s but it has remained a viable music up to the
present time.
Cabaret
As
a musical style cabaret refers to two different aspects of music.
The "night clubs" were initially opened to provide a place for
painters, writers, musicians and other artists to gather,
talk, perform and experiment. The key to understanding cabaret
as a style is that the music was all experimental. Avant-garde
styles, reactions to (or against) current trends and conventions
were formulated in the cabarets. Other styles include the music
that was performed in the cabarets when these clubs received
their repute for being associated with vice.
Cabaret music was considered bawdy, vampish, rhythmic and often
lewd considering the numerous lyrical double entendres. Melodic
lines could be smooth and soft when that form of stimulation
was wanted from and for the audience but most of the lines were
memorable, filled with motions and extended interval leaps.
There were few soft curves to these musical phrases. Cabaret
music was intended as an energized form of entertainment.
Classic
Female Blues
This
is the earliest aurally documented form of the blues. The classic
female blues singers of the 1920s were the first to get on record
and the first to have hits in the genre, subsequently reaching
a national audience and starting the first great push in recording
blues music of all styles. This strain generally features big
voiced female vocalists singing material with close connections
to pop music of the period (mid-'20s to early '30s), utilizing
primarily jazz backings, giving even the most gutbucket of performances
a more uptown air to them. The style of these women singers
is loud, brassy, sassy, and assertive with the occasional nascent
feminist sentiment being inserted into the lyrics from time
to time.
Classic
Jazz
Not
all jazz from the 1920s can be described as "New Orleans Jazz"
or "Dixieland." The 1920s were a rich decade musically with
jazz-influenced dance bands and a gradual emphasis on solo (as
opposed to collective) improvisations. Whether it be the stride
pianists, the increasingly adventurous horn soloists or the
arranged music that predates swing, much of the jazz from this
decade can be given the umbrella title of "Classic Jazz." Some
of the modern-day revivalists (many who can be heard on the
Stomp Off label) who look beyond the Dixieland repertoire into
the music of Fletcher Henderson, Clarence Williams and Bix Beiderbecke
(to name a few) can be said to be playing in this open-ended
style.
Contemporary
Funk
Contemporary
funk refers to a kind of jazz from the 1970s and 1980s in which
accompanists perform in the Black pop style of soul and funk
music while extensive solo improvisations ride atop. Instead
of using standard vocabularies of any modern jazz saxophonists
(Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman),
most saxophone improvisations in this style use their own repertory
of simple phrases that are loaded with bluesy wails and moans.
They draw upon traditions illustrated by sax solos on rhythm
& blues vocal recordings, such as those of King Curtis with
the Coasters, Junior Walker with the Motown vocal groups, and
Dave Sanborn with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
A
prominent figure in this genre is Grover Washington, Jr.,
who often solos in a Hank Crawford-like style over funk accompaniments.
These instances com- prise his best-known recordings, though
he is also capable of playing other styles of jazz. The Jazz
Crusaders (Wilton Felder, Joe Sample) achieved wide popularity
when they changed their repertory to this approach during
the 1970s and dropped "Jazz" from their band name. A considerable
portion of music by Michael Brecker, Tom Scott, and their
disciples uses this approach, though they can also play in
the jazz styles of John Coltrane and Joe Henderson. Najee,
Richard Elliott, and their contemporaries also perform in
this "contemporary funk" style.
From approximately 1971 to 1992, Miles Davis led bands in
a sophisticated variation of this style, though his saxophone
soloists also drew upon the methods of John Coltrane, and
his guitarists also showed modern jazz thinking and Jimi Hendrix
influence. Much of contemporary funk can also be classified
as "crossover."
Contemporary
Jazz
Contemporary
jazz refers to mainstream jazz performed in the '80s and '90s.
Usually, it is either a variation on classic, small group hard-bop
or slick fusion that concentrates on rhythms instead of improvisation.
Often, Contemporary jazz exhibits more rock and pop influences
than traditional hard-bop, but its bop origins are still quite
evident.
Cool
In
the late 1940s and 1950s cool jazz evolved directly from bop.
Essentially it was a mixture of bop with certain aspects of
swing that had been overlooked or temporarily discarded. Dissonances
were smoothed out, tones were softened, arrangements became
important again and the rhythm section's accents were less jarring.
Because some of the key pacesetters of the style (many of whom
were studio-musicians) were centered in Los Angeles, it was
nicknamed "West Coast Jazz." Some of the recordings were experimental
in nature (hinting at classical music), while some overarranged
sessions were bland but in general this was a viable and popular
style. By the late 1950s hard bop from the East Coast had succeeded
cool jazz although many of the style's top players had long
and productive careers. Among the many top artists who were
important in the development of Cool Jazz were Lester Young,
Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Shorty Rogers and Howard
Rumsey (leader of the Lighthouse All-Stars).
