sign in sign up
<<
Home , Bloomdido, Charlie Parker, Jazz standard, Swing era, Swing music, Take Five

SWING

Definition of style

“ There was a time, from 1935–1946, when teenagers and young adults danced to - orientated bands. When jazz dominated pop charts and when influential clarinettists were household names. This was the era. ” — , Du Noyer, Paul (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (1st ed.). Fulham, London: Flame Tree Publishing. p. 128. ISBN 1-904041-96-5. The (also frequently referred to as the "big era") was the period of time (around 1935– 1946) when was the most in the United States. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_era

Characteristics of style

A typical song played in Swing style would feature a strong, anchoring section in support of more loosely tied wind, brass. During the swing era, string and/or vocals sections were also common. The level of improvisation that the audience might expect at any one time varied depending on the arrangement, the band, the song, and the band-leader.

The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, and improvise a solo within the framework of his bandmates playing support. As a song progressed, multiple soloists would be expected to take over and individually improvise their own part; however, it was not unusual to have two or three band members improvising at any one time.

Many of the songs during the swing era were selections from the . The music of the swing era is often regarded as one of the most influential precursors to music, as it helped popularize many American "standards." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_music#1935-1946:_The_Swing_Era

Most influential band leaders & examples of famous tunes

Count Basie – One O’Clock Jump – C-Jam – Fascinating Rhythm – Comparison of styles: Duke Ellington and

Orchestra:

Duke Ellington Orchestra Leader is pianist; Leader is pianist; Experimental approach to timbre, using a lot of Much less experimental approach to timbre, doubling on woodwinds (flutes, ) and using natural sounds of instruments most of the mutes on brass (plunger & harmon); time; Creative & extended arrangements; Less creative approach, but writes extended / longer arrangements; Big Band instrumentation, often doubling, but Standard Big Band instrumentation, occasional often no guitar; doubling, often guitar; Sometimes features vocalists; More often features vocalists; Not a straight ahead Swing sound; Very straight ahead Swing sound; Improvisation is important. Improvisation is important.

Terms from the Swing Era

Big Band A type of that originated in the United States and is associated with Jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments of between 12 to 25 musicians. A standard 17-piece instrumentation evolved in the Big Bands, for which many commercial arrangements are available. This instrumentation consists of five (most often two altos, two tenors, and one baritone), trumpets, four (often including one bass ) and a four-piece rhythm section (composed of drums, acoustic bass or electric bass, and guitar). In various popular music styles, riff refers to a brief, relaxed phrase repeated over changing . It may serve as a refrain or melodic figure, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instruments that form the basis or accompaniment of a . Riffs can be as simple as a tenor honking a simple, catchy rhythmic figure, or as complex as the riff-based variations in the head arrangements played by the Count Basie Orchestra. Hits Short, single notes (often harmonised) played by brass and/or saxophone sections as background figures, especially during solos or melodies. Swing A "swing note" or "shuffle note" is a performance practice, mainly in jazz-influenced music, in (rhythm) which quaver notes are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. In the swing era, swing meant accented triplets (shuffle rhythm), suitable for dancing. With the development of and later jazz styles independent of dancing, the term was used for far more general timings. Walking A walking bass is a style of bass accompaniment or line, common in baroque music and jazz, Bass which creates a feeling of regular quarter note movement. Thus walking bass lines generally consist of unsyncopated notes of equal value, usually quarter notes. Walking bass lines use a mixture of scale tones, arpeggios, chromatic runs, and passing tones to outline the of a song or tune, often with a melodic shape that alternately rises and falls in pitch over several bars. To add variety to a walking , bassists periodically interpolate various fills, such as playing scale or arpeggio fragments in swung eighth notes, plucking muted percussive grace notes (either one grace note or a "raked" sequence of two or three grace notes), or holding notes for two, three, or four beats. BEBOP

Definition of style

Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by fast , instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and . It was developed in the early and mid-. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop

Characteristics of style

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast , asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers. The music itself seemed jarringly different to the ears of the public, who were used to the bouncy, organized, danceable tunes of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller during the swing era. Instead, bebop appeared to sound racing, nervous, erratic, and often fragmented. But to jazz musicians and jazz music lovers, bebop was an exciting and beautiful revolution in the art of jazz.

While swing music tended to feature orchestrated big band arrangements, bebop music highlighted improvisation. Typically, a theme (a "head," often the main melody of a pop or of the swing era) would be presented together at the beginning and the end of each piece, with improvisational solos based on the chords of the tune. Thus, the majority of a song in bebop style would be improvisation, the only threads holding the work together being the underlying played by the rhythm section. Sometimes improvisation included references to the original melody or to other well-known melodic lines ("quotes" or "riffs"). Sometimes they were entirely original, spontaneous melodies from start to finish.

