Jazz History Test 3

Reasons for the Big Band Era ending

• The high costs of taking a large band on the road.

• The general public’s interest in big bands fell to new lows.

• An entertainment tax was instituted in 1944

• The growth of modern technologies including television and high fidelity sound

At the Big Band era’s peak, about how many bands were performing on the road?

Around 300-1,000 bands

Which bands were the most prominent after the war years?

Ellington’s, Basie’s, and a few others.

Aspects of the Woody Herman Band

• Important swing band in the late ‘30s, early 40s

• Herman’s evolution from sweet music to traditional jazz to modern jazz is almost unprecedented in the history of music

Who were rivals in creating the most progressive jazz big bands during the 1950s?

Stan Kenton and Woody Herman

Who was influenced by classical composers such as Tchaikovsky.

Best known composition: “Artistry in Rhythm”

Stan Kenton

Who are these aspects about?

• swirling layers of percussion

• spooky electronic effects

• echoes of rhythm and blues

• hints of Asian and African music

• use of dissonance, and atonality

• _________ went so far as to trace his origins back to the planet Saturn and claim descent from a race of angels.

Sun Ra and his Arkestra

What are these aspects about?

• not interested in experimentation

• Still the hardest swinging big band

• “Li’l Darlin’” Played it slower than envisioned by the composer: made it swing even harder

Count Basie’s 1950s work

Who is this about?

• vocalist who worked with Basie from 1954 to 1961

• Known for performing “Every Day I Have the Blues” with the Count Basie Orchestra

Joe Williams

Who is this about?

• important arranger for the Basie orchestra.

• Went on to form the Thad Jones–Mel Lewis band, which stood out as one of the best New York big band from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s.

• The group is still playing as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra in NYC

Thad Jones

Who is this about?

• Brought innovative music business concepts to the jazz world (cost-sharing)

• a modern-day heir of Ellington and (Gil Evans), interested in tone colors

• “Evanescence”

Maria Schneider

What were the new styles of jazz in the 1950s?

• hard bop

• West Coast jazz

• Cool Jazz

• soul jazz

• modal jazz

• Third Stream jazz

• free jazz

What was traditional (or trad) jazz?

It was a revival of early New Orleans/Chicago jazz

Who led the cool jazz movement?

Miles Davis

Aspects of Miles Davis’ album: Birth of the Cool

• Davis wanted to sound like:

•Claude Thornhill’s band.

• a vocal choir

• No tenor sax

• French horn, baritone sax, and tuba were used

• Arranger was Gil Evans

• Hugely innovative album

What are these aspects about?

• a quintessential cool combo, got its start as the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie’s big band

• Led by Pianist John Lewis with vibraphonist Milt Jackson

• Lewis wrote: “Django,” a riff-driven tune

• In 1952, Percy Heath took over on bass

• In 1955, Connie Kay took over on drums

• This personnel in this quartet stayed together for nearly four decades

The Modern Jazz Quartet

Who brought the vibraphone into the modern jazz age?

Milt Jackson

What is an attempt to merge classical and jazz idioms?

The phrase was coined and promoted by Gunther Schuller.

“Third Stream” music

Who is this about?

• Tenor player in the cool school

• Had a lyrical style and strong improvisational skills

• Collaborated with Brazilian bossa nova musicians Antonio Carlos Jobim (composer)and João Gilberto’s (vocals)

• These collaborations became hugely popular in the U.S.; ex. “Desafinado”

• In the summer of 1964, “The Girl From Ipanema made it to #2 on the charts

Stan Getz

Where was cool jazz more popular?

The West Coast

Los Angeles–based saxophonists included:

• Dexter Gordon

• Teddy Edwards

• Wardell Gray

What did cool jazz display?

• Relaxed tempos

• unhurried improvisations

Who was a baritone saxophonist?