Country
Blues
A
catch-all term that delineates the depth and breadth of the
first flowering of guitar-driven blues, embracing both solo,
duo, and string band performers. The term also provides a convenient
general heading for all the multiple regional styles and variations
(Piedmont, Atlanta, Memphis, Texas, acoustic Chicago, Delta,
ragtime, folk, songster, etc.) of the form. It is primarily
- but not exclusively - a genre filled with acoustic guitarists,
embracing a multiplicity of techniques from elaborate fingerpicking
to the early roots of slide playing. But some country-blues
performers like Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker were to
later switch over the electric guitars without having to drastically
change or alter their styles.
Crossover
Jazz
With
the gradual decline of rock (from an artistic standpoint) starting
in the early 1970s, fusion (a mixture of jazz improvisations
with rock rhythms) began to become more predictable since there
was less input and inspiration from the rock world. At the same
time, now that it was proven that electric jazz could sell records,
producers and some musicians searched for other combinations
of styles in order to have big sellers. They were quite successful
in making their brand of jazz more accessible to the average
consumer. Many different combinations have been tried during
the past two decades and promoters and publicists enjoy using
the phrase "Contemporary jazz" to describe these "fusions" of
jazz with elements of pop music, R&B and world music. However,
the word "crossover" (which describes the intent of the performances
as well as the usual results) is more accurate. Crossover and
fusion have been quite valuable in increasing the jazz audience
(many of whom end up exploring other styles). In some cases
the music is quite worthwhile, while in other instances the
jazz content is a relatively small part of the ingredients.
When the style is actually pop music with only an insignificant
amount of improvisation (meaning that it is largely outside
of jazz), the term "instrumental pop" applies best of all. Examples
of crossover range from Al Jarreau and George Benson vocal records
to Kenny G., Spyro Gyra and the Rippingtons. All contain the
influence of jazz but tend to fall as much (if not more) into
the pop field.
Dance
Band
Although
virtually all jazz groups prior to the rise of bebop in the
early to mid-'40s played for dancers, the term "dance bands"
is used to describe orchestras of the 1920s and '30s whose primary
function was to play background music for dancers rather than
to serve as vehicles for jazz improvisations. The more progressive
dance bands of the early to mid-'20s (such as those led by Paul
Whiteman, Isham Jones and Ben Selvin) left some room for short
solos and by the late '20s most of the less commercial dance
bands had brief spots in their arrangements for trumpeters and
reed playersto solo after the vocal refrain. The dance bands,
although emphasizing the melody and vocalists, were generally
influenced by jazz and incorporated elements of swing after
the emer-gence of Benny Goodman in 1935 although they were often
classified as "sweet" bands. After 1945, dance orchestras became
less common, were often tied to nostalgia and were much less
relevant to jazz.
Dixieland
Because
the Dixieland revival (one could say fad) of the 1950s was eventually
overrun by amateurs, corny trappings (such as straw hats and
suspenders) and clichés, many musicians playing in that
idiom grew to dislike the term and wanted it to be changed to
"traditional" or "classic." But rather then blame the term or
the style, it seems more justifiable to separate the professionals
from the poor imitators. Dixieland, a style that overlaps with
New Orleans jazz and classic jazz, has also been called "Chicago
jazz" because it developed to an extent in Chicago in the 1920's.
Most typically the framework involves collective improvisation
during the first chorus (or, when there are several themes,
for several choruses), individual solos with some riffing
by the other horns, and a closing ensemble or two with a four
bag tag by the drummer being answered by the full group.
Although nearly any song can be turned into Dixieland, there
is a consistent repertoire of forty or so songs that have been
proven to be consistently reliable. Despite its decline
in popularity since the 1950s, Dixieland (along with the related
classic jazz and New Orleans jazz idioms) continues to flourish
as an underground music.
East
Coast Blues
This
genre combines two basic schools under one general heading.
The first and most notable consist of disciples of the Piedmont
school (primarily of the East Coast area's main Piedmont
style) who had relocated along the East Coast by the early to
mid 1950s and ended up comprising much of that city's early
blues revival scene in the mid 1960s. The second consists of
both electric R&B artists and modern performers hailing
from the area working in a variety of styles indigenous to the
overall genre itself.
