Important Jazz Recordings and Pieces - MH III Final

Original Dixie Land Jazz Band

A pioneering jazz group formed in 1916, recognized as the first to record jazz music. Their 1917 hit "Livery Stable Blues" helped popularize the genre.

Louis Armstrong: West End Blues

His biggest early hit. One of the landmark recordings of the 20th century. Shifts focus to the virtuosic soloist.

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Album. Pioneered ‘Cool Jazz.’ Relaxed, emotionally restrained alternative to frantic bebop with its sophisticated arrangements. Blends classical ideas with jazz. Melodic focus.

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Album. Considered his best album. Many consider it to be the greatest jazz album of all time. Legendary group of performers including Davis, Canonball Adderly, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans. Definitive Expression of ‘Cool Jazz’ style.

Doctor Atomic - John Adams

Opera about the pressures on Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists as they prepared for the first test of the atomic bomb in the summer of 1945. Exemplifies blending of postminimalism techniques. Fuses minimalism and Romantic opera.

Partita for 8 voices - Caroline Shaw

Won the Pulitzer Prize. Explores new sounds and techniques. Compelling fusion of Baroque, medieval, American, and non-Western elements with the modern classical tradition.

Anthracite Fields - Julia Wolfe

Won the Pulitzer Prize. Powerfully memorializes the dangerous lives of Pennsylvania coal miners using innovative music, oral histories, and multimedia to connect their labor to modern life. Bridges folk and classical styles.

WTC 9/11 - Steve Reich

Uses documentary recordings (firefighters, air traffic control) and string quartets to capture the chaos, terror, and aftermath, making it a powerful, almost unbearable artistic memorial that transforms spoken words into unsettling music, exploring themes of history, trauma, and human resilience. 

Angel’s Bone - Du Yun

Won the Pulitzer Prize. A harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world. Has bold integration of diverse musical styles, a shocking and relevant subject matter, and exploration of the complex psyche of both victims and traffickers.

Blue Cathedral - Jennifer Higdon

Exemplifies accessible modernism. One-movement orchestral tone poem. It represents a “journey through a glass cathedral in the sky.” Written in memory of her brother. Flute represents her instrument and clarinet represents his. Changes of pitch collection, different transpositions of the diatonic scale, demarcate phrases or smaller musical units and provide a sense of harmonic motion as in Debussy’s music. Although there are no tonal progressions, the triads and diatonic fields are familiar , and together with coloristic orchestration inspired by Debussy they create a sheer beauty of sound that is part of the piece’s wide appeal.