TAIPEI TIMES MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1 0 , 2 0 0 8 PAGE 1 3 Become a connoisseur of jazz with this phrase guide and a little history BY JOHn FordHam THE GUARDIAN, LONDON Tom Stoppard and Almost Free Theatre could play a Dixieland/trad jazz 15-minute Hamlet to cut out the prevarications and Traditional New Orleans and Chicago styles of the If welcome the masses in the 1970s, we can do the same for 1920s revived by enthusiasts from the 1940s on, jazz in 2008. So here’s how to translate jazzspeak; follow the plot, as a rootsy reaction against the perceived cerebral and nod in the right places. style of bebop. First, you need a story line, which goes roughly like this: Check out Humphrey Lyttelton: Bad Penny Blues. In the early 20th century, in the post-slavery American south, “jass” or “jazz” coalesces out of street marches, work songs, Free jazz/free-improv hymns, mutated African and European classical music and blues. An approach to improvisation begun in the 1950s Louis Armstrong, a child of the New Orleans red-light district, in an attempt to let solos off the leash imposed Above: Edie Adams, center, with Duke Ellington shows the world how a trumpet can deliver the improvised by a repeated theme or chord pattern — and to at the piano in 1962. Navigating jazz’s rich history equivalent of an operatic aria. let groups improvise collectively, with the players requires knowledge of the genre’s lexicon. With the help of the phonograph and a dance craze, the 1920s listening and reacting instantly to each other’s ideas. Right: Wynton Marsalis is pictured in Dizzy’s Club at are dubbed the jazz age. The 1930s swing era, with its big-band Check out Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz. Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Twenty years into heroes Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Benny Goodman, has his role as artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln massive youth appeal. But its eventual commercialism triggers Funk Center, Marsalis and the institution have a complex and more ascetic 1940s reaction — bebop. Bop is a Funk — which originally meant dirty, earthy and bluesy — emerged become virtually indistinguishable. fast-moving small-group music of intricate melodies and subtle in the 1950s as a reaction against the Europeanized, chamber-music PHOTOS: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE chords — and saxophonist Charlie Parker is its hipster JS Bach. sound of cool jazz. Because bop is a cerebral music, jazz begins to be displaced as a pop music by rock in the 1950s. Trumpeter Miles Davis makes Harmolodics jazz cooler, John Coltrane’s sax makes it densely passionate, Obscure concept coined by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, referring Ornette Coleman’s makes it more structurally freewheeling to a reflexive, total-improv approach in which a player can react and loose. An expressionist 1960s movement (avant-garde melodically, harmonically and rhythmically at once. or free jazz) explores full-on improvisation without reliance on hooks or themes — it loses the wider public, but has a Head devoted following. The original theme of a song. When bandleaders point to their Funky and electric jazz-rock or fusion, develops in the heads after a succession of solos, it’s an instruction to go back to 1970s to slipstream rock’s popularity, its stars including the theme. Miles Davis and Joe Zawinul’s Weather Report. A 1980s revival of pre-fusion acoustic jazz follows, with young Hot licks trumpeter Wynton Marsalis as its standard bearer. The Derisory term in jazz, referring to the repetition of familiar or different persuasions evolve and intertwine through the predictable phrases in a solo, usually to elicit a predictable 1990s — and jazz becomes increasingly a world music, audience reaction. with creative independent scenes springing up all over the world, especially in Europe. Mainstream Revivalist style of the 1950s onward, recovering lyrical small-group Acid jazz swing styles of the 1930s, with Count Basie’s music a favorite source. DJ-derived term for clubbers’ enthusiasm in the late 1980s and early 1990s for 1960s Modal jazz soul-bop styles. Spawned a new generation 1950s reaction against the painting-by-numbers of jazz dancers. styles of only improvising over recycling chord- Check out The James Taylor Quartet: patterns. Modal jazz is based on sequences of Absolute. scales more than chords, and seeks to make improvisers more melodically creative. Bebop/Bop Check out Miles Davis: Kind of Blue