Folk-Jazz
This
term is used for musicians from the 1950s on who often utilize
strong folk melodies as vehicles for solos. They tend to keep
their ears open to musical developments in other countries (world
music), emphasize quieter volumes and break down boundaries
between jazz and seemingly unrelated genres. Examples of folk-jazz
include som of the music of Jimmy Giuffre, Tony Scott (post-1959),
Paul Horn, Paul Winter and Oregon. Folk-jazz was a direct influence
on new age.
Free
Funk
Free
Funk is a mixture of avant-garde jazz with funky rhythms. When
Ornette Coleman formed Prime Time in the early '70s, he had
a "double quartet" (comprising two guitars, two electric bassist
and two drummers plus his alto) performing with freedom tonally
but over eccentric funk rhythms. Three of Ornette's sidemen
(guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer, bassist Jamaaladeen and drummer
Ronald Shannon Jackson) have since led free funk groups of their
own and free funk has been a major influence on the music of
the M-Base players including altoist Steve Coleman and Greg
Osby.
Free
Jazz
Dixieland
and swing stylists improvise melodically and bop, cool and hard
bop players follow chord structures in their solos. Free jazz
was a radical departure from past styles for typically after
playing a quick theme, the soloist does not have to follow any
progression or structure and go in any unpredictable direction.
When Ornette Coleman largely introduced Free jazz to New York
audiences (although Cecil Taylor had preceded him with less
publicity), many of the bop musicians and fans debated about
whether what was being played would even qualify as music; the
radicals had become conservatives in less than 15 years. Free
jazz, which overlaps with the avant-garde (the latter can utilize
arrangements and sometimes fairly tight frameworks), remains
a controversial and mostly underground style, influencing the
modern mainstream while often being ignored. Having dispensed
with many of the rules as far as pitch, rhythm and development
are the success of a Free jazz performance can be measured by
the musicianship and imagination of the performers, how colorful
the music is and whether it seems logical or merely random.
Fusion
The
word "fusion" has been so liberally used during the past quarter-century
as to become almost meaningless. Fusion's original definition
was best: a mixture of jazz improvisation with the power and
rhythms of rock. Up until around 1967 the worlds of jazz and
rock were nearly completely separate. But as rock became more
creative and its musicianship improved, and as some in the jazz
world became bored with hard bop and did not want to play strictly
avant-garde music, the two different idioms began to trade ideas
and occasionally combine forces. By the early 1970s, fusion
had its own separate identity as a creative jazz style (although
sneered upon by many purists) and such major groups as Return
to Forever, Weather Report, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Miles
Davis' various bands were playing high-quality fusion that mixed
together some of the best qualities of both jazz and rock. Unfortunately
as it became a money-maker and as rock declined artistically
from the mid-'70s on, much of what was labelled fusion was actually
a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight
R&B crossover. The promise of fusion to an extent went unfulfilled
although it continues to exist today in groups such as Tribal
Tech and Chick Corea's Elektric Band.
Groove
Groove
is a sub-set of soul-jazz, one that is injected with the blues
and concentrates on the rhythm. It is a funky, joyous music,
where everything in the performance is there to establish and
maintain the groove. There's a steady beat to the music, whether
it's uptempo funk or slow blues. Usually, groove is performed
by small combos that feature guitar, organ, bass and drums.
Horns, especially saxophones, can be featured, but sometimes
the presence of too many horns moves the music too close to
hard-bop, which tends to be cerebral. Groove is emotional and
physical, hitting your soul. In many ways, it's almost spiritual,
since everyone is working collectively for the greater good,
and, at its best, it locks into rhythms that are nearly hypnotic.
Groove always has funky rhythms, bluesy vamps and, usually,
gospel overtones to the playing. There a re solos, but they
are worked into the overall feeling, the overall groove of the
music, and in the end, that's what counts with groove.
Hard
Bop
Although
some history books claim that hard bop arose as a reaction to
the softer sounds featured in cool jazz, it was actually an
extension of bop that largely ignored West Coast jazz. The main
differences between hard bop and bop are that the melodies tend
to be simpler and often more "soulful," the rhythm section is
usually looser with the bassist not as tightly confined to playing
four-beats-to-the-bar as in bop, a gospel influence is felt
in some of the music, and quite often the saxophonists and pianists
sound as if they are familiar with early rhythm and blues. Since
the prime time period of hard bop (1955-70) was a decade later
than bop, these differences were a logical evolution and one
can think of hard bop as bop of the '50s and '60s. By the second
half of the 1960s, the influence of the avant-garde was
being felt and some of the more adventurous performances of
the hard bop stylists (such as Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan)
fell somewhere between the two styles. With the rise of fusion
and the sale of Blue Note (hard bop's top label) in the late
1960s, the style fell upon hard times although it was revived
to a certain extent in the 1980s. Much of the music performed
by the so called Young Lions during the latter decade (due to
other influences altering their style) can be said to play modern
mainstream, although some groups (such as the Harper Brothers
and T.S. Monk's Sextet) have kept the 1960s idiom alive.
