The JAZZ Story
history of Jazz on 52nd Street. Favorites included pianist Art Tatum,
singer Billie Holiday, tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie and
his Big Band, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Errol Garner, trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Minton's Playhouse - Birthplace of Bebop
In the early 1940s, a group of Jazz revolutionaries gathered at an
uptown club called Minton's Playhouse. Through a series of small group
jam sessions frequented by musicians in their teens and early twenties,
a new music called Bebop was born, sired by alto saxophonist Charlie
"Bird" Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk.
Bird was generally regarded as the intuitive genius and improviser of the
group, his magic sound and awesome technique changing the face of Jazz.
Diz was the conscious thinker and showman, a man who spent a lifetime
charming audiences worldwide. Monk was the creative clearinghouse and
refiner, a musical iconoclast whose compositions became legendary.
At first, Bebop's eccentric starts and stops, and torrents of notes
played at machine-gun tempos jarred listeners and proved devilishly
difficult to play. But by the late 1940s, when big-band swing had
declined, bop matured and became the Jazz standard.
Birdland - Jazz Corner of the World
Miraculously, just as 52nd caved in, Birdland opened on Broadway. For
more than a decade, from 1949-1962, the survival formula was memorable
double and triple bills, commencing at 9pm and sometimes lasting untill
dawn. Descending the stairs to the jammed basement nitery, a listener
would encounter a racially mixed throng, primed for an evening of high
octane musical invigoration. To add to the excitement, Birdland's
colorful host was Pee Wee Marquette, a uniformed midget. Riding the final
crest of the Bebop wave, Birdland was a musical oasis for accomplished
improvisors where the finest jazz on planet earth was presented with a
minimum of pretense. The club has let it all hang out ambiance encouraged
musicians to stretch the boundaries with spirited audience
encouragement. Live radio broadcasts from the club, hosted by Symphony
Sid, compounded the excitement.
JAZZ TODAY
Diversity is the word for today's Jazz. Various aspects of freedom
have
been pursued by the many gifted musicians connected with the AACM
(American Association for Creative Musicians), a collective formed in
1965 under the guidance of the pianist-composer Richard Muhal Abrams
(b. 1930). Among the groups that have emerged, directly and
indirectly,
from the AACM are the Art Ensemble of Chicago and The World
Saxophone Quartet, and notable musicians of this lineage include
trumpeter Lester Bowie (b. 1941), reedmen Anthony Braxton (b.1945),
Joseph Jarman, Julius Hemphill, Roscoe Mitchell and David Murray,
and violinist Leroy Jenkins, Ornette Coleman has continued to go his
own
way, introducing a unique fusion band, Prime Time, collaborating with
guitarist Pat Metheny (b. 1954), and celebrating occasional reunions
with
his original quartet.
Quite unexpectedly, but with neat historical symmetry, a new wave of
gifted young jazz players has emerged from New Orleans, spearheaded by
the brilliant trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961), who joined Art
Blakey's
Jazz Messengers--a bastion of the bebop tradition--in 1979. Also an
accomplished classical virtuoso, Marsalis was soon signed by Columbia
Records and became the most visible new Jazz artist in many years.
Articulate and outspoken, he has rejected fusion and stressed the
continuity of the Jazz tradition. His slightly older brother, Branford
Marsalis (b. 1960), who plays tenor and soprano sax, was a member of
Wynton's quintet until he joined with rock icon Sting's band for a
year. He
has since led his own straight-ahead jazz quartet. As his replacement
with
Blakey, Wynton recommended fellow New Orleanian Terence Blanchard
(b. 1962), who later formed a group with altoist Donald Harrison also
from New Orleans, as co-leader.
Many other gifted players have emerged during the present decade --
too
many to list here. Many have affirmed their roots in bebop, and some
have
reached even further back to mainstream swing (such as tenorist Scott
Hamilton (b. 1954), and trumpeter Warren Vache, Jr. [b. 1951]), but
almost all, even when choosing experimentation and innovation, operate
within the established language of jazz. As in the other arts, Jazz
seems to
have arrived at a postmodern stage.
