Johann Sebastian Bach
|
I |
|
INTRODUCTION |
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750), German organist and composer of the baroque era, one of the greatest and most productive geniuses in the history of Western music.
Bach was born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thüringen, into a family that over seven generations produced at least 53 prominent musicians, from Veit Bach to Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach. Johann Sebastian received his first musical instruction from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. When his father died, he went to live and study with his elder brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf.
|
II |
|
EARLY YEARS |
In 1700 Bach began to earn his own living as a chorister at the Church of Saint Michael in Lüneburg. In 1703 he became a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar, but later that year he moved to Arnstadt, where he became church organist. In October 1705, Bach secured a one-month leave of absence in order to study with the renowned Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude, who was then in Lübeck and whose organ music greatly influenced Bach's. The visit was so rewarding to Bach that he overstayed his leave by two months. He was criticized by the church authorities not only for this breach of contract but also for the extravagant flourishes and strange harmonies in his organ accompaniments to congregational singing. He was already too highly respected, however, for either objection to result in his dismissal.
In 1707 he married a second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and went to Mülhausen as organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. He went back to Weimar the next year as organist and violinist at the court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst and remained there for the next nine years, becoming concertmaster of the court orchestra in 1714. In Weimar he composed about 30 cantatas, including the well-known funeral cantata God's Time Is the Best, and also wrote organ and harpsichord works. He began to travel throughout Germany as an organ virtuoso and as a consultant to organ builders.
In 1717 Bach began a 6-year employment as chapelmaster and director of chamber music at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. During this period he wrote primarily secular music for ensembles and solo instruments. He also prepared music books for his wife and children, with the purpose of teaching them keyboard technique and musicianship. These books include the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Inventions, and the Little Organ Book.
Bach's first wife died in 1720, and the next year he married Anna Magdalena Wilcken, a fine singer and daughter of a court musician. She bore him 13 children in addition to the 7 he had had by his first wife, and she helped him in his work by copying the scores of his music for the performers.
|
III |
|
LATER YEARS |
Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723 and spent the rest of his life there. His position as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas's Church and church school in Leipzig was unsatisfactory in many ways. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. They saw in him little more than a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Nonetheless, the 202 cantatas surviving from the 295 that he wrote in Leipzig are still played today, whereas much that was new and in vogue at the time has been forgotten. Most of the cantatas open with a section for chorus and orchestra, continue with alternating recitatives and arias for solo voices and accompaniment, and conclude with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn. The music is at all times closely bound to the text, ennobling the latter immeasurably with its expressiveness and spiritual intensity. Among these works are the Ascension Cantata and the Christmas Oratorio, the latter consisting of six cantatas. The St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion also were written in Leipzig, as was the epic Mass in B Minor. Among the works written for the keyboard during this period are the famous Goldberg Variations; Part II of the Well-Tempered Clavier; and the Art of the Fugue, a magnificent demonstration of his contrapuntal skill in the form of 16 fugues and 4 canons, all on a single theme. Bach's sight began to fail in the last year of his life, and he died on July 28, 1750, after undergoing an unsuccessful eye operation.
|
IV |
|
THE BACH REVIVAL |
After Bach's death he was remembered less as a composer than as an organist and harpsichord player. His frequent tours had ensured his reputation as the greatest organist of the time, but his contrapuntal style of writing sounded old-fashioned to his contemporaries, most of whom preferred the new preclassical styles then coming into fashion, which were more homophonic in texture and less contrapuntal than Bach's music. Consequently, for the next 80 years his music was neglected by the public, although a few musicians admired it, among them Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. A revival of interest in Bach's music occurred in the mid-19th century. The German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829, which did much to awaken popular interest in Bach. The Bach Gesellschaft, formed in 1850, devoted itself assiduously to finding, editing, and publishing Bach's works.
Because the “Bach revival” coincided with the flowering of the romantic movement in music, performance styles were frequently gross distortions of Bach's intentions. Twentieth-century scholarship, inspired by the early enthusiasm of German-born Protestant medical missionary, organist, and musicologist Albert Schweitzer, gradually has unearthed principles of performance that are truer to Bach's era and his music.
Bach was largely self-taught in musical composition. His principal study method, following the custom of his day, was to copy in his workbooks the music of French, German, and Italian composers of his own time and earlier. He did this throughout his life and often made arrangements of other composers' works.
|
V |
|
MASTER OF COUNTERPOINT |
The significance of Bach's music is due in large part to the scope of his intellect. He is perhaps best known as a supreme master of counterpoint. He was able to understand and use every resource of musical language that was available in the baroque era. Thus, if he chose, he could combine the rhythmic patterns of French dances, the gracefulness of Italian melody, and the intricacy of German counterpoint all in one composition. At the same time he could write for voice and the various instruments so as to take advantage of the unique properties of construction and tone quality in each. In addition, when a text was associated with the music, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas, such as an undulating melody to represent the sea, or a canon to describe the Christians following the teaching of Jesus.
Bach's ability to assess and exploit the media, styles, and genre of his day enabled him to achieve many remarkable transfers of idiom. For instance, he could take an Italian ensemble composition, such as a violin concerto, and transform it into a convincing work for a single instrument, the harpsichord. By devising intricate melodic lines, he could convey the complex texture of a multivoiced fugue on a single-melody instrument, such as the violin or cello. The conversational rhythms and sparse textures of operatic recitatives can be found in some of his works for solo keyboard. Technical facility alone, of course, was not the source of Bach's greatness. It is the expressiveness of his music, particularly as manifested in the vocal works, that conveys his humanity and that touches listeners everywhere.
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827), German composer, considered one of the greatest musicians of all time. Having begun his career as an outstanding improviser at the piano and composer of piano music, Beethoven went on to compose string quartets and other kinds of chamber music, songs, two masses, an opera, and nine symphonies. His Symphony No. 9 in D minor op. 125 (Choral, completed 1824), perhaps the most famous work of classical music in existence, culminates in a choral finale based on the poem “Ode to Joy” by German writer Friedrich von Schiller. Like his opera Fidelio, op. 72 (1805; revised 1806, 1814) and many other works, the Ninth Symphony depicts an initial struggle with adversity and concludes with an uplifting vision of freedom and social harmony.
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven is considered possibly the greatest Western composer of all time. He wrote symphonies, concertos, chamber music, sonatas, and vocal music. His best-known composition is the Ninth Symphony with its passionate chorus, the Ode to Joy. Beethoven began to lose his hearing in the 1790s and was completely deaf by 1818.Hulton Getty Picture Collection
II LIFE
Beethoven was born in Bonn. His father’s harsh discipline and alcoholism made his childhood and adolescence difficult. At the age of 18, after his mother’s death, Beethoven placed himself at the head of the family, taking responsibility for his two younger brothers, both of whom followed him when he later moved to Vienna, Austria.
In Bonn, Beethoven’s most important composition teacher was German composer Christian Gottlob Neefe, with whom he studied during the 1780s. Neefe used the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach as a cornerstone of instruction, and he later encouraged his student to study with Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom Beethoven met briefly in Vienna in 1787. In 1792 Beethoven made another journey to Vienna to study with Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, and he stayed there the rest of his life.
The combination of forceful, dramatic power with dreamy introspection in Beethoven’s music made a strong impression in Viennese aristocratic circles and helped win him generous patrons. Yet just as his success seemed assured, he was confronted with the loss of that sense on which he so depended, his hearing. Beethoven expressed his despair over his increasing hearing loss in his moving “Heiligenstadt Testament,” a document written to his brothers in 1802. This impairment gradually put an end to his performing career. However, Beethoven’s compositional achievements did not suffer from his hearing loss but instead gained in richness and power over the years. His artistic growth was reflected in a series of masterpieces, including the Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major op. 55 (the Eroica, completed 1804), Fidelio, and the Symphony No. 5 in C minor op. 67 (1808). These works embody his second period, which is called his heroic style.