Instrumental
Pop
Music
classified under this style is commercially-oriented music with
minimal improvisation or creative risks. The music is characterized
as generic and short in duration with simplified themes with
little or no development. Major proponents of instrumental pop
are Herb Alpert, Chuck Mangione, Kenny G., Acker Bilk, Boots
Randolph and George Benson.
Jazz
Blues
While
seemingly self explanatory, the jazz blues genre is somewhat
misleading. Many jazz musicians have roots in the blues, with
several of them providing their own interesting hybrids of the
form. Its major proponents are blues performers who have integrated
jazz stylings into their work, with surprisingly successful
results. Some of these artists work both sides of the fence
(vacillating between hard blues and jazzier sounds), while others
utilize the genre as their principal stylistic distinction.
Embracing everything from honking tenor saxophonists to big
band singers to cocktail piano stylings, the style still has
room to grow and enter a more contemporary phase.
Jazz-Rock
Unlike
fusion - which is jazz played with rock is essentially rock-based
songs played with jazz flourishes and jazz impro- visations.
When the two genres first developed in the late '60s, the genres
were nearly identical; during the early '70s they began to branch
away from each other and jazz-rock became known as a slightly
more commercial version of fusion.
Jive
Jive,
a slang word meaning (as in "don't jive me," or don't mess with
me), also became associated with a type of vocalizing popularized
in the 1930s and '40s by Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Slim Gaillard,
Leo Watson and Harry "The Hipster" Gibson, among others. Connected
musically to swing, jive featured its singers making up nonsense
syllables and humorous words, some of which are adopted by the
youth of the swing era.
Jump
Blues
This
form refers to an uptempo, jazz-tinged style of blues that first
came to prominence in the mid- to late '40s. Usually featuring
a vocalist in front of a large horn-driven orchestra or medium
sized combo with multiple horns, the style is ear-marked by
a driven rhythm, intensely shouted vocals, and honking tenor
saxophone solos- elements now associated with rock 'n' roll.
The lyrics are almost always celebratory in nature, full of
braggadocio and swagger. With less reliance on guitar work (which
was usually confined to the rhythm section) than other styles,
jump blues was the bridge between the older styles of blues-
primarily those in a small band context - and the big band jazz
sound of the 1940s.
Latin
Jazz
Off
all the post-swing styles, Latin jazz has been the most consistently
popular and it is easy to see why. The emphasis on percussion
and Cuban rhythms make the style quite dance-able and accessible.
Essentially it is a mixture of bop-oriented jazz with Latin
percussion. Among the pioneers in combining the two styles in
the 1940s were the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Machito,
and the music (which has never gone out of style) has remained
a viable force through the 1990s, played most notably by the
bands of Tito Puente and Poncho Sanchez. The style has not changed
much during the past 40 years but it still communicates to today's
listeners. Latin jazz is also sometimes called Afro-Cuban Jazz,
a term preferred by Mario Bauza and Ray Barretto.
M-Base
Short
for "macro-basic array of structured extemporization," M-Base
was developed by altoist Steve Coleman and Greg Osby, tenor
saxophonist Gary Thomas and various other young associates (including
singer Cassandra Wilson) in the 1980s. An extension of Ornette
Coleman's free funk (although with a greater use of space and
dynamics), M-Base often features crowded and noisy ensembles,
unpredictable funk rhythms and an entirely new logic in soloing
that owes little to bebop. Although the leaders of M-Base have
since gone their separate ways (occasionally regrouping in different
combinations), the influence of the music can be heard in the
playing of some of the more adventurous young musicians.
Mainstream
Jazz
The
term "mainstream" was coined by critic Stanley Dance to describe
the type of music that trumpeter Buck Clayton and his contemporaries
(veterans of the swing era) were playing in the 1950s. Rather
than modernize their styles and play bop or join Dixieland bands
(which some did on a part-time basis in order to survive), the
former big band stars (which included such players as Coleman
Hawkins, Lester Young, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Roy Eldridge,
among many others) jammed standards and riff tunes in smaller
groups. Mainstream, which was fairly well documented in the
1950s, was completely overshadowed by other styles in the '60s
and its original players gradually passed away. However, with
the rise of tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton and trumpeter Warren
Vache in the 1970s and the beginning of the Concord label (which
emphasized the music), mainstream has made a comeback that,
with its hints of both bop and Dixieland, survives up to this
day.