We ought not to overlook the increasingly important role being played
by
women instrumentalists, among them Carla Bley, JoAnne Brackeen, Jane
Ira Bloom, Amina Claudine Myers, Emely Remler and Janice Robinson.
The durability of the Jazz tradition has been symbolically affirmed by
two
events: the Academy Award nomination of Dexter Gordon, the seminal
bebop tenor saxophonist, for his leading role in the film Round
Midnight,
and the widely acclaimed appearances of Benny Carter, approaching his
90th birthday, at the helm of the American Jazz Orchestra (an ensemble
formed in 1986 to perform the best in Jazz, past and present) both as
a
player and composer.
And one may also take heart at the qualitative as well as quantitative
growth of Jazz education in this country, and the active involvement
of so
many fine performing artist in this process.
SUMMING UP
No one can presume to guess what form the next development in Jazz
will
take. What we do know is that the music today presents a rich panorama
of sounds and styles.
Thelonious Monk, that uncompromising original who went from the
obscurity of the pre-bop jam sessions in Harlem to the cover of TIME
and
worldwide acclaim without ever diluting his music, once defined jazz
in his
unique way:
"Jazz and freedom," Monk said, "go hand in hand. That explains it.
There
isn't anymore to add to it. If I do add to it, it gets complicated.
That's
something for you to think about. You think about it and dig it. You
dig it."
Jazz, a music born in slavery, has become the universal song of
freedom.
Jazz History - Periods, Styles
Batchelor, Christian: This thing called Swing ; a
study of Swing music and the Lindy Hop, the original Swing dance.
London 1997.
Belaire, David C. G.: A guide to the big band era.
1997.
Bergerot, Franck & Arnaud Merlin: The story of jazz ; bop and beyond.
New York 1993.
Berlin, Edward A.: Ragtime ; a musical and cultural history. Reprint
(1980). Berkeley, Calif. [etc.] 1984.
Boyd, Jean A.: The jazz of the southwest;an oral
history of Western Swing. Austin, Tex.1998.
Budds, Michael J.: Jazz in the 60s ; the expansion of musical
resources and techniques. Expanded ed. Iowa City, Ia. 1990.
Carver, Reginald & Lenny Bernstein: Jazz profiles ;
the spirit of the nineties. New York 1998.
Cockrell, Dale: Demons of disorder ; early blackface
minstrels and their world. Cambridge 1997.
Collins, R.: New Orleans jazz ; a revised history ; the development of
American music from the origin to the big bands. New York 1996.
Corbett, John: Extended play ; sounding off from John
Cage to Dr. Funkenstein.Durham, N.C. 1994.
Dean, Roger T.: New structures in jazz and improvised
music since 1960. Milton Keynes 1991
Deffaa, Chip: Swing legacy foreword by George T.
Simon. Metuchen, N.J. [etc.] 1989.
Deffaa, Chip: Voices of the jazz age ; profiles of 8
vintage jazzmen. Wheatley 1990.
DeVeaux, Scott: The birth of Bebop ; a social and
musical history. Berkeley, Cal. [etc.] 1997.
Erenberg, Lewis A.: Swingin' the dream ; big band
jazz and the rebirth of American culture. Chicago, Ill. [etc.] 1998.
Feather, Leonard: The encyclopedia yearbooks of Jazz.
Reprint (1956 & 1958). New York 1993.
Feather, Leonard: The passion for jazz. Reprint
(1980). New York 1990.
Fernett, Gene: Swing out ; great Negro dance bands.
Reprint (1970). New York 1993.
Goldberg, Joe: Jazz masters of the 50s. Reprint
(1965). New York [1983].
Gottlieb, William P.: The golden age of jazz. New &
revised ed. San Francisco, Cal. 1995.
Griffiths, David: Hot jazz ; from Harlem to
Storyville. Lanham, Md. [etc.] 1998.
Grudens, Richard: The best damn trumpet player ;
memories of the big band era & beyond. Stony Brook, N.Y. 1996.