Around 1810 Beethoven was especially drawn to the poetry and drama of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whom he met in 1812 through the initiative of Goethe’s young literary friend Bettina Brentano. Bettina’s sister-in-law Antonia Brentano was probably the intended recipient of Beethoven’s famous letter to the “Immortal Beloved.” The letter dates from July 1812 and apparently marks the collapse of Beethoven’s hopes to seek happiness through marriage. Following this disappointment, Beethoven’s output declined significantly, and during 1813 he was generally depressed and unproductive.
Beethoven’s fame during his lifetime reached its peak in 1814. The enthusiastic response of the public to his music at this time was focused on showy works, such as Wellington’s Victory op. 91 (1813; also known as the Battle Symphony), and a series of patriotic crowd-pleasers, including the cantata The Glorious Moment op. 136 (1814), but his enhanced popularity also made possible the successful revival of Fidelio.
During the last decade of his life Beethoven had almost completely lost his hearing, and he was increasingly socially isolated. He had assumed the guardianship of his nephew Karl after a lengthy legal struggle, and despite Beethoven’s affection for Karl, there was enormous friction between the two. Notwithstanding these difficulties, between 1818 and 1826 Beethoven embarked upon a series of ambitious large-scale compositions, including the Sonata in B-flat major op. 106 (Hammerklavier, 1818), the Missa Solemnis in D major op. 123 (1823), the Thirty-Three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli in C major op. 120 (1823), the Symphony No. 9 in D minor op. 125 (1824), and his last string quartets. Plagued at times by serious illness, Beethoven nevertheless maintained his sense of humor and often amused himself with jokes and puns. He continued to work at a high level of creativity until he contracted pneumonia in December 1826. He died in Vienna in March 1827.
III MUSIC
Beethoven's Quartet in G Major, op. 18 no. 2 Composed during the early years of his career, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quartet in G Major for strings reveals an individualistic style centered around frequent unexpected turns of phrase, unconventional modulations, and characteristically expressive motifs. Influence from Joseph Haydn can be heard in Beethoven’s ability to spark the texture of the quartet’s themes with counterpoint. This excerpt, taken from the allegro, sets a mature, graceful, and tuneful mood followed by playful variations on the motifs of the movement."String Quartet, Op. 18 No. 2" from Beethoven: String Quartets, Op. 18 (Cat.# Harmonia Mundi HMA 1901222) (p)1986 Harmonia Mundi, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Beethoven’s music is generally divided into three main creative periods. The first, or early, period extends to about 1802, when the composer made reference to a “new manner” or “new way” in connection with his art. The second, or middle, period extends to about 1812, after the completion of his Seventh and Eighth symphonies. The third, or late, period emerged gradually; Beethoven composed its pivotal work, the Hammerklavier Sonata, in 1818. Beethoven’s late style is especially innovative, and his last five quartets, written between 1824 and 1826, can be regarded as marking the onset of a fourth creative period.
Beethoven’s Third Symphony (Eroica) Reflecting both personal and political changes, German composer Ludwig van Beethoven used the symphony as a musical canvas for many of his most significant musical ideas. Challenging traditional symphonic form, Beethoven expanded the coda (concluding section) to expressive climax and added depth and power to the minuet (rhythm of a 17th-century French dance). His Third Symphony (Eroica; 1803), from which this excerpt is taken, has a number of original features, including substitution of a funeral march for the slow movement."Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, Op. 55 'Eroica'" by Beethoven, from Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8 (Cat.# Naxos 8.550178) (p)1988 Pacific Music Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
Although Beethoven’s music of the early period is sometimes described as imitative of Mozart and Haydn, much of it is startlingly original, especially the works for piano. His early piano sonatas often have a forceful, bold quality, which is set into relief by the searching inwardness of the slow movements. The Sonata in C minor op. 13 (Pathétique, 1798), the most famous of these sonatas, transfers Haydn’s practice of employing slow introductions to his symphonies to the genre of the sonata. The title refers to a quality of pathos or suffering, which is felt especially in the brooding slow introduction and is twice recalled in later stages of the first movement. The main body of this swift, brilliant movement seems to convey willful resistance to the sense of suffering that dominates the slow introduction.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Major (Waldstein) German composer Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata in C major, op. 53 (1803-1804) was dedicated to the patron Count Ferdinand von Waldstein. Beethoven originally wrote the piece in traditional 18th-century sonata form, with three clearly demarcated movements. He then rewrote the second movement in its present unconventional form, with a haunting, slowly building melodic passage that pauses only briefly before the third movement begins. The excerpt heard here is the transition from the second movement to the third."Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major Op. 53 'Waldstein'" composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Jenő Jandó, from Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 2 (Cat.# Naxos 8.550054) (c)1991 HNH International Ltd. (p)1987 HNH International Ltd. All rights reserved.
At the threshold of his middle period Beethoven sought a variety of new approaches to musical form. In the Sonata in C-sharp minor (Moonlight, 1801), he begins with a slow movement, while typical sonatas of that time began with a fast movement. The movement’s placid motif (repeated phrase) of broken chords is reinterpreted in the final movement as forceful figuration reaching across the entire keyboard. The sonatas of op. 31, from 1802, each open in an original fashion. The G major, op. 31 no. 1, begins with striking shifts in key, in contrast to the usual practice of remaining in the same key to “ground” the listener. The D minor, op. 31 no. 2 (Tempest), on the other hand, breaks up the opening theme into contrasting segments in different tempi, whereas customary practice called for stating the theme in its entirety at the beginning of a movement.
Prefaced by two emphatic chords, the opening theme of the Eroica lingers on a mysterious dark moment of harmony. In the first movement of the Eroica Symphony, one of the major works from Beethoven’s middle period, he again sought ways to expand upon the prevailing musical forms. At that time, composers usually organized movements in three major parts. First, the exposition introduces the musical themes of the piece. Next, the development takes these themes into other keys, often modifying or fragmenting them. Finally, the recapitulation restates the themes, grounded in the original key. Prefaced by two massive, emphatic chords, the opening theme of the Eroica lingers on a mysterious dark moment of harmony—a gesture that is not reinterpreted until much later, at the outset of the recapitulation. After the rhythmic climax of the enormous development section—it is twice as long as the development section in any other symphony of the time—Beethoven reshapes classical norms by introducing extensive new material, which is resolved in a sort of recapitulation in the coda (concluding passage), which follows the movement’s recapitulation.
Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major, op. 58 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote the Fourth Piano Concerto in G Major during 1805 and 1806 while living in Vienna. Written about the same time as his Fourth Symphony, Beethoven maintained the three-movement division of concerto form that typified classical concerto style. However, Beethoven departed from tradition by expanding the classical form within these movements, broadening the role of the orchestras and creating music of dramatic, emotional expression."Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58" by Beethoven, from Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 (Cat.# Naxos 8.550122) (p)1988 HNH International, Ltd. All rights reserved.
The four movements of the Eroica bear the following expressive associations: struggle, death (a funeral march), rebirth (a scherzo, or rapid dancelike movement, that begins quietly), and glorification. In its narrative design, the Eroica is connected to the ballet music of Beethoven’s Prometheus, op. 43 (1801), from which he borrowed the theme for the symphony’s finale. This movement of the symphony expresses the exaltation of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus in a series of variations on the ballet’s theme. Beethoven had originally intended to dedicate the work to French general Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he idolized, but he angrily withdrew the dedication after learning that Napoleon had taken the title of emperor.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Beethoven’s other instrumental works from the period of the Eroica also tend to expand the formal framework that he inherited from Haydn and Mozart. The Piano Sonata in C major op. 53 (Waldstein) and the Piano Sonata in F minor op. 57 (Appassionata), completed in 1804 and 1805 respectively, each employ bold contrasts in harmony, and they use a broadened formal plan, in which the meditative slow movements flow directly into the final movements. The symbolism of the keys used for these sonatas shares in the expressive world of Beethoven’s opera, entitled Leonore in its original version from 1805. The grim F-minor character of the Appassionata recalls the dungeon scenes in this key from the opera, whereas the jubilant close of the Waldstein in C major recalls the stirring C-major conclusion of the opera to the words “Hail to the day! Hail to the hour!”