Modern
Electric Blues
Modern
electric blues is an electric mixture, a subgenre embracing
both the old, the new and something that falls between the two.
Some forms copy the older styles of urban - primarily offshoots
of the electric Chicago band style - right down to playing the
music on vintage instruments and using replications of amplifiers
from the period. It is also a genre that pays homage to those
vintage styles while sismultaneously recasting them in contemporary
fashion. It can also be the most forward looking of all blues
styles, embracing rock beats and pyrotechnics, and enlivening
the form with funk rhythms and chord progressions that expand
beyond the standard three usually heard in blues.
New
Orleans R&B
Primarily
a piano and horn-driven style, New Orleans R&B is the next
step over from its more bluesier practitioners. There's a cheerful
good naturedness to the style that infuses the music with a
good time feel, no matter how somber the lyrical text may be.
The music itself utilizes a distinctively "lazy" feel, with
all of its somewhat complex rhythms falling just a hair behind
the beat, making for what is known as "the sway."
The vocals can run the full emotional gamut from laid back crooning
to full throated gospel shouting, while the horn lines provide
a perfect droning backdrop. Enlivened by Caribbean rhythms,
an unrelenting party atmosphere, and the distinctive "second'line"
strut of the Dixieland music so indigenous to the area, there's
nothing quite as intoxicating as the sound of Crescent City
R&B.
New
Orleans Jazz
The
earliest style of jazz, the music played in New Orleans from
about the time that Buddy Bolden formed his first band in 1895
until Storyville was closed in 1917 unfortunately went totally
unrecorded. However, with the success of the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band in 1917 and the many performances documented in the
1920s, it became possible to hear what this music sounded like
in later years. Ensemble-oriented with fairly strict roles for
each instrument, New Orleans jazz generally features a trumpet
or cornet providing a melodic lead, harmonies from the trombone,
countermelodies by the clarinet and a steady rhythm stated by
the rhythm section (which usually consist of piano, banjo or
guitar, tuba or bass and drums). This music is a direct descendant
of marching brass bands, and although overlapping with Dixieland,
tends to de-emphasize solos in favor of ensembles featuring
everyone playing and improvising together. Due to its fairly
basic harmonies and the pure joy of the ensembles, it is consistently
the happiest and most accessible style of jazz.
Piano
Blues
A
genre that runs through the entire history of the music itself,
this embraces everything from ragtime, barrelhouse, boogie-
woogie, and smooth West Coast jazz stylings to the hard-rocking
rhythms of Chicago blues.
Piedmont
Blues
Piedmont
blues refers to a regional substyle characteristic of African-American
musicians of the south-eastern United States. Geographically,
Piedmont refers to the foothills of the Appalachians west of
the tidewater region and the Atlantic coastal plain stretching
roughly from Richmond, VA, to Atlanta, GA. Musically, Piedmont
blues describes the shared style of musicians from Georgia,
the Carolinas and Virginia, as well as others from as far afield
as Florida, West Virginia Maryland and Delaware. It refers to
a wide assortment of aesthetic values, performance techniques,
and shared repertoire rooted in common geographical, historical,
and sociological circumstances.
The Piedmont guitar style employs as complex fingerpicking method
in which a regular, alternating thumb bass pattern supports
a melody on treble strings. The guitar style is highly syncopated
and is closely related to an earlier string-band tradition integrating
ragtime, blues, and country dance songs. It's excellent party
music with a full, rock-solid sound.
Post-Bop
It
has become increasingly difficult to categorize modern jazz.
A large segment of the music does not fit into any historical
style, is not as rock-oriented as fusion or as free as the avant-garde.
Starting with the rise of Wynton Marsalis in 1979, a whole generation
of younger players chose to play an updated variety of hard
bop that was also influenced by the mid-'60s Miles Davis Quintet
and aspects of free jazz. Since this music (which often features
complex chordal improvisations) has become the norm for jazz
in the 1990s, the terms "modern mainstream" or "post-bop" are
used for everything from Wallace Roney to John Scofield and
symbolize the electric scene as jazz enters its second century.
Progressive
Big Band
Progressive
big band music is music for listening, with denser, more modernistic
arrangements than the earlier, more dance-oriented big band
styles, with more room to improvise. Major proponents of this
style were Gil Evans, Stan Kenton, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Cal Massey,
Frank Foster, Carla Bley, George Gruntz, David Amram, Sun Ra,
and Duke Ellington.
