Jazz Singers (Essay)

For decades the question has been asked: What is a jazz singer? Some listeners claim that a vocalist has to scat like a horn (what do they consider Billie Holiday?) while others say that simply swinging is enough (do they include Tony Bennett and Jack Jones?).

Here is the most logical definition. A jazz singer is a vocalist who brings his or her own interpretation to a song and improvises through words, sounds, notes and/or phrasing. The difference between a jazz and a pop singer (and the same can be said for musicians) is that a jazz vocalist is spontaneous in concert. The goal is not to duplicate a record (although arrangements and frameworks can be followed), but rather to express how one feels at the moment. Respect can be shown for the original lyrics and melody, but if one is only duplicating the written music, the chances are that the singer falls into the cabaret area.

New Orleans Brass Bands (Essay)

What sets brass bands in New Orleans apart from other variants is the wide spectrum of functions they serve as an aspect of the festival traditions of the Crescent City. While many of the Black brass bands of the late 19th century (such as the Excelsior, the Eureka, and the Onward) began as marching units, with the rise of jazz near the turn of the century the interpretation of their functional connection to events such as parades and funerals underwent a major change. Taking the "jazz funeral" as an example, the use of dirges and hymns on the way to the cemetery remained constant, but the return trip began to move away from strict renditions of marches, loosening up the 6/8 march beats into a funkier 2/4 rhythm with a danceable backbeat. As the bands plied the neighborhoods of the city (on their way to favorite "watering holes"), a "second line" of gyrating dancers would spill onto the streets, becoming a part of the swelling procession and daring the band to heat up the playing. The expressiveness of the dancing encouraged the musicians to respond in kind, creating a vortex of intensified feeling designed to purge the members of a deceased's family and fraternal order of their sense of loss, replacing it with a celebration of life and a sense that the dear departed had gone on to "a better place." Whether in Mardi Gras parades or for the annual marches of the numerous Benevolent Associations and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, New Orleans brass bands have become world-renowned for their ability to evoke an unequalled excitement and involvement from their audiences, forcing even the most impervious listeners to "shake it."

Jazz in Turkey (Essay)

The music of Turkey has so impressed past visiting jazzmen that many wrote music incorporating the local rhythms and colors. A few examples are Brubecks "Blue Rondo A La Turk," "Turkish Bath" by Don Ellis, and John Surman's "Galata Bridge." Closer to an "exotic" vogue is Pete LaRoca's album Turkish Women at the Bath, while Lennie Tristano's "Turkish Mambo" (definitely not a mambo) may have some Turkish connection as a dedication to the Ertegun brothers, two Turks that definitely played a major role in black music and jazz in the USA. Let's not forget Atlantic's Arif Mardin or Ilhan Mimaroglu, a pioneer of electronic music, producer of some Atlantic Mingus sessions, and author of some disturbing works featuring jazz soloists like Freddie Hubbard and Janis Siegel. Don Cherry included traditional Turkish tunes in his Live at Ankara, and the almost-forgotten multi-instrumentalist and educator Donald Rafael Garrett studied Turkish music intensively: some of his pioneering work is available on the live Ankara recording Memoirs of a Dream reissued by Kali Fasteau's label Flying Note.

Jazz in Germany (Essay)

" If we cannot conquer the communist world with weapons, we will do it with the jazz trumpet."

--British Field Marshall Montgomery


What was the most important event in German history between 1980 and 2000? That's easy: the destruction of the Berlin wall. What was the worst thing that happened to German jazz musicians in the same era? Same answer. Tearing down the Berlin wall. Many Germans want to put the wall back up, and not just jazz musicians.

Italian Jazz (Essay)

Italy and Jazz go a long way back together. Around 1895 Joe Alexander (Alessandra) was already playing syncopated music in New Orleans. The first jazz record included Nick La Rocca, leader of the ODJB, the first band to record "Tiger Rag," and Tony Sbarbaro; Louis Armstrong took inspiration from Caruso's records for the projection of his trumpet sound.

Classic Jazz (Essay) (Scott Yanow)

When one thinks of the 1920's as it is portrayed by the mass media, the images of dixieland, college kids wearing raccoon coats, the Charleston, gangsters and speakeasies come quickly to mind. It was termed "The Jazz Age" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and was thought of nostalgically as a somewhat hedonistic era by later generations who had to live through the Depression and World War II.