The celebrated Symphony No. 5 in C minor op. 67 from 1808 is the most thematically concentrated of Beethoven’s works. Variants of the four-note motif that begins this symphony drive all four movements. The dramatic turning point in the symphony—where a sense of foreboding, struggle, or mystery yields to a triumphant breakthrough—comes at the transition to the final movement, where the music is reinforced by the entrance of the trombones. Beethoven uses here a large-scale polarity between the darker sound of C minor and the brighter, more radiant effect of C major, which is held largely in reserve until the finale.
The series of gigantic masterpieces of Beethoven’s third period include the technically demanding Hammerklavier Sonata, completed in 1818, about which he correctly predicted on account of its challenges that “it will be played fifty years hence,” and the Diabelli Variations. The latter work for piano transforms a trivial waltz by Viennese publisher Anton Diabelli into an astonishing, seemingly endless series of pieces, each with a unique character; some are humorous or even parodies. These and other late works incorporate fugues—melodies played in succession and interwoven—that reflect Beethoven’s lifelong interest in the music of J. S. Bach (known for his keyboard work Art of the Fugue). Beethoven’s second mass, the Missa Solemnis in D major op. 123 (1823), also poses formidable technical challenges, as do his fascinating and sometimes enigmatic last quartets and the Ninth Symphony, whose most readily accessible movement is the choral finale.
IV EVALUATION
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Choral) In 1824 German composer Ludwig van Beethoven completed his Ninth Symphony, a work that summarizes much of his achievements and influence. Although Beethoven was almost completely deaf when he wrote it, the unprecedented work expresses an idealized vision of human struggle and triumph. The most striking feature of the symphony is Beethoven’s use of chorus and solo voices in the finale."Symphony No. 9 in D Minor Op.125 'Choral' " by Beethoven, from Symphony No. 9 "Choral" (Cat.# Naxos 8.550181) (p)1988 Pacific Music Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
Beethoven combined the dramatic classical style of lively contrasts and symmetrical forms, which was brought to its highest development by Mozart, with the older tradition of unified musical character that he found in the music of J. S. Bach. In some early works and especially in his middle or heroic period, Beethoven gave voice through his music to the new current of subjectivity and individualism that emerged in the wake of the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the rise of middle classes. Beethoven disdained injustice and tyranny, and used his art to sing the praises of the Enlightenment, an 18th-century movement that promoted the ideals of freedom and equality, even as hopes faded for progress through political change. (His angry cancellation of the dedication of the Eroica Symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte reveals Beethoven’s refusal to compromise his principles.)
The fact that Beethoven realized his artistic ambitions in spite of his hearing impairment added to the fascination and inspiration of his life for posterity, and the extraordinary richness and complexity of his later works insured that no later generation would fail to find challenge in his music. Beethoven’s artistic achievement cast a long shadow over the 19th century and beyond, having set a standard against which later composers would measure their work. Subsequent composers have had to respond to the challenge of Beethoven’s Ninth, which appeared to have taken the symphony to its ultimate development.
Although Mozart has been viewed as the quintessential composer of the classical period, early-19th-century critics such as German romantic writer and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann regarded him as an archromantic, much in their own image. (Elements of the supernatural and fantastic figure in Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, as they do in romanticism.) Mozart’s music also influenced innovative German composers of the romantic period, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner, as well as the 20th-century creator of the twelve-tone chromatic tone system, German composer Arnold Schoenberg. Mozart’s influence stems not just from the graceful beauty of his music, but also from its flexible phrasing, startling contrasts, and unstable chromaticism. At the time of their first performance, many of his works were regarded as difficult, with “too many notes,” as Austrian emperor Joseph II purportedly said. If Mozart’s music embodies something of the elegance and refinement of the privileged aristocratic world before the French Revolution (1789-1799), it also affirms values subversive to that world. He lodged this critique in the depiction of flawed aristocrats in Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, and in the glorification in The Magic Flute of the ideals of the Freemasons, who were deemed dangerous by Vienna’s aristocracy. Many of his finest instrumental works in their beauty and perfection also acknowledge the darker sides of human experience.
Rock Music
|
I |
|
INTRODUCTION |
Rock Music, group of related music styles that have dominated popular music in the West since about 1955. Rock music began in the United States, but it has influenced and in turn been shaped by a broad field of cultures and musical traditions, including gospel music, the blues, country-and-western music, classical music (see Music, Western), folk music, electronic music, and the popular music of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (see Worldbeat). In addition to its use as a broad designation, the term rock music commonly refers to music styles after 1959 predominantly influenced by white musicians. Other major rock-music styles include rock and roll (also known as rock 'n' roll), the first genre of the music; and rhythm-and-blues music (R&B), influenced mainly by black American musicians. Each of these major genres encompasses a variety of substyles, such as heavy metal, punk, alternative, and grunge. While innovations in rock music have often occurred in regional centers—such as New York City, Kingston, Jamaica, and Liverpool, England—the influence of rock music is now felt worldwide.
|
II |
|
MUSICAL ELEMENTS |
The central musical instrument in most kinds of rock music is the electric guitar. Important figures in the history of this instrument include jazz musician Charlie Christian, who in the late 1930s was one of the first to play the amplified guitar as a solo instrument; Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker, the first blues musician to record with an amplified guitar (1942); Leo Fender, who in 1948 introduced the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar; and Les Paul, who popularized the instrument in the early 1950s with a series of technologically innovative recordings. Rock-and-roll guitarist Chuck Berry established a style of playing in the late 1950s that remains a great influence on rock music. Beginning in the late 1960s a new generation of rock guitarists, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Carlos Santana, experimented with amplification, feedback (a type of electronic sound distortion), and various electronic devices, extending the musical potential of the instrument.
Other instruments commonly used in rock music include the electric bass guitar (introduced by Fender in 1951); keyboard instruments such as the electric piano, organ, and synthesizer; and the drum set, an African American innovation that came into rock music from jazz and R&B music. Instruments that play important roles in certain rock-music genres include the saxophone—prominent in jazz-rock and soul music—and a wide assortment of traditional instruments used in worldbeat music. The microphone also functions as a musical instrument for many rock singers, who rely upon the amplification and various effects (such as echo) obtainable through electronic means.
Rock music also shares more complex technical aspects. Most rock music is based on the same harmonies as Western music, especially the chords known as tonic, subdominant, and dominant (see Harmony: Functional Chord Names). The chord progression (series of chords) known as the 12-bar blues is based on these chords and has figured prominently in certain styles, especially rock and roll, soul music, and southern rock. Other common harmonic devices include the use of a drone, or pedal point (a single pitch sustained through a progression of chords), and the parallel movement of chords, derived from a technique on the electric guitar known as bar-chording. Many elements of African American music have been a continuing source of influence on rock music. These characteristics include riffs (repeated patterns), backbeats (emphasizing the second and fourth beats of each measure; see Musical Rhythm: Pulse and Meter), call-and-response patterns, blue notes (the use of certain bent-sounding pitches, especially those related to the third and fifth degrees of a musical scale), and dense buzzy-sounding timbres, or tone colors.
The musical form of rock music varies. Rock and roll of the late 1950s relied heavily upon 12-bar blues and 32-bar song forms. Some rock bands of the late 1960s experimented with more flexible, open-ended forms, and some rock bands of the 1970s developed suite forms derived from classical music. Another important formal development in rock music has been the so-called concept album, a succession of musical pieces tied together by a loose narrative theme.
Much rock music is performed at high volume levels, so the music has been closely tied to developments in electronic technology. Rock musicians have pioneered new studio recording techniques, such as multi-tracking—a process of recording different song segments at different times and layering them on top of one another—and digital sampling, the reproduction by a computer of the patterns of a particular sound. Rock concerts, typically huge events involving thousands of audience members, often feature high-tech theatrical stage effects, including synchronized lighting.
|
III |
|
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT |
|
A |
|
Rock and Roll |
The first type of rock music, rock and roll, originated in the United States in the 1950s, and was largely derived from music of the American South. In the United States, the affluence that followed the end of World War II in 1945 and the emergence of a youth culture—based in part upon the rejection of older styles of popular culture—helped rock and roll to displace the New York City-based Tin Pan Alley songwriting tradition that had dominated the mainstream of American popular taste since the late 19th century (see Popular Music: Early 20th Century). Rock and roll was a combination of the R&B style known as jump blues, the gospel-influenced vocal-group style known as doo wop, the piano-blues style known as boogie-woogie (or barrelhouse), and the country-music style known as honky tonk.