R&B
Evolving
out of jump blues in the late '40s, R&B laid the groundwork
for rock 'n' roll. R&B kept the tempo and the drive of jump
blues, but its instrumentation was more sparse and the emphasis
was on the song, not improvisation. It was blues chord changes
played with an insistent backbeat. During the '50, R&B was
dominated by vocalists like Ray Charles and Ruth Brown, as well
as vocal groups like the Drifters and the Coasters. Eventually,
R&B metamorphized into soul, which was funkier and looser
than the pile-driving rhythms of R&B.
Ragtime
Although
not really jazz (ragtime does not have improvisation or the
feeling of the blues), this early style (which was at its prime
during 1899-1915) was a strong influence on the earlier forms
of jazz. Best-known as a piano music, ragtime (which is totally
written-out) was also performed by orchestras. Its syncopations
and structure (blending together aspects of classical music
and marches) hinted strongly at jazz and many of its melodies
(most notably "Maple Leaf Rag") would be played in later years
by jazz musicians in a Dixieland context.
Soul-Jazz
Soul-jazz,
which was the most popular jazz style of the 1960s, differs
from bebop and hard bop (from which it originally developed)
in that the emphasis is on the rhythmic groove. Although
soloists follow the chords as in bop, the basslines (often played
by an organist if not a string bassist) dance rather than stick
strictly to a four-to-the-bar walking pattern. The musicians
build their accompaniment around the bassline and, although
there are often strong melodies, it is the catchiness of the
groove and the amount of heat generated by the soloists that
determine whether the performance is successful. Soul-jazz's
roots trace back to pianist Horace Silver whose funky style
infused bop with the influence of church and gospel music along
with the blues.
Other pianists who followed and used similar approaches were
Bobby Timmons, Junior Mance, Les McCann, Gene Harris (with his
Three Sounds) and Ramsey Lewis. With the emergence of organist
Jimmy Smith in 1956 (who has dominated his instrument ever since),
soul-jazz organ combos (usually also including a tenor, guitarist,
drummer and an occasional bassist) caught on and soulful players
including Brother Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff,
Charles Earland and Richard "Groove" Holmes, along with such
other musicians as guitarists Grant Green, George Benson and
Kenny Burrell, tenors Stanley Turrentine, Willis "Gator" Jackson,
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, David "Fathead" Newman, Gene "Jug" Ammons,
Houston Person, Jimmy Forrest, King-Curtis, Red Holloway and
Eddie Harris and altoist Hank Crawford were soul-jazz stars.
Despite its eclipse by fusion and synthesizers in the 1970s,
soul-jazz has stayed alive and made a healthy comeback in recent
years.
Standards
During
the golden age of the American popular song (dating from around
1915-60), a couple dozen very talented composers wrote a countless
number of flexible song that were adopted (and often transformed)
by creative jazz musicians and singers. Often originally written
for Broadway shows and Hollywood films, many of these works
(generally 32-bars in length) have been performed and recorded
a seemingly infinite number of times including "Body and Soul,"
"Stardust" and " "All the Things You Are." Such composers as
Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Hoagy
Carmichael, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Harry Warren, Fats
Waller and Duke Ellington along with other talents supplied
the jazz and pop music worlds with what must have seemed like
an endless supply of gems. Called standards (which means that
they caught on as a permanent part of the jazz and pop music
repertoire), the songs differ from less flexible "originals"
that are often put together for a record date and then quickly
forgotten. Since the rise of rock, the pop music world has been
a much less fertile area for jazz players to "borrow" material
from and, although many of the old standards are still performed,
jazz musicians and singers have had to rely much more on original
material during the past three decades.
Stride
Stride
is a style of jazz piano playing in which the pianist's left
hand maintains a continuous pulse in groups of four beats by
percussively playing a bass note on the first and third beats
and a chord on the second and fourth beats. The right hand improvises
melodies and harmonies, and the result resembles a very energetic
one-man band. It was performed by immensely talented pianists
who were able to control the piano with a power and virtuosic
force previously unknown in popular music. The style originated
in New York before the 1920s, as pianists took ragtime ad began
developing new, more swinging styles. Major proponents were
James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Joe Sullivan,
who, in turn, went on to be influential themselves. Art Tatum
and Ralph Sutton, for instance, were both influenced by Fats
Waller.
Swing
While
New Orleans jazz has improvised ensembles, when jazz started
becoming popular in the 1920s and demand was growing for larger
dance bands, it became necessary for ensembles to be written
down, particularly when a group included more than three or
four horns. Although swing largely began when Louis Armstrong
joined Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra in 1924 and Don Redman
began writing arrangements for the band that echoed the cornetist's
relaxed phrases, the swing era officially started in 1935 when
Benny Goodman's Orchestra caught on. Swing was a major force
in American popular music until the big band era largely ended
in 1946. Swing differs from New Orleans jazz and Dixieland in
that the ensembles (even for small groups) are simpler and generally
filled with repetitious riffs while in contrast the solos are
more sophisticated. Individual improvisations still paid close
attention to the melody but due to the advance in musicianship,
the solo flights were more adventurous.