Chord progressions for bebop tunes were often taken directly from popular swing-era songs and reused with a new and more complex melody, forming new compositions. This practice was already well- established in earlier jazz, but came to be central to the bebop style. The style made use of several relatively common chord progressions, such as blues (at base, I-IV- V, but infused with II-V motion) and '' (I-VI-II-V, the chords to the 1930s pop standard ""). Late bop also moved towards extended forms that represented a departure from pop and show tunes.

Bebop musicians also employed several harmonic devices not typical of previous jazz. Complicated harmonic substitutions for more basic chords became commonplace. These substitutions often emphasized certain dissonant intervals such as the flat ninth, sharp ninth, or the sharp eleventh/tritone. This unprecedented harmonic development which took place in bebop is often traced back to a transcendent moment experienced by while performing "Cherokee" at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, , in early 1942. As described by Parker: I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used, ... and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes. I couldn't play it I was working over "Cherokee," and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. It came alive. The classic Bebop combo consisted of saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums, and piano. This was a format used (and popularized) by both Charlie Parker (alto sax) and (trumpet) in their 1940s groups and recordings, sometimes augmented by an extra saxophonist or guitar (electric or acoustic), occasionally adding other horns (often a trombone), or other strings (usually ) or dropping an instrument and leaving only a quartet.

Although only one part of a rich jazz tradition, Bebop music continues to be played regularly throughout the world. Trends in improvisation since its era have changed from its harmonically-tethered style, but the capacity to improvise over a complex sequence of altered chords is a fundamental part of any .

A few of the most influential artists of Bebop

Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet) Charlie Parker (alto sax) , (piano) , (drums)

A few examples of famous Bebop tunes

Ko Ko (Charlie Parker) (Charlie Parker) Straight, No Chaser (Thelonious Monk) (Dizzy Gillespie)

Terms from the Bebop Era

Bombs Dropping bombs is a bebop drumming technique developed and popularized by jazz drummer Kenny Clarke in the 1940s in which a drummer plays spontaneous, accented hits on the snare drum or the bass drum. Tritone In music theory, the tritone is strictly defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones. For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three adjacent whole tones F–G, G–A, and A–B. Altered chord In jazz and jazz , the term altered chord, notated as an alt chord (e.g. G7alt), refers to a dominant chord, "in which neither the fifth nor the ninth appears unaltered". – namely, where the 5th and the 9th are raised or lowered by a single semitone, or omitted. Altered chords are thus constructed using the following notes, some of which may be omitted: root, 3, ♭5 and/or ♯5, ♭7, ♭9 and/or ♯9.

Altered chords may include both a flatted and sharped form of the altered fifth or ninth, e.g. G7♭5♯5♭9; however, it is more common to use only one such alteration

per tone, e.g. G7♭5♭9, G7♭5♯9, G7♯5♭9, or G7♯5♯9. Substitute chord In music theory, is the advanced technique of using a chord in the place of another, often related, chord in a chord progression. Jazz musicians often substitute chords in the original progression to create variety and add interest to a piece. The substitute chord must have some harmonic quality and degree of function in common with the original chord, and often only differs by one or two notes. In a , the substitute chord only differs slightly from the original chord. If the original chord in a song is G7 (G, B, D, F), the tritone substitution would be D♭7 (D♭, F, A♭, C♭). Note that the 3rd and 7th notes of the G7 chord are found in the D♭7 chord (albeit with a change of role). The tritone substitution is widely used for V7 chords in the popular progression "ii-V-I". In the key of C, this progression is "d minor, G7, C Major". With tritone substitution, this progression would become "d minor, D♭7, C Major," which contains chromatic root movement. When performed by the bass player, this chromatic root movement creates a smooth-sounding progression. "Tritone substitutions and altered dominants are nearly identical...Good improvisers will liberally sprinkle their solos with both devices. Rhythm Changes In jazz and , "rhythm changes" refers to the chord progression occurring in 's song "I Got Rhythm". This pattern, "one of the most common vehicles for improvisation,"[1] forms the basis of countless (usually uptempo) jazz compositions, was popular with swing-era musicians.

COOL JAZZ

Definition of style

Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it. often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of .