During the 1950s the term rock and roll was actually a synonym for black R&B music. Rock and roll was first released by small, independent record companies and promoted by radio disc jockeys (DJs) like Alan Freed, who used the term rock 'n' roll to help attract white audiences unfamiliar with black R&B. Indeed, the appeal of rock and roll to white middle-class teenagers was immediate and caught the major record companies by surprise. As these companies moved to capitalize on the popularity of the style, the market was fueled by cover versions (performances of previously recorded songs) of R&B songs that were edited for suggestive lyrics and expressions and performed in the singing style known as crooning, by white vocalists such as Pat Boone. The most successful rock-and-roll artists wrote and performed songs about love, sexuality, identity crises, personal freedom, and other issues that were of particular interest to teenagers.
Popular rock-and-roll artists and groups emerged from diverse backgrounds. The group Bill Haley and the Comets, which had the first big rock-and-roll hit with the song “Rock Around the Clock” (1955), was a country-music band from Pennsylvania that adopted aspects of the R&B jump-blues style of saxophonist and singer Louis Jordan. The unique style of Chuck Berry came from his experience playing a mixture of R&B and country music in the Midwest. The rock-and-roll piano style of Fats Domino grew out of the distinctive sound of New Orleans R&B, which also influenced singer and songwriter Little Richard. Rockabilly, a blend of rock-and-roll and country-and-western music, was pioneered by Memphis producer Sam Phillips, who first recorded artists Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins on his Sun Records label. The earthy style of guitarist Bo Diddley derived from the blues of the Mississippi Delta region. The standard four-piece instrumentation of rock bands (drum set and lead, rhythm, and bass guitars) was developed by Texas musician Buddy Holly, who produced his own studio recordings. From the urban North came the vocal style of doo wop, which influenced such vocal groups as the Chords, the Penguins, and the Platters.
The golden age of rock and roll, which lasted only five years, from 1955 to 1959, is exemplified by the recordings of Berry, Presley, Little Richard, and Holly. By the early 1960s, the popular music industry was assembling professional songwriters, hired studio musicians, and teenage crooners to mass-produce songs that imitated late-1950s rock and roll. In the early 1960s professional songwriters in Manhattan, New York, such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka, produced numerous hit songs, many of which were recorded by female ensembles known as girl groups, such as the Ronettes and the Shirelles. Also during this period, the role of the record producer was expanded by Phil Spector, a producer who created hits by using elaborate studio techniques in a dense orchestral approach known as the wall of sound.
Beginning about 1962, producer Berry Gordy expanded the crossover market (music by black performers purchased by white youth) with a number of hits for his Motown record company, based in Detroit, Michigan. Popular Motown groups included the Supremes (see Diana Ross), the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (see Smokey Robinson). Other distinctive regional styles also developed during this period, such as the surf sound of the southern California band the Beach Boys and the urban folk music of the Greenwich Village movement—based in that neighborhood in New York City—which included singer and lyricist Bob Dylan.
|
B |
|
The 1960s |
In 1964 the Beatles traveled to New York City to appear on a television broadcast (The Ed Sullivan Show, 1948 to 1971) and launched the so-called British Invasion. Influenced by American recordings, British pop bands of the period invigorated the popular music mainstream and confirmed the international stature of rock music. Soon, several British groups had developed individual distinctive styles: The Beatles combined the guitar-based rock and roll of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly with the artistry of the Tin Pan Alley style; the Animals blended blues and R&B influences; and the Rolling Stones joined aspects of Chicago blues to their intense, forceful music.
As with early rock and roll, the major American record companies did not take the British bands seriously at first—the Beatles' first hit singles in the United States were released through small, independent record companies. Soon, however, the success of the British bands became too difficult to ignore, and some American musicians reacted by developing their own styles. In 1965 Bob Dylan performed live and in-studio with a band that played electric instruments, alienating many folk-music purists in the process. The folk-rock style was further pioneered the same year by the American band the Byrds, who had a number-one hit on the Billboard magazine music charts with a version of Dylan's song “Mr. Tambourine Man.” The short-lived group Buffalo Springfield, formed in 1966, blended aspects of rock and country-and-western music to create country rock.
During the late 1960s, rock music diversified further into new styles while consolidating its position in the mainstream of American popular music. The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the first rock concept album, established new standards for studio recording and helped to establish the notion of the rock musician as a creative artist. Once again, American musicians responded to the British musical stimulus by experimenting with new forms, technologies, and stylistic influences.
San Francisco rock, or psychedelic rock, emerged about 1966 and was associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD; psychedelic art and light shows; and an emphasis on spontaneity and communitarian values, epitomized in free-form events called be-ins. Musicians such as Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead experimented with long, improvised stretches of music called jams. Despite the antiestablishment orientation of the youth culture in San Francisco, such musicians and groups as Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Santana (led by Carlos Santana) signed lucrative contracts with major recording companies.
Another important center of rock music in the 1960s was Los Angeles, where film student Jim Morrison formed the group the Doors and guitarist and composer Frank Zappa developed a unique blend of risqué humor and complex jazz-influenced compositional forms with his group the Mothers of Invention. In the late 1960s hard rock emerged, focusing on thick layers of sound, loud volume levels, and virtuoso guitar solos. In London, American Jimi Hendrix developed a highly influential electric-guitar style. His fiery technique gained exposure at the first large-scale rock festivals in the United States, Monterey Pop (1967) and Woodstock (1969). In 1966 the first so-called power trio was formed in London—the band Cream, which showcased the virtuosity of guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Ginger Baker. In the late 1960s additional styles emerged in the United States, including southern rock, pioneered by the Allman Brothers Band; jazz rock, proponents of which included the band Blood, Sweat & Tears; and Latin rock (a blend of Latin American music, jazz and rock influences, and R&B styles), exemplified by the music of Santana.
|
C |
|
The 1970s |
In the early 1970s the popular mainstream was dominated by superstar rock groups, such as the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Chicago, and by individual superstars, such as Stevie Wonder and Elton John. Each of these groups and individual artists produced multiple albums, each of which sold millions of copies, pushing the industry to operate at a new scale.
Also highly popular was the singer-songwriter genre, an outgrowth of urban folk music led by artists Carole King, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum, the heavy-metal style was pioneered by bands Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, all of which featured aggressive guitar-laden songs. Art rock, represented by bands such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer, combined influences from classical music and displays of technical skill with spectacular stage shows. Glitter rock, or glam rock, cultivated a decadent image complete with such musicians as David Bowie and Marc Bolan wearing heavy makeup and sequined costumes and presenting themselves as sexually androgynous.
The most popular dance music of the 1970s was disco. Initially associated with the gay subculture of New York City, disco drew upon black popular music and simplified rhythms by adding steady bass-drum beats. Although much despised by aficionados of heavy metal, disco had a substantial impact on rock music, especially after the release of the motion picture Saturday Night Fever (1977) and its hugely successful disco soundtrack featuring the group the Bee Gees.
The 1970s also saw the development of funk, a variant of soul music that was influenced by rock. Influential funk musicians included singer Sly Stone with his San Francisco band Sly and the Family Stone, and vocalist George Clinton, whose groups Parliament and Funkadelic blended social satire and science-fiction imagery with African-derived rhythms, jazz-influenced horn music, long improvised jams, and vocal group harmonies.
About 1976 punk rock originated in New York City and London as a reaction against the commercialism of mainstream rock and the pretentiousness of art rock. Punk-rock music was raw, abrasive, and fast. London punk groups included the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Police (see Sting), while New York punk and new wave (a style similar to punk) music included the bands the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads, and vocalist Patti Smith.