The swing musicians who continued performing in the style after
the end of the big band era (along with later generations who
adopted this approach) can also be said to be playing "mainstream."
Among the many stars of swing during the big band era were trumpeters
Louis Armstrong, Bunny Berigan, Harry James and Roy Eldridge,
trombonists Tommy Dorsey and Jack Teagarden, clarinetists Benny
Goodman and Artie Shaw, tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins,
Lester Young and Ben Webster, altoists Johnny Hodges and Benny
Carter, pianists Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Count
Basie and Nat King Cole, guitarist Charlie Christian, drummers
Gene Krupa and Chick Webb, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, bandleader
Glenn Miller and singers Billie Holiday, Ella Fritzgerald and
Jimmy Rushing.
Texas
Blues
A
geographical subgenre earmarked by a more relaxed, swinging
feel than other styles of blues, Texas Blues encompasses a number
of style variations and has a long, distinguished history. Its
earliest incarnation occurred in the mid-'20s, featuring acoustic
guitar work rich in filigree patterns, almost an extension of
the vocals rather than merely a strict accompaniment to it.
This version of Texas blues embraced both the songster and country-blues
traditions, with its lyrics relying less on affairs of the heart
than in other forms. The next stage of development in the region's
sound came after World War II, bringing forth a fully electric
style that featured jazzy, single-string soloing over predominantly
horn-driven backing. The style stays current with a raft of
regional performers primarily working in a small combo context.
Third
Stream
Third
stream (a term invented by composer Gunther Schuller in 1957)
essentially means a mixture of jazz and classical music. Most
attempts at fusing the two very different idioms have been at
best mixed successes with string sections weighing down jazz
soloists.
Paul Whiteman in the 1920s, tried to (in his own words) "make
a lady out of jazz" and alternated between symphonic string
sections and classic jazz solos. Strings were used in some swing
bands in the 1940s (most inventively by Artie Shaw and Stan
Kenton's dissonant works of 1950-51), but in all cases the added
musicians were merely reading their parts and backing the improvisers.
Starting with Charlie Parker in 1949 jazz players recorded now
and then while joined by strings but it was not until the mid-
to late '50s that more serious experiments began to take place.
Schuller, John Lewis, J.J. Johnson
and Bill Russo were some of the more significant composers,
attempting to bridge the gap between jazz and classical musics.
Most musical forecasters in the mid-'50s would have predicted
that jazz's next phase would involve a fusion of sorts with
classical music but the rise of the avant-garde (which
as a spontaneity and an extrovertism that most pseudo-classical
works lack) largely ended the Third Stream movement before it
came close to catching on beyond academic circles. Since its
heyday in the late 1950s, there have been occasional Third Stream
projects ranging from significant successes (such as Eddie Daniel's
"Breakthrough" CD for GRP) to some that sound closer to pompous
muzak. Although the movement never really became a major force,
it still has potential.
Trad
Jazz
Although
the term "traditional jazz" has been used for everything from
Dixieland to the current straightahead jazz scene, "trad" was
the name for the form of New Orleans jazz that flourished in
the United Kingdom during the 1950s and '60s. Similar in style
and sound to Dixieland, the best trad bands developed their
own repertoire and distinctive approach to playing the happy
music. The most popular bands were led by trumpeter Kenny Ball
(who had a major hit in "Midnight in Moscow") and trombonist
Chris Barber and such stars as Humphrey Lyttelton, Ken Colyer
and Monty Sunshine kept the scene alive and well, at least until
the Beatles caught on.
Traditional
Pop
Traditional
pop refers to post-big band and pre-rock 'n' roll pop music.
Traditional pop drew from a repertoire of songs written by professional
songwriters and were performed by a vocalist that was supported
by either an orchestra or a small-combo. In Traditional pop,
the song is the key, and although the singer is the focal point,
this style of singing doesn't rely on vocal improvisations like
jazz singing does. Traditional pop can also refer to the orchestra
leaders and arrangers that provided the instrumental settings
for vocalists.
Urban
Blues
The
descriptive phrase, urban blues, was first used starting in
the early part of the 20th century to differentiate between
the more uptown sentiments pervasive to the style and the cruder,
more rural stylings of "country" blues artists. This term was
later used in the 1940s to describe a type of sophisticated
blues written bout the vagaries of city life, its lyrics alternately
dealing with romantic strife and the innumerable good times
to be easily obtained in an urban area. Always city derived,
the music is always earmarked by pronounced styling to smooth
supper club style vocals.
