chapter 72 early jazz
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Chapter 72
Early Jazz
Early Jazz
• Jazz refers to several styles of American popular music that emerged in the early 20th Century.
• It is a type of music that mixes elements from:– ragtime– blues– popular songs– dance music.
• Its roots reach back to earlier types of improvised music of African Americans.
Characteristics of Early Jazz
• The most likely birthplace of jazz is New Orleans [the term “jazz” was applied to music played in a free manner by small dance bands.]
• These bands were subdivided into a group of instruments:
- playing melody (often cornet, clarinet, trombone) - instruments playing accompaniment ( a “rhythm
section” often made up by piano, drums, and bass).
• A distinctive feature of their music-making was group improvisation, in which all of the melody instruments created a closely knit polyphony.
• Dance music (prior to the Big Band phenomenon of the late 1920’s)– had no single identity in medium or form.
• Popular songs around 1900 were strophic compositions – in which each stanza (or verse) was ended by a refrain (called a
chorus).
Typical Characteristics of Piano Rags
• Rag - is a march-like piano character piece– in which a syncopated melody – is joined to a rhythmically regular
accompaniment
• moderate march tempo
• duple meter
• percussive treatment of the piano
• pieces composed and played as written
• multi-thematic, multi-sectional form – with contrasting trio sections
Typical Characteristics of Early Blues
• Blues – was originally an improvised strophic song whose stanzas (or choruses) span 12-measure phrases – and rest upon a fixed and simple harmonic
progression.
• flexible in medium (vocal or instrumental)
• swinging rhythms
• wide range of expression
• use of blue notes (the expressive lowering of a note by ½ step – especially the 3rd or 7th degree of the major scale.
Scott Joplin, “Maple Leaf Rag,” 1899
Multithematic, multisectional form
James P. Johnson, “Carolina Shout,” 1921
Multithematic, multisectional form
Bessie Smith, “Lost Your Head Blues,” 1926
12-measure blues form (variational)
King Oliver, “Dippermouth Blues,” 1923
12-measure blues form
Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues,” 1928
12-measure blues form