Also in the mid-1970s, reggae music—developed by musicians in the shantytowns of Kingston, Jamaica—began to attract attention among youth in Great Britain and the United States. The style, associated with political protest and the Rastafarian religion, combined elements of Jamaican folk music with American R&B influences. Reggae's popularity among American college students was stimulated by the 1973 film The Harder They Come, which starred reggae singer Jimmy Cliff in the role of an underclass gangster. The superstar of the style was Bob Marley, who by the time of his death in 1981 had become one of the most popular musicians in the world.
Despite these diverse stylistic developments, the music business in the United States had actually become more centralized in the 1970s. Spontaneous mass gatherings, epitomized by Woodstock, had been replaced by carefully managed stadium concerts. The individualistic local radio programming of the late 1960s was substituted with national radio formatting, in which music tailored to sell products to certain audiences was distributed nationally on tape to be broadcast from local stations. Economic factors encouraged major record companies to pursue almost exclusively artists with the potential to sell millions of copies of albums. While potential profits from hit albums had risen greatly, the financial risks involved in producing such music had also increased considerably. From 1978 to 1982 the American rock-music industry experienced financial difficulties as sales of recorded music dropped by almost $1 billion and receipts from live concerts experienced a similar decline.
|
D |
|
The 1980s |
Technological advances led to a revival of the music industry during the 1980s. The market for popular music expanded with new media formats, including music video, introduced by the Music Television (MTV) network in 1981, and the digitally recorded compact disc (CD), introduced in 1983. In 1982 entertainer Michael Jackson released Thriller, which became the biggest-selling album in history, and established a trend in which record companies relied upon a few massive hits to generate profits. Jackson's success contributed greatly to proving the promotional value of music videos. It thereafter became very difficult for record companies to achieve hit records without having the music receive intensive airplay on music-video networks.
Other mainstream rock hits of the 1980s came from a group of charismatic artists, each of whom attracted mass-audience followings extending across traditional social boundaries. Singer Bruce Springsteen appealed to many as a working-class hero. Other superstars followed Jackson's lead by integrating dance and video presentations into their work, including Prince, whose 1984 single “When Doves Cry” was the first song in more than 20 years to top both the pop and R&B charts in Billboard magazine; and Madonna, who came to symbolize female sexual liberation through her controversial videos and lyrics. Also during the 1980s the audience for heavy metal expanded from its original white-male, working-class core to include more middle-class fans, both male and female. By the end of the decade, heavy-metal bands, such as Van Halen, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, and Metallica, accounted for as much as 40 percent of all sound recordings sold in the United States.
Another genre of rock music, labeled alternative rock, rejected the heavy marketing and video-driven culture of the 1980s. In general, alternative rock bands recorded for independent labels, played in small clubs, and maintained a defiant stance toward the conformity and commercialism of the music industry. They were committed to songwriting that explored taboo issues (drug use, depression, incest, suicide) and were interested in social issues such as environmentalism, abortion rights, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) activism. During the 1980s groups such as R.E.M., the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and the Pixies attracted a cult following, primarily through airplay on college radio stations and word of mouth.
Anticipated by reggae in the 1970s, worldbeat music (also called ethnopop) began to emerge during the early 1980s, with the success of the album Juju Music (1982) by Nigerian musician King Sunny Ade. Ade's music, which blended traditional African drums with electric guitars and synthesizers, helped to stimulate an interest in non-Western music in the United States and the United Kingdom, and opened the way for artists such as Youssou N'Dour, from Senegal; Papa Wemba, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire); Ladysmith Black Mambazo, from South Africa; Ofra Haza, from Israel; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, from Pakistan; and the Gipsy Kings, from France. Rock superstars, such as Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, and Paul Simon—whose 1985 hit album Graceland featured musicians from Africa and Latin America—played an important role in exposing worldbeat musicians to audiences in the United States and Europe, and reaffirmed the worldwide appeal of rock music.
Perhaps the most significant rock-music development of the 1980s was the rise of rap, a genre in which vocalists perform rhythmic speech, usually accompanied by music snippets, or samples, from prerecorded material or from music created by synthesizers. Rap originated in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx community of New York City and was initially associated with a cultural movement called hip-hop, which included acrobatic dancing (known as break dancing) and graffiti art. DJs such as Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa experimented with innovative turntable techniques, including switching between multiple discs; back-spinning, or rotating the disc by hand in order to repeat particular phrases; and scratching, moving the phonograph needle across vinyl record grooves to create rhythmic sound effects.
The first rap records were made in 1979 by small, independent record companies. Although artists such as the Sugarhill Gang had national hits during the early 1980s, rap music did not enter the popular music mainstream until 1986, when rappers Run-DMC and the hard-rock band Aerosmith collaborated on a version of the song “Walk This Way,” creating a new audience for rap among white, suburban, middle-class rock fans. By the end of the 1980s, MTV had established a program dedicated solely to rap, and artists such as MC Hammer (Stanley Kirk Burrell) and the Beastie Boys had achieved multi-platinum record sales to broad interracial audiences.
|
IV |
|
THE 1990S |
During the 1990s, trends that had been established during the 1980s continued, including growth in the popularity of genres such as rap, heavy metal, and worldbeat and the introduction of new technologies for the digital generation, transmission, and reproduction of sound. The 1990s also saw the further splintering of rock music into a variety of specialized subgenres.
The 1990s were a significant decade for bringing rap music into the commercial mainstream. MC Hammer (later known simply as Hammer) went to the top of the charts in 1990 with Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, which sold 13 million copies in its first year and became the bestselling rap album of all time. A broader phenomenon was the harder-edged style known as gangsta rap, which emerged on the West Coast beginning in the late 1980s. The multimillion-selling recordings of gangsta rap artists such as the group N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude), Dr. Dre (Andre Young), Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus), Tupac (2Pac) Shakur, and The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) combined grim stories of urban street life with gleeful celebration of the “gangsta” lifestyle. Gangsta rap became incredibly successful in the 1990s by attracting a predominantly white middle-class audience eager to experience gritty street culture from a safe distance.
Electronic dance music, or techno, also became more widely popular during the 1990s. The genre first emerged in the 1970s. Some forms of techno were influenced by punk rock; others by experimental art music, jazz, and world music; and still others by black popular music, including funk and rap. Although techno produced few commercial hits during the decade, the recordings of musical groups such as the Prodigy, Orbital, and Moby did make inroads into the charts during the late 1990s, and techno recordings were increasingly licensed as the soundtracks for technology-oriented television commercials and films.
The popularity of alternative rock exploded during the 1990s, featuring bands as diverse as R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and the Dave Matthews Band. The genre spawned a number of substyles, such as the grunge rock of Seattle-based groups Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam.
More than any other group, Nirvana was responsible for the commercial breakthrough of alternative rock in the early 1990s. Between 1991 and 1994 Nirvana—a group made up of singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl—released two multiplatinum albums (Nevermind and In Utero) and moved alternative rock’s blend of hardcore punk and heavy metal out of specialty record stores and into the commercial mainstream. Cobain’s stunning 1994 suicide was widely viewed as at least partly attributable to the pressures faced by alternative rock musicians who achieve commercial success and then face accusations of “selling out.”
|
V |
|
CURRENT TRENDS |
One of the most striking features of rock music in the first years of the 21st century was its sheer stylistic diversity. The most influential recordings of the year 2000 include retro-rocker Carlos Santana’s Supernatural, which won the Grammy Award for best album; a re-release of the Beatles’s number-one hits of the 1960s; the hard-edged rap-metal fusion of Limp Bizkit; gangsta rap stars Dr. Dre and Eminem (Marshall Mathers); techno musician Moby’s album Play (tracks from which were used on dozens of television commercials); and the teen-oriented pop-rock of Britney Spears and *NSYNC.