Development and Characteristics of style

In 1947, formed a band that included tenor saxophonists , , and , and baritone saxophonist . The result was the "Four Brothers" sound, in which four strong improvisers could still perform well as a coordinated, blended section. The Herman band's recording of "Early Autumn" launched Getz's career. Meanwhile, between 1946 and 1949, baritone saxophonist and arranger , arranger , and alto saxophonist were all working for the Orchestra, whose instrumentation included a French horn and tuba.

In 1948, formed a nonet including Mulligan, Konitz, and Evans from Thornhill's orchestra. Capitol Records recorded the group in 1949 and 1950. These recordings, originally issued as 78 rpm records, were later compiled as (1957). Gerry Mulligan explained that the idea behind Davis's Nonet was not to get away from bebop, but "just to try to get a good little rehearsal band together. Something to write for…. As far as the 'Cool Jazz' part of it, all of that comes after the fact of what it was designed to be." As for Davis, his concern at the time was simply to play with a lighter sound, which he believed to be more expressive.

The Miles Davis Nonet's existence was brief, consisting only of a two-week September 1948 engagement at the Manhattan's and the three recording dates that make up Birth of the Cool. These recordings were not widely appreciated until some years later. However, they prefigured the work of nonet members and Gerry Mulligan.

John Lewis went on to co-found the , who incorporated classical forms, such as the fugue, in their music. Tanner, Gerow, and Megill note that the Quartet "played classical forms quite precisely. For example, the fugues they played were truly baroque in form except that the exposition parts were improvised." While music would combine classical elements with jazz, the Modern Jazz Quartet used these forms "just to play good, swinging, subtle jazz" and in pursuit of "the joy of collective improvisation and counterpoint."

Gerry Mulligan, with , formed a pianoless quartet that was both innovative and successful. Later, Mulligan formed a "Tentette" that further developed the ideas he had brought to the Birth of the Cool nonet.

George Shearing's , which used a more subtle bebop style, also influenced cool's development. Both Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie praised Shearing's approach.

While Davis, Lewis, Mulligan, and Shearing's efforts were rooted in bebop, other musicians were less indebted to that style. In New York, pianist and saxophonist Lee Konitz developed a "somewhat atonal cerebral alternative to bop which concentrated on linear improvisation and interweaving rhythmic complexities". In California, hired alto saxophonist , forming a quartet. Both Konitz and Desmond used an approach that ran counter to bebop, in the sense that neither player employed a sound or style heavily indebted to Charlie Parker (or Parker's blues elements). In a 2013 interview, Konitz noted that "the blues never connected with me," and further explained "I knew and loved Charlie Parker and copied his bebop solos like everyone else. But I didn't want to sound like him. So I used almost no vibrato and played mostly in the higher register. That's the heart of my sound."

A few of the most influential artists of Cool Jazz

• Miles Davis, Chet Baker (trumpet) • Dave Brubeck, Lennie Tristano (piano) • Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz (alto sax) • Stan Getz (tenor sax() • Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax) • Gil Evans (arranger) A few examples of famous Cool Jazz tunes

• Boplicity by Miles Davis Nonet from the album “Birth Of The Cool” (Instrumentation, Arrangement, Harmonies, Backgrounds during improvisations) • Blue Rondo a la Turk by Dave Brubeck Quartet from “Time Out” (Classical influences, Form, Changes between Classical & Blues) • Walking Shoes by Gerry Mulligan (Baritone sax as frontline instrument, No piano, Counterpoint improvisations, Arrangement, Harmonies, Backgrounds during improvisations)

Comparison: the saxophone styles of Charlie Parker to that of Paul Desmond:

Charlie “Bird” Parker Paul Desmond Bright tone; Dark / Classical tone; Lots of tension, dissonance, colour in solos; Much less tension, dissonance, colour in solos; “Rough”, unpolished approach; “Clean”, sophisticated approach; Exploring new sounds/ideas in Jazz; Using Classical techniques as basis; Non-academic background and approach; Academic background and approach; Fast, virtuoso playing most of the time. Fast, virtuoso technique, but not always that important.

C-Jam Blues

"" is a jazz standard composed in 1942 by Duke Ellington and performed by countless other musicians, such as Dave Grusin, , and . As the title suggests, the piece follows a twelve-bar blues form in the key of C major.

The piece typically features several improvised solos. The final solo continues in the upper register as the entire ensemble comes in and the music grows to a climax. The melody likely originated from the clarinettist in 1941, but its origin is not perfectly clear.

Analysis of C-Jam Blues

Original Key C major (what else?!)

