Aaron Copland School of Music Queens College
MUSIC 38 (Music in American Culture): History of Jazz Instructor: David R. Adler ([email protected])
Course Objectives: Students will gain a working knowledge of jazz at every stage of its evolution, including the present. We will begin with the rudiments of musical and listening analysis (form, harmony, instrumentation, etc.), and also look closely at jazz’s social context, its unique role in cultural history.
Steering clear of dogmatic either/or viewpoints, the course will consider jazz as both an American music and a world music; an art music and a popular music; an improvised music and a composed music; a traditional music and a radical, still-evolving music; an African-American music and a music that transcends race.
We will examine the work and influence of key soloists and composers as well as overlooked figures; track the dramatic changes in jazz ensemble interplay over time; and delve into critical, aesthetic, and cultural debates that have swirled around jazz since its birth.
Most of today’s arguments about the future of jazz are versions of arguments that have been ongoing for decades. One key goal of the course is to equip students to think about the current musical environment in a historical way — a habit of mind that can and should translate to other areas of life.
The course will proceed for the most part chronologically, but with the awareness that jazz is “a circular art,” in Dan Morgenstern’s words, a matter of “great ears taking in each other’s messages” — not simply a cumulative succession of names and dates. Detours from the linear narrative are to some extent built into the endeavor.
Required Textbook: Scott DeVeaux & Gary Giddins, Jazz (College Edition, W.W. Norton), available in either paperback or (lower-priced) digital ebook format. Note: The textbook’s accompanying four-CD set is also essential to the course. Purchase is recommended, but the set will also be on reserve in the library for a period of time to be determined.
Be advised that the book and CD set are rentable from the Queens College Bookstore.
For students wishing to purchase the ebook: Go to www.nortonebooks.com, choose the “Music” discipline from the left side bar, and then find “Jazz ebook.” Click “buy.”
There are two ebook options, so please read carefully: you may select either an online version, which can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection and expires 365 days from purchase; or a download that is tied to the one downloading personal computer and does not expire. Again, if you select the downloadable ebook, you’ll only be able to access it from the one downloading computer; if you select the online version, you can access it from any computer. With both versions, any highlighting or notes you take in the ebook can be saved in your file, online or on your computer. Most students select the online version, so that they can use the ebook from any machine – but the ebook is the same, no matter which access method you select.
Supplemental study materials for the textbook are available at http://www.wwnorton.com/college/music/jazz/. Once you purchase the book or ebook, make a note of your registration code. Navigate to Music, then select the Jazz StudySpace site. Also note the supplemental listening lists at the end of each textbook chapter, and the appendices and comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book. These will guide you in your research. 2
Students are expected to complete all the assigned reading and listening, regardless of whether we cover all the textbook material and listening examples in class.
Instructor will also provide links to a set of supplemental readings (referred to below) — these are strongly recommended, as they will help raise the level of our class discussions.
Assignments and Grading Policy: •Class participation (one-third of grade): Students are expected to contribute questions about, and reactions to, the topics and listening examples presented in class. Students should also keep a listening journal throughout the semester, noting the artist name, selection title, and other pertinent information about each track of music played in class, along with brief personal responses and interpretations. This information will prove essential for end-of-semester review.
•Research paper (one-third of grade): Students will write a research paper of 7–10 pages, due by the end of the semester. You must submit a topic and rationale for approval by [date TBA]. Acceptable topics are wide-ranging: you may focus on the evolution of a particular jazz instrument, the contributions of a particular artist, the significance of a particular recording or group of recordings, or an aspect of jazz and social history such as race, gender, the impact of technology, art versus commerce, and so forth. However, once chosen, the topic should be focused and specific. (Double- or 1-1/2 spaced, please.)
Note: Academic dishonesty, such as cheating and plagiarism, is prohibited at The City University of New York and is punishable by penalties, including failing grades, suspension, and expulsion. Please review the Queens College policy on academic integrity here: http://web.cuny.edu/academics/info-central/policies.html
•Final exam (one-third of grade): After the last class session there will be a final exam period (date, time and further details TBA). Note: Please do not make travel plans at semester’s end that might conflict with the date of the final exam — be sure to consult with the course instructor before you make your arrangements.
Session 1 Course overview; elements of music Jazz then and now: introductory listening exercise and discussion; overview of course materials and requirements; begin discussion of musical elements (rhythm, harmony, timbre, instrumentation).
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapters 1 and 2; write 1–2 pages giving a bit of your background, your musical interests, your hopes and expectations for the class (will not be graded—due [date TBA]).
Session 2 Elements of music, continued More on the foundations of musical and listening analysis: blues form, pop song form, fundamentals of improvisation.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 3.
Session 3 The roots of jazz, part 1 Work songs and spirituals; country blues and “classic” blues; minstrelsy and vaudeville.
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Session 4 The roots of jazz, part 2 String bands, brass bands, dance bands; ragtime and “syncopated orchestras.”
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 4.
Session 5 Jazz emerges Etymology of “jazz”; cultural history of New Orleans; Buddy Bolden & Freddie Keppard; the first popular jazz recordings (Original Dixieland Jazz Band).
Session 6 New Orleans and beyond Baby Dodds; Jelly Roll Morton; Sidney Bechet; King Oliver with Louis Armstrong.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 5. Supplemental: Lewis Porter, “Responses to Early Jazz, 1919 to 1934,” from Jazz: A Century of Change; autobiographical excerpts by Willie “The Lion” Smith and Leora Henderson, from Reading Jazz.