Technological innovation continues to drive changes in the way rock music is produced, heard, and sold. The development of low-cost digital technology has allowed musicians to make professional-quality recordings in their homes. The emergence of Internet services such as MP3.com and Napster, which allow fans to download their favorite music in the form of compressed files, has raised thorny legal questions about copyright laws while at the same time making the music of unsigned and alternative musicians much more widely available. The development of home compact disc recorders has enabled rock fans to create their own digital compilations, mixing genres, artists, and musical epochs to suit their own taste.
Rock music in the 21st century is increasingly influenced by the global marketplace. Of the five major transnational corporations now responsible for as much as 90 percent of music sales worldwide, only one is officially headquartered in the United States. Along with the expansion of the global audience for North American and European rock music, there is increasing influence by musicians from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world.
|
VI |
|
SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE |
Since its inception in the 1950s, rock music has moved from the margins of American popular music to become the center of a multi-billion-dollar global industry. Closely connected with youth culture, rock music and musicians have helped to establish new fashions, forms of language, attitudes, and political views. However, rock music is no longer limited to an audience of teenagers, since many current listeners formed their musical tastes during the golden age of rock and roll. Similarly, while rock has historically encouraged new creative expressions, the innovations of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix have defined a tradition to which successive generations of musicians have repeatedly turned for inspiration.
From its origins, rock music has been shaped by a complex relationship between freedom—symbolized by the image of the rebellious rock musician—and corporate control. Originally a mixture of styles outside the mainstream of white middle-class popular taste, rock and roll soon became a mass-produced commodity. This tension between individuality and commercialism still looms large in rock music and is reflected in fan distaste for musicians who compromise, or sell out, their musical values in order to secure multi-million-dollar recording contracts. Shaped by technology, the growth of the mass media, and the social identities of its artists and audiences, rock music continues to play a central role in the popular culture of the United States and, increasingly, the world.
Contributed By:
Chris Waterman
Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Jazz
|
I |
|
INTRODUCTION |
Jazz, type of music first developed by African Americans around the first decade of the 20th century that has an identifiable history and distinct stylistic evolution. Jazz grew up alongside the blues and popular music, and all these genres overlap in many ways. However, critics generally agree about whether artists fall squarely in one camp or another.
|
II |
|
CHARACTERISTICS |
Since its beginnings jazz has branched out into so many styles that no single description fits all of them accurately. A few generalizations can be made, however, bearing in mind that for all of them, exceptions can be cited.
Performers of jazz improvise within the conventions of their chosen style. Typically, the improvisation is accompanied by the repeated chord progression of a popular song or an original composition. Instrumentalists emulate black vocal styles, including the use of glissandi (sliding movements that smoothly change the pitch), nuances of pitch (including blue notes, the “bent” notes that are played or sung slightly lower than the major scale), and tonal effects such as growls and wails.
In striving to develop a personal sound, or tone color (an idiosyncratic sense of rhythm and form and an individual style of execution), performers create rhythms characterized by constant syncopation (the placing of accents in unexpected places, usually on the weaker beat) and by swing. Swing can be defined as a sensation of momentum in which a melody is alternately heard together with, then slightly at variance with, the regular beat. Written scores, if present, are often used merely as guides, providing structure within which improvisation occurs. The typical instrumentation begins with a rhythm section consisting of piano, string bass, drums, and optional guitar, to which may be added any number of wind instruments. In big bands the wind instruments are grouped into three sections: saxophones, trombones, and trumpets.
Although exceptions occur in some styles, most jazz is based on the principle that an infinite number of melodies can fit the chord progressions of any song. The musician improvises new melodies that fit the chord progression, which is repeated again and again as each soloist is featured, for as many choruses as desired.
Although pieces with many different formal patterns are used for jazz improvisation, two formal patterns in particular are frequently found in songs used for jazz. One is the AABA form of popular-song choruses, which typically consists of 32 measures in ¹ meter, divided into four 8-measure sections: section A, a repetition of section A, section B (the “bridge” or “release,” often beginning in a new key), and a repetition of section A. The second form, with roots deep in African American folk music, is the 12-bar blues form. Unlike the 32-bar AABA form, blues songs have a fairly standardized chord progression.
|
III |
|
ORIGINS |
Jazz is rooted in the mingled musical traditions of African Americans. These include traits surviving from West African music; black folk music forms developed in the Americas; European popular and light classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries; and later popular music forms influenced by black music or produced by black composers. Among the surviving African traits are vocal styles that include great freedom of vocal color; a tradition of improvisation; call-and-response patterns; and rhythmic complexity, both in the syncopation of individual melodic lines and in the conflicting rhythms played by different members of an ensemble. Black folk music forms include field hollers, rowing chants, lullabies, and later, spirituals and blues (see African American Music).
European music contributed specific styles and forms: hymns, marches, waltzes, quadrilles, and other dance music, as well as light theatrical music and Italian operatic music. European music also introduced theoretical elements, in particular, harmony, both as a vocabulary of chords and as a concept related to musical form. (Much of the European influence was absorbed through private lessons in European music, even when the black musicians so trained could only find work in seedy entertainment districts and on Mississippi riverboats.)
Black-influenced elements of popular music that contributed to jazz include the banjo music of the minstrel shows (derived from the banjo music of slaves), the syncopated rhythmic patterns of African-influenced Latin American music (heard in southern U.S. cities), the barrelhouse piano styles of tavern musicians in the Midwest, and the marches played by black brass bands in the late 19th century. Near the end of the 19th century, another influential genre emerged. This was ragtime, a composed music that combined many elements, including syncopated rhythms (from banjo music and other black sources) and the harmonic contrasts and formal patterns of European marches. After 1910 bandleader W. C. Handy took another influential form, the blues, and broke its strict oral tradition by publishing his original blues songs. (Favored by jazz musicians, Handy’s songs found one of their greatest interpreters in the 1920s in blues singer Bessie Smith, who recorded many of them.)
The merging of these multiple influences into jazz is difficult to reconstruct because it occurred before the existence of recording, which has provided valuable documentation. Of course, individual musicians had varying backgrounds and few people were directly exposed to all of these influences. For example, most jazz artists were and are city dwellers and might have only known rural black forms indirectly.
|
IV |
|
HISTORY |
Most early jazz was played in small dance bands or by solo pianists. Besides ragtime and marches, the repertoire included all kinds of popular dance music and blues. The bands typically played at picnics, weddings, parades, and funerals. Characteristically, the bands played dirges on the way to funerals and lively marches on the way back. Blues and ragtime had arisen independently just a few years before jazz and continued to exist alongside it, influencing the style and forms of jazz and providing important vehicles for jazz improvisation.
|
A |
|
New Orleans Jazz |
Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the earliest fully documented jazz style emerged and centered in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this style the cornet, trumpet, or violin carried the melody, the clarinet played florid countermelodies, and the trombone played rhythmic slides and sounded the root notes of chords or simple harmonies. Below this basic trio the guitar or banjo sounded the chords, along with a piano, if available; a string bass (or tuba for marching parades) provided a bass line; and drums supplied the rhythmic accompaniment. In theory, these roles were the same as in other kinds of music—it was the addition of improvisation, along with elements of other black music such as blues and ragtime, that made jazz unique.