12-bar Blues (Jazz Blues)

Form I7 IV7 I7 I7 IV7 IV7 I7 V7/ii-7 ii-7 V7 I7 (V7/ii-7 ii-7 V7)

Tonality Major throughout

Melody & A two note quaver riff consisting of the fifth degree of the scale repeated in a Rhythm syncopated pattern before leaping up to the tonic. Ko Ko

"Ko-Ko" is a 1945 bebop recording featuring Charlie Parker on , with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

The piece starts in the key of E flat minor.

A recording ban, imposed by the American Federation of Musicians from 1942-1944, prevented musicians in the nascent bebop movement from recording new works during the crucial formative period of this emerging . As a result, "Ko-Ko" is considered by many to be the very first time Bebop was ever recorded.

Charlie Parker said that while playing Ray Noble's tune "Cherokee," "I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing." He had played that piece so many times that by the end he hated it, but he had mastered the chords perfectly in all 12 keys. "Ko-Ko" has a partially improvised head and the chords are based on "Cherokee". Analysis of Ko Ko

"Ko Ko," Charlie Parker 32-bar AABA “pop song form” (based on the chord progression of "Cherokee") Intro 0:00

Parker, A 0:25 A 0:38 B 0:50 A 1:03 alto sax

A 1:16 A 1:28 B 1:41 A 1:54

Max A 2:06 A 2:18 Roach, drums

Coda 2:35 Chord Progression over solos (based on “Cherokee”)

A-Section Bb Bb F- Bb7 Eb Eb Ab7 Ab7 Bb Bb C7 C7 C- G7 C- F7 A-Section Bb Bb F- Bb7 Eb Eb Ab7 Ab7 Bb Bb C7 C7 C- F7 Bb Bb B-Section Db- Gb7 Cb Cb Cb- E7 A A A- D7 G G G- C7 C- F7 A-Section Bb Bb F- Bb7 Eb Eb Ab7 Ab7 Bb Bb C7 C7 C- F7 Bb C- F7

"Ko Ko" is a variation on one of Charlie Parker's favourite tunes: "Cherokee," an "Indian love song" written in the late 1930s. Parker plays for only two choruses on the recording (he played for much longer when he performed this tune with the Jay McShann band), but since two choruses is all that will fit on the record, that's what we have.

0:00 Most Bebop tunes begin with a head - a composed section that fits neatly over the chord progression. "Ko Ko" instead begins with a kind of sketch: an elaborate introduction that gives no sense of the tune that is to come. The first thing we hear is a line, played in octaves by Parker's alto sax and Gillespie's trumpet. The only accompaniment is the pulsing snare drum, played with brushes by Max Roach. 0:06 Brief solo passages by Gillespie, followed (at 0:13) by Parker. With no accompaniment other than the snare drum, the lines seem particularly bare and abstract, even for Bebop. Although the musicians are improvising harmonically, there's no sense of a chord progression. 0:19 A thump from the bass drum signals the conclusion of the introduction. Parker and Gillespie return to another composed section, this time harmonized. After a brief back-and- forth bit (followed by another bass drum thump - 0:22), they conclude totally unaccompanied (0:23-0:25). In this brief silence, Roach exchanges his brushes for regular drum sticks. The tune finally begins.

0:25: It's now Charlie Parker's solo, based on the chord progression of "Cherokee." Let's begin by listening to the rhythm section. The drummer plays primarily on the ride cymbal, a halo of sound that is punctuated by unexpected bass drum accents (0:28, 0:33). We can catch glimpses of the pianist : sustaining chords at first (0:28-29), later offering a rhythmic accompaniment (0:32ff) that shadows Parker's . The bass plays a walking bass line: since it is not reinforced by the bass drum, it is occasionally drowned out by the drummer's bass drum.

Parker's solo begins (0:25) with a phrase suddenly ending on a dissonant pair of notes - the kind of rhythm that was undoubtedly one source for the term "be-bop." Sometimes the solo contains occasional dramatic outbursts (0:29-0:31), but more often it is a continuous string of fast eighth notes. The rhythms are disorienting - not because the tempo is extraordinarily fast, but because of the accents are constantly shifting, sometimes accentuating the , sometimes not. It sounds natural, but it's not. The sense of rhythmic trickiness is augmented by hints of even faster notes--the swooping upbeats at 0:34 and 0:36, for example. The line is already going very fast, but these bits are even faster. Time is being sliced up so finely that the mind can barely contain it.

Parker's method of accenting is subtle - too subtle to try to demonstrate graphically, but worth thinking about as you listen. As with on "Weather Bird," he tends to use ghosting: backing off of some notes as a way of accenting others. Like Armstrong, his sense of melodic line is strong. It has a kind of singing quality - even if it goes so fast that it's virtually impossible to imagine singing to it!