Session 7 New York and the Jazz Age, part 1 Fletcher Henderson (with Armstrong, Don Redman); Paul Whiteman and “symphonic jazz”; early Duke Ellington.
Session 8 New York and the Jazz Age, part 2 Harlem stride piano; Tin Pan Alley and Broadway.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 6. Supplemental: Dan Morgenstern, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” from Living With Jazz.
Session 9 The rise of the jazz soloist, part 1 Visit to Louis Armstrong Archives (on QC campus).
Session 10 The rise of the jazz soloist, part 2 Coleman Hawkins’s debt to Armstrong (with Fletcher Henderson and later); Earl “Fatha” Hines; Bix Beiderbecke (with Frank Trumbauer); the Austin High Gang.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 7. Supplemental: Alyn Shipton, “International Jazz to World War II,” from A New History of Jazz.
Session 11 The Swing Era - introduction Dance bands and arranging; later Fletcher Henderson; Benny Goodman (orchestra and small groups).
Session 12 Major Swing Era bands Benny Carter, Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway; Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Glenn Miller.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 8. Supplemental: Ethan Iverson’s blog series on Lester Young.
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Session 13 Count Basie and the Southwest Territory bands, boogie-woogie and Kansas City jazz; Andy Kirk with Mary Lou Williams; Count Basie, old and new testament bands.
Session 14 Duke Ellington With Ben Webster, Billy Strayhorn, later works.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 9.
Session 15 Great Swing Era soloists Coleman Hawkins’s “Body and Soul”; Lester Young, pre- and post-Basie; Billie Holiday (with Young, Teddy Wilson); Ella Fitzgerald.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 10.
Session 16 Rhythm in transition Charlie Christian, Fats Waller, Art Tatum; Jimmy Blanton, Walter Page and the bass; Chick Webb, Papa Jo Jones, Big Sid Catlett and the drums.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 11. Supplemental: Leonard Feather, “Goffin, Esquire, and the Moldy Figs,” from Reading Jazz; Lewis Porter, “Reactions to Bebop,” from Jazz: A Century of Change; Steve Coleman’s Jazz.com article on Charlie Parker.
Session 17 Bebop, part 1 Small- and big-band bebop; Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie; birth of modern Latin jazz.
Session 18 Bebop, part 2 Bud Powell, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro, Sonny Stitt; Norman Granz and Jazz at the Philharmonic; bebop and the issue of the jazz audience.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 12.
Session 19 Cool and Third Stream Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool; Lennie Tristano and Tadd Dameron; Third Stream, John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet; Dave Brubeck.
Session 20 Hard bop Horace Silver, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers; Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Wes Montgomery.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 13. Supplemental: “What Is a Jazz Composer?” by Charles Mingus, liner notes to Let My Children Hear Music (1971).
Session 21 Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus The evolution of jazz composition in the 1950s.
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Session 22 George Russell and Gil Evans And other innovative composers.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 14.
Session 23 Miles Davis The rise of an icon. First quintet through Filles de Kilimanjaro.
Assignments: Read Ben Ratliff, “You Must Die,” from Coltrane: The Story of a Sound.
Session 24 John Coltrane The Prestige, Atlantic and Impulse periods. The great Coltrane debate.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapter 15.
Session 25 The Avant-Garde, part 1 Soloists and leaders: Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra.
Session 26 The Avant-Garde, part 2 Collectives: The AACM, BAG, Jazz Composers Guild. Europe and the avant-garde.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapters 16 & 17. Supplemental: Stanley Crouch, “On the Corner: The Sellout of Miles Davis,” from Reading Jazz; Howard Mandel, excerpt from Miles Ornette Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz (pp. 50–67).
Session 27 Fusion, before and after 1960 Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz; R&B and soul; Bitches Brew and the great Miles Davis debate; Weather Report and the post-Miles wave.
Assignments: Read Jazz, chapters 18 & 19. Supplemental: Nate Chinen, “In the Blogosphere, An Evolving Movement Brings Life to a Lost Era of Jazz,” from The New York Times, 2006.
Session 28 The “young lions” and beyond Re-narrating the ’70s; the rise of Wynton Marsalis; “smooth jazz” in historical context; “jazz about jazz.”
Bibliography Edward A. Berlin, Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History (University of California Press, 1980)
Stanley Crouch, Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz (Basic Civitas Books, 2006)
John Gennari, Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz: The First Century (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Gary Giddins, Weatherbird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century (Oxford University Press, 2004)
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Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz (Oxford University Press, 1997)
Robert Gottlieb, ed., Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now (Vintage Books, 1996)
LeRoi Jones, Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music That Developed From It (Morrow Quill, 1963)
Robin D. G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press, 2009)
George Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
Howard Mandel, Miles Ornette Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008)
Dan Morgenstern, Living With Jazz: A Reader (Pantheon Books, 2004)
Lewis Porter, Jazz: A Century of Change (Schirmer Books, 1997)
Lewis Porter, John Coltrane: His Life and Music (University of Michigan Press, 1999)
Ben Ratliff, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (Picador, 2007)
Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (Oxford University Press, 1968)
Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (Continuum, 2001)
Alyn Shipton, Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway (Oxford University Press, 2010)
A.B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business (Limelight Editions, 1966)
Martin Williams, The Jazz Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1970)