A musician named Buddy Bolden appears to have led some bands that influenced early jazz musicians, but this music and its sound have been lost to posterity. Although some jazz influences can be heard on a few early phonograph records, not until 1917 did a jazz band record. This band, a group of white New Orleans musicians called The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, created a sensation overseas and in the United States. Among the band’s many successors, two groups emerged in the early 1920s that were particularly celebrated: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Creole Jazz Band, the latter of which was led by cornetist King Oliver, an influential stylist. The series of recordings made by Oliver’s band are often considered the most significant jazz recordings by a New Orleans group. Other leading New Orleans musicians included trumpeters Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard, soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds, and pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. The most influential jazz musician nurtured in New Orleans, however, was King Oliver’s second trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.
|
B |
|
Armstrong’s Impact |
Armstrong was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He and his generation changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and within his recording groups, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, he demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody—he created new melodies based on the chords of the initial tune. He also set a standard for later jazz singers, not only by the way he altered the words and melodies of songs, but also by improvising without words, like an instrument. This form of vocal improvisation is known as scat singing.
|
C |
|
Chicago and New York City |
For jazz, the 1920s was a decade of great experimentation and discovery. Many New Orleans musicians, including Armstrong, migrated to Chicago, Illinois, influencing local musicians and stimulating the evolution of the Chicago style. This style was derived from the New Orleans style but emphasized soloists, often added saxophone to the instrumentation, and usually produced tenser rhythms and more complicated textures. Instrumentalists working in Chicago or influenced by the Chicago style included trombonist Jack Teagarden, banjoist and guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Also active in Chicago was Bix Beiderbecke, whose lyrical approach to the cornet provided an alternative to Armstrong’s bravura trumpet style. Many Chicago musicians eventually settled in New York City, another major center for jazz in the 1920s.
|
D |
|
Jazz Piano |
Another vehicle for the development of jazz in the 1920s was piano music. The Harlem section of New York City became the center of a highly technical, hard-driving solo style known as stride piano. The master of this approach in the early 1920s was James P. Johnson, but it was Johnson’s protégé Fats Waller—a talented vocalist and entertainer as well—who became by far the most popular performer of this idiom.
A second piano style to develop in the 1920s was boogie-woogie. A form of blues played on the piano, it consists of a short, sharply accented bass pattern played repeatedly by the left hand while the right hand plays freely, using a variety of rhythms. Boogie-woogie became especially popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Leading boogie-woogie pianists included Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Pine Top Smith.
The most brilliant pianist of the 1920s, comparable to Armstrong in sheer innovation and present on some of his most influential recordings, was Earl “Fatha” Hines, a Chicago-nurtured virtuoso considered to possess a wild, unpredictable imagination. His style, combined with the smoother approach of Waller, influenced most pianists of the next generation—notably Teddy Wilson, who was featured with Goodman’s band in the 1930s, and Art Tatum, who performed mostly as a soloist and was regarded with awe for his virtuosity and sophisticated harmonic sense.
|
E |
|
The Big-Band Era |
Also during the 1920s, large groups of jazz musicians began to play together, after the model of society dance bands. These were the so-called big bands, which became so popular in the 1930s and early 1940s that the period was known as the swing era. One major development in the emergence of the swing era was a rhythmic change that smoothed the two-beat rhythms of some early bands into a more flowing four beats to the bar. Musicians also developed the use of short melodic patterns, called riffs, in call-and-response patterns. To facilitate this procedure, orchestras were divided into instrumental sections, each with its own riffs, and opportunities were provided for musicians to play solos.
The development of the big band as a jazz medium was strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Henderson’s arranger, Don Redman, and later Henderson himself, introduced written jazz scores that were widely admired for their effort to capture the quality of improvisation that characterized the music of smaller ensembles. To achieve this improvisation, Redman and Henderson were aided by gifted soloists such as tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and by Armstrong, who played in Henderson’s band during 1924 and 1925.
Ellington led a band at the Cotton Club in New York City during the late 1920s. Continuing to direct his orchestra until his death in 1974, he composed colorful experimental concert pieces ranging in length, from the three-minute “Ko-Ko” (1940) to the hourlong Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), as well as songs such as “Solitude” and “Sophisticated Lady.” More complex than Henderson’s music, Ellington’s music made his orchestra a cohesive ensemble, with solos written for the unique qualities of specific instruments and players. Other black bands that were popular among musicians and audiences were led by Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, and Cab Calloway.
A different style of big-band jazz was developed in Kansas City, Missouri, during the mid-1930s and was epitomized by the band of Count Basie. Originally assembled in Kansas City, Basie’s band reflected that region’s emphasis on improvisation, keeping the prepared passages relatively short and simple. The wind instruments in his band exchanged ensemble riffs in a free, strongly rhythmical interplay, with pauses to accommodate instrumental solos. Basie’s tenor saxophonist Lester Young, in particular, played with a rhythmic freedom rarely apparent in the improvisations of soloists from other bands. Young’s delicate tone and long, flowing melodies, laced with an occasional avant-garde honk or gurgle, opened up a whole new approach, just as Armstrong’s trumpet and cornet playing had done in the 1920s.
Other trendsetters of the late 1930s were trumpeter Roy Eldridge, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke, and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Jazz singing in the 1930s became increasingly flexible and stylized. Ivie Anderson, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and, above all, Billie Holiday were among the leading singers. Europeans also became more active in jazz during this time. Christian, for example, was influenced by Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose brilliant recordings were available in the United States.
|
F |
|
Interplay with Popular and Classical Music |
The pioneering efforts of Armstrong, Ellington, Henderson, and others made jazz a dominant influence on American music during the 1920s and 1930s. Popular musicians such as bandleader Paul Whiteman used some of the more obvious rhythmic and melodic devices of jazz, although with less improvisational freedom and skill than were displayed in the music of the major jazz players. Attempting to fuse jazz with light classical music, Whiteman’s orchestra also premiered jazzy symphonic pieces by American composers such as George Gershwin. Closer to the authentic jazz tradition of improvisation and solo virtuosity was the music played by the bands of Benny Goodman (who used many of Henderson’s arrangements), Gene Krupa, and Harry James.
Since the days of ragtime, jazz composers had admired classical music. A number of swing-era musicians “jazzed the classics” in works such as “Bach Goes to Town” (written by Alec Wilder and recorded by Goodman) and “Ebony Rhapsody” (recorded by Ellington and others). Composers of concert music, in turn, paid tribute to jazz in works such as Contrasts (1938, commissioned by Goodman) by Hungarian Béla Bartók and Ebony Concerto (1945, commissioned by Woody Herman) by Russian-born Igor Stravinsky. Other composers, such as Aaron Copland, an American, and Darius Milhaud, a Frenchman, acknowledged the spirit of jazz in their works.
|
G |
|
The 1940s and the Postwar Decades |
The preeminently influential jazz musician of the 1940s was Charlie Parker, who became the leader of a new style known usually as bebop, but also as rebop or bop. Like Lester Young, Charlie Christian, and other outstanding soloists, Parker had played with big bands. During World War II (1939-1945), however, the wartime economy and changes in audience tastes had driven many big bands out of business. Their decline, combined with the radically new bebop style, amounted to a revolution in the jazz world.
Bebop was still based on the principle of improvisation over a chord progression, but the tempos were faster, the phrases longer and more complex, and the emotional range expanded to include more unpleasant feelings than before. Jazz musicians became aware of themselves as artists and made little effort to sell their wares by adding vocals, dancing, and comedy as their predecessors had.
At the center of the ferment stood Parker, who could play anything on the saxophone, in any tempo and in any key. He created beautiful melodies that were related in advanced ways to the underlying chords, and his music possessed endless rhythmic variety. Parker’s frequent collaborators were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, known for his formidable speed and range and daring harmonic sense, and pianist Earl “Bud” Powell and drummer Max Roach, both leaders in their own right. Also highly regarded were pianist-composer Thelonious Monk and trumpeter Fats Navarro. Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was associated early in her career with bebop musicians, particularly Gillespie and Parker.
The late 1940s brought forth an explosion of experimentation in jazz. Modernized big bands led by Gillespie and Stan Kenton flourished alongside small groups with innovative musicians such as pianist Lennie Tristano. Most of these groups drew ideas from 20th-century pieces by masters such as Bartók and Stravinsky.
The most influential of the midcentury experiments with classically influenced jazz were the recordings made in 1949 and 1950 by an unusual nonet led by Charlie Parker’s protégé, a young trumpeter named Miles Davis. The written arrangements, by Davis and others, were soft in tone but highly complex. Many groups adopted this “cool” style, especially on the West Coast, and so it became known as West Coast jazz. Refined by players such as tenor saxophonists Zoot Sims and Stan Getz and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, West Coast jazz flourished throughout the 1950s. Also in the 1950s pianist Dave Brubeck (a student of Milhaud’s), with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, achieved popularity with his blend of classical music and jazz.
