IB Music SL Jazz – Chapter 3 Roots of Jazz. The Roots of Jazz Jazz is also rooted in the cultural...
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Transcript of IB Music SL Jazz – Chapter 3 Roots of Jazz. The Roots of Jazz Jazz is also rooted in the cultural...
IB Music SL
Jazz – Chapter 3
Roots of Jazz
The Roots of Jazz
• Jazz is also rooted in the cultural trends that reached back far into the nineteenth century.
• Jazz synthesized various kinds of (primarily African American) music making, such as: – folk traditions– popular culture – European concert music
• Radical changes in dance music in the first two decades of the twentieth century
• The new technologies of radio and recording.
• What kind of music is jazz? – Congressional resolution of 1987
• Art form• Popular music• Folk music
• Jazz is an African American music. • musicians may be black or white or any other
ethnicity. • African American: not a race but rather an ethnic
group (cultural) • Ethnic features like music can be learned and
shared. • African American musical principles
• Folk Traditions – Serve to establish a persistent musical identity – Helped create the hybrid nature of American culture – Various Genres
• Ballads• Work songs• Field hollers
• Spirituals: call and response with religious poetry. – Two kinds: polished Fisk Jubilee singers style; orally
transmitted Pentecostal church singing. – By 1920s, gospel music had developed. Spirituals
are highly interactional, which influenced jazz musicians.
• Blues – Three-line (AAB) stanza distinguishes
it from other forms, which usually were structured with two or four lines. Blues also has a distinctive chord progression.
– Unlike the ballad, the blues was personal
– Country Blues • Combination of folk elements and new
technology• Performed by solitary male musicians
accompanying themselves on guitar in the American South; form was loose
– Vaudeville (Classic) Blues • When blues crossed over into pop music, jazz
musicians got involved. • Blues became more codified (twelve-bar
stanzas)• W.C. Handy: Recordings • Bessie Smith (1894-1937)
• Popular Music – Minstrelsy
• Blacks found they could make more money highlighting their blackness.
• Racism made it difficult for black performers to succeed
• In 1843 in New York, the Virginia Minstrels put on a show in blackface
• Racist exaggerations in appearance and behavior were typical.
• White audiences enjoyed these depictions.
• Black performers – After Emancipation, black
performers started to perform in minstrelsy
– Racial stereotypes persisted in vaudeville, film (The Jazz Singer), and radio (Amos and Andy).
– Musicians, such as Louis Armstrong, who acted in film had to play into these stereotypes.
– Dance Music • Early slave musicians used their
music for dance • Nineteenth-century musicians were
hired as servants. – The dancing craze
» Late nineteenth century» Early part of the twentieth
century dancing began done in restaurants and cabarets.
– The Castles and James Reese Europe (1881-1919)
» African American-derived dances became a fad for white America
» The music was not toned down and was often ragtime.
» The Castles' musical director was James Reese Europe
» World War I» Europe died in 1919 » He left two kinds of dance
bands: small and inexpensive, suited for jazz, and large dance orchestra
• Art Music – Learning music theory and notation is
important– Through public education, blacks learned
classical music – Classically trained blacks went to jazz to
make a living – Brass Bands
• Originally from England, they became the "people's" orchestra.
• John Philip Sousa (1854-1932). Took over the U.S. Marine band and made it into a top-notch, world-famous concert ensemble.
• Every town had a brass band made up of local townsfolk to play at parades and dances. – Brass bands and jazz
» African Americans formed their own brass bands
» Influenced jazz directly through march form» The third strain is the trio and is in a new key
• Ragtime – Ragtime embodied the mix of
African American and white art, popular, and folk musics.
– The name comes from "ragged time."
– Coon Songs • Early form of ragtime (later form of
minstrelsy)• Cakewalk: a ragtime exhibition dance
parodying white formal dancing • Ragtime pieces and Scott Joplin (1868-
1917) – Improvised piano ragtime– Born in East Texas– 1894 settled in Sidelia, Missouri, led a
black marching band and studied composition.
– Moved St. Louis then New York; published rags, a ballet, and an opera
– Died in 1917 of syphilis
• The Path to Jazz: Wilbur Sweatman (1882-1961) – Wilbur Sweatman represents the new generation of musicians
– A clarinet player in show business, he became well known around 1910.
– Ragtime composer
– In 1916 he made his first recordings
• When Does Ragtime Become Jazz? – By 1916 recording was taking over from the publication of sheet
music
– Black musicians provided music that offered a new sense of cultural identity
– Jazz as we know it started in New Orleans, as ragtime, blues, march music, and social dance combined.