Vocal
Pop
Vocal-pop
is considerably different than Traditional pop, which is largely
comprised of standards and performed by skilled singers like
Sinatra and Bennett. Vocal-pop is considerably lighter, falling
somewhere between pop and easy listening. Vocal pop's heyday
was in the late '50s and early '60s before rock 'n' roll had
completely infiltrated all areas of popular record making. In
those days, clean-cut groups like the Four Freshmen sang sweet,
romantic and innocent songs that were given lush productions
and arrangements. Vocal-pop primarily consisted of similar groups
and sounds, the material lighter than Traditional pop, but sonically
it had more in common with those standards than it did work
with rock.
Vocalese
Vocalese
is the art of writing lyrics to fit recorded instrumental solos,
many of which end up being tongue twisters. Eddie Jefferson
was the first important vocalese lyricist in the late '40s,
although a 1929 record released for the first time in 1996 finds
Bee Palmer singing words set to Bix Beiderbecke's solo on "Singing
the Blues," Jefferson's words to Gene Ammons "Red Top" and Charlie
Parker's "Parker's Mood" resulted in a pair of hits for King
Pleasure (who also wrote some fine vocalese on his own). Vocalese
reached his highest peak with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
during 1957-62, a group featuring the genius of vocalese Jon
Hendricks, Annie Ross (famous for "Twisted") and Dave Lambert.
In later years Hendricks led the Hendricks Family (which revived
many of the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross classics) and Manhattan
Transfer sometimes used vocalese. Although it has rarely advanced
beyond bop (other than Eddie Jefferson's successful transformations
of "Freedom Jazz Dance" and "Bitches Brew"), vocalese is still
used as an option by today's jazz singers.
West
Coast Blues
More
piano-based and jazz-influenced than anything else, the West
Coast style of blues is, in actuality, the California style,
with all of the genre's main practitioners coming to prominence
there, if not actual natives of the state in particular. In
fact, the state and the style played host to a great many post-war
Texas guitar expatriates and their jazzy, T-Bone Walker style
of soloing would become an earmark of the genre.
The genre also features smooth, honey toned vocals, frequently
crossing into "urban blues" territory.
The West Coast style was also home to numerous jump-blues practitioners,
as many traveling bands of the 1940s ended up taking permanent
residence there. Its current practitioners work almost exclusively
in the standard small West Coast Jazz. Main proponents: Charles
Brown, Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulson, and Percy Mayfield.
World
Fusion
World
fusion refers to a fusion of Third World music, or just :world
music" with jazz, specifically:
1) Ethnic music that has incorporated jazz improvisations
(for example, Latin-jazz). Frequently, only the solos are
improvised jazz. The accompaniments and compositions are essentially
the same as the ethnic music.
2) Jazz that has incorporated limited aspects of a particular
non-Western music. Examples include performances of Dizzy
Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia"; music on some of the 1970s
quartet recordings by Keith Jarrett's quartet and quintet
on Impulse, in which Middle Eastern instruments and harmonic
methods are modified and used; some of Sun Ra's music from
the 1950s into the 1990s, in which African rhythms are incorporated;
some of Yusef Lateef's recordings that feature traditional
Islamic instruments and methods.
3) New musical styles that result from distinctly original
ways of combining jazz improvisation with original ideas and
the instruments, harmonies, compositional practices, and rhythms
of an existing ethnic tradition. The product is original,
but its flavor still reflects some aspects of a non-jazz,
ethnic tradition. Examples include Don Cherry's band Codona
and Nu, some of John McLaughlin's music from the 1970s and
the 1990s that drew heavily on the traditions of India, some
of Don Ellis' music of the 1970s that drew upon the music
of India and Bulgaria, work by Andy Narrell in the 1990s that
melds the music and instruments of Trinidad with jazz improvisations
and funk styles.
World
fusion jazz did not first occur with modern jazz, and its
trends are not exclusive to American jazz. For instance, Polynesian
music was fusing with Western pop styles at the beginning
of the twentieth century, and its feeling attracted some of
the earliest jazz musicians. Caribbean dance rhythms have
been a significant part of American pop culture throughout
the twentieth century, and, since jazz musicians frequently
improvised when performing in pop contexts, blends have been
occurring almost continuously. Django Reinhardt was melding
the traditions of Gypsy music with French impressionist concert
music and jazz improvisation during the 1930s in France.
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