1:16 A famous moment in jazz history: Charlie Parker, one of the giants of modern jazz, shows his connections to the past by quoting a phrase from jazz: the solo from "High Society." The surprising thing is how well it works.

1:41 The bridge to "Cherokee" is complicated - a sudden shift from the home key of B-flat major to a series of remote keys. Parker's take in the middle of the second chorus is especially remarkable. The pianist plays the chords on the downbeat, but Parker plays arpeggios (broken chords) in a rhythmically tricky fashion. Which beat is he on? Why (and how) does he shift in and out of focus so quickly? It's all a big jumble. After messing with our minds for several seconds, Parker abruptly changes the subject with rapid, descending spills of notes (1:48-1:49). Such sudden shifts of thought (and this is only a brief example) are typical of the entire solo.

2:07 The next soloist is Max Roach, who alternates snare drum licks with bass drum drops in rapid fashion. It's wild, disorienting, and increasingly complicated, but it also occurs within the tune's AABA format (Roach is playing over the first two A sections).

2:29 Once Roach's solo is finished, the introduction returns as a coda. Notice that the solos are indeed improvised, because they sound quite different, covering different harmonic territory. The back-and- forth octave drop (2:51), which had previously served as an introduction, now comes as the piece's sudden and inconclusive end.

Take Five

"" is a jazz piece composed by Paul Desmond and performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet on their 1959 album Time Out. Recorded at ' 30th Street Studio in on July 1, 1959, fully two years later it became an unlikely one-hit wonder and the best-selling jazz single of all time. Written in the key of E-flat minor, it is famous for its distinctive two-chord piano vamp; catchy blues-scale saxophone melody; imaginative, jolting ; and use of the unusual quintuple (5/4) time, from which its name is derived. It was first played by the Quartet to a live audience at the Village Gate in New York City in 1959.

The inspiration for this style of music came during a U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of Eurasia. In Turkey, Brubeck observed a group of street musicians performing a traditional Turkish folk song with supposedly Bulgarian influence that was played in 9/8 time, a rare meter for Western music (traditionally called "Bulgarian meter"). After learning about the form from native symphony musicians, Brubeck was inspired to create an album that deviated from the usual 4/4 time of jazz and experimented in the more exotic styles he experienced abroad.

While "Take Five" was not the first jazz composition to use the , it was one of the first in the United States to achieve mainstream significance. Released as a single initially on September 21, 1959, its chart potential was fulfilled only after its re-release in May 1961, reaching #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 9 that year and #5 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart three weeks later.

"Take Five" was re-recorded and performed live multiple times by The Dave Brubeck Quartet throughout the group's career. In addition, there have been many covers of the piece. Some versions also feature lyrics, including a 1961 recording with lyrics written by Dave Brubeck and his wife Iola, sung by Carmen McRae. performed an unusual scat version of the song in Germany in 1976.

"Take Five" has been included in countless movies and television soundtracks, and still receives significant radio play. It was for several years during the early 60s the theme music for the NBC "Today" program, the opening bars playing half a dozen times and more each day.

Upon his death in 1977, Desmond left the rights to royalties for performances and compositions, including "Take Five", to the American Red Cross, which has since received combined royalties of approximately $100,000 per year.

Analysis

Key: E flat minor Form: ABA: Head (Main Theme, 2nd Theme, Main Theme) Theme-Solo-Theme: Song (Head, Improvisation/Solos, Head) Instrumentation: Alto Sax, Piano, and Drums • Intro • A short repeated melodic and/or rhythmic idea. This is play by Piano/Bass/Drum in the intro. • Vamp • A repeated chord progression. The vamp is played by the piano. • Anacrusis • An incomplete bar or phrase. A pick-up or an lead in. Here the anacrusis is played by the Alto into the main theme. • Swing Feel • Rhythm that is based on a syncopated triplet feel. • Blue Notes • The b3, b5 and b7 of a blues scale. • Second Theme • Opens with a one bar motif that is then developed. • Sequence • A repetition of a motif (riff) either played a little higher or lower than previously. eg. Second Theme • Main Theme Harmony • Minor Tonality: Eb- (and Bb-7) • Second Theme Harmony • Change to Major Tonality: CbMaj7 (and GbMaj7) tonal centres. • Groove • The combination of a vamp and a riff, created by Piano, Bass and Drums. • Head • The main theme played by the Alto. It comes at the start (head) and end of the piece. • • Rhythmic accent on up beat or off beat.