Mostly small-group reaction against big- band swing formulae, using more advanced Multiphonics harmonies and devious melodies. Named after Playing two or three notes simultaneously on a wind or reed the sound of its frequently fast, nervy phrasing. instrument only designed to produce one at a time — now widely Check out Charlie Parker: The Complete Dial used as an effect. Sessions. Post-bop Blue Note/Blues Roughly describes post-1980s instrumental Crucial African-rooted jazz ingredient, occurring when the third jazz, phrased with busy melodies and sharp and seventh notes of a regular scale are roughly flattened, creating rhythmic turns like bebop, but drawing on many a slurred or bent note. Also the name of a legendary jazz record recent developments including fusion and label. Blues and rock still use these sounds within a melody/counter free-improvisation. melody/melody 12-bar structure. Check out Michael Brecker: Time Is of the Essence. Boogie woogie Ragtime Blues piano style with a rocking, repeating left- African-American proto-jazz form, in which the hand bass line, begun around 1900 but later accompaniment is syncopated or — “ragged” significant in the sound of rock ‘n’ roll. — so that the underlying beat falls between rather How to speak Check out Meade Lux Lewis: 1927-1939. than on the accents of the tune. Check out Joshua Rifkin: The Entertainer — the Changes Very Best of Scott Joplin The chord sequence to a song. Being able to improvise over “the changes” — sometimes without rehearsal or familiarity with the Riff or vamp other players — is a crucial jazz skill. Repeated, rhythmically punchy short phrase, sometimes played by a brass or reed section behind an improviser. Circular breathing Mostly a saxophonist’s technique, for simultaneously breathing in Scat through the nose and blowing through the instrument, to create a Improvisational singing style, mimicking an instrumental solo with sound without pauses. Frank Sinatra was reputed to have learned nonsense syllables and percussive sounds. circular breathing while singing with Tommy Dorsey’s band, which enabled him to hold notes for longer. In truth, that’s unlikely. Swing A regular beat, but with disguised and ongoing polyrhythmic Cool School tweaks. Central to the sensuous, ambiguous feel of a typical jazz 1950s reaction against bebop’s often pulse. frenetic momentum, with pianist Lennie Tristano its guru. The melodies are as Third Stream tricky as bop’s, but the approach is Variant of 1950s Cool School music, often setting quiet and low-key. jazz improvisation within European classical Check out Lennie Tristano: Lennie frameworks. Tristano Check out The Birth of the Third Stream PLANET The Sopranos. The display of heavily politicized condemned the prank. their hit American Boy. The Britney and Justin still share art by finalists competing for the Obamamania met Beatlemania It was West’s second onstage murder trial of one bond: Madonna. Kandinsky Prize is considered Thursday, as Liverpool hosted an appearance at the European Sopranos actor In separate appearances, a knock against Western critics MTV Europe Music Awards show awards — but the first time by Lillo Brancato Jr is Britney Spears and Justin who say freedom of expression energized by the city’s musical invitation. The rapper stormed scheduled to begin just Timberlake performed Thursday has been curtailed by the heritage and the US presidential the stage at the 2006 show in days after his co-defen- night during Madonna’s show at Kremlin, though Russia’s deputy election. Copenhagen after he failed to dant is sentenced. Dodger Stadium. minister for culture, Pavel Pink and Kanye West took win the Best Video prize, telling A Nov. 17 trial date was The former pop power couple Khoroshilov, sits on the prize’s home prizes — Spears won two the crowd that “if I don’t win, the set Friday for Brancato. 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They are broadcast on 21 Armento, who shot the Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Liu were said it apologized unreservedly the show and also was named channels in 40 European countries. officer, was convicted of first- among those in the first few rows. for the “grossly offensive and best new act, appeared in a dress The MTV Europe Music degree murder on Oct. 30. He Madonna took a moment from unacceptable’’ prank. emblazoned with Obama’s face and Awards were held on Thursday. faces life in prison without parole her turn onstage to lament the The BBC was forced to defend quipped that “maybe Europeans POP at his sentencing on Friday.