Although there is some truth in the stereotypes, there was much more to the decade than is seen in movies depicting the era, and there was more to its jazz scene than dixieland. The term "classic jazz" refers to music from the era and its later revivals and recreations, overlapping with New Orleans jazz and dixieland but covering a wider area.

Hard Bop (Essay) (Scott Yanow)

Hard bop, like cool jazz and soul jazz, started out as a subsidiary of another style of music, in this case bop. With the rise of bop in the mid-to-late '40s, the chord structures, rhythms and improvising in jazz had become much more complex. Although its pacesetters were masterful virtuosoes, many of the followers sacrificed feeling for precision, emotion for speed. Charlie Parker  and Dizzy Gillespie were nearly impossible musical role models and they certainly could not be topped at the music they had originated.

Italian Jazz (Essay) (by Francesco Martinelli)

Italy and Jazz go a long way back together. Around 1895 Joe Alexander (Alessandra) was already playing syncopated music in New Orleans. The first jazz record included Nick La Rocca, leader of the ODJB, the first band to record "Tiger Rag," and Tony Sbarbaro; Louis Armstrong took inspiration from Caruso's records for the projection of his trumpet sound.

At the end of the First World War General Pershing's orchestra played in Italy ragtimes and foxtrots. With his musicians played another Italian, guitarist Vittorio Spina, who met a 5-year-old Django Reinhardt when around 1915 the gypsy caravan wandered until Rome.

New Orleans Jazz (Essay) (by Scott Yanow)

Arguably the happiest of all forms of music is New Orleans jazz and its later descendant Dixieland. The sound of several horns all improvising together on fairly simple chord changes with definite roles for each instrument but a large amount of freedom cannot help but sound consistently joyful.

In New Orleans jazz, the emphasis is on ensembles rather than solos. The style overlaps with Dixieland and classic jazz; to confuse matters more, all three idioms have often been called "traditional jazz" while the charts of Billboard Magazine classify any style of jazz with a walking bass as "traditional!" New Orleans jazz usually features a trumpeter (or a cornetist) in the lead and not wandering far from the melody. The trombonist plays harmonies (occasional saxophonists have similar roles) while the clarinetist is free to supply countermelodies and fills around the brass. While the tuba player (or string bassist) emphasizes the first and third beats of the bar, the drummer amd the banjoist (or guitarist) accent the second and fourth and the pianist often pounds chords on all four beats. The most exciting New Orleans jazz groups are fairly dense during the ensembles (with so much going on that they resemble a three-ring circus) while remaining quite coherent and purposeful.

Chicago Jazz 1980-2000 (Essay) (by Eugene Chadbourne)

There have been times when the Chicago jazz scene has seemed like a burned out office building., but it wasn't always like that. The significant and in depth research carried out by the Jazz Institute of Chicago tells the story of the 30's, 40's and 50's, decades when a magnificent series of players interacted in clubs and recording studios with as much regard for genre restrictions as a jackrabbit might have for fenced in property.

Yet by the time Anthony Braxton was a young man in the late 50's and early 60's it was common for jazz players to complain bitterly about the lack of outlets. The important cooperative Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians came about largely out of total frustration with the Chicago jazz scene. Veterans mainstream players were putting their saxophones in the closet and going to work for banks. As for Braxton and his associates such as Roscoe Mitchell, Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins or Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, a typical concert was commonly described as "chick gigs", meaning the only audience were the musician's girlfriends, one of whom would also required to take up the door.

A Brief History of Jazz (Essay) (by Scott Yanow)

One of the major questions that will go forever unanswered is "How did jazz start?" The first jazz recording was in 1917 but the music existed in at least primitive forms for 20 years before that. Influenced by classical music, marches, spirituals, work songs, ragtime, blues and the popular music of the period, jazz was already a distinctive form of music by the time it was first documented.

The chances are that the earliest jazz was played by unschooled musicians in New Orleans marching bands. Music was a major part of life in New Orleans from at least the 1890's with brass bands hired to play at parades, funerals, parties and dances. It stands to reason that the musicians (who often did not read music) did not simply play the melodies continuously but came up with variations to keep the performances interesting.