Most musicians, however, particularly on the East Coast, continued to expand on the hotter, more driving bebop tradition. Major exponents of the hard-bop or East Coast style included trumpeter Clifford Brown, drummer Art Blakey, and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whose unique approach made him one of the major talents of his generation. Another derivative of the Parker style was soul jazz, played by pianist Horace Silver, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, and his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley.
|
H |
|
The Late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s |
Several new approaches characterized jazz in the third quarter of the century. The years around 1960 ranked with the late 1920s and the late 1940s as one of the most fertile periods in the history of jazz.
|
H1 |
|
Modal Jazz |
In 1955 Miles Davis organized a quintet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, whose complex approach produced a striking contrast to Davis’s rich-toned, unhurried, expressive melodic lines. Coltrane poured out streams of notes with velocity and passion, exploring every melodic idea, no matter how exotic; nevertheless, he played slow ballads with poise and serenity. In his solos he revealed an exceptional sense of form and pacing. In 1959 Coltrane appeared on a landmark Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue. Along with pianist Bill Evans, Davis devised for this album a set of pieces that remain in one key, chord, and mode for as long as 16 measures at a time. This genre, which came to be known as modal jazz, allowed much freedom for the improviser.
Coltrane, striking out on his own, first pushed the complexity of bebop to its limits in the piece “Giant Steps” (1959), then settled on the other extreme, modal jazz. The latter style dominated his repertoire after 1960, when he recorded “My Favorite Things” using an open-ended arrangement in which each soloist stayed in one mode for as long as he wished. Coltrane’s quartet included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, two musicians who, because of their dramatic musical qualities, were widely imitated.
|
H2 |
|
Third-Stream and Avant-Garde Movements |
Another product of the experimentation of the late 1950s and 1960s was the attempt by composer Gunther Schuller, together with pianist John Lewis and his Modern Jazz Quartet, to combine jazz and classical music into a “third stream.” This movement brought together musicians from both worlds in a repertoire that drew heavily on the techniques of both kinds of music.
Also active during these years was composer, bassist, and bandleader Charlie Mingus, who imbued his chord-progression-based improvisations with a wild, raw excitement. Most controversial was the work of alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, whose improvisations, at times almost atonal, did away with chord progressions altogether, while retaining the steady rhythmic swing so characteristic of jazz. Although Coleman’s wailing sound and rough technique shocked many critics, others recognized the wit, sincerity, and rare sense of form that characterized his solos. He inspired a whole school of avant-garde jazz that flourished in the 1960s and included the Art Ensemble of Chicago, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, pianist Cecil Taylor, and even Coltrane, who ventured into avant-garde improvisation before his death in 1967.
|
H3 |
|
Mainstream Developments |
Meanwhile, the mainstream of jazz, despite incorporating many of Coltrane’s melodic ideas and even some modal jazz pieces, continued to build improvisations largely on the chord progressions of popular songs. Brazilian songs, especially those in the bossa nova style, were added to the jazz repertoire in the early 1960s. Their Latin rhythms and fresh chord progressions appealed to jazz musicians of several generations, notably Stan Getz and flutist Herbie Mann. Even after the bossa nova style declined, the sambas that gave rise to it remained staples of the jazz repertoire, and many groups augmented their regular drum set with Caribbean percussion.
The trio formed by pianist Bill Evans treated popular songs with depth; the musicians were constantly interacting instead of simply taking turns for solos. This interactive approach was carried even further by the rhythm section of Davis’s quintet of 1963 and beyond, which included drummer Tony Williams, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and later the highly original tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
|
H4 |
|
Fusion Jazz |
Jazz underwent an economic crisis in the late 1960s. Younger audiences favored soul music and rock, while older aficionados turned away from the abstractness and emotional rawness of much modern jazz. Jazz musicians realized that to regain an audience they had to draw ideas from popular music, and this movement was dubbed fusion jazz. Some of these ideas came from rock, but most were drawn from the dance rhythms and chord progressions of soul musicians such as James Brown. Some groups also added elements of music from other cultures. The initial examples of this new genre met with varying success, but in 1969 Davis recorded Bitches Brew, a highly successful album that combined soul rhythms and electronically amplified instruments with uncompromising, highly dissonant jazz. Not surprisingly, alumni of Davis’s groups created some of the most musically successful fusion recordings of the 1970s: Hancock; Shorter and Austrian-born pianist Joe Zawinul, coleaders of the ensemble Weather Report; English electric guitarist John McLaughlin; and the brilliant pianist Chick Corea and his group Return to Forever. Rock musicians, in turn, began featuring jazz phrasings and solos over a rock-based rhythm. These groups included Chase; Chicago; and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
During this same period another alumnus of one of Davis’s groups, the iconoclastic pianist Keith Jarrett, succeeded commercially while eschewing electronic instruments and popular styles. His performances of popular standards and original songs with a quartet, as well as his improvisations alone at the keyboard, made him a major contemporary pianist of jazz.
|
I |
|
The 1980s and 1990s |
By the mid-1980s jazz artists were once again performing to sizable audiences in a variety of styles, and there was renewed interest in acoustic, non-fusion jazz. One of the key artists during this rejuvenation was trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who has also received acclaim for his classical music—in 1982 he became the first person ever to win Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical categories in the same year. Marsalis is a gifted artist who considers jazz as practically a birthright: His father is one of the leading jazz pianists in New Orleans, and a number of Wynton’s siblings are also jazz musicians, including his brother Branford Marsalis. Wynton’s trumpet style has changed dramatically over the years; today, he pays tribute to past masters such as Louis Armstrong and Ellington’s trumpeter, Cootie Williams. His work is always technically outstanding and often melodically brilliant.
In addition to his work as an artist, Marsalis has played a significant role as an advocate and promoter of jazz. In 1987 he cofounded and became artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, an extensive education and performance program. Marsalis was an important consultant and contributor to the 20-hour television series Jazz by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
On the heels of Marsalis, more and more young jazz musicians have emerged and received recording deals and exposure. Among them is the exciting saxophonist Joshua Redman, who gave up plans to attend law school at Yale University when his jazz career took off in 1991. His recordings include Freedom in the Groove (1996) and Beyond (2000). Some others who achieved prominence in the 1990s were saxophonist Mark Turner, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton (both associated with Marsalis) and Dave Douglas (associated with a more experimental approach), and pianist Brad Mehldau. And despite concerns that older artists are being ignored, some have achieved renewed fame, including saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Bill Charlap.
|
J |
|
Current Trends |
In recent years jazz has become a legitimate worldwide international phenomenon, with most top U.S. artists regularly touring Europe and Japan. Most developed countries have a jazz scene to some degree, and in some—such as Japan, Italy, and Denmark—jazz is flourishing. It has been estimated that the Japanese buy as many jazz recordings as Americans do, even though Japan has less than half the population of the United States. European and Japanese jazz musicians such as Italian pianist Franco D’Andrea, Italian clarinetist Mauro Negri, and British saxophonist John Surman are also being recognized among the best jazz musicians in the world.
Jazz is also more open to women than ever before. In the early days of the music, it was a kind of "boys club.” In the 1930s and 1940s all-women groups were formed as one way to combat these limits. In the 1960s women were sometimes included in bands, but this would provoke comment. Female jazz performers began to gain more acceptance in the genre beginning in the 1970s. Some of these female artists include pianists Renee Rosnes and Geri Allen, composer and bandleader Maria Schneider, saxophonist and composer Jane Ira Bloom, and the big band Diva led by drummer Sherrie Maricle.
While jazz recordings have consistently remained at about 3 percent of all music sales, an indication that the number of devoted fans remains small, jazz is now considered attractive and fashionable by a much greater number of casual listeners. Jazz music and musicians are now used in popular culture settings such as television commercials, while major jazz concert and lecture programs at Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere have helped raise the status of the music. Academic programs for the study of jazz history and performance continue to proliferate, and more and more jazz musicians boast music degrees. With all its variety and despite its various factions, jazz remains a rich and vital presence in the world of music.