Gerry Mulligan

Who exploited the potential of this limited instrumentation to the fullest through a variety of techniques:

• counterpoint between the two horns;

• use of the bass and drums as melodic voices;

• sotto voce (quiet-singing-like) bass lines with the sax or trumpet;

• stark variations in pulse and phrasing

Gerry Mulligan

Who hired these instrumentalists?

• Red Garland on Piano

• Paul Chambers on Bass

• Philly Joe Jones on Drums

• John Coltrane on tenor sax

Miles Davis hired them

What were the 4 albums that Miles Davis made fast on Prestige label and were still all excellent?

Steamin’, Cookin’, Workin’, and Relaxin’

Why did David fire John Coltrane?

For drug and alcohol problems.

Who did Davis collaborate with on Miles Ahead?

Gil Evans

Who became the most influential jazz pianist of his generation, forging an innovative style that would permanently alter improvised keyboard music. (also joined Miles Davis in 1958)

Bill Evans

What is this about?

• One of the most important jazz albums

• Bill Evans on piano, John Coltrane and Cannonball on Sax

• Davis was delving deeper into modal jazz

• The essence of modal jazz lay in the use of scales as a springboard for solos, in place of the busy chord progressions that had characterized jazz since the bop era.

• “So What” is both modal and an AABA form.

Kind of Blue

Who is this about?

• He achieved a degree of interaction and heightened sensitivity rarely heard in the jazz world

• One recording, “Live at the Village Vanguard,” achieved a great level of group interplay

• the line between soloist and accompanist often blurs and at times totally disappears.

“My Romance”

Bill Evans

Who/what is this about?

• His most commanding recording to date.

• This music stood at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Davis modal work. the epitome of chord-based jazz material, with its difficult progressions played at a rapid pace.

• Giant Steps

• Described as “sheets of sound”

• Important members of his group:

o McCoy Tyner on piano: used more vamps and clusters

o Elvin Jones on drums: master of polyrhythms

John Coltrane and The Giant Steps release

Who was Coltrane’s partner in some free jazz explorations.

Eric Dolphy

Who is this about?

• Tenor saxophonist

• Defined the mainstream sound during the 1950s and 1960s, while others explored experimentation

• Some important compositions that have become jazz standards

o “St. Thomas”

o “Pent Up House”

o “Doxy”

o “Oleo”

• He constructed solos through the manipulation of simple musical motives.

• John Coltrane performed on this person’s album, Tenor Madness

Sonny Rollins

What are these aspects for?

• Emerged in the 1950s

• medium tempos were favored

• The rougher edges of bebop were rounded off

• Composition and arrangement were emphasized.

• fewer unison heads; more harmonization and counterpoint

• A lyrical strain was always evident to some degree

• the influence of the blues was often evident.

• It was also influenced by:

o Rhythm and blues

o gospel church music

Hard Bop

What are some important songs performed by The Brown-Roach Quintet?

• “Joy Spring”

• “Daahoud”

• “Delilah”

• “Parisian Thoroughfare”

• “Jordu”

Who is this about?

• hard-bop drummer

• Led a combo called the Jazz Messengers, which would remain a major force in the jazz world for the next thirty years.

• “Moanin’”  

• Written by pianist Bobby Timmons’s in 1958

• evoked church music and early African American call-and-response refrains

 

• He realized that his greatest successes came through nurturing the young talents around him, as composers as well as players.

Art Blakey

Who’s hard bop band is this about?

• His sound is uncluttered.

• His melodies are succinct and memorable.

• The rhythms are propulsive without being overbearing.

• The obsession with virtuosity, so characteristic of bebop, is almost entirely absent.

Horace Silver’s band

What are some important Horace Silver compositions?

• “Señor Blues”

• “Song for My Father”

• “Silver’s Serenade”

• “Nutville”

• “Pretty Eyes”

• “Peace”

Who is this about?

• trumpeter

• started out with Blakey

• an impassioned improviser

• the “quintessential hard-bop trumpeter.”

• Went on to his own important career

Lee Morgan