Grudens, Richard: The music men ; the guys who sang
with the bands and beyond. Stony Brook, N.Y. 1998.
Grudens, Richard: The song stars ; the ladies who
sang with the bands and beyond. Stony Brook, N.Y. 1997.
Hadlock, Richard: Jazz masters of the 20s. Reprint
(1965). New York 1988.
Hall, Fred: Dialogues in Swing ; intimate
conversations with the stars of the Big Band era. Ventura, Cal. 1989.
Harrison, Daphne Duval: Black pearls ; blues queens of the 1920s. New
Brunswick, N.J. [etc.] 1990.
Hennessey, Thomas J.: From jazz to swing ; Afro-
American jazz musicians and their music, 1890-1935. Detroit, Mich.
1994.
Jasen, David A. & Gene Jones: Spreadin' rhythm around ; black popular
songwriters, 1880-1930. New York 1998.
Jones, Leroi: Black music. Reprint (1967). New York
1998.
Jost, Ekkehard: Europas Jazz 1960-1980. Frankfurt 1987.
Kennedy, Don: Big Band Jump personality interviews. Atlanta, Ga. 1993.
Kennedy, Rick: Jelly Roll, Bix and Hoagy ; Gennett studios and the
birth of recorded jazz. Bloomington, Ind. [etc.] 1994.
Koerner, Julie: Big bands. New York 1992.
Koerner, Julie: Swing kings. New York 1994.
Kofsky, Frank: John Coltrane and the jazz revolution
of the 1960s. New York 1998.
Korall, Burt: Drummin' men ; the heartbeat of jazz ;
the Swing years. New York 1990.
Litweiler, John: The freedom principle ; jazz after
1958. Reprint (1984).New York 1990.
Lock, Graham: Chasing the vibration ; meetings with
creative musicians. Exeter 1994.
Morgan, Thomas L. & William Barlow: From Cakewalks to
concert halls; an illustrated history of African American popular
music from 1895 to 1930. Washington, D.C. 1993.
Nicholson, Stuart: Jazz, the 1980s resurgence.
Reprint (1990) of: Jazz, the modern resurgence. New York 1995.
Nicholson, Stuart: Jazz-Rock, a history. New York
1998.
Owens, Thomas: Bebop ; the music and its players. Reprint (1995). New
York [etc.] 1996.
Piazza, Tom: Blues up and down ; jazz in our time. New York 1997.
Rosenthal, David H.: Hard bop ; jazz and black music 1955-1965.
Reprint (1992).New York 1993.
Russell, Bill: New Orleans style compiled & ed. by
Barry Martyn & Mike Hazeldine. New Orleans, La. 1994.
Scanlan, Tom: The joy of jazz : Swing era, 1935-1947.
Golden, Col. 1996.
Schuller, Gunther: Early jazz ; its roots and musical development.
Reprint (1968). New York [etc.] 1986.
Spellman, A: B.: Four lives in the bebop business.
Reprint (1966). New York 1985.
Stewart, Rex: Jazz masters of the 30s. Reprint
(1972). New York [1982].
Stowe, David W.: Swing changes ; Big Band jazz in New
Deal America. Reprint (1994). Cambridge, Mass. 1996.
Tracy, Sheila: Bands, booze and broads. Reprint
(1995). Edinburgh (etc) 1996.
Van der Merwe, Peter: Origins of the popular style ; the antecedents
of twentieth-century popular music. Reprint (1989) Oxford 1992.
Vincent, Ted: Keep cool ; the black activists who
built the jazz age.London [etc.] 1995.
Waldo, Terry: This is Ragtime. Reprint (1976). New York
1991.
Walker, Leo: The wonderful era of the great dance
bands. Reprint (1964). New York 1990.
Wilmer, Valerie: As serious as your life; the story
of the New Jazz. Reprint (1987).London 1998.
Wyndham, Tex: Texas shout ; how Dixieland Jazz works. Seattle, Wash.
1997.
